ABSTRACT
Activity theory (AT) is a psychological grand theory or framework that has a long history of development in the former Soviet Union. Developments of the theory are associated with the works of Rubinshtein (1959), Vygotsky (1956), Leont’ev (1978), and others. AT has appeared at a time when behaviorism had been developed in the United States. Usually the emergence of AT is explained by the acceptance of Marxist philosophy and the political climate in the country at that time. However, in our view, there is another reason for the emergence of AT, a psycholinguistic one. It was shown in psycholinguistics that the specics of language have an impact on human thinking. Human beings exist not only in a material and social world but also in a world of utilized language and specic historical conditions (Sapir, 1956). The specicity of language can be, to some extent, an important and independent factor in the development of human thought (Carroll, 1963).
