Dialogic Discourse Analysis: A methodology for dealing with the classroom as a text

Atle Skaftun

doi:10.5195/dpj.2019.277

Abstract

Bakhtin is a source of theoretical inspiration for educational research. This article will be an attempt to activate also Bakhtin’s analytical practice and his methodology. I will explore and elaborate the typology of discursive relations which are suggested in Bakhtin’s book on Problems of Dostoevsky’ Poetics (Bakhtin ,1984), and the potential application of it in the study of discourse in the classroom. In order to do so properly it will be necessary to activate Bakhtin’s understanding of the utterance as a meaningful unity, and thus also the problem of authorship and the relationship between author and hero.Bakhtin’s analytical practice can be considered a consistent methodology for the study of literature in schools as well as in the scholarly study of literature (cf. Skaftun, 2009; 2010), and I have called it dialogic discourse analysis (DDA). The first main part of the article elaborates key features of DDA in dialogue with Bakhtin’s work. In the other main part, DDA is applied to educational settings in order to enter the educational dialogue on how to make sense of authorship and the adhering conception of the classroom as a text. My ambition here is primarily to elaborate DDA as a powerful and dynamic toolkit also for educational research. In doing so I also hope to contribute to the ongoing work of transferring Bakhtin’s dialogism as a whole from the study of literature to the study of education. Examples will in part be drawn from literature, but for the most part from educational settings.

Highlights

The Russian philosopher of language and literature, Mikhail Bakhtin, is an important source of inspiration for sociocultural educational research, and for those working within programs or frameworks that are associated with dialogic pedagogy (Alexander, 2008; Mercer, 2000; Matusov, 2009; Mortimer & Scott, 2003; Nystrand, 1997; Reznitskaya, 2012; Reznitskaya & Wilkinson, 2017; Wells, 1999)
A lot of Bakhtinian concepts and ideas are established as useful in education without any lengthy explanation transferring the concepts from the world of literature to that of teachers and students, which in
Dialogic Discourse Analysis: A methodology for dealing with the classroom as a text Atle Skaftun itself is an indication of the inspirational powers across domains in Bakhtin’s philosophy

Summary

Introduction

The Russian philosopher of language and literature, Mikhail Bakhtin, is an important source of inspiration for sociocultural educational research, and for those working within programs or frameworks that are associated with dialogic pedagogy (Alexander, 2008; Mercer, 2000; Matusov, 2009; Mortimer & Scott, 2003; Nystrand, 1997; Reznitskaya, 2012; Reznitskaya & Wilkinson, 2017; Wells, 1999). A lot of Bakhtinian concepts and ideas are established as useful in education without any lengthy explanation transferring the concepts from the world of literature to that of teachers and students, which in. In order to do so properly it will be necessary to activate Bakhtin’s understanding of the utterance as a meaningful unity, and the problem of authorship and the relationship between author and hero This means cross referencing texts that are written by Bakhtin over a timespan of approximately 50 years. Bakhtin’s analytical practice can be considered a consistent methodology for the study of literature in schools as well as in research (cf Skaftun, 2009; 2010), and I have called it dialogic discourse analysis (DDA). This quote describes in a characteristic way Bakhtin’s understanding of the utterance and of language in use as inherently dialogic This dramatic structure prepares the third sense of dialogue and dialogic, which is tied to potential conflict and tensions, and to the intentionality or speech plan of the voices involved. An utterance might be more or less dialogic or monologic, and in Bakhtin’s dialogic philosophy any

In his essay “The model of the text

17 Locations and people are anonymized by means of fictional names