Dialogism

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Dialogism

• SNE 4130
• 12.09.06

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The turn to a social view of language

• Language-as-system
• Social view of language

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From The Confessions of Saint Augustine (354-430)

• When they (my elders) named some object, and
  accordingly moved towards something, I saw this
  and I grasped that that the thing was called by
  the sound they uttered when they meant to point
  it out.  Their intention was shown by their
  bodily movements, as it were the natural language
  of all peoples the expression of the face, the
  play of the eyes, the movement of other parts of
  the body, and the tone of the voice which
  expresses our state of mind in seeking, having,
  rejecting, or avoiding something.  Thus, as I
  heard words repeatedly used in their proper
  places in various sentences, I gradually learnt
  to understand what objects they signified and
  after I had trained my mouth to form these signs,
  I used them to express my own desires."

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Wittgenstein, L. Philosophical Investigations.

• These words, it seems to me, give us a
  particular picture of the essence of human
  language.  It is this the individual words in
  language name objects - sentences are
  combinations of such names. In this picture of
  language we find the roots of the following idea
  Every word has a meaning.  The meaning is
  correlated with the word. It is the object for
  which the word stands

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Wittgenstein, L. Philosophical Investigations.

• Augustine does not speak of there being any
  difference between kinds of word.  If you
  describe the learning of language in this way you
  are, I believe, thinking primarily of nouns like
  'table', 'chair', 'bread', and of people's names,
  and only secondarily of the names of certain
  actions and properties and of the remaining
  kinds of word as something that will take care of
  itself.

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Wittgenstein, L. Philosophical Investigations.

• Now think of the following use of language I
  send someone shopping.  I give him a slip marked
  'five red apples'.  He takes the slip to the
  shopkeeper, who opens the drawer marked 'apples',
  then he looks up the word 'red' in a table and
  finds a colour sample opposite it then he says
  the series of cardinal numbers--I assume that he
  knows them by heart - up to the word 'five' and
  for each number he takes an apple of the same
  colour as the sample out of the drawer.- It is in
  this and similar ways that one operates with
  words--"But how does he know where and how he is
  to look up the word 'red' and what he is to do
  with the word 'five'?" ---Well, I assume that he
  'acts' as I have described.  Explanations come to
  an end somewhere.--But what is the meaning of the
  word 'five'? --No such thing was in question
  here, only how the word 'five' is used.

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Wittgenstein Language games

• Let us imagine a language ...The language is
  meant to serve for communication between a
  builder A and an assistant B.  A is building with
  building-stones there are blocks, pillars, slabs
  and beams.  B has to pass the stones, and that in
  the order in which A needs them.  For this
  purpose they use a language consisting of the
  words 'block', 'pillar', 'slab', 'beam'.  A calls
  them out --B brings the stone which he has
  learnt to bring at such-and-such a call. --
  Conceive this as a complete primitive language

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Mikhail Mikhailovici Bakhtin (1895-1975)

• Russian philosopher, linguist and philologist
• continues Vygotskys ideas
• dialogic theory everything is a dialog
• critic of de Saussure semiotics (Voloshinov)

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Saussures structuralism
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Structuralism

• The 'value' of a sign depends on its relations
  with other signs within the
• system - a sign has no 'absolute' value
  independent of this context.
• Saussure uses an analogy with the game of chess,
  noting that the
• value of each piece depends on its position on
  the chessboard.
• The sign is more than the sum of its parts.
  Whilst signification - what is
• signified - clearly depends on the relationship
  between the two parts of
• the sign, the value of a sign is determined by
  the relationships between
• the sign and other signs within the system as a
  whole

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The structuralist dichotomy of language

• Parole (Use)
• Language
• Langue (System)

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Dialogism challenges structuralism

• Valentin Volosinov (1884/5-1936) and Mikhail
  Bakhtin (1895-1975) criticized Saussure's
  synchronic approach and his emphasis on internal
  relations within the system of language.
• Volosinov reversed the Saussurean priority of
  langue over parole The sign is part of
  organized social intercourse and cannot exist, as
  such, outside it, reverting to a mere physical
  artifact The meaning of a sign is not in its
  relationship to other signs within the language
  system but rather in the social context of its
  use. Saussure was criticized for ignoring
  historicity.
• The social dimensions of semiotic systems are so
  intrinsic to their nature and function that the
  systems cannot be studied in isolation (Hodge
  Kress 1988)

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The utteranceBakhtin ( 1976118)

• No utterance in general can be attributed to the
  speaker exclusively it is the product of the
  interaction of the interlocutors, and broadly
  speaking, the product of the whole complex social
  situation in which it has occurred.

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Dialogism Per Linell Approching dialogue (1998)

• Dialogism is a general framework for the
  understanding of human action, cognition,
  communication and language.
• A counter-theory to monologism, which is
  associated with individualism and
  representationalism.

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Dialogism vs monologism

• Dialogism
• Discourse, practice, communication, use

• Monologism
• Structure, system code, rules

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Three dialogical principles Per Linell
Approching dialogue (1998)

• Sequentiality
• Joint constuction
• Act-activity interdependence

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Sequentiality

• A dialogue cannot be adequately characterized as
  a series of individual actions. Each utterance by
  any speaker is dependent on what his/hers
  interlocutor(s) do(es) in the same interaction.
• This is a part of a social practice, in which
  actors interact and communicate, and in which the
  individual contributions cannot be understood in
  isolation from each other .
• The turns are sequentially organized, i.e.
  their interactional significance is intrinsically
  dependent on their positioning in the sequence.

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Sequentiality and coordinations

• The principle of sequentiality does not
  necessarily mean that utterances and actions
  litteraly follow each other in the interaction.
  They can be simultanious or partially overlap.
• Separate actions by different speakers must be
  coordinated and mutually adjusted in a subtle
  process of dovetailing utterance
• This joint alignment involves pace and rythm,
  stress and intonation patterns, and non- verbal
  accopaniment.

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Joint constructions

• Language and discourse are fundamentally social
  phenomena. The language used in communication is
  of a social interactional origin, both in its
  historical genesis and in the childs
  socialization
• A dialogue is a joint construction . It is
  something which participants posess, experience
  and do together.
• The collective construction is made possible by
  the reciprocally and mutually coordinated actions
  and interactions by different actors.
• No part is entirely one single individuals
  product and experience

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Joint constructions

• Even sentence-sized (or smaller) constituent
  expressions are jointly produced. But also
  lengthy monological speech events (or written
  texts) are dialogically built up. It has a social
  character in that they are other-oriented. They
  are designed for some recipients.
• Virtual joint construction in interactions
  with virtual others

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Act-activity interdependence

• Acts, utterances and sequences are always
  essentially situated within an embeding activity
  (dialogue, encounter) which the interactants
  jointly produce.
• This activity can most often be seen as
  representing some activity type or as belonging
  to a particular genre.
• This activity type or genre is shown in a
  wittgensteinian sense, i.e. implicitly shown
  rather than explicitly formulated (Said), in
  the ways actors express themselves in discourse.

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Speakers and listeners

• Monological
• Wertsch (1990) The listeners task must be one
  of extraction. He must find the meaning in the
  words and take it out of them, so that it gets
  into his head. Because the receivers task is
  viewed as being simply one of extraction, to the
  extent that the conduit metaphor does see
  communication as requiring some slight
  expenditure of energy, it localizes this
  expenditure almost totally in the speaker or
  writer. The function of the reader or listener is
  trivialized
• Meaning becomes an individual, mental phenomenon
  consisting of pre-made intentions or packages
  which, through communication and language can be
  transferred from brain to brain, instead of as
  being conceived as a social and negotiable
  product of interaction

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The conduit model of communicationThe Conduit
paradigme (Ledningsparadigme) Rommetveit (1996)
Signal transmitted
Signal received
Channel
Sender
Receiver
Tankeinnhold Kodes i tale eller skrift
Dekoder ved å knippe Sammen lyder eller
bokstaver til ord til setn. deler, til setninger
osv.
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Speakers and listeners

• A dialogistic account would not deny the
  contribution of individual agency, i.e. that some
  aspects of action and utterance meaning are due
  to active and concious planning. However, such
  intentions are generated in a dialogical
  process with context interlocutors.
• Speakers do not speak out of their heads, on the
  basis of preplanned cognitive structures that
  exists prior to verbalization

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Speakers and listeners

• Speakers are other-oriented. The listener is
  present in the speakers mind.
• The speaker accommodate to the listeners presumed
  perspective. A dialogue needs some degree of
  mutuality.
• The listeners are speaker- oriented
• Active sense-maker
• Actively tries to accomodate the speakers
  message to her own background knowledge.

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Communication is educative

• Not only is social life identical with
  communication, but all communication (and hence
  all genuine social life) is educative. To be a
  recipient of a communication is to have an
  enlarged and changed experience. One shares in
  what another has thought and felt and in so far,
  meagerly or amply, has his own attitude modified.
  Nor is the one who communicates left unaffected.
  
• --J. Dewey, Democracy Education, pp 5-6

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Key Features of Monologically and Dialogically
Organized Instructions (Nystrand 1997)