Dialogism

SNE 4130

12.09.06

The “turn” to a social view of language

Language-as-system

Social view of language

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."

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”

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”.

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”.

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”

Mikhail Mikhailovici Bakhtin (1895-1975)

• Russian philosopher, linguist and philologist

• continues Vygotsky’s ideas

• dialogic theory – everything is a dialog

• critic of de Saussure semiotics (Voloshinov)

Saussures’ structuralism

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

The structuralist dichotomy of language

Parole (Use)

Language:

Langue (System)

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)

“The utterance”Bakhtin ( 1976:118)

“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”.

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.

Dialogism vs monologism

• Dialogism– Discourse, practice,

communication, use

• Monologism– Structure, system

code, rules

Three dialogical principles: Per Linell: Approching dialogue (1998)

• Sequentiality• Joint constuction• Act-activity

interdependence

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.

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.

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 child’s 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 individual’s product and experience”

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”

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.

Speakers and listeners

• Monological:– Wertsch (1990): “The listener’s 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 receiver’s 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

Signal transmit

tedChannel

Signal receive

dSender Receiv

er

The conduit model of communication

The Conduit paradigme (Ledningsparadigme) Rommetveit (1996)

TankeinnholdKodes i taleeller skrift

Dekoder ved å knippe Sammen lyder eller

bokstaver til ord til setn.deler, til setninger osv.

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”

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 speaker’s

message to her own background knowledge.

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

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

Monologically Organized instruction

Dialogically Organized Instructions

Paradigm Recitation Discussion

Communication model Transmission of knowledge Transformation of understandings

Epistemology Objectivism: Knowledge is given

Dialogism: Knowledge emerges from interaction of voices

Source of valued knowledge

Teacher, textbook authorities: Excludes students

Includes students’ interpretations and personal experience

Texture Choppy Coherent