ENGL 497

Senior Seminar
Prof. G. Steinberg

Bakhtin

According to Bakhtin, "no less than half (on the average) of all the words uttered by [someone] will be someone else's words (consciously someone else's), transmitted with varying degrees of precision and impartiality (or, more precisely, partiality)."  What does he mean?  What is he talking about?

After discussing this phenomenon, Bakhtin begins to contrast authoritative and dialogic discourse.  What does Bakhtin mean by these terms?  How does dialogic discourse work?  According to Bakhtin, which kind of discourse is appropriate to literature?

To respond to these questions on the message board, click here.