Proposing Analytic Lens for Exploring Young Children’s Social Worlds as Culturally Dialogic: Bakhtin’s Theory of Language

Abstract

This theoretical paper proposes Bakhtin’s theory of language as an alternative analytic lens for understanding young children’s social worlds to the mainstream academic field of children’s social competence, which has been predominantly relying on developmental psychology. Based on the overview of chronological history of research on children’s social competence and development, this study shows the recent needs of exploring children’s social lives through a perspective that values children’s agency and helps contextual understandings. Then, this study provides a thorough explanation of Baktin’s theory of language including such concepts as dialogism, hibridization, unitary language, heteroglossia, poetry, novel, and carnivalosque. Finally, applying Bakhtin’s theory, this study presents the implications for the early childhood education practices and research.