Dialogism and Discourse Analysis – some effects of bakhtinian thought in the discourse studies

Abstract

This essay discusses effects of dialogism in modern discourse studies. It intends to show that it affects destabilizing concepts that inhabited linguistic on naturalized mode. It begins with the question of authorship, arguing that the dialogism questions notions as originality, genius and creation, are closely linked to the author. It seeks to demonstrate that also the notion of text suffers a strong decentralization. The dialogic principle erases the boundaries of the text as closed totality, questioning its schematic view. As a communicative link in the communicative chain, the text object is basically an abstraction, a cutout of reality. It’s also postulated that the Bakhtin's notion of gender operates a Copernican revolution in discourse studies relativizing assumptions about the statements, even on their grammatical constitution, removing them from a topic and single horizon. Finally, it shows that from dialogism derives a diversity of concepts that have become commonplace (heterogeneity, intertextuality, polyphony, etc.) and they transformed the landscape of discourse studies.