Russian philosopher and literary theorist Mikhail Bakhtin was a very influential 20th-century critic whose works inspired scholars in many disciplines, including linguistics, political and social theory, philosophy, sociology, anthropology, and even psychology.
Born in Oryol, Russia, in 1895, Bakhtin is associated with the Russian Formalists, a school of literary criticism that emphasized the functional role of literary devices. At his death in 1975 at the age of 79, Bakhtin’s theories were still largely unknown to Western literary scholars.
In this article I will look at the top 10 facts about Mikhail Bakhtin’s literary theories.
1. POSTHUMOUS FAME
Although until the 1960s , Bakhtin’s work was relatively unknown and much of it unpublished, his theories would later influence the course of what we understand by communication.
2. EARLY WRITINGS
Bakhtin’s early writings were devoted to both ethics and aesthetics, but he disagreed with the Russian Formalists – who believed that a literary text was a crafted thing and the sum of its technical devices.
3. MEANING IN CONTEXT
Bakhtin argued for the semantic aspects of literary work, saying that, what mattered was not merely how a work was made, but what its meaning was. In particular, he stressed the importance of its meaning in the social and historical context of the time.
4. FOUNDER OF DIALOGISM
Bakhtin is the founder of dialogism, a literary theory that analyzes the various levels of communication between works of literature and other authors. His life-long insistence was that all linguistic communication occurs in specific social situations and between specific classes and groups of language-users.
5. THE LIFE OF A WORD
In his 1984 study, “Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics”, Bakhtin theorized that “The life of the word is contained in its transfer from one mouth to another, from one context to another context, from one social collective to another, from one generation to another generation. In this process the word does not forget its own path and cannot completely free itself from the power of those concrete contexts into which it has entered.”
6. LANGUAGE IN CONTEXT
Associating with Pavel Medvedev and Valentin Voloshinov, two Russian critics, Bakhtin developed an alternative to Ferdinand de Saussure’s theory of language that focused on sign-systems. They argued that language comes into being within social situations and is thus bound-up with specific social elements.
7. LANGUAGE TRANSFORMS
Bakhtin and his collaborators underlined the fact that language is utilized by individuals in specific social contexts. Language, seen in its social dimension and dynamics, is constantly reflecting and transforming class, institutional, national, and group interests.
READ MORE: Top 10 Facts About FERDINAND DE SAUSSURE’s Theories
8. UTTERANCE OF LANGUAGE
A crucial concept in Bakhtin, Medvedev, and Voloshinov’s theory is “utterance,” a word that reflects the human-centred and socially bound aspect of language. Language responds to previous utterances and to pre-existing patterns of meaning, but also promotes and seeks to promote further responses.
9. EVERYTHING IS CONNECTED
Bakhtin’s understanding of what Julia Kristeva called intertextuality is that one cannot recognize an utterance or even a written work as if it were singular in meaning, unconnected to previous and future utterances or words.
10. A WORD IS A BRIDGE
In their 1986 book, “Marxism and the Philosophy of Language”, Bakhtin and Voloshinov wrote: “A word is a bridge thrown between myself and another. If one end of the bridge depends on me, then the other depends on my addressee. A word is territory shared by both addresser and addressee, by the speaker and his interlocutor.”
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