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Reflex theory in a linguistic context: Sergej M. Dobrogaev on the social nature of speech production

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Abstract

The development of reflex theory in its Pavlovian interpretation had significant resonance in a wide range of academic research areas. Its impact on the so-called humanities was, perhaps, no less than the effect it had in medical science. The idea of the conditioned reflex suggesting a physiological explanation of behaviour patterns received a particularly warm welcome in philosophy and psychology as it provided a scientifically-based tool for a conceptual u-turn towards objectivism. This article looks into the ways these ideas contributed to the formation of the Soviet language theory, namely, to the sociological interpretation of language development and speech production presented in the pioneering works of Sergej M. Dobrogaev (1873–1952).

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Notes

  1. Naturally, the social sciences (obščestvennye nauki) were affected by these criteria earlier than were the natural sciences. On 3 December 1920 the Council of the Peoples Commissars (Sovnarkom) issued a decree introducing measures for ensuring the ideologically consistent teaching of the social sciences within the system of higher education (for an interesting exchange of opinions on this subject see Rotštejn et al. 1921, pp. 34–38).

  2. See Wozniak (1997) for more details.

  3. For a detailed account of the influence of the Wundtian tradition on Russian intellectual history see Brandist (2006).

  4. Ivan Mikhajlovich Sečenov (1829–1905), one of the most significant Russian pre-Revolutionary physiologists, famous for his pioneering work in the areas of bio-chemistry of blood, electro- and neurophysiology as well as his later ideas on phychophysiology, which suggested an objectivistic explanation of the nature of psychological processes. Sečenov’s work attracted considerable social attention. His monograph Refleksy golovnogo mozga (1863) (‘The Reflexes of the Brain’), one of the fundamental works in the area of reflex studies of the time, proved to be equally influential within both the natural and human sciences.

  5. Georg Theodor Ziehen (1892–1950), a German neurologist, psychiatrist and philosopher, was largely known for his considerable contribution to the area of child psychology and psychiatry (Die Geisteskrankenheiten des Kindesalters…, (1915–1917) (‘Mental Diseases of Children…’), and—to a lesser extent—for his epistemological ideas based on the concept of Psychophysiologie (Psychophysiologische Erkenntnisstheorie, 1898) (‘Psychophysiological Theory of Knowledge’).

  6. Hans Adolf Eduard Driesch (1867–1941), a German biologist and philosopher. Driesch’s experiments with embryonic cells, which had demonstrated remarkable reproductive and regenerative abilities of each part of an embryo, inspired his philosophical works. The latter formed a basis for neovitalistic trend in philosophy, with entelechy (i.e., a non-spacial, non-quantitative entity that drives towards and pre-determines the final product of development) being a key concept.

  7. “Reiz-Antwort Mechanismus”, the stimulus-response-mechanism, is the concept of a reflex reaction, in its mechanistic interpretation, a concept of a passive behavioural act as a mechanical response to a stimulus” (Artëmov 1928, p. 71). This definition of a reflex was particularly characteristic for the works of the 1920s, the period when the claims and achievements of objective psychology were seriously challenged by the rehabilitation of the spiritual component in the area of humanitarian studies. A rare example of a successful introduction of the elements of subjectivity into the reflex study of the time were the works of Aleksej A. Ukhtomskij (1895–1942), a prominent Russian physiologist and philosopher. He was inclined to interpret the reflexive function of an organism as a mode of its creativity, which, thus, facilitates a constructive dialogue between a living creature and its environment (Ukhtomskij 2000, p. 60). In the Soviet Union this was a period of rarely peaceful, but essentially productive co-existence of various philosophical paradigms, promptly brought to an end in the late 1920s due to a number of reasons (see Kolčinskij 1999, pp. 127–129; Windholz 1984).

  8. A bold innovator and theatre theorist, Ozarovskij established a strong multidisciplinary network of specialists who were willing to contribute to the work of the courses. Members of the teaching staff were a mixture of theatre professionals, literary historians, psychologists, medics and natural scientists. Ozarovskij hoped that the courses would serve as a foundation for the Institute of Verbal Arts which would be directed predominantly at teachers of Russian language, literature and elocution, and cover a wide range of language-related disciplines, including speech production and therapy. The preliminary curriculum of the Institute was published by Dobrogaev in the theatrical journal Golos i Reč', (Dobrogaev 1913, p. 7). For more details on the history of Ozarovskij’s project see Chown and Brandist (2007, pp. 96–97).

  9. Mispronunciation of the sound [r]—K.C.

  10. Leon Abgarovič Orbeli (1882–1958), one of Pavlov’s most prominent students and his successor in many administrative and academic posts, established a network of physiological institutions devoted to further research in the area of higher nervous activity. He formed his own school of evolutionary physiology, and is famous for his open opposition to the authorities’ implementation of the ideologically-based changes within the Academy at the expense of the quality of academic research in early 1950s.

  11. Fifteen years later, in 1937, Dobrogaev made an attempt to bring this project to a new level. There is archival evidence of him applying to the Academy of Sciences with a detailed proposal of the foundation of the Institute of Speech (PFA RAN/829/2/22/4-6). The proposal seems to have received insufficient support from the Academy; however arrangements were made for Dobrogaev to establish a laboratory of the Physiology of Speech within the Institute of Physiology (then directed by his old colleague, Orbeli).

  12. Institut sravnitel'nogo izučenija literatury i jazykov Zapada i Vostoka, Institute of Comparative Studies of Literature and Languages of West and East.

  13. Gosudarstvennyj institut rečevoj kul'tury, State Institute of Discursive Culture.

  14. See Esper (1968) for a discussion of Geiger’s influence on Meyer.

  15. Dobrogaev generally refers to it as the “Wernicke-Broca (-Lichteim) apparatus” (Dobrogaev 1928, p. 307; 1931, p. 105 etc), without specifying any functional differences between these areas of the brain. He pays remarkably little attention to the mechanisms of written language production and comprehension, concentrating most of his attention on oral forms of language representation.

  16. For more details on the Moscow Phonological School see E. Simonato’s contribution to the current issue.

  17. Similar remarks are known to have been made by Georgij K. Danilov (1896–1937) and Andrej P. Andreev (1864–1937?), both staff members at the Research Institute of Linguistics (NIJaZ) (GARF/ 2307/17/99/42-43 and ARAN 468/3/25/5-11 respectively).

  18. Volkonskij (1911, pp. 11–12), Vsevolodskij-Gerngross (1922, pp. 5–6); similar comments could also be found in some works of the Russian linguist Aleksandr M. Peškovskij (1878–1933) which were written under the significant influence of Vsevolodskij’s works on intonation (see Peškovskij 1925, pp. 136–137).

  19. His work on the nature of the phoneme contains some (though, very brief and general) observations on phonotactics, i.e., combinatory laws which regulate the formation of phonemic sequences within words and phrases in a particular language. He argues that knowledge of these gained either as a result of research studies or in the natural process of language acquisition allows one to create artificial quasi-utterances which, without bearing any semantic value, could act as typical phonetic representations of a given language (Dobrogaev 1929, p. 26). These conclusions were arrived at on the basis of his practical work as a speech therapist with patients of various ethnic origins. Although he did not claim to be the first to make the observations he discusses, his reflections on the topic are remarkable, especially for a work of a ‘pre-chomskian’ period.

  20. Strictly speaking, at the time of its closure the laboratory was a part of the Leningrad Institute of History, Philosophy and Linguistics, LIFLI. In 1930 the university departments of history, linguistics and philosophy formed a separate academic institution. LIFLI existed between 1930 and 1936/1937.

  21. Presumably, I.A. Arjamov (1884–1958) whose work Osnovy refleksologii was mentioned in a footnote of Lurija’s article.

  22. Note the following statement: “We shall not analyse the definitions of human speech which are being given within the psychological sciences. We consider it to be both important and possible to suggest our own definition of speech, a definition that has been formed as a result of interpreting a discursive activity through the concept of a coordinated socio-physiological activity, i.e. a function of the higher nervous system apparatus of a human being—a function of his cranial hemispheres which produce and constantly adapt this discursive function to the demands of the social life …” (Dobrogaev 1928, pp. 259–260).

  23. An example of this can be found in a Cold-War era book of Joost A.M. Meerloo The rape of the mind, where Dobrogaev is presented as “one of the leading Russian psychologists” and a vicious mass-brainwasher, who, according to the author, was “holding a Pavlovian front” in Moscow (Meerloo 1961, pp. 46–47). In actual fact, there is no known record of him holding any academic or any other professional post in Moscow on either a long- or short-term basis.

  24. Nikolaj I. Žinkin (1893–1979), one of the prominent Soviet psychologists, staff member at the Institute of Psychology (Moscow) and State Academy of Artistic Sciences (GAKhN), conducted various research projects within the area of speech production, language prosody, child language and semantics.

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Acknowledgement

This article was written as part of the project The Rise of Sociological Linguistics in the Soviet Union, 1917–1938: Institutions, Ideas and Agendas, funded by the British Arts and Humanities Research Council, and based in the Bakhtin Centre and Department of Russian and Slavonic Studies at the University of Sheffield, UK.

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  1. Department of Russian & Slavonic Studies, University of Sheffield, Western Bank, Arts Tower, Sheffield, S10 2TN, UK

    Katya Chown

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Chown, K. Reflex theory in a linguistic context: Sergej M. Dobrogaev on the social nature of speech production. Stud East Eur Thought 60, 307–319 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11212-008-9063-x

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