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HETEROGLOSSIA

The term heteroglossiadescribes the coexistence of distinctvarieties within a single

"language". It originates from Greek: hetero-"different" andglssa"tongue, language"). The

term was coined by ikhail !akhtinin his #$% &a&er "Discourse in the Novel."

erriam 'ebster dictionary defines heteroglossia as (a diversity of voices, styles of

discourse, or &oints of view in a literary work and es&ecially a novel. *im&lified,

heteroglossia is a (vast variety of language use &articularly evident in novels. +eteroglossia

is contrasted to monologia which is (univocal, fixed meaning of the state or official

language +errick -$%).

Discourse in the Novel

!akhtin, in hisDiscourse in the Novel, a&&eals for a fundamentally different a&&roach

to analying the novelistic style. The reason why the traditional stylistics could not be a&&lied

to the novel lies in the fact that it considered the novel as a &oetic genre and, therefore, as not

fundamentally different in style from, for exam&le, &oetry.

!akhtin, on the other hand, insists on a fundamental stylistic difference between

the &oetic genres and the novel. The former are fully develo&ed, i.e. finalied, single

languaged and single styled, while the latter is com&osed of several heterogeneous stylistic

unities that combine to form the stylistic system of the novel which !akhtin considers to be

still develo&ing / unfinalied.

0ive basic com&ositional1stylistic unities that are integrated in the novel are the

following:

. 2irect authorial literary1artistic narration in all its divers variants)

-. *tyliation of the various forms of oral everyday narration

$. *tyliation of the various forms of written semiliterary everyday narration

e.g. the letter, the diary, etc.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variety_(linguistics)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language#Linguistic_diversityhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Bakhtinhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variety_(linguistics)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language#Linguistic_diversityhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Bakhtin


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%. 3arious forms of literary but extra1artistic authorial s&eech e.g. moral,

&hiloso&hical or scientific statements)

4. The stylistically individualied s&eech of characters

Heteroglossia in the Novel

+eteroglossia denotes the different stratas *ocial, &rofessional, dialects, 5argons etc)

in the same language. Thus, heteroglossia is o&&osed to unitary language and what makes its

uni6ueness is this diversity. In the novel, heteroglossia introduces a re1organiation of all the

levels of a language current at the time described in there.

0irst of all, in a novel !akhtin used as an exam&le 2ickens7 comic novel) one will

identify the (common language of a given social grou&, used by the author as (a common

view in order to a&&roach the reader. *econdly, the author will take distance from this

(common view, by ob5ectifying it. *ometimes he will exaggerate, sometime he will agree8

he will not be static, but in a &er&etual movement.

0inally, (the common view will be linked to other languages in a gradual way or

abru&tly. In order to do so, the style of the novel will move from e&ic to 5ournalistic, &oetic

and so on. This inter1action between languages is made through dialogisation. The languages

will not fuse together and this &ermits us to identify them.

!akhtin mentioned two distinct features of heteroglossia in the novel:

. 9 combination of different languages and verbal1ideological belief systems. This

means that the characters &erce&tion of the world his ideological world) is

ex&ressed through his discourse for exam&le, a 5udge would s&eak as a 5udge in

the everyday life).

-. These languages and the socio1belief systems that they denote are incor&orated in

the novel for authors intentions. They are tested, unmasked, and then destroyed as

they were false and hy&ocritical.


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Double-voiced discourse

'hat is it;

It7s "another7s s&eech in another7s language", which means: there are two voices, two

meanings and two ex&ressions8 these two voices are dialogically interrelated, it is as if they

actually hold a conversation with each other8 exam&les would be comic or ironic discourse or

&arody.


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linguistic energy of the novel was seen in its ex&ression of the conflict between voices

through their adscri&tion to different elements in the novel7s discourse.

9ny language, in !akhtin7s view, stratifies into many voices: "social dialects,

characteristic grou& behavior, &rofessional 5argons, generic languages, languages of

generations and age grou&s, tendentious languages, languages of the authorities, of various

circles and of &assing fashions." This diversity of voice is, !akhtin asserts, the defining

characteristic of the novel as a genre.

Traditional stylistics, like e&ic &oetry, do not share the trait of heteroglossia. In

!akhtin7s words, "&oetry de&ersonalies 7days7 in language, while &rose, as we shall see, often

deliberately intensifies difference between them..."

=xtending his argument, !akhtin &ro&oses that all languages re&resent a distinct &oint

of view on the world, characteried by its own meaning and values. In this view, language is

"shot through with intentions and accents," and thus there are no neutral words. =ven the

most unremarkable statement &ossesses a taste, whether of a &rofession, a &arty, a generation,

a &lace or a time. To !akhtin, words do not exist until they are s&oken, and that moment they

are &rinted with the signature of the s&eaker.

!akhtin identifies the act of s&eech, or of writing, as a literary1verbal &erformance,

one that re6uires s&eakers or authors to take a &osition, even if only by choosing the dialect in

which they will s&eak. *e&arate languages are often identified with se&arate circumstances.

!akhtin gives an exam&le of an illiterate &easant, who s&eaks >hurch *lavonicto God,

s&eaks to his family in their own &eculiar dialect, sings songs in yet a third, and attem&ts to

emulate officious high1class dialect when he dictates &etitions to the local government. The

&rose writer, !akhtin argues, must welcome and incor&orate these many languages into his

work.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Slavonichttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Slavonichttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God


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The hbrid utterance

The hybrid utterance, as defined by !akhtin, is a &assage that em&loys only a single

s&eaker?the author, for exam&le?but one or more kinds of s&eech. The 5uxta&osition of the

two different s&eeches brings with it a contradiction and conflict in belief systems.

!akhtin goes on to discuss the interconnectedness of conversation. =ven a sim&le

dialogue, in his view, is full of 6uotations and references, often to a general "everyone says"

or "I heard that..." @&inion and information are transmitted by way of reference to an

indefinite, general source. !y way of these references, humans selectively assimilate the

discourse of others and make it their own.

!akhtin identifies a s&ecific ty&e of discourse, the "authoritative discourse," which

demands to be assimilated by the reader or listener8 exam&les might be religious dogma, or

scientific theory, or a &o&ular book. This ty&e of discourse is viewed as &ast, finished,

hierarchically su&erior, and therefore demands "unconditional allegiance" rather than

acce&ting inter&retation. !ecause of this, !akhtin states that authoritative discourse &lays an

insignificant role in the novel. !ecause it is not o&en to inter&retation, it cannot enter into

hybrid utterance.

!akhtin concludes by arguing that the role of the novel is to draw the authoritative

into 6uestion, and to allow that which was once considered certain to be conflicted and o&en

to inter&retation. In effect, novels not only function through heteroglossia, but must &romote

it8 to do otherwise is an artistic failure.

To!ards a Ne! Linguistics

!akhtin calls for a shift away from languages as systems, towards social uses of

language. Aanguage is only unitary in the abstract. In its social use, it o&erates as an

irreducible &lurality of belief1systems. uch of language1use is also intertextual, referring

back to others statements and views. !akhtin sees language as an ongoing, unending chain


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of meaning which is constantly renewed and reborn through each link in the chain.

Aanguages and cultures are always unfinished. *imilarly, nothing is ever absolutely dead,

since it is connected to everything else by the chain of meanings.

@ne as&ect of this analysis is the idea ofspeech-genres. 9ccording to !akhtin, in

addition to the forms of language, there are standard ways in which language is combined.

Barticular choices within a national language constitute &articular s&eech1genres. =ach s&here

of language1use tends to have stable ty&es of utterances. This view, in which the relationshi&

between an entire language and an individual s&eech1act is mediated by s&eech1genres,

contrasts with the freedom usually attributed to s&eakers.

*&eech1genres include such ones of language as 5ournalistic styles, regional dialects

and ideological systems. =ach genre embeds in its language &articular social values, world1

views and intentionalities.

!akhtin treats s&eech1genres as the site of the intersection between language and

history. 2ifferent s&eech1genres give ex&ression to contradictions between &ast and &resent,

between different social and ideological forces and so on. The interaction of s&eech1genres

constantly &roduces new s&eech1genres.


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9n utterance'!ordis marked by what !akhtin terms "9ddressivity" and

"9nswerability" it is always addressed to someoneand antici&ates, can generate, a response,

antici&ates an answer).Discoursechains or strings of utterances) is thus

fundamentally dialogic and historically contingent&ositioned within, and inse&arable from,

a community, a history, a &lace).

To conclude, heteroglossia refers to use of different languages, where languages can

be the &oint of view of the narrator and the different dialogue of the characters. !y creating a

novel with heteroglossia, the text can be read by many &eo&le and not 5ust one &articular

grou&. !akhtin ex&ressed this beautifully when he said: (9uthorial s&eech, the s&eeches of

narrators, inserted genres, the s&eech of characters are merely those fundamental

com&ositional unities with whose hel& heteroglossia can enter the novel8 each of them

&ermits a multi&licity of social voices and a wide variety of their links and interrelationshi&s

between utterances and languages, this movement of the theme through different always

more or less dialogied.)C1this is the basic distinguishing feature of the stylistics of the

novel"

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