The paper relies on Vygotsky's thesis that preschool children in role play
are acting in the zone of proximal development (ZPD). One aim is to specify this
thesis with respect to language development. The empirical investigations show that
language is the central means of creating pretence. By explicit metacommunication,
children collaboratively negotiate the plot, transform meanings and distinguish
fiction from reality. Thus, metacommunication functions as a verbal frame,
determining the meanings within play. Thereby children overcome sympraxic language
use which is characteristic of toddlers. Another result is that role play changes
during the preschool years. The paper argues that these changes can be subsumed
under a general developmental phenomenon, namely the transition of interpsychic into
intrapsychic processes. A point of special interest is why preschoolers, through
role play, can act in the ZPD, although their ability to cooperate with other
children is only at a nascent stage. To explain this, the paper discusses several
aspects of psychosocial development.
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