ABSTRACT
Wertsch referred to the unity of agent and semiotic tool, as an irreducible tension between agents and mediational means, and asserted that the essence of examining agent and cultural tools in mediated action is to examine them as they interact. In this view, individual and social development was inextricably bound through semiotic tools. Vygotsky posited that forms of mediation such as the rhythm and rhyme of blues music, the 12-bar blues composition pattern, and the tape recorder, were both products of their socio-cultural context, and served to facilitate, shape, and define the activity contexts in which they were applied. As shown in the chapter, the recording of Jay and Tasheka's interaction in composing 12-bar blues song-poems offers an illustration of internalization as appropriation in the sense posited by Wertsch. For Jay and Tasheka, additional forms of semiotic mediation may include technological tools such as computers, calculators, and tape recorders, and artistic forms of expression such as dance and drama.
