Dialogism

Bakhtin argued that from the most basic utterance to the heights of scientific or literary discourse, no utterance exists alone. Any utterance may present itself as an independent object; as monumental, possessing a singular meaning and logic, as monologic; yet every utterance in language necessarily must emerge from a complex history of previous utterances, is shot through with traces of those utterances, and at once addresses itself to and seeks an active response from a complex institutional and social context. Following this, the logic of dialogism is critical of arguments for final and unquestionable positions, since any position uttered in language is constituted by polysemous dialogic forces rather than presenting a stable, monologic truth.