Mikhail Bakhtin and his Dialogic Imagination

Book: The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays (1981)

Author: M. M. Bakhtin

Translated by: Caryl Emerson & Michael Holquist

Edited: Michael Holquist

Austin & London: University of Texas Press

"The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays" by Mikhail Bakhtin is already considered a classic not only from the perspective of literary genre but also as an important work on the philosophy of language. The present book contains the four essays: 1. Epic and Novel, 2. From the Prehistory of Novelistic Discourse, 3. Forms of Time and of the Chronotope in the Novel, 4. Discourse in the Novel and an Introduction and Glossary by the editor.

The essays are a commentary on the  historical development of novel form and how it is different from the other literary form. His argument is that as the novel form is different from the other literary forms, we need a different type of stylistic and poetic analysis and dogmas for that in order to truly evaluate the Novel. He tries to develop a methodology to study the Novel.

In the first essays, he claims that the genre of novel is in the process of continuous development; it is yet "uncomplete". So he believes that studying the Genre of novel is like studying the language that is alive and young, as opposed to studying other 'completed' genres which are akin to studying dead-languages.The novel has very many distinctive features, "parodying itself", i.e. criticizing the novel itself through the novel is something unique which makes it an ever-developing genre. According to Bakhtin, Novel is best suited genre for the Industrial and Post-industrial eras as it advocates, imbibes and flourishes on the very idea of diversity. On the other hand the Genre of Epic tries to eliminate this very diversity. Three basic characteristics of the Novel that distinguish it from other genres are:

1. Its stylistic three-dimensionality, which is linked with multilanguage consciousness realized in the novel.

2. The radical change it effects in the temporal coordinates of the literary image.

3. The new zone opened by the novel for structuring literary images, the zone of maximal contact with the present in all its openendedness.

In the second essay, Bakhtin analyzes various genres and advocates how they come together to form the genre of the modern Novel. He uses the metaphor of the Language to make his point. He says that our language is never a single language, "there are always survivals of the past and a potential for other languagedness". In other words, past varieties of language(s) contribute in order to form the modern language that we use.

In the third essays, Bakhtin introduces one of the most important characteristic of the novel, Chronotope, literally meaning "Time and Sapce". Each genre has its own narrative character based on the different configuration of time and space in the respective genre. Bakhtin defines Chronotope as, "the intrinsic connectedness of temporal and spatial relationships that are artistically expressed in literature." The narrative of novel is a mixture of "adventure-time" and "everyday-time". There could be influence of Ancient Biography and/or Autobiography which narrates the course of one's life. For Bakhtin, the literary works connection with reality is defined by its chronotope.

In fourth essay, Bakhtin posits the concept of Heteroglossia as a characteristic of the Novel form. It refers to the diversity of voices, styles of discourse, or points of view in a literary work and especially in a novel. It occurs when characters or narrator(s) in a novel use different styles of speech. He goes back to the 'word' and says that as a speaker/narrator/character, we do not take words from the dictionary. The word doesn't exist in a neutral and impersonal language. We receive words from other people's mouths, through their speech. The speech occurs in some specific context and it serves the intentions and purposes of those speakers. The speaking person in the novel (or in the real world) is always, to some degree, an ideologue and his/her utterance is an ideologeme. Language used in any specific novel is a specific way of seeing the world. Bakhtin also talks about Hybridization which is used for a mingling of two social languages within the limits of a single utterance. A mixture of language between two different linguistic consciousness, separated from each other in terms of time, class or some other socio-political factors.

Following Bakhtin's writing, we can say that the genre of novel uses five essential features:

1. The carnival (He talks about it in his other work, "Rabelais and His World)

2. Heteroglossia

3. Polyphony (Discussed in detail in Bakhtin's "Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics)

4. Dialogic

5. Chronotope

The three concepts used in this book: Heteroglossia, Dialogic and Chronotope, have been much discussed in the field. The concepts have also influenced in the area of Philosophy of Language.  

Heteroglossia is defined as the coexistence of distinct varieties within a single language. Any Language can have multiple varieties of social and regional dialects, jargons, registers and secret languages. This notion goes against the popular notion of The (standardized) Language, which denies, or at least, stoops the other "non-standardized" varieties. Every variety comes with an ideological and social baggage, denial of a variety is also the denial of a different ideology, a perspective and/or a world-view. 

Dialogic or dialogism is used to indicate something related with Dialogue. Language is essentially dialogic: we use language not 'to speak' but 'to communicate'. In fact, we learn language because we want to communicate. Dialogism also implies the social nature of language. Language takes birth in a society, among people. People nourishes and modifies the language by using it as per their need. Every user of language modifies it as per his or her need, embellishes it with their view points and ideologies. Thus, language comes out of dictionaries, thesaurus and grammar books and takes newer forms with every usage. In other words, through 'dialogue' language comes from neutral to sociopolitical domain. 

Chronotope refers to how Time and Space are represented in Language. Emerson and Holquist defines it as, "a unit of analysis for studying language according to the ratio and characteristics of the temporal and spatial categories represented in that language." a particular chronotope corresponds to a specific way of speaking, which, itself, represent a specific ideology. So for them, chronotope is not just a narrative feature but a cognitive concept. 

We can notice, quite easily, the influence of 'integrational' Saussure on the Bakhtin's writing. The concepts he has developed are very much useful in the areas of Pragmatics, Discourse Analysis and Conversational Analysis.