Bakhtinian Thought

Dialogism

Dialogism argues that meaning is relative because it always represents a relationship between two objects where reality is perceived and experienced from a particular social location. The cultural tools that individuals draw upon during dialog depend upon their individual experiences and social location, meaning that their voices represent more than just the literal meaning of the words they utilize. Speech is always contextual. Bakhtin devised the notion of utterance to argue that the locus of interaction, between both the speaker and listener, displays the sociocultural and sociohis-torical worldview of the individuals engaged in dialog. Utterances reflect the sociohistorical backgrounds that inform our ideologies, and through dialog, utterances become the tools that help individuals communicate those histories. Thus, the process of meaning making and understanding must be constructed through dialog between and among social actors.

The Novel

Bakhtin claimed that discourse embedded within the novel represented differing types of speech from multiple contexts, which he termed hetero-glossia. When viewing these multiple voices (characters, narrator, etc.) in multiple contexts we can better understand the nature of the author's true intention. The novel highlighted the polluted messiness of the world. In addition, when characters who did not achieve resolution revealed themselves through showing rather than through telling, polyphony contests the primacy of the narrator's voice such that the self and the Other are both subjects rather than objects. Polyphony is the dialogic discourse of self and other because meaning exists only if an utterance is social or in relation to another utterance. Polyphony can thus be summarized as a relationship between “I” and another where identity formation is constructed within a [Page 68]social context as opposed to solely within the mind of the individual.

Carnival

Typically, carnival, as practiced by peasants and artisans in their feasting, game playing, and symbolic inversions, represents a malleable public space where traditional social hierarchies are dissolved and reconstructed within a new context free of hegemonic forces. Carnival is produced through the transgression of boundaries and prevailing norms, creating the inversion of hierarchies and the union of opposites. Carnival opposes a classical, serious, somber, and grave official culture that is alien to the subject. Carnival provides a glimpse into the transformative possibilities that exist outside popular tradition. Bakhtin maintains that the polyphonic truth is constructed through the spirit of carnival. During this time, multiple competing, complementary, and contradictory voices conflate to provide a tapestry of truth. A messy and impure world is carnival.

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