Bakhtin’s faces: a discourse analysis of book covers

Abstract

This essay presents a discursive analysis of the Swiss, Brazilian and Spanish covers of the book by Jean-Paul Bronckart and Cristian Bota, titled Bakhtin unmasked: story of a liar, a fraud, a collective delirium. Founded on the dialogical perspective of discourse and dialoguing with psychoanalysis and semiotics, this article aims to understand the effects of meanings produced by these statements. There are two reasons for this proposal: first, Bronckart and Boot's book caused some academic inconvenience; second, this inconvenience generated numerous debates about the nature of the work in focus. Although the covers apparently treat about the same object, both offer the reader different elements to wage a first contact with this story. It is hoped that the analysis, more than increasing the controversy concerning the dispute in which Bronckart and Bota and their critics were involved, also reinforces the thesis that the author-creator Bakhtin transcends the individual Bakhtin.