There
are a number of ideas relevant to the preparation of this proposal which must
be noted down:
Norman
Fairclough presents a diagrammatic representation of what he describes as
social conditions of production as related to language:
Fairclough
says the “text represents two types of content: “social reality”, and “social
relations and social identities”. Social reality corresponds to what Michael
Halliday calls “ideational meaning”. “Social relations and social identities”
are what Halliday calls “interpersonal meaning”, although in his account of
interpersonal meaning Halliday focuses mainly on “social relations”. Fairclough
does not deal with what Halliday calls the “textual function of language.
The
middle layer of Fairclough’s diagram represents the writing and the reading of
texts. He is, according to Roz Ivanic, referring to the mental, social and
physical processes, practices and procedures involved in creating the text.
People are located in this layer, thinking and doing things in the process of
producing and interpreting texts. This layer of the diagram includes the role
of social interaction in discourse.[…] Related specifically to the production
process of writing, this layer connects the wider social context to the words on
the page through the head of the writer. It represents the writer’s mental
struggles which lead, among other things, to particular identities being
written into the text. […]The outer layer [is], the social context which shapes
discourse production, discourse interpretation and the characteristics of the
text itself. This is the “context of culture”.
 |
| Halliday |
Mikhail
Bakhtin summarizes:
…language has been completely taken over, shot through
with intentions and accents. For any individual consciousness living in it,
language is not an abstract system of normative forms but rather a concrete heteroglot (see below)
conception of the world. All words have a “taste” of a profession, a genre, a
tendency, a party, a particular work, a particular person, a generation, an age
group, the day and hour. Each word tastes of the context and contexts in which
it has lived its socially charged life; all words and forms are populated by
intentions….Language is not a neutral medium that passes freely and easily into
the private property of the speaker’s intentions; it is populated, overpopulated
– with the intentions of others.
Heteroglossia
In linguistics, the term heteroglossia describes
the coexistence of distinct varieties within a single linguistic code. The term
translates the Russian разноречие [raznorechie]
(literally "different-speech-ness"), which was introduced by the
Russian linguist Mikhail Bakhtin in his 1934 paper
Слово в романе [Slovo v romane], published in English as "Discourse in the
Novel."
Bakhtin argues that the
power of the novel originates in the coexistence of, and conflict between, different
types of speech: the speech of characters, the speech of narrators, and even
the speech of the author. He defines heteroglossia as "another's speech in
another's language, serving to express authorial intentions but in a refracted
way." It is important to note that Bakhtin identifies the direct narrative
of the author, rather than dialogue between characters, as the primary location
of this conflict.
Languages as points of view
Bakhtin viewed the modernist
novel as
a literary form best suited for the exploitation of heteroglossia, in direct
contrast to epic poetry (and, in a lesser degree, poetry
in general). The linguistic energy of the novel was seen in its expression of
the conflict between voices through their adscription to different elements in
the novel's discourse.
Any language, in Bakhtin's
view, stratifies into many voices: "social dialects, characteristic group behaviour,
professional jargons, generic languages, languages of generations and age
groups, tendentious languages, languages of the authorities, of various circles
and of passing fashions." This diversity of voice is, Bakhtin asserts, the
defining characteristic of the novel as a genre.
Traditional stylistics, like
epic poetry, do not share the trait of heteroglossia. In Bakhtin's words,
"poetry depersonalizes "days" in language, while prose, as we
shall see, often deliberately intensifies difference between them..."
Extending his argument,
Bakhtin proposes that all languages represent a distinct point of view on the
world, characterized by its own meaning and values. In this view, language is
"shot through with intentions and accents," and thus there are no
neutral words. Even the most unremarkable statement possesses a taste, whether
of a profession, a party, a generation, a place or a time. To Bakhtin, words do
not exist until they are spoken, and that moment they are printed with the
signature of the speaker.
Bakhtin identifies the act
of speech, or of writing, as a literary-verbal performance, one that requires
speakers or authors to take a position, even if only by choosing the dialect in
which they will speak. Separate languages are often identified with separate
circumstances. Bakhtin gives the example of an illiterate peasant, who speaks
Church Slavonic to God, speaks to his family in their own peculiar dialect,
sings songs in yet a third, and attempts to emulate officious high-class
dialect when he dictates petitions to the local government. The prose writer,
Bakhtin argues, must welcome and incorporate these many languages into his
work.
The hybrid utterance
The hybrid
utterance, as defined by Bakhtin, is a passage that employs only a single speaker
-- the author, for example -- but one or more kinds of speech. The
juxtaposition of the two different speeches brings with it a contradiction and
conflict in belief systems.
In examination
of the English comic novel, particularly the works of Dickens, Bakhtin
identifies examples of his argument. Dickens parodies both the 'common tongue'
and the language of Parliament or high-class banquets, using concealed
languages to create humour. In one passage, Dickens shifts from his authorial
narrative voice into a formalized, almost epic tone while describing the work
of an unremarkable bureaucrat; his intent is to parody the self-importance and
vainglory of the bureaucrat's position. The use of concealed speech, without
formal markers of a speaker change, is what allows the parody to work. It is,
in Bakhtin's parlance, a hybrid utterance. In this instance the conflict is
between the factual narrative and the biting hyperbole of the new,
epic/formalistic tone.
Bakhtin goes on
to discuss the interconnectedness of conversation. Even a simple dialogue, in
his view, is full of quotations and references, often to a general
"everyone says" or "I heard that.." Opinion and information
is transmitted by way of reference to an indefinite, general source. By way of
these references, humans selectively assimilate the discourse of others and
make it their own.
Bakhtin
identifies a specific type of discourse, the "authoritative
discourse," which demands to be assimilated by the reader or listener;
examples might be religious dogma, or scientific theory, or a popular book.
This type of discourse as viewed as past, finished, hierarchically superior,
and therefore it demands "unconditional allegiance" rather than
accepting interpretation. Because of this, Bakhtin states that authoritative
discourse plays an insignificant role in the novel. Because it is not open to
interpretation, it cannot enter into hybrid utterance.
Bakhtin
concludes by arguing that the role of the novel is to draw the authoritative
into question, and to allow that which was once considered certain to be become
conflicted and open to interpretation. In effect, novels not only function
through heteroglossia, but must promote it; to do otherwise is an artistic
failure.
Influence of the concept
Bakhtin's view of heteroglossia
has been often employed in the context of the postmodern critique of the perceived
teleological and authoritarian character of modernist art and culture. In
particular, the latter's strong disdain for popular forms of art and literature
— archetypically expressed in Adorno and Horkheimer's analysis of the culture industry — has been criticised as
a proponent of monoglossia ; practitioners of cultural studies have used Bakhtin's
conceptual framework to theorise the critical reappropriation of mass-produced
entertainment forms by the public.
Dorothy Hale applied the
concept of heteroglossia to African-American literature in "Bakhtin in
African American Literary Theory," pointing to a slave narrator
remembering his bondage or the racial narrative of the blues as distinctly
African-American voices that come into conflict with other dialects. In Hale's
view, heteroglossia is similar to W. E. B. Dubois' view of the African American
double consciousness, torn between the American experience and African
heritage. African American literature, by nature, contains a powerful and
persistent heteroglossia. To Hale this is not simply a literary technique but a
sign of African-American linguistic identity.
Hale criticizes DuBois for
limiting double consciousness to African-Americans alone, identifying
African-American double consciousness as a special case of universal
heteroglossia, and comparing the plight of the African-American to Bakhtin's
hypothetical peasant. To Hale, the fact that heteroglossia is a social
construction offers hope for equality to African-Americans because it implies
that they are different and unequal only because society makes them so, rather
than because of any inherent trait.
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