M. Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of children’s speech. Part one

Abstract

The article deals with a little-known aspect of the philosophical heritage of M. Merleau-Ponty – the issues of the early speech ontogenesis and the possibility of using phenomenology to analyze children’s speech. The text precedes the publication of a fragment of materials from the lecture course by M. Merleau-Ponty, which he read at the Sorbonne in 1949–1952 (published in the collection “Psychology and Pedagogy of the Child. Lectures at the Sorbonne 1949–1952” 2001, not translated into Russian language). The article briefly presents the historical and philosophical context of studies of child language, which was formed by the middle of 20th century, when Merleau-Ponty turned to that topic, general characteristics and a summary of the main points of his lecture course, features of his approach to early language development and the development of a child as a whole from the point of view of phenomenology, psychology, linguistics and other related to the subject disciplines. The author makes an attempt to highlight the philosophical specifics of the source under study, as well as to suggest what place such Merleau-Ponty research direction might take in the current field of phenomenology and linguistics of childhood, on the one hand, and in the reception of Merleau-Ponty’s legacy, on the other.