The Dialogic Imagination
Bakhtin, M. M. The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays. Austin: University of Texas, 1981.
SummaryBakhtin's ideas about language can best be described by looking at three concepts: chronotope, heteroglossia, and stratification. Further, he suggests that there are two forces in language (272): one pulls in and the other pushes out (centripetal and centrifugal). These forces occur in any word, and may be seen as essentially layers on words. These terms can be viewed as living elements of language. Bakhtin argues against poetry and unitary language.
ResponseBakhtin says, "The chronotope is the place where knots of narrative are tied and untied" (250). This seems to be where meaning is made. I love this visual interwoven thread of "time space" to show how stories are constructed.
Connections/QuestionsVolosinov, Vygotsky, and Bakhtin all agree that all language is social.
Bakhtin says that languages don't exclude each other; they intersect in a multitude of ways (291). This reminds me of Peirce's "modes of being"--specifically thirdness, which serves as a connecting/relational element of sorts. |
Key Quotes
Double-voicedness "serves two speakers at the same time and expresses simultaneously two different intentions: the direct intention of the character who is speaking, and the refracted intention of the author" (324).
"The word lives, as it were, on the boundary between its own context and another, alien, context" (284).
"Consciousness finds itself inevitably facing the necessity of having to choose a language" (295).
“The word, directed toward its object, enters a dialogically agitate and tension-filled environment of alien words, value judgements and accents, weaves in and out of complex interrelationships, merges with some, recoils from others, intersects with yet a third group: and all this may crucially shape discourse, may leave a trace in all its semantic layers, may complicate its expression and influence its entire stylistic profile” (276).
“But no living word relates to its object in a singular way: between the word and its object, between the word and the speaking subject, there exists an elastic environment of other, alien words about the same object, the same theme, and this is an environment that is often difficult to penetrate. It is precisely in the process of living interaction with the specific environment that the word may be individualized and given stylistic shape” (276).
"The word lives, as it were, on the boundary between its own context and another, alien, context" (284).
"Consciousness finds itself inevitably facing the necessity of having to choose a language" (295).
“The word, directed toward its object, enters a dialogically agitate and tension-filled environment of alien words, value judgements and accents, weaves in and out of complex interrelationships, merges with some, recoils from others, intersects with yet a third group: and all this may crucially shape discourse, may leave a trace in all its semantic layers, may complicate its expression and influence its entire stylistic profile” (276).
“But no living word relates to its object in a singular way: between the word and its object, between the word and the speaking subject, there exists an elastic environment of other, alien words about the same object, the same theme, and this is an environment that is often difficult to penetrate. It is precisely in the process of living interaction with the specific environment that the word may be individualized and given stylistic shape” (276).