ABSTRACT
How shall the social scientist write? James Clifford posed this question in a New York Times Book Review (cited in Randall, 1984), and it is not an idle question. How we frame knowledge determines its importance. Writing is one of the primary means by which educated people display their competence in a realm perceived by persons of action to be primarily cerebral. As Vygotsky described it, “Thought undergoes many changes as it turns into speech. It does not merely find expression in speech; it finds its reality and form” (1962, p. 126). For Vygotsky, speech refers not only to talk; Wertsch (1985) noted that his concept of speech refers to the sense we have of language, both oral and written. In a Vygotskian sense, for academicians, writing is one way (some would argue the primary way) we communicate meaning, and meaning itself takes form through language. Social interaction is key, as writer Carlos Fuentes observed, “Nothing is shared in the abstract. Like bread and love, language and ideas are shared with human beings” (1988, p. 100).
