Mikhail Bakhtin, 1895-1975

1
Mikhail Bakhtin, 1895-1975

• http//www.iep.utm.edu/b/bakhtin.htm
• See link to the Internet Encyclopedia of
  Philosophy for background info on Bakhtin (The
  Bakhtin Circle)

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Bakhtins ideas today

• http//www.uwo.ca/french/bakhtin/
• Ongoing discussion of the relevance of his ideas
  to our understandings of language and literature
  
• Widely cited in theories of language learning
• Most famous for his theory of dialogism

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not a neutral medium

• Language, Bakhtin (1981) says,
• is not a neutral medium that passes freely and
  easily into the private property of the speakers
  intentions it is populatedoverpopulatedwith
  the intentions of others. Expropriating it,
  forcing it to submit to ones own intentions and
  accents, is a difficult and complicated process
  (p. 294).

4
Where do the words we learn come from?

• The word in language is half someone elses. It
  becomes ones own only when the speaker
  populates it with his sic own intention, his
  own accent, when he appropriates the word,
  adapting it to his own semantic and expressive
  intention. Prior to this moment of
  appropriation, the word does not exist in a
  neutral and impersonal language (it is not, after
  all, out of a dictionary that the speaker gets
  his words!), but rather it exists in other
  peoples mouths, in other peoples contexts,
  serving other peoples intentions it is from
  there that one must take the word, and make it
  ones own (Bakhtin, 1981, p. 293-4).

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taking others words and making them our own

• Speakers appropriate words from other peoples
  mouths and other peoples contexts
• Speakers struggle to accent these words with
  their own intentions
• But every word is furrowed from within with the
  speech of others
• Each word carries the history of its use

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Bakhtins concept of the utterance

• language is realized in the form of individual
  concrete utterances (oral and written) by
  participants in the various areas of human
  activity (1986, p. 60).
• The utterance, not the sentence, is the unit of
  analysis
• The utterance ties thinking and speech together,
  places language in the mouths of people talking
  to each other, within particular situations.
• Every utterance is a link in the chain of speech
  communion (1986, p. 84).

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Dialogic nature of language use

• Every utterance must be regarded primarily as a
  response to preceding utterances (we understand
  response here in the broadest sense) (Bakhtin
  1986, p. 91, italics in original).
• The utterance is by its nature dialogic
• The utterance is filled with dialogic
  overtones, with echoes and reverberations of
  other utterances (Bakhtin, 1986, p. 92).

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Dialogism

• In the concrete instance of utterance
• traces and echoes of previous uses,
• the speakers plan as she anticipates response,
• the particular conditions of production all
  intersect.

9
Addressivity

• The understanding that all language is addressed
  (to someone, for an occasion )
• Within an utterance (written or spoken)
• traces of addressivity and the influence of the
  anticipated response, dialogical echoes from
  others preceding utterances, faint traces of
  changes of speech subjects that have furrowed the
  utterance from within (Bakhtin, 1986, p. 99).

10
heteroglossia

• This overpopulation of the utterance with the
  voices of others is described in Bakhtins
  concept of heteroglossia.
• The speaker actively participates in the living
  heteroglossia by imprinting her utterance with
  her situated intent, and by appropriating and
  ventriloquating words from others mouths
  (Bakhtin, 1981, p. 272).

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Language

• Is not a neutral medium (Bakhtin!)
• Is not an isolated system, but a dynamic, social
  activity
• Is a site of struggle over meanings
• Is dialogic (filled with previous meanings
  anticipating response influenced by contexts of
  use)

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Baktins ideas about language

• In your own words, describe Bakhtins view of
  language and/or define one of his ideas.
• How might these ideas about language change the
  way we think about teaching languages?