Natasha Artemeva
Carleton University, SLALS
Course 29.573 – Winter 2002
Bakhtin
Biography:
 Born in Orel in 1895
 Family moves to Vilnius, Lithuania
 Family moves to Odessa
 Starts university there in 1913
 Moves to Petersburg, continues at Petersburg University; “Bakhtin circle” comes into
existence
 Moves to Nevel (Belorus) in 1918 (teaches at school)
 Moves to Vitebsk (cultural boom)
 Moves to Leningrad (former Petersburg) in 1924, works at the Leningrad Historical Institute
 Arrested in 1929 (“Problems of Dostoevsky’s poetics” and “Marxism and the Philosophy of
language” (Volshinov) published)
 Exiled to Kazakhstan (works as a bookkeeper)
 Moves to Saransk in 1936, starts teaching at Mordovian Pedagogical Institute
 Moves to Kimry in 1937
 Moves to Moscow region in 1940 (second world war)
 Returns to Saransk after the war, continues to teach there
 Retires in 1969 and moves to Moscow
 Dies in Moscow in 1975
The work of Russian literary theorist, M. M. Bakhtin, especially his
essay "The Problem of Speech Genres" (1986), is fundamental for the
social constructionist view of genre. His ideas have enhanced our
understanding of the social embeddedness of genres (both oral and
written) within communities of language users and, therefore, are
central for understanding social aspects of writing process. Bakhtin
(1986) defines speech genres as "relatively stable types" (p. 60) of
utterances, thus providing two useful concepts for understanding the
nature of genre: the responsive utterance as the analyzable unit of
speech (rather than the word or sentence) and the addressive nature of
speech. Describing an individual's speech (both oral and written) as
always situated within the speech of others, he stresses the importance
of recognizing the plurality of speakers in order to examine language
use as communication (Hunt, 1994). For Bakhtin, the “responsive
utterance” is the fundamental unit of analysis of human communication
because it "occupies a particular definite position in a given sphere of
communication" (1986, p. 91) (emphasis in the original). He sees an
utterance as a link in a chain of discourse and points to its dual
nature: any utterance simultaneously responds to past utterances while
also anticipating future utterances. In Bakhtin's view, words and
sentences acquire meaning through the utterance, and speakers choose the
generic form of utterance which best meets their "speech plan or speech
will" (p. 77). The dialogical principle of language presupposes the
importance of addressivity. Without an addressee to whom an utterance is
directed, it loses its dialogic context and turns into a separate
Natasha Artemeva
Carleton University, SLALS
Course 29.573 – Winter 2002
statement "belonging to nobody." Bakhtinian notions of the addressivity
of speech indicate the degree to which individual texts act as links
between previous texts and the inevitable response of others. The
dialogic nature of speech, the necessity for a change of speaking
subject and a respondent, the process of utterance exchange, all this
reveals the communicative sense of oral language. According to Flower
(1994), "Much the same thing is said to happen in writing" (p. 60).
In his theory of genre, Bakhtin introduced the dimension of time-space,
which he calls chronotope (1981a). Schryer clarifies this notion by
explaining that “genres express space/time relations that reflect
current social beliefs regarding the placement and action of human
individual in space and time . . .. In each chronotope, differing sets
of values are attached to human agency. Agents in some chronotopes have
more access to meaningful action or power than in other chronotopes ”
(2001, p. 450). Genres involve both form and content which are
inseparable. The form of discourse in the field changes along with the
changing intellectual content. As Freedman and Medway (1994a) state,
"[P]articularly significant for North American genre studies has been
Bakhtin's insistence that . . . generic forms 'are much more flexible,
plastic and free' (1986, p. 79) than grammatical or other linguistic
patterns" (p. 6). Far from being rigid templates, genres can be modified
according to rhetorical circumstances (Berkenkotter & Huckin, 1995). In
Miller's (1984) words, genres evolve, develop, and decay.
The better one's command of genres, the more flexibility and freedom one
can apply in using genres. Thus even acting recurrently in a recurrent
situation, one can express one's individuality. Therefore, "creativity
is possible and visible everywhere, although Bakhtin insists that
'genres must be fully mastered to be used creatively'" (Freedman &
Medway, 1994a, p. 7). Modern North American understanding of genre is
reflected in Schryer's view (1994a) that genres represent
“stabilized-for-now” or “stabilized-enough” sites of social and
ideological action. Schryer (2000) redefines genres as “constellations
of regulated, improvisational strategies triggered by interaction
between individual socialization . . . and an organization” (p. 45). She
further unpacks the definition by adding that “as constellations of
flexible yet constrained resources, genres function as . . . sets of
strategies . . . that agents use to mutually negotiate or improvise
their way through time and space” (2000, p. 450). This perspective on
genres allows us to view the process of student acquisition of
domain-specific communication strategies as the process of student
acquisition of domain-specific genres.
As this brief overview of Bakhtinian dialogic approach to genre studies
has shown, genres are fully mastered only by “insiders” of a particular
Natasha Artemeva
Carleton University, SLALS
Course 29.573 – Winter 2002
community and are best understood in action.
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Understanding of language through the ownership of meaning:

Personalist view (“I owe meaning”) – I am a unique being and the sense of my language
(meaning is in the unique individual). Meaning – inner space
 Deconstructionist view (“No one owns meaning”). Meaning – elsewhere
 Dialogism – “We own meaning” or “If we do not own it, we may at least rent meaning”
“Meaning is made as a product” (Holquist, p. 391) Meaning – in-between
(+ Louise Rosenblatt – transactional theory – meaning is in transaction)
For a more detailed discussion, see Michael Holquist (1997). The politics of representation.
In Cole, M., Engestrom, Y., Vasquez, O. (Eds.). Mind, Culture, and Activity. pp. 389-408.
Cambrige: Cambridge University Press