Mikhail Bakhtin and Dialogism
Proposed dialogue as an intrinsic feature of language
Key terms in Bakhtinian thought
•Dialogue: utterance- central feature of all speech.
•Hetroglossia : prime examples- novels. Simultaneity of many levels of dialogue and language. Intertexuality – novels have references to other works – gives space to other.
•Chronotope: interconnectedness of spatial and temporal relation. Space and time are interconnected in a text.
•Carnival : something that subverts power- laughter, parody, the ugly etc.
Roland Barthes and his codes
Barthes is located at the intersection of structuralism and post structuralism.
Works: Death of the Author, The structural Analysis of Narrative (1977), S/Z (1970)
Barthes identifies 561 units of meaning – Lexias- organized into 5 main groups (narrative)
He called them codes – common to all narratives.
1.Proairetic code: the sequence in which the story unfolds.
2.Hermeneutic Code: Information about the questions that we have – what happened, how, why?
3.Cultural code: Common knowledge- narrative assumes that we all share.
4.Semic code: common set of stereotypes that are self-descriptive.
5.Symbolic code: similar to semic code. Refersto something larger. Eg image of darkness – associated with horror films.
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