yesthel weroniquah bertilda
Hilma Kolin
Dialogic refers to the use of conversation or shared dialogue to explore the meaning of something. (This is as opposed to monologic which refers to one entity with all the information simply giving it to others without exploration and clarification of meaning through discussion.) The word "dialogic" relates to or is characterized by dialogue and its use. A dialogic is communication presented in the form of dialogue. Dialogic processes refer to implied meaning in words uttered by a speaker and interpreted by a listener. Dialogic works carry on a continual dialogue that includes interaction with previous information presented. The term is used to describe concepts in literary theory and analysis as well as in philosophy.
Along with dialogism, the term can refer to concepts used in the work of Russian philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin, especially the texts Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics and The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays by M.M. Bakhtin.
Bakhtin contrasts the dialogic and the "monologic" work of literature. The dialogic work carries on a continual dialogue with other works of literature and other authors. It does not merely answer, correct, silence, or extend a previous work, but informs and is continually informed by the previous work. Dialogic literature is in communication with multiple works. This is not merely a matter of influence, for the dialogue extends in both directions, and the previous work of literature is as altered by the dialogue as the present one is. Though Bakhtin's "dialogic" emanates from his work with colleagues in what we now call the "Bakhtin Circle" in years following 1918, his work was not known to the West or translated into English until the 1970s. For those only recently introduced to Bakhtin's ideas but familiar with T. S. Eliot, his "dialogic" is consonant with Eliot's ideas in "Tradition and the Individual Talent," where Eliot holds that "the past should be altered by the present as much as the present is directed by the past".[1] For Bakhtin, the influence can also occur at the level of the individual word or phrase as much as it does the work and even the oeuvre or collection of works. A German cannot use the word "fatherland" or the phrase "blood and soil" without (possibly unintentionally) also echoing (or, Bakhtin would say "refracting") the meaning that those terms took on under Nazism. Every word has a history of usage to which it responds, and anticipates a future response.
Bakhtin also emphasized certain uses of language that maximized the dialogic nature of words, and other uses that attempted to limit or restrict their polyvocality. At one extreme is novelistic discourse, particularly that of a Dostoevsky (or Mark Twain) in which various registers and languages are allowed to interact with and respond to each other. At the other extreme would be the military order (or "1984" newspeak) which attempts to minimize all orientations of the work toward the past or the future, and which prompts no response but obedience.
Sociologist Richard Sennett has stated that the distinction between dialogic and dialectic is fundamental to understanding human communication. Sennett says that dialectic deals with the explicit meaning of statements, and tends to lead to closure and resolution. Whereas dialogic processes, especially those involved with regular spoken conversation, involve a type of listening that attends to the implicit intentions behind the speaker's actual words. Unlike a dialectic process, dialogics often do not lead to closure and remain unresolved. Compared to dialectics, a dialogic exchange can be less competitive, and more suitable for facilitating cooperation.[3]
It seems that recently, in my travels where I meet colleagues from the USA, the topic of conversation often turns to the rise of dialogic interpretation: interpretive programming that places an emphasis on getting visitors to talk to each other about the subject at hand.
Essential Partners has equipped faculty at more than 350 colleges and universities, across humanities, social sciences, and STEM fields, with our Dialogic Classroom pedagogy, helping those educators lead more open, inclusive, civil discussions about controversial topics such as stem cell research, the role of race in American society, Israel-Palestine, and gender identity.
Depending on the course, you might add an online component to your dialogic classroom, or have your students lead their own dialogue on campus or in the larger community. On this website, you'll find more detailed descriptions of each key building block as well as supporting resources such as videos, exercises, lesson plans, sample syllabi, and handouts.
The development of Essential Partners' dialogic classroom framework was made possible by the generous support of the John Templeton Foundation and the University of Connecticut's Humility and Conviction in Public Life project. The opinions expressed in this project are those of Essential Partners and do not necessarily reflect the views of the John Templeton Foundation.
So, if I understand what you are saying, a dialogue does not end with a coherent shared understanding (of what a concept 'is', for example), but with an expanded awareness of possible meaning (perhaps the things a concept 'might be'). At some points a synthesis of perspectives (a coherent view) might be useful, but remains provisional and must ultimately return to the larger dialogue,
This makes me think more carefully about how I use terms like 'dialogic teaching'. It's useful to be aware that what I describe here =953, for example, is perhaps best described as dialectic and is perhaps only truly dialogic to the extent that I acknowledge that our final definition is contestable and provisional. I wonder if P4C is all the more valuable because it allows teachers and students to engage in a true dialogue with no 'closed system' or pre-determined answer. Perhaps once they have a better understanding of what dialogue 'is' (or an expanded awareness of what it might be!) and why it is valuable, they are in a better position to reflect on the nature of other modes of talk in the classroom and to understand when each mode is appropriate. They might also be better able to consider how these different modes of talk might have a role to play in a 'dialogic education'.
Thanks for this valuable comment. I think the use of terms here is quite a tricky issue. I like the fact that Baruch Schwarz and Michael Baker write about dialectic/dialogic. I think that the dialectic, if we understand this as convergence on a single coherent (self-consistent) concept, is part of the dialogic. We certainly see useful dialectic processes in mathematics and science. But these dialectic processes produce concepts that are units for a larger dialogue. For example relativity seems to work AND quantum theory seems to work BUT the two are incompatible leading to dialogic tension and the search for a synthetic theory. This search is ultimately dialogic and not dialectic as there can be no final synthesis or Grand TOE (theory of everything) - at least not as a reduction to identity sort of theory of the E = MC2 variety. Acknowledging the search for progress in science is ultimately a matter of dialogic not dialectic helps us to bring in inspiration from art and other areas of experience. Finding a new theory is creative. Afterwards it will retrospectively claim to be necessary and entailed etc but do not be fooled. Other ways of looking at things will always be possible. So I suppose I think that the dialogic-dialectic is bigger and better than the dialectic-dialogic!
The first sees concepts as temporary islands in the larger flow and also as units within a larger level scientific dialogue. The Second, like Piaget and Vygotsky, to give examples, can see the abstract logic as the core thing, while acknowledging the reality of dialogic mutlivoicedness. This dialectic-dialogic sees dialogic as mere distracting noise or the messy stuff that needs to be sublimed away through pure logic.
The confusion here is perhaps in in two uses of dialogic to refer to two different levels of collaborative meaning making 1) dialogic defined simply as opposed to monologic and 2) dialogic defined as the whole monologic/dialogic dialogue process. So for level 1) an open-to-the-other type text saying 'this is one view, here are other views, what do you think?' is dialogic as opposed to a theory text that says eg 'if x = y and y = z then x = z' ie it claims closed truth. BUT on level 2 both of these kinds of texts can be part of a dialogic dialogue. This makes sense if you think that dialogues tend to be made up of different utterances each one of which could often be taken, out of context, and presented as if it was a monologue. So monologic and dialogic are always in tension - intertwined in fact - all the way up and all the way down to the neuronal or 'atoms of meaning' level of analysis - that intertwining is dialogic. And dialectic is a monologic kind of dialogue - fake dialogue perhaps - but it participates usefully in a larger dialogue. Ultimately unfinalisable and open but often apparently finalisable and closed.
Not sure if that is an answer to your question? Perhaps it is about how you teach it. Your example seems dialogic to me. Although there is convergence on a single truth (in context) there is also awareness of larger field of possible meanings that is not simply rejected or dismissed in finding the point of coherence. This is like teaching, as Langer suggests, 'this is what some have said, and this is why they have said it, ie this is the context and this is why it is useful in that context - but it is probably not the final word on the matter'
Thank you, Rupert, and thanks for another stimulating blog. I feel that as the idea of dialogic teaching becomes more popular (as I perceive it is becoming as part of the recent resurgence of oracy) the distinction / relationship between dialectic and dialogic is an important one for teachers to think about if we are to leave behind the 'horrors' referred to in your closing paragraph and to make sure that we support children to become aware of 'Level 2' dialogic.
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