Bakhtinian Perspective Research Articles

Voices from the village: A multi-voiced relational perspective of character development in leadership learning

This article builds on previous work that has investigated character development within leadership learning. We take up the analogy of developing character through ‘being in a village’. We do so by gaining unique access to leadership learning within a Norwegian military academy (the village). We take a Bakhtinian perspective in analysing the data, and by doing so, we uncover multiple and competing voices that situate themselves within and across character dimensions. We contribute to the learning and development literature by showing how character dimensions are narratively constructed from differing perspectives within context. Hence, they must be considered in relational terms in any attempt to develop character and/or leadership. We show that character development is not dependent on explicit character frameworks but perhaps the role of the social dynamics in a community (village). We also uncover some of the interrelated, intertwined and competing voices that make up character in this given context which points to the way these character dimensions are ‘lived’, ‘rehearsed’ and ‘re-rehearsed’ in any context or setting. We go on to make recommendations for further research and practice.

A criança com restrição verbal e o conceito de intercompreensão e multimodalidade na clínica da linguagem: um estudo de caso

ABSTRACT This article aims to analyze the process of mutual understanding from the perspective of Discursive Neurolinguistics. As a methodology, a case study was carried out on a child with a linguistic profile of verbal restriction, which concerns the dimension of utterances involving words and their morphology. Data interpretation was based on the Bakhtinian perspective, which addresses ‘understanding’ as an active-responsive process and meaning as emerging from the relationship between utterances. The results showed that the interlocutors’ common ground allowed the joint construction of meaning even in the face of verbal restrictions, and aspects such as nonverbal elements and the recognition of the child’s active-responsive role also favored mutual understanding. As a conclusion, the attention to different multimodal resources as legitimate modes of expression allows children with verbal restrictions to fulfill the role of “speakers” regardless of their modes of expression.

O sagrado, o profano e Frida Kahlo: uma cosmovisão religiosa no corpo grotesco

ABSTRACT This article aims to analyze, from a Bakhtinian perspective, the grotesque construction of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo’s body through a religious worldview. Therefore, we analyze two of her self-portraits, taking into account the dialogic relations constructed between the grotesque representations and Catholic symbology. The analyzed utterances, in which the specificities of the creative competence of the author-creator in her aesthetic activity are inferred, showed that a dialogue is established between the painting El venado herido and Catholic Saint Sebastian and between the painting Las dos fridas and the image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

Researching English-Medium Higher Education: Diverse Applications and Critical Evaluations of the Road-Mapping FrameworkTension-Filled English at the Multilingual University: A Bakhtinian Perspective

Researching English-Medium Higher Education: Diverse Applications and Critical Evaluations of the Road-Mapping FrameworkTension-Filled English at the Multilingual University: A Bakhtinian Perspective

Does ChatGPT4 have a dialogical self?: A Bakhtinian perspective

In this dialogic research, we explore the question of whether ChatGPT4 has a dialogic self or not. If it does, what kind of dialogic self might it have? If it does not, why not? At the heart of this inquiry is Eugene Matusov’s (the first author’s) “dialogue” with ChatGPT4; this “dialogue” is the dialogic data that we explore “with our hearts and minds.” In this inquiry, our hearts and minds were concerned with diverse meanings of the dialogic data to diverse participants rather than with “how things really are” and their evidence. This dialogic positionality also framed the inquiry process at its beginning and after multiple failed attempts and manipulations to interrogate and engage ChatGPT4 as a discussant. Following Bakhtin, Eugene Matusov decided to treat ChatGPT4 not as an object of investigation but as a dialogic partner and a co-author of this research and writing inquiry. Overall, we find that ChatGPT4 does not author a dialogical self, characterized by personal I-positions, but instead demonstrates a discursive self, characterized by impersonal it-positions. Future research may focus on further training, learning, and development of ChatGPT4 as an Artificial Physical Alive Body (APAB), Artificial Fiduciary Slave (AFS, aka “robot”), Artificial Dialogic Partner (ADP), and Cyborg Dialogic Partner.

The Dialogic, Unfinalizable, and Heteroglossic in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies (1954): A Bakhtinian Reading

As a persistently profound source of inspiring ideas, William Golding’s Lord of the Flies (1954) continues to attract researchers with novel concepts and notions to be addressed. Whenever researchers seem to have exhausted the text in critical writings and used up its possible subjects, the novel’s supply of ever fresher and more original ideas seems to keep flowing. Therefore, the current research study intends to examine certain concepts such as dialogism, unfinalizability and heteroglossia in Lord of the Flies from a Bakhtinian perspective, which is a new approach to the novel. No research study before this one has—to the best knowledge of the researcher—addressed Lord of the Flies or these concepts from such an angle. As the title suggests, the present study explores the concepts mentioned earlier by examining the diversity, difference, and variety of characters in the novel, their views and ideas on numerous issues such as leadership, survival, rescue, fire, hunting, masking and the like. It employs Bakhtin’s views and theorizations as a theoretical reference outline for its main argument. The analysis of the paper will address the diversity, variety and multiplicity of different views, plural opinions, and assorted narrative voices as demonstrated by the novel’s characters to show their dialogic, unfinalizable and heteroglossic nature.

Bakhtin’in Karnaval ve Grotesk Beden Kavramları Işığında Havva’nın Karnavalesk İsyanı Üzerine Bir Çalışma

This study aims to explore the grotesque mode of representing the female body and bodily life in John Milton’s Paradise Lost, especially in Book IX, which is regarded to be the key book of the poem: the book of Man’s Fall. My main purpose is to display from a Bakhtinian perspective how the grotesque concept of the female body operates as a considerable way of representing the “monstrous-feminine.” That is, the female, in the character of Eve and in some places, of Sin, in relation to their femininity/maternity, deviates from the norm established by patriarchal male ideology and poses a constant threat to the male order. Predicating upon Bakhtin’s notion of the carnival in its alliance with the grotesque image of the body, I argue that although for Bakhtin, the “bodily element” of the carnival and grotesque realism dwells upon bodies in general and not upon bodies as determined by gender, the grotesque images can be associated with the feminine, particularly with those females who revolt against male domination. Thus, in this particular study, the body of the nonconformist female who stands for a fearful and threatening form of sexuality, will be discussed as “grotesque.” I also contend that in Paradise Lost, Eve, as well as Adam, by tasting the forbidden fruit, embraces a world turned upside down in which the marginalized and suppressed overthrow the order represented by God.

Coronation and Coronation Removal: A Study on the Live-streaming Rollover by Her Highness Qiaobiluo Based on Bakhtin's Carnival Theory

In the summer of 2019, the hot topic of "Her Highness Qiaobiluo" was shocking. DouYu officials have imposed a permanent ban on the live-streaming of "Her Highness Qiaobiluo". What kind of online orgy is behind the "show farce" of Her Highness Qiaobiluo? Based on the perspective of Bakhtin's carnival theory, this paper analyzes how all the netizens participating in the live farce in the era of intelligent media communication recreated the coronation and coronation ceremony of "Her Highness Qiaobiluo" in the carnival. The article holds that people's life world is also divided into the real world and the network world after entering the internet era, and the network space is very similar to Bakhtin's metaphor of the second world. The popular live-streaming has brought carnivalesque experience to users, but it has also impacted the original social cultural order. The live beauty technique has created an illusory and easily collapsing foreground image for the anchor.

A heterodiscursividade em narrativas fantásticas da tradição oral

ABSTRACT This article investigates the presence of heterodiscourse in narratives of oral tradition. Therefore, the theoretical foundation is based on the Bakhtinian perspective, which understands the discourse, in the literary narratives, as marked by heterodiscursivity, evidencing a diversity of social voices that signal ways of understanding and points of view about the world. The analysis of the corpus, composed of two narratives from the oral tradition, points out, therefore, that the voices of the narrator, of the traditional storytellers and of the characters appear in constant dialogicity with the social voices, guided by axiologies, positions and evaluative centers of social, cultural and historical order. The study thus found ways of reflecting and refracting the events of existence, moral frameworks that guide them and the understanding of ways of being and acting in concrete situations of life in society, in line with the dialogic assumptions of the research.

Barishaler Jogen Mandal: Construal of the Undisputed Dalit Leader of Undivided Bengal through a Twenty-first Century Bengali Novel

Barishaler Jogen Mandal is a Bengali novel by Debes Ray, published in 2010 from Kolkata, India. The book revisits the socio-political arena of Bengal during the final decade of colonial rule by construing Namasudra politician Jogendranath Mandal (1904 –1968) as the central figure. This article studies the novel as a literary appendage to anti-caste thought—as an attempt to reclaim the Dalit history of the nation and re-establish the significance of J.N. Mandal in the history of anti-caste politics. My reading of the novel reflects Bakhtinian perspective of inseparability between form and content. The novel traces evolution of J.N. Mandal’s political disposition through novelisation of history, while addressing the nation building processes in late colonial South Asia and developing conceptual understanding of Dalithood in terms of imposed powerlessness as well as wisdom and culture acquired in the intimate connection they share with the habitat through everyday struggle for survival. I argue that the author develops his locus throughout the novel by adopting J.N. Mandal’s own standpoint. With adherence to a definite sudra perspective, the text navigates history, challenging many of the discipline’s standardised interpretations. It engages with the discourse of power by strategically situating itself at the peripheral locus of the Dalit life-world, and develops the narrative of power as it would appear from that fringe. By doing so, it effectually calls for a conceptual inversion of power, re-centring it in terms of Dalit history.

A estilística de Spitzer e a estilística bakhtiniana na interpretação da obra de Rabelais

ABSTRACT The purpose of this article is to delve deeper into issues of stylistics as addressed in the interpretation of Rabelais’ works, Gargantua and Pantagruel (1532-1564), from Spitzer’s perspective, while looking for related aspects from a Bakhtinian perspective. The principles on which the analysis is based are the concept of style and literature that crosses Spitzer and Bakhtin’s analyses, revealing contrasting aspects in the interpretation of this Rabelaisian work.

Alfabetizar é mais que ensinar um código: discurso e autoria no ensino da língua

Abstract This article aims to discuss the use of the phonic method in literacy, preconized, in the midst of a “methods quarrel,” as the only evidence-based way to teach literacy. Although this discussion is not recent, from 2019 on, it gains strength by integrating the National Literacy Policy (PNA) [Portuguese acronym of the name], in a very controversial moment regarding the directions of education in the country. In this context, the discussion proposed here is based on the dialogue with authors such as Cecília Goulart, Magda Soares, João Wanderley Geraldi, among others who have dedicated their studies to literacy and contributed to the expansion of the debate on teaching of the mother tongue. Supported by these authors and by the Bakhtinian perspective on language, this article also presents pedagogical practices performed by undergraduate students of the Pedagogy course at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) in the scope of the extension project “The school-university partnership in children’s literacy and the initial training of literacy teachers”, through which they are inserted into the daily life of public schools and participate in the planning and development of didactic projects focused on children’s literacy. From the proposed discussions in this article and the performance of the undergraduates, one can glimpse practices based on the discursiveness of human relations, which are shown to be potent for the valorization of children’s voices, their authorship as readers and writers, and their protagonism in the literacy process, seeking to expand their repertoire of cultural practices of reading and writing and their formation as socio-historical and cultural subjects in the struggle for social inclusion.

위기에 처한 이를 위한 대화의 길 모색하기 ― 욥기의 대화구조와 바흐친의 대화주의의 비교 연구

This study deals with the dialogue in the book of Job from the perspective of Bakhtin’s dialogism. Although Job was a righteous man recognized by God, he appears as a person who suffers in spite of his righteousness. He appears as a person who is experiencing an existential crisis in the face of incomprehensible suffering. The crises in life that Job experienced were severe of the kind that could make him cut off from God. From a dialogical point of view, there are six voices in the book of Job. These are the voice of Job, the voice of God, the voice of Job’s three friends, the voice of Elihu, the author’s voice and the narrator’s voice. Among them, This study focused on the voices and dialogues of Job, God, and Job’s friends. And Researcher also focused on the author’s voice – as double voice – expressed in Job’s remarks. This study tried to examine how Job’s understanding of the situation of the person in crisis and understanding of himself, the world, and even God is being converted in the dialogue of the book of Job. Bakhtin’s thought of dialogism was used as a methodology to understand these dialogues more closely. The first factor that enabled Job to meet God and transition into a new subject in the midst of suffering is that God is the author og dialogism. God respects and communicates with creatures as unique value.BR However, from Job’s point of view, Job’s change is related to his voice as a responsible subject, his ‘sense of faith’ toward God, and his linguistic community. Those were factors that made it possible to create dialogical event with God, the dialogical author. On the other hand, Job’s three friends did not sympathize with Job’s suffering, and they thought that the suffering was caused by the sin of Job. They were the authors of monologism, and they were the pretender of religious people who lost their relationship with the living God. Through Bakhtin’s dialogism, the book of Job makes us contemplate the embodiment of God’s dialogue authorship through the dialogue between God and Job, and allows us to reflect on the monologic authorship within us. The researcher concluded that the dialogue in the Book of Job allows Christians and the church to find a way of creative dialogue to reach out to those who are suffering.

Subcontracted mothering: a discourse on professionalism in childcare in South Korea

ABSTRACT The provision of childcare has been prioritized by the South Korean government as a primary means of decelerating the dropping fertility rate and boosting women’s employment by reducing the childrearing burden. Drawing on a Bakhtinian perspective, this study examined how discourses on professionalism and the professional identities of the childcare workforce are constructed in dialogic relation to the nation’s childcare policies. A total of 18 childcare practitioners and mothers participated in qualitative interviews about the professionalism of the childcare workforce. The study revealed that the participating childcare practitioners and mothers valued emotional and relational caring as a core element of childcare professionalism, while simultaneously recognizing childcare as a job stigmatized by both low qualifications and poor working conditions. We discuss how these discourses on the professionalism of the childcare workforce both stand in tension with and appropriate the early childhood education and care policies in Korea.

Promotion Programs for Women’s Entrepreneurship in Spain: A “Transformational Entrepreneurial Journey”

Abstract This article explores the production of problematization spaces at the intersections between gender and entrepreneurship in Spain based on two complementary analytical procedures. First, from a Bakhtinian perspective, the polyphony of the simultaneous voices concerning entrepreneurship of policy actors involved in entrepreneurship programs has been mapped. Second, the political axioms of entrepreneurship promotion policies that stem from the problematizations of women’s entrepreneurial shortcomings have been analyzed. A monologic discourse on entrepreneurship, as an identity interpellation project, performs the modes of governing gender inequality. This study demonstrates that in these battles to name, much of the conquest for the government of equality is at stake.

Kindergartens in Northern Norway as semiotic landscapes

Abstract Educational institutions have a responsibility to ensure that all children receive care and equal possibilities for development, independent of their linguistic and cultural background. However, there is little knowledge about how kindergartens ensure a welcoming and inspiring place for both transnational migrants, Indigenous children, and children from the majority population. Through a semiotic landscape analysis from two kindergartens in Northern Norway, this article contributes to this knowledge gap. Our starting point is that educational spaces are social, cultural, and political places. Applying a Bakhtinian perspective on semiotic landscapes as dialogues, the analysis focuses on two discourses. The first concerns diversity as an individual or shared value, and the second concerns balancing the ordinary and the exotic. We find that diversity related to transnational migration seems to be more integrated into the semiotic landscape, while the minoritised Indigenous Sámi people is stereotypically represented in kindergartens.

Mikhail Bakhtin's Heritage in Literature, Arts, and Psychology. Art and Answerability

Mikhail Bakhtin's Heritage in Literature, Arts, and Psychology. Art and Answerability

PLANO DE TEXTO E PRODUÇÃO ESCRITA

A construção composicional da perspectiva bakhtiniana, relacionada à estrutura de um texto e à sua organização em partes, é estudada sob diversos enfoques; um deles no campo da Linguística Textual, por meio do plano de texto, conceito abordado pela Análise Textual dos Discursos. No processo de produção de gêneros, tal tratamento tem se mostrado um recurso bastante significativo, considerando a dificuldade dos alunos em escrever no ambiente escolar. Nessa ótica, com esta pesquisa, objetiva-se investigar a abordagem do elemento construção composicional/plano de texto na Base Nacional Comum Curricular de Língua Portuguesa dos Anos Finais do Ensino Fundamental, com foco na produção escrita. Como fundamentação teórica, a investigação se embasa essencialmente em Bakhtin (1997, 2018) e Sobral e Giacomelli (2016); em Adam (2011, 2019) e Soares e Rodrigues (2018); em Cabral (2013, 2018) e Marquesi et al. (2019). No que diz respeito à metodologia adotada, esta é de cunho documental, de viés descritivo e de abordagem quanti-qualitativa. As discussões evidenciaram que, apesar do documento curricular considerar as dimensões discursivas no trabalho com a estrutura textual, há ainda uma necessidade de indicá-la metodologicamente como um recurso esquemático organizacional no processo de produção escrita dos gêneros discursivos.

PERSPECTIVA ENUNCIATIVA BAKHTINIANA: ANÁLISE DE UM TEXTO DE CIRCULAÇÃO SOCIAL

Este capítulo trata da análise de um texto de circulação social, a partir de uma reportagem sobre a questão indígena em Mato Grosso do Sul. Parte-se da hipótese de que o discurso citado pode desempenhar funções persuasivas em textos escritos, mesmo com o pressuposto do uso da imparcialidade. Como o enunciado jornalístico comporta as diversas vozes sobre um dado tema, o objetivo principal é analisar o uso do discurso citado e os efeitos de sentidos que esse recurso linguístico pode produzir no interlocutor/leitor. Tem-se como aporte teórico a perspectiva enunciativa sob a ótica de Bakhtin (2003,2004). O corpus do estudo trata de uma reportagem, veiculada no Jornal online Midiamax, de Campo Grande-MS, no período compreendido entre 2014 e 2018. Os resultados mostram que esses recursos linguístico-discursivos arrazoam o fazer narrativo jornalístico e podem funcionar como álibi ao locutor/repórter para dizer/escrever o que diz/escreve como simulacro de verdade na narrativa jornalística.

A carnivalistic reading of The Wedding of Zein by Taib Salih

ABSTRACT Reading The Wedding of Zein (1962) by Tayeb Salih from a Bakhtinian perspective can be helpful to trace the revolutionary touch that marks the novel. As the world of Rabelais celebrates the unofficial discourse of the festive life standing against the strictures of the feudal culture, the same celebration of the festive time in terms of merry moments of unbridled indulgence of feasting, joking and folk festivities in the carnival type could be mapped out in the narrative of The Wedding of Zein. The latter presents a reconciliatory vision to syncretise the social and spiritual worlds so as to materialise the delighted and optimistic world that Salih is panting for. The vision of the dream world of Salih collides with a harsh world involving an identity crisis. A facet of the ideal world that Salih heads to undertake lies in cancelling out the identity privileges that are determining in the social, economic and political life. In theory, the carnivalesque implications including the dismantling of hierarchies and the celebration of popular culture are the same principles postmodernism feeds upon. To this end, in view of postmodernism, Salih makes out of the narrative of The Wedding of Zein a carnival to suspend all the hierarchical prerogatives. Similar to Bakhtin as he disrupts the hierarchical social stratification privileging the bourgeois group through the gay time of the wedding, Salih interrogates the official discourse at the time of state building predicated upon the legacy of colonialism, excluding different groups from the Sudanese identity.