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work of many other major theorists, Bakhtin has been overlooked in the
study of language in history, despite the fact that his texts offer a
number of crucial insights which open up new directions in research. His
theoretical and historical treatment of forms of discourse appears to
provide the foundation for bridging the gap between the internal and
external approaches outlined by Saussure or, if not bridging the gap,
then exposing the division as theoretically untenable and disabling. The
importance of this development is that if the chasm were to be bridged,
or the division to be exposed as false, the field of language in history
would be radically altered in terms both of its methodology and of its
aims. The aim of this chapter therefore will be to explore this possibility
by considering the relevance of Bakhtin s work for the study of that
field.
THE KEY CONCEPTS
It is possible, and indeed his translators frequently do it, to draw up a
glossary of the key terms which Bakhtin uses in his writings. If such a
glossary were to be compiled with particular reference to this work on
language in history, it would necessarily include the coupling of dialogism
and monologism along with monoglossia (odnoyazychie), polyglossia
(mnogoyazychie), and heteroglossia (raznorechie). Although this technical
vocabulary is most frequently used by Bakhtin in his discussions of
literary texts, they are in fact terms which are specific to language.
Therefore in considering the usefulness of these terms for the field of
language in history, it will be necessary first to ascertain the ways in which
Bakhtin uses them in his own analyses. It will be argued that, like
Saussure, Bakhtin opens up a significant field of research in the area of
language in history but fails to exploit it in any sustained way.
The two terms dialogism and monologism are evidently central to
Bakhtin s work, and yet, as Hirschkop has noted, they are words whose
function and significance alter across his texts (Hirschkop 1986:93 5).
The change can be characterised as the politicisation or historicising of
32 For and against Bakhtin
philosophical concepts and takes place between the earlier and later
works. In their early use these terms refer to what Bakhtin calls
worldviews . In the schema he sketches out, one of these worldviews
(monologism) is superseded by the other (dialogism) in what can best be
described as an ethical and teleological progression. This idealist
account, however, is replaced in the later works in which the terms are
employed in at least three distinct ways. First, the pair of terms is used to
refer to the historical forces which are in constant conflict in discourse:
monological versus dialogical forces. Second, they are used to indicate
the effects brought about by the conflict: monological and dialogical
forms of discourse. And in their third use they specify the nature of the
conflict itself: given that the forces are always in conflict, the form which
is dominant at any particular time has to engage in active dialogical
renegotiation and struggle with the other in order to retain its position of
superiority.
The development in Bakhtin s thought from a static view of either
simple opposition or a progression from the inferior worldview of
monologism to the superior one of dialogism, to the perception of active
historical conflict in discourse, is crucial. For the stress on dialogical
struggle as the basis of all forms of discourse allows for the relation
between particular dialogical and monological forms to be theorised from
an historical perspective. They can thus be viewed as the results of specific
social struggles in which their status and position are always at stake. This
in turn means that, rather than reflecting an ethical and teleological
viewpoint, these terms embody a political mode of analysis which can help
to facilitate the understanding of past formations of language in history.
The contrast with Saussure s view of a static synchronic state fixed in an
apparent eternal contemporaneity (Williams 1986:23) as the proper
object of linguistic analysis could not be more stark. Rather than history
being considered as external to language, Bakhtin s account takes history
to be the internal force which produces states of language in particular
contexts as a result of a conflict between opposing forces.
In fact the general principle to be abstracted from this theoretical
politicisation is that all forms of language from the smallest units to the
national language and beyond are scored through with social and
historical conflict. For the study of language in history this is a
revolutionary principle, since it threatens to deconstruct the rigid
polarisation of interests which had been its central tenet since Saussure
had theorised it. Rather than privileging internal over external concerns,
Bakhtin s theoretical premiss means that the Saussurean hierarchy would
have to be overturned. More significantly perhaps, it would mean that
those forces which had been excluded as not belonging to the study of
language proper would now be viewed as constituting it. For the
Saussurean model the complex relations between languages and political
For and against Bakhtin 33
history are characterised by a total split: language state on one side,
language and political history on the other, each to be treated differently.
For Bakhtin, however, such relations are taken to embody the conflict of
social forces which will produce particular linguistic forms, effects and
representations. In the field of language in history, if Bakhtin s views were
accepted, it would mean that the static conception of language, in which
any particular language moves from one state to another, owing nothing to
the past and having no concern for the future, would have to be replaced
by the Bakhtinian view that the very concept of a language is already the
product of historical conflict. The field would then have not only to be
more concerned with questions of history and struggle but would also
engage in a self-conscious reflection upon the role of the field in such
struggles. That is, how particular representations of language have their
own effects in the historical arena: the hailing of a linguistic golden age in
comparison with our currently debased usage, and the vision of some
languages as superior to others, are two such representations with resonant
historical effects. It is this self-consciousness that has been so markedly
absent from the study of language in history as yet, despite the fact that it
is this that is necessary for the field to give an adequate account of its
object.
If monologism and dialogism are keywords in Bakhtin s work in
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