We conceptualise CSR communication as a process of reciprocal influence between organisations and their audiences. We use an illustrative case study in the form of a conflict between firms and a powerful stakeholder which is played out in a series of 20 press releases over a 2-month period to develop a framework of analysis based on insights from linguistics. It focuses on three aspects of dialogism, namely (i) turn-taking (co-operating in a conversation by responding to the other party), (ii) (...) inter-party moves (the nature and type of interaction characterising a turn, i.e. denial, apology or excuse) and (iii) intertextuality (the intensity and quality of verbal interaction between the parties). We address the question: What is the nature and type of verbal interactions between the parties? First we examine (a) whether the parties verbally interact and then (b) whether the parties listen to each other. We find evidence of dialogism suggesting that CSR communication is an interactive process which has to be understood as a function of the power relations between a firm and a specific stakeholder. Also, we find evidence of intertextuality in press releases by six firms which engage in verbal interaction with the stakeholder. We interpret this as linguistic evidence of isomorphic processes relating to CSR practices resulting from the pressure exerted by a powerful stakeholder. The lack of response by ten firms that fail to issue press releases suggests a strategy of ‘watch-and-wait’ with respect to the outcome of the conflict. (shrink)

Charles Peirce, Mikhail Bakhtin and Thomas Sebeok all develop original research itineraries around the sign and, despite terminological differences, canbe related with reference to the concept of dialogism and modelling. Jakob von Uexküll’s biosemiosic “functional cycle”, a model for semiosic processes, is alsoimplied in the relation between dialogue and communication.Biological models which describe communication as a self-referential, autopoietic and semiotically closed system (e.g., the models proposed by Maturana,Varela, and Thure von Uexküll) contrast with both the linear (Shannon and Weaver) (...) and the circular (Saussure) paradigms. The theory of autopoietic systems is only incompatible with dialogism if reference is to a linear causal model which describes communication as developing from source to destination, or to the conversation model governed by the turning around together rule. Dialogism understood in biosemiotic terms overlaps with the concepts of interconnectivity,interrelation, intercorporeity and presupposes the otherness relation.As Uexküll says, the relation with the umwelt in nonhuman living beings is stable and concerns the species; on the contrary, in human beings it is, changeableand concerns the single individual, which is at once an advantage and a disadvantage. Thanks to “syntactics”, human beings can construct, deconstruct and reconstruct an infinite number of worlds from a finite number of elements. This distinguishes human beings from other animals and determines their capacity for posing problems and asking questions. The human being not only produces his or her own world, but can also endanger it, and even destroy it to the point of causing the extinction of all other life forms on Earth. The unique capacity for reflection on signs makes human beings responsible for life across the planet, both human and nonhuman. Such reflections shift semiotic research in the direction of semioethics. (shrink)

I aim to demonstrate the pivotal roll of dialogism in semiosis in addition to modeling and communication. The concept of communication is an old one in semiotics. Semiology considered it as central. It was associated with information in the conceptionof sign proposed by “semiotics of communication”, by contrast with Peircean and Morrisian “semiotics of interpretation”. More recently, another central concept has been added in semiotics by the Moscow-Tartu school: modeling, later reinterpreted by Thomas A. Sebeok in the context of (...) his “semiotics of life” or “global semiotics”. In this paper I propose dialogism as a third fundamental concept with modeling and communication in the study of signs oriented in the direction of semiotics of interpretation. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In theater, stage directions function as a particular genre in which the author’s voice is inscribed in the text to indicate the paths of representation. In Werewere-Liking Gnepo’s La veuve diyilèm, they play a broader role. There is a narrative function, sometimes author’s, sometimes character’s that, in a dialogic movement of reception/understanding, triggers multiple independent and polyphonic voices and consciences. To verify this statement, we will discuss the Bakhtinian reflections that will be essential for this study. RESUMO No teatro, (...) as didascálias funcionam como um gênero particular em que há a inscrição da voz do autor no texto para indicar os caminhos da representação. Na obra La veuve diyilèm, de Werewere-Liking Gnepo, elas desempenham um papel mais amplo. Há uma função narrativa ora autora, ora personagem que, em um movimento dialógico de recepção/compreensão, desencadeia múltiplas vozes e consciências independentes e polifônicas. Para constatação dessa afirmação, discorreremos sobre as reflexões bakhtinianas que serão imprescindíveis para este estudo. (shrink)

Physicians are frequently consulted by people with physical symptoms that, after having ruled out an "organic" pathology, we suspect they are related to the most frequent psychological conditions in the usual consultation: the various forms of reaction to severe stress (Acute Stress Reaction and Adjustment Disorder, from ICD 11), "functional" pathologies, burn out syndrome, and anxiety disorders, especially Generalized Anxiety Disorder, with or without associated depression. They are usually given a brief explanation about these problems and how they affect their (...) health, given a brochure, or suggested a website with information. And then they are encouraged to visit a mental health practitioner. But there are some challenges to this seemingly simple scenario:Not all patients are ready or willing to hear that their health problem might be related to their life or emotions. Many are strongly influenced by mind-body dualism. Others have an intuition that such a relationship exists but bringing that to consciousness is not an easy process, because it can awaken emotions that are difficult to handle. This is quite frequent in people suffering chronic anxiety (DSM-5 Generalized Anxiety Disorder) who prefer to consult medical providers rather than psychologists (Wittchen H. U. et al. 2002), because they do not consider their constant and excessive worry to be related to their discomfort. In their worrying they are hoping for a straightforward solution. Often these patients ask th... (shrink)

The paper analyzes if it is possible to grow an I–Thou relation in the sense of Martin Buber with an artificial, conversational agent developed with Natural Language Processing techniques. The requirements for such an agent, the possible approaches for the implementation, and their limitations are discussed. The relation of the achievement of this goal with the Turing test is emphasized. Novel perspectives on the I–Thou and I–It relations are introduced according to the sociocultural paradigm and Mikhail Bakhtin’s dialogism, polyphony (...) inter-animation, and carnavalesque. The polyphonic model, the associated analysis method, and the support tools are introduced. Some ideas on how the polyphonic model may be used for the implementation of a computer application able to analyze some features of the existence of an I–Thou relation are included. (shrink)

Bakhtin and Voloshinov argued that dialogue is the intersubjective basis of consciousness, and of the creativity which makes historical changes in consciousness possible. The multiple dialogical relationships give every subject, who has developed through internalising them, the potential to distance him or herself from them. Consciousness is therefore an 'unfinalised' process, always open to a possible future which would not merely reiterate the past. But this book explores its corollary: The relative openness is a field of conflict where rival discourses (...) struggle for hegemony, by subordinating or eliminating their rivals. That is how the unconscious is created out of socio-historical conflicts. Hegemony is always incomplete, because there is always the possibility of a return of its repressed rivals in new combinations. (shrink)

Probing into the fundamentals of any phenomenon, we come upon a secret in the very moment of its inception - a bond with the multiplicity of the world. If anything in our world is detached from its foundations, this ontological lifeline is severed - being and Being are confounded. The ontic preexists language, it pre-empts all conceptualization. The world is in flux and lies always beyond the confines of any system; something of it always escapes. Only when this is conceded (...) can beginning begin, only then can we set about the work of phenomenalizing our world; only then is it possible to seek answers to questions such as "Who am I?", "And you?", "What is the nature of responsibility, reflection, dialogicity and intersubjectivity?" Perhaps after all some notion can be netted in. (shrink)

The present study aims to deconstruct the myth of origin, a quest after essential identity, in the context of Japan's colonization of Korea (1910-1945). First, I will contextualize the myth of origin as a particular historical construction of Japanese colonization, which stems from Romantic nationalism in the second half of the 19 th century. Then, I will critique the structuralism, monologism, and colonialism standing behind the myth of origin through the lens of deconstruction, dialogism, and hybridity: (1) Jacques Derrida's (...) deconstruction and différance will show the self-implosion of the totalizing, centering vision of structuralism; (2) Mikhail Bakhtin's dialogism will analyze colonial discourse as a double-voiced discourse constituting both dominant discourse and counter-dominant discourse; (3) Homi Bhabha will demonstrate that colonial identity is ambivalent and hybrid through partial mimicry. (shrink)

Before burying philosophical postmodernism, let me briefly appreciate its important contributions: its emphasis on human voices and human subjectivities—however, disagreeable, incomprehensible, inc...

When, in the early 1980s the ideas of post-structuralism seemed rampant within academic critical theory, the appearance of the flawed English translation of Mikhail Bakhtin's central essays on the novel seemed to offer a very promising alternative perspective.1 Bakhtin's model of discursive relations promised to guard the specificity of discourse from being obscured by a web of determinations, while allowing the development of an account of the operations of power and resistance in discourse that could avoid the nullity of Derrida's (...) hors-texte and the irresponsible semiotic hedonism of the later Barthes. Marxist theorists such as Raymond Williams, Terry Eagleton and Allon White immediately and effectively seized upon the translated work of the Bakhtin circle to bolster their arguments, but, as translations of the earlier and later philosophical material appeared, it became apparent that the relationship between work of the circle and the Marxist tradition was very problematic. With this, the American anti-Marxist Slavists – some of whom had been responsible for certain of these translations – moved onto the offensive, arguing that Bakhtin's work was fundamentally incompatible with, and in principle hostile to, Marxism. Occasionally, they went further, arguing that Bakhtin was quite unconcerned with politics and questions of power, being an ethical, or even a religious philosopher before all else. The Americans did have a point. Bakhtin certainly was not a Marxist and the Marxism of some of his early colleagues and collaborators was of a rather peculiar sort. Furthermore, the key problematic area was indeed Bakhtin's ethics which, it became ever more apparent, underlies his most critically astute and productive work and serves to blunt its political edge. Important points of contact between the work of the Bakhtin circle and Marxist theory do persist, however, as Ken Hirschkop and Michael Gardiner, among others, have continued to register. In this article, examining some of the sources of Bakhtin's philosophy, which have only just been revealed in the new Russian edition of his work, we shall analyse the features of Bakhtin's ethics that stifle the political potential of dialogic criticism, and we will suggest ways in which that potential may be liberated. (shrink)

Erroneously attributing propositional attitudes (desires, beliefs...) to computational artefacts has become internationally commonplace in the public arena, especially amongst the new generation of non-initiated users. Technology for rendering machines “user-friendly” is often inspired by interpersonal human communication. This calls forth designers to conceptualise a major component of human intelligence: the sense ofcommunicability, and its logical consequences. The inherentincommunicability of machines subsequently causes a shift in design strategy. Though cataloguing components of bouts between person and machine with Speech Act Theory has (...) been popular, I will endeavour to present thesine qua non for their insertion into a larger unit of discourse — their societal embodiment. I shall argue that the so-called “intelligence” of the artificial should to be seenas a purposeful act that is socially generated, because it comes of Man,for Man. Designership will provide the forum for evolving user requirements and interface renewal. (shrink)

We apply dialogism to ethical thought to form a theory of Dialogical Ethics (DE). Specifically, DE is defined as the interplay between four historic ethical traditions: Formal (Kantian) Ethics, Content-Sense (Utilitarian) Ethics, Answerability Ethics, and Value/Virtue (Story) Ethics. On a broader level, DE can be understood as the interplay between the ethical ideas of society. We then use DE to analyze a number of problems in business including sweatshop labor and environmental degradation. To counteract these injustices, we propose two (...) recommendations: (1) a rebalancing of Kantian and Utilitarian ethics in business with the ontological focus of Answerability and Value Ethics and (2) a revolution in business education. No longer can business education focus only on techne. Instead, educators must challenge students to develop phronesis, so that they become better able to understand how their actions and how our living stories interacts with the stories of others. (shrink)

The article explores the phenomenon of symphonism in the written and other intellectual heritage of Hryhorii Skovoroda. The study reveals that the conclusion about systemic symphonismbeing a property of the thinker’s reflections can only be hypothetical at this stage. This is due tothe fact that the source base of the present study includes a significant number of diverse works by the philosopher that have not yet received a proper archaeographic description. The matter of archaeographic description of sources in the history (...) of philosophy research in Ukraine has not yet been positively resolved and is still in its formation. This article briefly presents the problematic range of source studies of Hryhorii Skovoroda’s works. It is, however, not limited to the suggested list and tends to expand. With this circumstance in mind, the boundaries of the research were limited to a selection of Hryhorii Skovoroda’s letters to various persons, which is contained in the most representative academic printed edition of his writings available today. The distinctive features of understanding the source heritage of the philosopher include its genre character and the way it was disseminated. All the major philosopher’s works were personally handwritten or replicated by other copyists in lists. This circumstance causes considerable difficulties in verifying the accuracy of the content of the original manuscript source in print. The presentation of the material is intentionally not systematic, but illustrative. The selection of extractsfrom the philosopher’s works contains the most distinctive examples of symphonicity, which illustrate the panorama of the growth of symphonic complexes from simpler to quantitatively more complex. The inherent polemical core of the study is to establish the correspondence between systemic symphonicity and dialogicity of the philosopher’s style of thinking. The conclusions about this could be drawn on the basis of historical and philosophical explication from certain sources. The author suggests that the development of dialogicity is preceded by a thorough justification of the principle of proper thinking by Hryhorii Skovoroda, which has a complex symphonic structure. From this perspective, dialogism does not contradict the fundamental symphonicity, but is rather one of its manifestations. (shrink)

This chapter addresses the challenges of implementing reflective thinking in engineering ethics education (EEE). It examines existing methods for teaching ethical reflection in EEE and argues that pedagogical activities aiming to foster ethical reflection need to be infused with dialogical interactions and, at a deeper level, informed by dialogism. Dialogism is understood as a relational approach to inquiry in which interactions between moral agents enable them to develop their own understandings through the process of finding shared meanings with (...) the others in activities such as sharing reasons and deliberation. Drawing on pragmatism and phenomenology, the authors conceptualize reflection as a mode of thinking that enables us to monitor and question our assumptions and values – and to synthesize experiences and situations continuously and iteratively. Classroom reflection is a nuanced practice that can be captured through experiential, first-person accounts. Given the centrality of the dialogical experiences in reflection, the assessment methods should focus on evaluating the process rather than the learning outcomes, by emphasizing self-awareness, transformation, and spontaneity in class interactions. In creating opportunities for reflection, instructors need to purposefully consider their choice of specific cases and scenarios used in instruction. Students should be guided to recognize and engage in ethical situations by considering their full, diverse, and complex contextual reality, their own assumptions, values, and experiences, and by promoting dialogical practices in the classroom. (shrink)

Certain dialogism is generally recognized in the founding moments of Western philosophy, and it is possible to see various forms of intertextuality in our philosophical tradition. In spite of certain monological temptations, philosophy is not a self-demonstrative system; it has woven its texts quoting other discursive voices and through the invocation of borrowed words. This article aims to outline a discontinuous overview of quotation rhetorical functions at different moments of Western philosophy. The philosophical quote has contributed to discursive authorization (...) or to provide shared discursive repertoires, but also to invocate other intertextual voices discursive or integrate other texts in the meta-discourse of the philosopher. Nowadays the disciplinary regulation of citation practices and the bibliometric economy of impact indices threaten that dialogic and intertextual legacy. (shrink)

Research directions on interaction. This article proposes to consider interaction as a concept and an object of study based on pragmatics and textual linguistics, according to three approaches: discursive genres (Kerbrat-Orecchioni, 1990, 1992), place relationships (Vion, 1992), dialogism and polyphony (Bakhtine, 1970, 1984 and Ducrot, 1980, 1984). These approaches are illustrated by the analysis of several interaction situations: a political debate organised on Romanian television during the 2004 election campaign, two extracts from the literary works Les Parents terribles by (...) Jean Cocteau and La chute by Albert Camus, and a forum in the newspaper Le Figaro (09/2009). (shrink)

This study focuses on the use and function of refutation in two televised debates during which candidates who have reached the second round of the French presidential elections come face to face. The aim of this study is to examine the forms and functions of refutation within the theoretical framework of dialogism. The rhetorical-argumentative functions of refutation and the challenges of this discursive practice in the genre “televised political debate” will also be put forward.

Rescued in 1972 from a storeroom in which rats and seeping water had severely damaged the fifty-year-old manuscript, this text is the earliest major work (1919-1921) of the great Russian philosopher M. M. Bakhtin. Toward a Philosophy of the Act contains the first occurrences of themes that occupied Bakhtin throughout his long career. The topics of authoring, responsibility, self and other, the moral significance of "outsideness," participatory thinking, the implications for the individual subject of having "no-alibi in existence," the difference (...) between the world as experienced in actions and the world as represented in discourse--all are broached here in the heat of discovery. This is the "heart of the heart" of Bakhtin, the center of the dialogue between being and language, the world and mind, "the given" and "the created" that forms the core of Bakhtin's distinctive dialogism. A special feature of this work is Bakhtin's struggle with the philosophy of Immanuel Kant. Put very simply, this text is an attempt to go beyond Kant's formulation of the ethical imperative. Toward a Philosophy of the Act will be important for scholars across the humanities as they grapple with the increasingly vexed relationship between aesthetics and ethics. (shrink)

This article applies Bakhtinian dialogism and the idea of centripetal and centrifugal forces in struggle to critical discourse studies to analyse how powerful and marginalised discourses are brought into competition in political language to justify paradigm changes. I analyse German chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Zeitenwende (‘watershed’) speech, which he gave as a response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, announcing a radical armament programme and change in foreign policy, paradigm shifts that had previously been unthinkable in German politics. Based on (...) a qualitative analysis using the Appraisal Theory strategies Attitude and Engagement, I identify how Scholz aligns himself with particular powerful discourses, centring some and marginalising others, to construct an existential threat for Germany and a ‘watershed’ moment, a new situation which casts his policies of armament as without alternative. I use a dialogic approach to analyse how the speech responds to and anticipates past (already-spoken) and future (not-yet-spoken) discourses, to position itself both in terms of the immediate and the historical function of a policy statement. The paper demonstrates the strength of Bakhtinian analysis of how utterances are shaped by past and envisaged future uses of particular discourses and of dialogically contractive and expansive strategies in critical discourse studies. (shrink)

The contribution that may come from the general science of signs, semiotics, to the planning and development of education and learning at all levels, from early schooling through to university education and learning should not be neglected. As Umberto Eco claims in the “Introduction” to the Italian edition of his book Semiotica and Philosophy of Language (1984: xii, my trans.), “[general semiotics] is philosophical in nature, because it does not study a particular system, but posits the general categories in light (...) of which different systems can be compared. And for general semiotics philosophical discourse is neither advisable nor urgent: it is simply constitutive.” To the title of their book Semiotic Theory of Learning, at the centre of our attention in the present text, Andrew Stables, Winfried Nöth, Alin Olteanu, Sébastien Pesce, and Eetu Pikkarainen, rightly add the subtitle New Perspectives in the Philosophy of Education. This multivoiced contribution to research in learning and education in a semiotic framework has a unifying reference in the semiotics of Charles S. Peirce, but without disregarding an array of other distinguished exponents of the teaching and education sciences from different disciplines, semioticians and philosophers alike. This book, a polyphonic effort, with its appeal to “act otherwise,” and to do so investing in learning and education, no doubt makes a significant contribution in such a direction: education for transformation, for humanizing social change. Beyond evidencing what to us are particularly interesting aspects of the topics under discussion in Semiotic Theory of Learning, we also propose to continue and amplify this multivoiced dialogue. While highlighting still other aspects and contributions made by the same semioticians and philosophers presented by the authors of this book, involving such figures as Charles Peirce, Charles Morris, Thomas Sebeok, John Deely, etc., we have further introduced other voices made to resound throughout, whether directly or indirectly, like that of Victoria Welby, Mikhail Bakhtin, Emmanuel Levinas, Adam Schaff, Ferruccio Rossi-Landi, Marcel Danesi, Augusto Ponzio, and Genevieve Vaughan. (shrink)

Le Supplément au Voyage de Bougainville est le point d’aboutissement d’une critique menée à l’encontre de toute absolutisation de la norme morale, au travers de la confrontation des « codes » civil, religieux et naturel. Les individus, comme les constellations de jugement qu’ils forment, sont passés au crible d’une écriture digressive qui démonte les mécanismes idéologiques de l’agir. Les institutions écclésiales sont mises à mal, cela va de soi, en raison des atteintes qu’elles portent à la liberté individuelle. Pourtant, Diderot (...) dépasse une visée polémique, par trop démonstrative, pour faire de l’écriture dialogique, construite sur deux niveaux, le lieu d’une exploration des conditions d’application de la « loi naturelle » dans le champ de la morale et, partant, du politique. (shrink)

Rather than the art of putting forward logically valid arguments leading to Truth, argumentation is here viewed as the use of verbal means ensuring an agreement on what can be considered reasonable by a given group, on a more or less controversial matter. What is acceptable and plausible is always coconstructed by subjects engaging in verbal interaction. It is the dynamism of this exchange, realized not only in natural language, but also in a specific cultural framework, that has to be (...) accounted for. From this perspective, it is not enough to reconstruct patterns of reasoning. As logos is by definition both Reason and Language, abstract schemata have to be examined in their verbal realization in a given situation of discourse. Such an approach to arguments allows for a “thick” description taking into account their discursive and communicational aspects, as well as argumentation’s constitutive dialogism and its inscription in a set of common representations, opinions and beliefs (a doxa). This approach, exemplified by the analysis of a short text on stock options borrowed from the French newspaper Libération, is an attempt at establishing a dialogue between disciplines like argumentation theories, rhetorical criticism and discourse analysis. (shrink)

Purpose. The study is aimed at considering self-reflection through an analysis of the features of internal dialogue in ancient texts in order to identify signs of human’s mythological and philosophical thinking. Theoretical basis of the work is the contemplation of a person’s self-reflection in the context of his internal dialogue, through which his own human existence, his subjective and creative comprehension of the world manifest. New meanings are created and shared with others in this mental space, in particular, in crisis (...) periods of personal and social life. Therefore, the ancient Egyptian vision of man’s nature, consciousnesses and dialogism of the Self is viewed through the prism of modern philosophical concepts and as the basis for the emergence of a philosophical worldview itself. Originality. The analysis from the viewpoint of the philosophical anthropology in the text "The Dispute of a Man with His Ba" showed the opportunity of considering it not only in the context of internal dialogue, but also as a confirmed internal dialogue, which expresses itself in external speech. Comparing the mythical thinking of a man in his cohesiveness with others and the philosophical thinking of a dialogical Self, the authors come to the conclusion that it is necessary to distinguish between internal dialogues with oneself and with the introjects of others, which can be either Double or Interlocutor. It has been revealed that internal dialogues in ancient times played an important role both in structuring social chaos and in overcoming personal crisis states. This is precisely from such self-reflection that philosophy emerges as a certain discourse and a new type of thinking. Conclusions. The analysis of the text "The Dispute of a Man with His Ba" speaks about the emergence of philosophical discourse in the XXII-XXI centuries BC, on the basis of which we can conclude concerning the earlier, in comparison with K. Jaspers’s definition, the transition of mankind from the cognitive revolution to a new phase of the development. (shrink)

Stakeholder engagement and dialogue have a central role in defining the relations between organisations and their internal and external interlocutors. Drawing upon the analysis of dialogic motifs, power–conflict dynamics and sociopolitical perspectives, and based on a set of interviews with the stakeholders of a consumer-owned cooperative, the research explores the dialogic potential of stakeholder engagement. The analysis revealed a fragmented picture where the co-design and co-implementation aspects were mainly related to the non-business areas of cooperative life, while business logic dominated (...) the most central aspects. Stakeholder engagement was mainly related to consensus building, while dialogic engagement based on a pluralistic understanding was only partially considered and then neglected. The social capital in the local area, the growing size of the organisation and the related power structure embrace stakeholder engagement, influencing the orientation of the dialogic dynamic. The analysis indicates that a dialogic exchange is a relative concept which depends on the interests involved and the topics discussed. It also reveals that the key factors in the democratisation of stakeholder engagement are a mutual understanding and long-term opportunities. Common sociopolitical aspects are also important, but they do not necessarily guarantee the creation of dialogism paths. The research contributes to the critical dialogic literature in revealing whether and how stakeholder engagement has been implemented in a specific setting. It also shows the limitations of voluntarist stakeholder engagement initiatives. (shrink)

This conceptual paper argues for the reconfiguring of Intercultural Communication Education (ICE) through a dialogical engagement with Istina (Truth) and Pravda (Truth in Justice). The paper argues that the field of ICE is predominantly characterised by normative conceptualisations of truth (e.g., characterised by fixed or ‘objective’ interpretations of language and culture) or hyper-relativist post-truth conceptualisations (e.g., non-essentialist approaches to ICE). This conceptual paper, therefore, addresses the following research question: To what extent can a dialogical approach to truth address and redress (...) epistemic power imbalances in ICE? Through engaging with Russian language and the dialogical approach of Mikhail Bakhtin a non-normative approach for ICE is proposed. The paper conceptually argues in moving beyond the binary of normative and post-truth interpretations in ICE through dialogism. The paper serves at an important juncture amidst calls that the field of ICE is characterised by epistemic violence and epistemic power imbalances. The proposed dialogical approach to truth in ICE aims to redress epistemic imbalances in arguing for a form of non-normative dialogical ethics. (shrink)

The most common difficulty in translation studies has traditionally been the dilemma between the historical and synchronic approaches in the analysis and description of the culture of translation. On the one hand the culture of translation might be presented as the sum of various kinds of translated texts (repertoire of culture), on the other hand it might be described as the hierarchy of the various types of translations themselves. The first approach assumes plenty of languages for such description, in the (...) latter one suggests only one language for the same representation. A cultural critic faces the same problems. In these perspectives the translation reveals important mechanisms of the performance of culture. First of all it is the semiotic interpretation of the theory of translation, introduced by the number of scientists beginning with R. Jakobson and including U. Eco who put together interlinguistic, intra-linguistic, and inter-semiotic translations, so crucial for the further understanding of culture. As a result, the general notion of culture might be described as the process of total translation. And secondly, the othervaluable contribution to the theory of translation has been made by both M. Bakhtin and J. Lotman in terms of the synthesis of two traditions in semiotics of culture resulted in juxtaposing such notions as dialogism and autonomy — creolization, polyphony, counterword, and translation. (shrink)

The teacher self is a composite psychological construct which encompasses the cognitive, affective, emotional, and social dimensions of teaching. This qualitative study draws on Bakhtin’s concepts of dialogism, answerability, and addressivity to discuss how English language teachers negotiated the shifting and conflictive context to construct selves in relation to the promoted communicative language teaching approach. Based on narrative interviews and classroom observations with five tertiary English teachers in China, we found that these teachers were actively engaged in the dialog (...) with their prior learning experiences and active, responsive in answering their contexts while authoring selves in everyday teaching practice. The multiple-case study data support a Bakhtinian understanding that teachers are active users and producers of theory in their own right, highlighting teachers’ agency, creativity, and autonomy. Based on Bakhtin’s dialogism and the case study findings, we bring cognition, identity and practice together and conceptualize the teacher self as having multiple facets and layers: the autobiographical self, the discursive self, and the pedagogical self. The three selves are constitutive of the consummated whole of the teacher self instead of being separate entities functioning individually. The study is concluded with implications for language teacher education and teacher development. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Religious discourse is multiple, challenging and inviting, especially when poetry and theological imagination find themselves expanding their boundaries. Carlos Nejar, poet member of the Brazilian Academy of Letters, in his novel Riopampa: o moinho das tribulações provides us with a wide variety of images, symbols and experiences that can be attributed, among other characteristics, to his involvement with the Sacred from of Pentecostality, since Nejar is a Pentecostal pastor. In this article, we will reflect on the Sacred whirlpool, among (...) other metaphors used by Nejar, to try to answer the question: why can Nejar’s imagination in the novel Riopampa: o moinho das tribulações, within the spectrum of religious discourse, be considered Pentecostal? To this end, we will use the theoretical contribution of Discourse Analysis, under the auspices of Bakhtin and his dialogism, in addition to concise documentary research using the aforementioned Nejarian novel as a basis. (shrink)

The notion of double consciousness, as a characterization of black subjectivity, is basic to Ménil’s critique of the alienated “mythologies” of Antillean life and its self-exoticizing literature. Double consciousness renders cultural identity deeply problematic. But it has other, more positive, manifestations, closer to a Bakhtinian idea of dialogism. Thus he praises Césaire’s use of irony as a dual voice. Ménil’s valorization of complexity and ambiguity in literature, against the simple naturalism favoured by the Communist Party but which he insists (...) is not a truly Marxist position, is thus linked to his view of the necessary “doubleness” of Antillean consciousness. Conversely, the simplicity of folklore can offer a basis for cultural identity, but not for good literature. Although Ménil emphasizes the importance of Antilleans reclaiming their history, this is less about discovering one’s roots than providing a dynamic grasp of one’s ever-changing place in a social reality governed by the Marxist dialectic. “Double consciousness” precludes the comforts of fixed identities, but it is a dialectical, not a tragic condition. (shrink)

One may distinguish between three broad conceptions of linguistic meaning. One conception, which I will call “logical”, views meaning as given in reference (for words) and truth (for sentences). Another conception, the “monological” one, seeks meaning in the cognitive capacities of the single mind. A third, “dialogical”, conception attributes meaning to interaction between individuals and personal perspectives. In this chapter I directly contrast how well these three approaches deal with the evidence brought forth by fictive interaction. I examine instances of (...) fictive interaction and argue that intersubjectivity in these instances cannot be reduced to either referential-logical or individual-cognitive semantic notions. It follows that intersubjectivity must belong to the essence of linguistic meaning. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Using Alain Rabatel’s reflections on points of view and enunciative responsibility, especially those founded in his work Homo narrans (2016; 2021), we sought to describe and interpret the operation of internal - enunciative - and interdiscursive - external - in the introduction to the encyclical letter Deus Caritas Est (2005), signed by the Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI, through the description and analysis of enunciative postures. Our main conclusion is that the primary speaker (S1), operates the dialogism of the (...) text, first, from under-utterance and, later, through co-utterance and even over-utterance. S1 assumes part of the enunciative responsibility and associates itself with the New Testament point of view while suggesting an update of the Old Testament. In our terms, the Old one that rules is overthrown in favor of the New one that loves - that is, Christian-Catholic love. This investigation is affiliated with a broad and ongoing research agenda of analysis of modern pontifical discourse. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 25.2 (2001) 295-313 [Access article in PDF] The Ecology of Victorian Fiction Joseph Carroll I In the past ten years or so, ecological literary criticism--that is, criticism concentrating on the relationship between literature and the natural environment--has become one of the fastest-growing areas in literary study. Ecocritics now have their own professional association, their own academic journal, and an impressive bibliography of scholarly studies. Ecocritical scholars (...) divide their attention between "nature writing" and ecological themes within all literature. In other words, some scholars write on Thoreau, John Muir, Aldo Leopold, and Annie Dillard; others write on topics such as the representation of nature in romantic poetry, the American West as a symbol, metaphors of landscape, or Dante's Inferno as a polluted ecosystem. Ecocritics have a distinct subject matter, and they share in a certain broad set of attitudes, values, and public policy concerns, but they do not yet have a firmly established framework of commonly accepted theoretical principles. In the absence of any overarching theory, ecocritics have usually sought to incorporate their ecological subject matter within other, already established theoretical schools: feminism, Bakhtin's dialogism, Lacanian psychoanalysis, or English romantic and American transcendentalist, idealist philosophy. Most commonly, ecocritics have affiliated themselves with the standard contemporary blend of Foucauldian ideological criticism--a blend that is vaguely Marxist and Freudian, generally radical, and strongly tinctured with deconstructive irrationalism and textualism. 1Given its specialized themes and topics and its ready affiliation with the standard theoretical blend, ecocriticism might seem little more than a special topic area within the general field of contemporary [End Page 295] literary study. But ecocritics do not see their approach that way. They share in a feeling of being at the forefront of critical response to an urgent practical problem of world-historical magnitude: the prospect of irreversible environmental devastation. They thus have a strong sense of a political mission, and they often feel that the urgency of their environmental concerns should sanction realigning the canon to give much greater prominence to nature writers and to the study of ecological themes. In their view, the natural world claims a special status as the ultimate ground and frame of all existence. It is an object of peculiar veneration and of primary experiential importance.The special conceptual status of ecology as a theme and a topic necessarily raises a question about its theoretical import. If the subject of ecocriticism is the relation of literature and the natural world, and if this relation is more important and more elemental than any other concern, does it not follow that ecocriticism should identify itself as a matrix for all literary study? To put the question operationally, in what way could ecology, as a subject matter and a concept, generate a theory of literature? Since the relation between organisms and natural environments is a necessary precondition of all experience, one could reasonably argue that the special topic of ecocriticism is more elemental than the topics of feminism, Marxism, or any other form of political criticism, and that the basic physical conditions of organic life take conceptual precedence over semiotics and theories of "culture" and "discourse."I shall argue that ecology cannot by itself generate a theory of literature or serve as the basis for a theory of literature, but I shall also argue that responsiveness to the sense of place is an elemental component of the evolved human psyche and that it thus can and should be integrated into a Darwinian literary theory. E. O. Wilson's notion of "biophilia" provides a Darwinian alternative to the ecological transcendentalism of "deep ecology," and the evolutionary epistemology of Konrad Lorenz provides a Darwinian rationale for locating the human psyche within its physical world. In constructing a bridge between the evolutionary epistemology of Lorenz and the idea of place within verbal narrative, I shall make use of a new branch of Darwinian aesthetics, Joseph Anderson's "ecological" version of "cognitive film theory."In order to illustrate the ways in which setting can be integrated into a Darwinian literary criticism, in the latter part of the essay... (shrink)