From Pedagogical Dialogue to Dialogical Pedagogy (PDF)

David Skidmore
LANGUAGE AND EDUCATION Vol. 14, No. 4, 2000: 283-296

In my discussion of the transcripts I make use of theoretical concepts drawn
from the work of the Bakhtin Circle, which I believe may help to illuminate
certain qualities of classroom talk from a fresh angle. Dialogism, the umbrella
term often used to describe Bakhtinian theory (Brandist, 1997; Holquist, 1990),
departs in a number of crucial respects from the assumptions of the dominant
approach to language in the West during the 20th century, the discipline of structural
linguistics established by the work of Ferdinand de Saussure (1974). De
Saussure drew a dichotomy between langue, the unified, normative system of
language, and parole, the unceasing flux of speech events. For de Saussure, the
extreme heterogeneity of speech (parole) rendered it unamenable to scientific
study; thus the discipline of linguistics should focus on the underlying systemof
language (langue). Against this, Bakhtin argued that the idea of language as a
closed, self-consistent system is an ideological construct, something always
posited, never given; the reality is that, at any historical moment, the totality
which we call a language is made up of many different, mutually contradictory
languages, refracting the different socio-ideological positions of various social
groups (occupations, generations, classes etc.). Bakhtin introduced the term
heteroglossia to describe this condition of internal stratification and differentiation,
which he sees as a fundamental, intrinsic property, part of the ontology of
language (Bakhtin, 1981: 262–3). A related but contrasting term in Bakhtinian
thought is monologism. Strictly speaking, truemonologue is a non-possibility for
Bakhtin, but he uses the concept of the monological utterance to identify the
tendency in discourse to portray the speaker’s position as the ‘last word’ to be
said on the matter, the attempt in practice to effect a closure upon dialogue.
Significantly for our present purpose, Bakhtin uses the example of teacher-pupil
discourse to illustrate the concept, though I think we should take him to mean
that teacher-pupil talk all too often assumes a monological form, rather than to
suggest that it must be or ought to be so (Bakhtin, 1984: 81; emphasis added):

In an environment of . . . monologism the genuine interaction of
consciousnesses is impossible, and thus a genuine dialogue is impossible as
well. In essence idealismknows only a single mode of cognitive interaction
among consciousnesses: someone who knows and possesses the truth instructs
someone who is ignorant of it and in error; that is, it is the interaction of a
teacher and a pupil,which, it follows, can only be a pedagogical dialogue.

A further distinction which Bakhtin makes is that between internally persuasive
discourse and authoritative discourse (Bakhtin, 1981: 342 ff.). Authoritative
discourse refers to those forms of language use which present themselves as
unchallengeable orthodoxy, formulating a position which is not open to debate
(for example, religious dogma); it ‘demands our unconditional allegiance’
(Bakhtin, 1981: 343). The semantic structure of internally persuasive discourse,
by contrast, is open; it acknowledges the primacy of dialogue, the impossibility
of any word ever being final, and for this reason it is ‘able to reveal ever newer
ways to mean’ (Bakhtin, 1981: 346; original emphasis).