Stephen van Vlack

Sookmyung Women`s University

Graduate School of TESOL

Second Language Learning Theories

Spring 2007

Week 10 - Answers

Johnson (2004), Chapter 7: Bakhtin`s dialogized heteroglossia

1. How is Bakhtin`s model similar to Vygotsky`s?

Bakhtin's (1981, 1986) model is similar to Vygotsky's in that both rely on social interaction as the main vehicle for learning. They are different in that Vygotsky (1978, 1986) focused on learning in general (hence his greater appeal and eventual postmortem fame) while Bakhtin focused mostly on language learning. With their shared belief in learning through interaction, we can see that they both, as well as modern models which also follow this basic idea, such as usage-based models (Barlow & Kemmer, 2000), necessarily reject the idea of competence being different from performance. In a very real sense for all these diverse researchers, performance causes competence. It is a simple idea which forces us to reconfigure lots of ideas about the very nature of language, thought and learning. One of these ideas, for example, is the relation between language and cognition. For Bakhtin language and cognition/culture are deeply connected.

       It's interesting to see this deep similarities between Bakhtin's model and Vygotsky's model as they never actually met each other and they were coming to their conclusions from different directions. It might, however, be stated that Bakhtin's model is based on the same types of foundations as Vygotsky's, but actually goes more specifically in one direction. For Vygotsky there is no specific mechanism for organizing linguistic knowledge as it is encountered in the social situation. In any case he doesn't mention any specific type of organizational mechanism. One of the most important aspects of Bakhtin's model is this organizational mechanism, what he calls genre.

2. What is the difference between a sentence and an utterance and how does Bakhtin describe utterances?

Like Vygotsky, but to an even more specific degree, Bakhtin was very much against some of the then modern ideas in linguistics which had been recently developed by Saussure (1959). Bakhtin felt that linguistics and making a serious mistake by separating language (langue) from its use (parole). As we know mainstream linguistic and, as a result, second language learning theories follow this Saussurian view of language focusing on just the sentence level. The defining nature of language, in this restricted view, is the sentence making ability outside of any context and real-world use. As we mentioned in the beginning of this class, there are certain reasons why this idea, as ridiculous as it may seem particularly from a subsequent language point of view, makes a certain methodological sense and therefore became the standard theory in both language and language teaching. Simply, put it is a easy to create and check theories. Empirical studies are not necessary to support this view. One just matches the sentences that a learner produces to the one they themselves would produce. It is impossible to underestimate the impact this has had on the field of subsequent language teaching.

Disenchanted with this view Bakhtin saw an important distinction between different types of units based on different types of inquiry but also sees how they are interconnected. An utterance is a unit of speech while a sentence is a unit of language. A sentence, therefore, is a purely linguistic unit as viewed through structuralist linguistic inquiry. It is decontextualized and subject solely to what amounts to compositional deconstruction. Utterances are much more interesting and much more useful to study in Bakhtin's model. Utterances can be larger or smaller than sentences and their size is defined by the speakers themselves. When one speaker starts talking that is the beginning of the utterance, and when they stop talking it is the end. Thus, an utterance could be a collection of hundreds of sentences or really just consist of a single sound (/ɔ/). Since an utterance is studied in the context in which it is uttered then a very important aspect will be who the utterance is directed towards. Here knowledge becomes an important variable. Bakhtin states that there are basically three different people involved in utterances. There is obviously the person making the utterance, the actual person or persons to whom the utterance is directed, and then there is also an omniscient super addressee. This super addressee is needed because the regular, human addressee does not really understand where the speaker is coming from in their utterance. They lack all the information and will have their own idiosyncratic way of interpreting the message. The speaker cannot merely address their speech to the actual addressee and make it comprehensible because they don`t know enough about their specific knowledge. The super addressee is the normalized externalization of all the speaker`s internalized knowledge (a prototype of sorts) which the speaker uses to create the utterance and make it more comprehensible to a generalized omniscient listener. By directing the utterance toward this super addressee the speaker is making their utterance match closer to external norms. Additionally, an extremely important aspect of utterances is, therefore, the knowledge of past utterances and how they relate to a present or ongoing utterance.

3. What are genres and what purposes do they have?

As was mentioned above Bakhtin uses the idea of genres as a major way of organizing a lot of not only linguistic knowledge but knowledge in general. To understand where this idea comes from we need to think back to Bakhtin's origins. Bakhtin started out as a literary critic and we can see from the model he developed there are still lots of ideas which are closely related to literary criticism. One of these is the idea of genre. In looking at different literary works it is extremely apparent that different literary works are written in different ways based on the genre. A drama written like a farce will be neither. Thus it is not, or should not be, very difficult to quickly identify the genre of a literary work simply by looking at the types of constructions, as well as vocabulary, not to mention logic which is used. Bakhtin took this basic idea and abstracted it to the point where genre became a central organizing factor of cognition. For those of us who have a some background in discourse analysis this is a type of context but an internalized type of cognitive context rather than a purely external one. The basic idea is that we experience things in society in varying contexts and these different contexts or situations can be broken down into different genres.

In looking at language use we see that in different situations and for different purposes we use different forms. This is part of just the societal basis of language. Modern researchers look at this from a sociolinguistic point of view and it is often called code switching (Milroy and Muysken, 1995). In a very real sense, as we move to the world and engage different people in different situations we need to switch from one code to another. The basic idea is that in many bilingual situations different languages are used for different situations. A good bilingual will be able to effectively switch their code to match the situation. For Bakhtin, looking more at monolingual development, these are just different genres.

What is also interesting about Bakhtin's genres theory is that we can relate it as well to Fillmore's construction grammar (Fillmore 2003, Goldberg 1995, Lakoff 1987). The idea here is that we have prototypical constructions which have particular meaning. It would not be a huge stretch to match construction grammar with Bakhtin's heteroglossia. For each genre there could be a series of prototypical constructions which could be employed in these different genre situations. Creating an utterance would first involve choosing from one of the meaningful prototypical structures stored in your head and linked to a specific genre. These `constructions` are made meaningful through their associations to a genre. In this way we see how this model is also becoming a little bit more like the form function models which we investigated (slightly) earlier. This is what is wonderful about some of these older Russian models like those of Bakhtin and Vygotsky. Despite their age they are thoroughly modern and can be reconfigured into a series of different modern theories. In Bakhtin`s model people claimed to learn to speak and think by encountering language in genres and therefore come to/need to use genres in their own speaking and thinking. The only way you can learn a genre is through social interaction. And we use genres as background information to help us understand the utterance which is coming at us as well as to create utterances which will be understandable by others.

4. What does Bakhtin mean by the word dialogue?

For Bakhtin the word dialogue indicates that utterances are never fully complete. An utterance is reliant on all the utterances which have preceded it both in the immediate conversation obviously, but even more strikingly in the entire history of the speaker. On the other end, a dialogue also is related to what will come after the utterance. So we can think of an utterance as being a part of a longer, ongoing dialogue within the head of the speaker. The basic idea is that what we have previously said, all that we have previously said and heard affects the utterances which we are currently producing. Likewise, when we produce an utterance we do so always with an expected effect. A speaker makes certain assumptions about how they think the listener will react to their utterance. This is really the meaning of dialogue.

For us as language teachers the only way for students to experience something like this and in the process develop language skills is through social interaction. It should not come as a surprise to anybody that it is hard to teach something as complicated as language by focusing on explicit structural aspects of sentences. Language must be learned in context and students must be made aware of this context as well as their own expectations in the current linguistic endeavor. There must be GOALS in using language.

5. How do centripetal forces differ and interact with centrifugal forces?

One of the most interesting and truest aspects of Bakhtin's model is that there is forever a mismatch between speaker and listener which results in conflict. We know that there are theories of second language acquisition which state that it is the presence of conflict which causes learning (Ellis, 1994). The basic idea is that, as in Vygotsky's theory, the speaker is using their cognitive structure, based on their own personal experience which is unlike anybody else's, to form their utterances. In this way their own view of their utterances will be unique the degree of idiosyncracy varying quite a bit according to the amount and type of experience they have had. The addressee is going to interpret the speaker's utterance using their own personal experience, which of course it will not be and never can be the same as the speaker's (even for twins, even for Siamese twins, wow!). This means that the same utterance never means the same thing for all the parties involved, yet people more often than not manage to make themselves understood. This then shows us there are some very powerful forces operating in language.

To account for this disparity, Bakhtin claims that there are centrifugal and centripetal forces working on language. That is, there are forces which pull language apart and forces which pull language together. Centrifugal forces are the forces of personal experience and personal dialogues which everybody has and which will never ever be the same. It pulls the language apart so that everybody can be said to have their own personal idiolect. Since a very important aspect of both Bakhtin's and Vygotsky's models is that people learn their linguistic forms, to a large extent from other people through what is called appropriation and everybody has different experiences then none of us really ever speak exactly the same language. This is a very powerful centrifugal force. At the same time if there were only centrifugal forces than nobody would be able to understand anybody else. Eventually we would all only be speaking our own personal languages which wouldn't really help us very much. For this reason language also requires powerful centripetal forces. It is the centripetal forces which pull language together by focusing on commonalities in language use and obviously organization. As was discussed above, one of the most important centripetal forces is genres. Because people think and speak in somewhat idealized genres we are therefore able to understand each other in a general sense despite specific differences.

In order for this to work then genres need to be similar across a specific society (linguistic community) and even across different societies. This would be a very interesting type of second language acquisition to study to see whether genres really are similar and where, when, and how do they differ. In addition to genres we also have more modern effects of language which have been pointed out by sociolinguists such as speech accommodation (Holmes, 1992). Speech accommodation basically states as we speak to someone we start to pick up and emulate some of the forms that they use, provided that there is a basic level of affinity between the two speakers. This is a powerful centripetal force. So, it seems that language has strong centrifugal forces and also requires strong centripetal forces to make sure that people actually do understand each other.

References

Bakhtin, M. (1981). The dialogic imagination, (M. Holquist (ed.). Austin: University of Texas Press.

Bakhtin, M. (1986). Speech genres and other late essays, (V. McGee, translator). Austin: University of Texas Press.

Barlow, M. and S. Kemmer. (eds.). (2000). Usage based models of language. Stanford: CSLI Publications.

Ellis, Rod. (1994). The study of second language acquisition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Fillmore, C. (2003). Form and meaning in language. Stanford: CSLI.

Goldberg, Adele. (1995). Constructions: A Construction Grammar approach to argument structure. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Holmes, J. (1992). An introduction to sociolinguistics. London: Longman.

Lakoff, George (1987). Women, fire, and dangerous things: What categories reveal about the mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Milroy, L. and P. Muysken. (Eds). (1995). One speaker, two languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Saussure, F. de. (1959). Course in general linguistics. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. (Edited by M. Cole, V, John-Steiner, S. Scribner, and E. Souberman). Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press

Vygotsky. L. (1986/1934). Thought and language. (Translated by A. Kozulin). Cambridge, MA.: MIT Press.