Magdalena Zegarlińska – The application of Mikhail Bakhtin’s

concepts of dialogism, polyphony and heteroglossia in film analysis.

Film is a specific kind of medium, which is entirely based on communication. None of the elements
is put in front of the camera aimlessly. Every constituent is to convey a particular message. Even the
internal problems of characters or their thoughts are often voiced to become known to the viewer.
Without the communication the film would cease to exist. A literary scholar particularly interested in
various aspects of communication was Mikhail Bakhtin, who in his work concentrated mainly on
parole, i.e. living speech in a living context. He discussed the dialogic nature of discourse and
introduced a division into monologism and dialogism. He downgraded the former in favour of the
latter as a principle governing human and literary communication. Bakhtin’s theory may thus be
applied to film, whose main aim is to establish a communication with its recipients.
Similarly to literature, film is a medium based to a large extent on dialogue. The definition of dialogue
is not equivocal here, since it may be understood in a number of ways. Firstly, it may apply to the
utterances of the characters in a movie, which may be further divided into dialogues (conversations)
and monologues, which can be heard and responded by other personages of the particular movie
artwork. All these establish a communicative situation between the characters on the screen.
Another manifestation of a dialogue is a contact maintained between the characters and the recipient,
this time a viewer. Again, it may be divided into dialogues on the screen, from which the audience
infers the information that the maker of the movie wants to convey; into soliloquies or internal
monologues which are usually directed to the viewers and not for other characters in the movie; and
into the, so called, voiceover or a narration that comes from outside the movie. Such a voiceover is
often added to clarify certain intricacies of the plot that are not fairly comprehensible from the
dialogues and images themselves.
Yet another communicative situation is established on non-verbal terms, i.e. with the use of visual
and auditory elements such as images, music, sound effects, a particular stage set and costumes.
All these are in film theory defined as components of “mise-en-scene”, i.e., “Literally, ‘putting in the
scene’: a term that describes the action, lighting, decor, and other elements within the shot itself,
as opposed to the effects created by cutting” (Cook 986). What one sees or hears on the screen is
often enough to maintain certain communication with the viewer. Images, sounds or even silence
are sometimes able to speak volumes.
Film is a specific kind of medium, which is entirely based on communication. None of the elements
is put in front of the camera aimlessly. Every constituent is to convey a particular message. Even the
internal problems of characters or their thoughts are often voiced to become known to the viewer.
Without the communication the film would cease to exist. A literary scholar particularly interested in
various aspects of communication was Mikhail Bakhtin, who in his work concentrated mainly on
parole, i.e. living speech in a living context. He discussed the dialogic nature of discourse and
introduced a division into monologism and dialogism. He downgraded the former in favour of the
latter as a principle governing human and literary communication. Bakhtin’s theory may thus be
applied to film, whose main aim is to establish a communication with its recipients. The main
assumptions of this theory were that language is polyphonic in nature and endowed with heteroglot
meanings. He also assumed that the meaning is never fixed and exhausted in a single interpretation
and that it could be revived due to intertextuality and a literary tradition. Quotations and references
are important constituents of meaning as well. He put literature into a social context and claimed
that a text is an intervention in a cultural system (The Dialogic Imagination). Film is congruent with
these stipulations as well. It often does not have only one fixed meaning but is open to interpretation
for the viewers. Each recipient draws different conclusions and notices different elements which he
or she finds of utmost significance. Contrary to literature, which is composed of words only, movies
are a combination of various stimuli, such as image, sound, music, and words. That makes their
comprehension much more difficult. Such complexity offers almost unlimited possibilities in the field
of interpretation. Films, similarly to literature, are filled with intertextual allusions and references.
Moreover, each movie is constructed according to particular genre conventions and often rooted in a
specific cultural, social and historical context. Making a film deprived of context seems to be
improbable. Apart of its verbal stratum, which theoretically can be quite neutral, it has to be shot in
a determined place, and there is no place in the world lacking any kind of history. Each building,
tree, town square has its own past and can be put into some kind of context. Certainly, the director
may choose to shoot inside a film studio with artificially modeled stage set, but again it will always
to some extent resemble genuine places in the real world. Also a director himself has been brought
up in some literary and cultural tradition which inevitably imprints certain impressions on his or her
imagination and perception of the world. Very often movies are actually based on books. Adapting a
novel demands not only maintaining certain fidelity towards the original text and transferring the
assemblage of meanings, contexts, etc., but also the application of great amounts of imagination
and creativity to present the literary artwork in a convincing way. It is the director’s role to convey
the message inherent in the story, and the viewers role is to understand this message. The
communication is established.
Bakhtin’s conception of language was rather positivist, i.e. focusing on the correspondence of
language to the physical world. He studied the relation between the speaker and a listener and
assumed that everything anybody says is always in relation or response to things that have been
already said, and in anticipation of everything that will be said after. He focused on fluidity of
language and described dialogism i opposition to monologism. The former concerns not only everyday
conversations in reality but also touches upon any form of speech and writing as a notion of language
being always in dialogue. He further claimed that human life is unable to exist without language,
since to live means to participate in dialogue. The self in his theory requires others for existence and
is in dialectical relation with other people. Monologism, however, denies the existence outside itself
of another consciousness which has equal rights and responsibilities. Another person remains wholly
and nearly the object of consciousness. Monologue is finalized and deaf to the responses of other
people, hence no response is expected or acknowledged. Moreover, monologic speech suppresses
the voice of the other (The Dialogic Imagination). The movies most often operate on dialogic
relations. As I have already mentioned communication is essential for the movie to exist. It is the
viewer who decodes the message enclosed in the artwork, since not everything is directly said on
the screen. Active human consciousness is demanded to gain access to the whole complexity of a
movie artwork. Various aspects of the communication in film have already been discussed in the
introduction; what still needs to be mentioned is the issue of response and anticipation demanded in
dialogic relations. On the surface, it appears that a film artwork does not require any kind of response
from the audience, for its role is to merely presents a particular story. However, especially when one
thinks about the movies which are heavily loaded with social or political commitment, it definitely
aims at exerting certain influence on the recipients. Andrzej Wajda’s Katyń may be a great example.
At first glance it appears to be a reconstruction of historical events, which took place in 1940.
Nevertheless, it shifts our attention from dry facts to a human tragedy behind them. Anonymous
victims become individualities and gain identity, families and their own history. Surely, some stories
are probably created for the purpose of the movie but their role is fulfilled- the viewers are touched
by the enormity and cruelty of the tragedy and the crime is not forgotten. Definitely, it was not the
director’s aim to instill in the audience the hatred towards Russians, but simply to make us remember
of what happened seventy years ago. Our response should be to follow this message.
Bakhtin’s theory introduces, apart from monologism and dialogism, the concepts of polyphonic novel
and heteroglossia. Polyphonic novel is defined by the quality of relationship between the character
and the narrator and it is more than a simple copresence of harmonizing voices. These voices are
autonomous and coexist in an artistic event. What is important is that the voice of the author is not
dominant and that the character is not the mouthpiece of the author. Polyphonic novel subverts the
concept of character as subordinate and of an omniscient narrator. Character’s speech is thus
dialogical, i.e. standing in dialogical relationship to the other characters’ utterances. A character
engaged in internal dialogues with other people addresses another and listens to the response (The
Dialogic Imagination). The adjective “polyphonic” may be applied to a film as well. According to John
Bruns it may be described as follows, “The polyphonic film, however, does more than depict
simultaneous events and assemble multiple plots. It achieves true cinematographic polyphony by
depicting simultaneity without unity, multiplicity without completeness” (189). This definition
emphasizes the complexity of the term and shows that it applies to more concepts than mere
polyphony of voices. The author of the article, however, claims that the concept was definitely taken
over from Bakhtin’s theory of polyphonic novel. As far as the significance of the author and his
relation to the characters is concerned, it is very often dependent on the personality of the director
who is claimed to be the main author of a movie. According to the so called “auteur theory”, which
may be defined as a, “theory of filmmaking in which the director is viewed as the major creative
force in a motion picture. [...] The director, who oversees all audio and visual elements of the motion
picture, is more to be considered the “author” of the movie than is the writer of the screenplay”
(Encyclopaedia Britannica Online), the director is a dominant force in the movie creation process.
The theory is based on the assumptions of Andre Bazin and Alexandre Astruc, later followed by
Andrew Sarris, an American film critic. David Bordwell and Kristen Thompson distinguish three main
factors defining a director as an author, i.e. a director as a production worker, as a personality and
as a group of films. The first of the three makes a director “an orchestrator” and focuses on his or
her role to fulfill in order to be called an “auteur”. The director needs to be in charge of the whole
process of production of a film, including directing, composing, shooting and producing. His or her
role is “synthetic” and comprises of, “grasping the totality of the shooting and assembly phases”
(38). Director’s personality is of preeminent significance as well. Andrew Sarris developed a concept
of “politique des auteurs”, according to which, “The strong director imposes his own personality on
a film”. A new method, referred to as “auteurism” has become used to evaluate “auteurs against
nonauteurs” (Bordwell, Thompson 38). The factors taken into consideration are, however, not clear-
cut and strictly defined. In general, the director ought to have strong personality and develop his or
her own style or “flavour” of filmmaking (Bordwell, Thompson 38). It may be reflected in the choice
of genres, themes, techniques, actors and forms. Indeed, the movies often speak for their makers.
The styles of particular directors of well-established reputation are easy to recognize and distinguish.
Nevertheless, it is not only the personality of a director or his command over production that may
define the author, but also the relations between the films themselves. The author ceases to be a
flesh and blood person and becomes a concept, “a system of relations among several films bearing
the same signature” (Bordwell, Thompson 39). This kind of consideration enables to analyze the
movies by the work not only of a director but also a screenwriter or a producer. However, it is the
director whose work is most synthetic and noticeable by the viewers. The director who definitely
deserves to be the sole author of his works is, for instance, Ridley Scott. His strong personality and
enormous visual imagination enable him to create genuine masterpieces of movie art. In a slight
opposition to the assumptions of polyphony, his style and personality are heavily imprinted on his
movies and both the characters and setting seem to reflect his visions and beliefs. Most of his movies
have a number of messages to convey but their meaning is not always clear cut, of which an excellent
example may be the famous Blade Runner. The film became legendary among those fans who still
attempt to find one fixed interpretation of it and answer the question: “Is Rick Deckard a replicant?”.
It proves that the polyphony is alive and well in Scott’s movies.
The final concept that needs to be discussed for the purpose of this analysis is heteroglossia. The
term may be defined as the inscription of multiple meanings engaging in a dialogue within the text.
It avoids emphasis on narrowly defined consensus and celebrates diversity of voices produced by
different individuals. Moreover, it results from the struggle of two opposing forces, namely
centripetal, i.e. to consolidate different things, homogenize different values and people, and
centrifugal, i.e. to destabilize and disperse all the impulses and to find authoritative hierarchical
values. Gabriel M. Paletz defines it in a following way in relation to film theory:
Several voices united in a novel represent a world of rich interrelationships between kinds of speech
and types of people. Bakhtin’s term for this verbal and social richness is translated as heteroglossia
(literally, ‘different tongues’). It applies to film and television as they may also hold a multitude of
voices and visual styles. (Critical Dictionary of Film and Television Theory)
According to the assumptions of heteroglossia, language is endowed with heteroglot meanings which
react with one another. These finding definitely have their application in the process of movie
creation. The multiplicity of voices, meanings and tools used to create them constitutes an essence
of a film. The more complex is their application, the more cult position the movie achieves.
To conclude the foregoing analysis, it is worth mentioning that literary and film theories have many
common points. Both attempt to provide appropriate tools for proper and extensive analysis of the
artworks, be it a literary text or a movie. Moreover, they try to determine the source of meaning and
its relation to the overall context, in which the work is created and operates. Although the medium
is slightly different, the aim of each work is the same, namely to communicate and convey a certain
message, which the implied recipients are supposed to comprehend. Bakhtin’s theory finds a very
broad application in film studies. It catches what is both the essence of literature, film and any kind
of human discourse and defines it in a clear and convincing way. Therefore, it has been a great help
in understanding the principles governing the analysis of movies, and in creating my Master’s
Dissertation on films.
Works cited:
“auteur theory.” Encyclopædia Britannica. 2010. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 1 May
2010 <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/44609/auteur-theory>.
Bakhtin, Michail. The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays, ed. Michael Holquist, trans. Caryl
Emerson & Michael Holquist. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981.
Bordwell, David and Kristen Thompson. Film Art. An Introduction. 5th Ed. New York:
McGraw- Hill, 1997.
Bruns, John. The polyphonic film. New Review of Film and Television Studies.
Charleston: College of Charleston, 2008.
Cook, David A. A History of the Narrative Film. New York: W.W. Norton & Co, 1996.
“heteroglossia.” Critical Dictionary of Film and Television Theory. 2010. Bookrags.com. 1
May. 2010 < http://www.bookrags.com/tandf/heteroglossia-tf>.

The English terms dialogic and dialogism often refer to the concept used by
the Russian philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin in his work of literary theory, The Dialogic Imagination.
Bakhtin contrasts the dialogic and the "monologic" work of literature. The dialogic work carries on
a continual dialogue with other works of literature and other authors. It does not merely answer,
correct, silence, or extend a previous work, but informs and is continually informed by the
previous work. Dialogic literature is in communication with multiple works. This is not merely a
matter of influence, for the dialogue extends in both directions, and the previous work of literature
is as altered by the dialogue as the present one is. Though Bakhtin's "dialogic" emanates from his
work with colleagues in what we now call the "Bakhtin Circle" in years following 1918, his work
was not known to the West or translated into English until the 1970s. For those only recently
introduced to Bakhtin's ideas but familiar with T.S.Eliot, his "dialogic" is consonant with Eliot's
ideas in "Tradition and the Individual Talent," where Eliot holds that "the past should be altered by
the present as much as the present is directed by the past".[1] For Bakhtin, the influence can also
occur at the level of the individual word or phrase as much as it does the work and even the
oeuvre or collection of works. A German cannot use the word "fatherland" or the phrase "blood
and soil" without (possibly unintentionally) also echoing (or, Bakhtin would say "refracting") the
meaning that those terms took on under Nazism. Every word has a history of usage to which it
responds, and anticipates a future response.
The term 'dialogic' does not only apply to literature. For Bakhtin, all language — indeed, all
thought — appears as dialogical. This means that everything anybody ever says always exists in
response to things that have been said before and in anticipation of things that will be said in
response. In other words, we do not speak in a vacuum. All language (and the ideas which
language contains and communicates) is dynamic, relational and engaged in a process of
endless redescriptions of the world.

Bakhtin also emphasized certain uses of language that maximized the dialogic nature of words,
and other uses that attempted to limit or restrict their polyvocality. At one extreme is novelistic
discourse, particularly that of a Dostoevsky (or Mark Twain) in which various registers and
languages are allowed to interact and respond to each other. At the other extreme would be the
military order (or 1984 newspeak) which attempts to minimize all orientations of the work toward
the past or the future, and which prompts no response but obedience.

Bakhtin argues that the power of the novel originates in the coexistence of, and conflict between,
different types of speech: the speech of characters, the speech of narrators, and even the speech
of the author. He defines heteroglossia as "another's speech in another's language, serving to
express authorial intentions but in a refracted way." Bakhtin identifies the direct narrative of the
author, rather than dialogue between characters, as the primary location of this conflict.

Polyphony and Dialogism

In Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics, Bakhtin developed the concepts which were to inform much
of his work. The concept of ‘polyphony’ (borrowed from music) is central to this analysis.
Polyphony literally means multiple voices. Bakhtin reads Dostoevsky’s work as containing many
different voices, unmerged into a single perspective, and not subordinated to the voice of the
author. Each of these voices has its own perspective, its own validity, and its own narrative weight
within the novel.

The author does not place his own narrative voice between the character and the reader, but
rather, allows characters to shock and subvert. It is thus as if the books were written by multiple
characters, not a single author’s standpoint. Instead of a single objective world, held together by
the author’s voice, there is a plurality of consciousnesses, each with its own world. The reader
does not see a single reality presented by the author, but rather, how reality appears to each
character.

The text appears as an interaction of distinct perspectives or ideologies, borne by the different
characters. The characters are able to speak for themselves, even against the author – it is as if the
other speaks directly through the text. The role of the author is fundamentally changed, because
the author can no longer monopolise the ‘power to mean’.

Dostoevsky’s ‘dialogical principle’ is counterposed to the ‘monologism’ (single-thought discourse;

also termed ‘homophony’ – single-voice) characteristic of traditional writing and thought. In
monologism, one transcendental perspective or consciousness integrates the entire field, and thus
integrates all the signifying practices, ideologies, values and desires that are deemed significant.
Anything irrelevant to this perspective is deemed superfluous or irrelevant in general.
A monological world is made up of objects, integrated through a single consciousness. Since other
subjects have value only in relation to the transcendent perspective, they are reduced to the status
of objects. They are not recognised as ‘another consciousness’ or as having rights. Monologism is
taken to close down the world it represents, by pretending to be the ultimate word.

In monologism, ‘truth’, constructed abstractly and systematically from the dominant perspective,
is allowed to remove the rights of consciousness. Each subject’s ability to produce autonomous
meaning is denied. Qualitative difference is rendered quantitative. This performs a kind of
discursive ‘death’ of the other, who, as unheard and unrecognised, is in a state of non-being. The
monological word ‘gravitates towards itself and its referential object’ (This idea of a tautological
closure of dominant discourse is also found in Negri, Marcuse, Baudrillard and Barthes).

In a monological novel for instance, characters exist solely to transmit the author’s ideology, and
the author represents only their own idea, not anyone else’s. Any differences between characters
occur as if within a single consciousness. Such novels, Bakhtin claims, tend to be featureless and
flat, marked by a single tone. Bakhtin is suspicious of authorial intent, as it often involves a failure
to respect the autonomy of the other’s voice.

Dialogism in contrast recognises the multiplicity of perspectives and voices. It is also referred to
as ‘double-voiced’ or ‘multi-voiced’. It is a ‘principle’ which can become the main referent of a
particular aesthetic field. Each character has their own final word, but it relates to and interacts
with those of other characters. Discourse does not logically unfold (as in analytical philosophy),
but rather, interacts. This makes dialogical works a lot more ‘objective’ and ‘realistic’ than their
monological counterparts, since they don’t subordinate reality to the ideology of the author.

A dialogical work constantly engages with and is informed by other works and voices, and seeks to
alter or inform it. It draws on the history of past use and meanings associated with each word,
phrase or genre. Everything is said in response to other statements and in anticipation of future
statements. This style of language-use is, according to Bakhtin, typical of everyday language-use.
Its use in novels accurately represents the reality of language-use.

The dialogical word is always in an intense relationship with another’s word, being addressed to a
listener and anticipating a response. Because it is designed to produce a response, it has a
combative quality (e.g. parody or polemic). It resists closure or unambiguous expression, and fails
to produce a ‘whole’. It is a consciousness lived constantly on the borders of other
consciousnesses.

For Bakhtin, monological language is a corruption of an underlying dialogism. All signifying

practices (i.e. use of language and symbols) have an ultimately dialogical aim. Human
consciousness is not a unified entity, but rather, is always conflict-ridden between different
consciousnesses. Indeed, a single consciousness separate from interaction with other
consciousnesses is impossible.

Consciousness is always a product of responsive interactions, and cannot exist in isolation (If
someone offers counter-examples of hermits or psychological difference, it should be noted that
such people are still in dialogue – with their ecological surroundings, with nature, with multiple
inner voices… there is no reason to assume dialogism stops at the limits of the inter-human).
Nevertheless, language-use can maximise this dialogical nature or seek to minimise or restrict it.
Dialogism is not simply different perspectives on the same world. It involves the distribution of
utterly incompatible elements within different perspectives of equal value. Bakhtin criticises the
view that disagreement means at least one of the people must be wrong. Because many
standpoints exist, truth requires many incommensurable voices. Hence, it involves a world which
is fundamentally irreducible to unity. It denies the possibility of transcendence of difference (as in
Hegel; this is a major difference between dialogics and dialectics). Separateness and simultaneity
are permanently with us. There is no single meaning to be found in the world, but a vast
multitude of contesting meanings. Truth is established by addressivity, engagement and
commitment in a particular context.

In a fully dialogical world-view, the structure of the text should itself be subordinate to the right of
all characters to be treated as subjects rather than objects. A novel in this tradition is constructed
as a great dialogue among unmerged souls or perspectives. Ideas are not presented in abstraction,
but are concretely embodied in the lives of protagonists. A dialogical text presents relations as
dialogical rather than mechanical or object-like, and avoids authorial finality. Artistic finalisation
is deemed suspect, though also necessary to some minimal degree.

Heteroglossia

In The Dialogical Imagination, Bakhtin extends his analysis of dialogism through the concept
ofheteroglossia. This analysis emphasises the combination of existing statements or speech-
genres to construct a text. Each novel is constructed from a diversity of styles and voices,
assembled into a structured artistic system which arranges difference in a particular way.

This is a challenge to the idea of linguistic creativity as an original and individual use of language.
Even within a single perspective, there are always multiple voices and perspectives, because the
language which is used has been borrowed from others. Bakhtin argues that this is not simply
creativity by the author. He is highly critical of such an emphasis on the author, which he sees as
expressing a monological view of the novel.

Rather, the author performs a particular syncretic expression of social heteroglossia. The
originality is in the combination, not the elements.
The social and historical world is also characterised by heteroglossia and discursive struggle.

On a social scale, Bakhtin criticises those (such as Saussure) who view language as a closed
system. He sees such views as complicit in the creation of a unified language as a vehicle of
centralised power. Most often, the ‘standard’ language (such as standard English) is taken from
the speech of the elite. Such an elevation of a particular hegemonic language suppresses the
heteroglossia of multiple everyday speech-types. Everyday speech is commanded to conform to
official style so as to be recognised as part of a privileged, closed-off speech-community.

Where this type of ‘monoglossical’ language-use predominates, people display ‘magical’ or

‘mythological’ consciousness. In this consciousness, as in Marcuse’s idea of one-dimensional
thought, words and their meanings have a close, stable relationship. The free development of
dialogue is seriously impeded. The language becomes closed or ‘deaf’ to voices of difference. This
closure of language is associated with nationalism.

Bakhtin sees such centralising tendencies as counterposed to centrifugal processes which

diversify language. In particular, ‘folk’ and ‘festive’ languages such as carnivalesque challenge
official closure. The history of language is a constant struggle between the two tendencies, which
are also forces for stasis and change respectively. This is reminiscent of Kropotkin’s social and
political principles, Castoriadis’ instituting and instituted imaginaries, and Negri’s constitutive
and constituted power.

Bakhtin did not think monoglossical dominance could last for long. It is doomed to be ruptured
by a return of heteroglossia, as the dominant discourse is interrupted by other voices.
Heteroglossia is basic, whereas monoglossia is an alienated form of it. Because language always
ultimately orients to the other, it is primordially dialogical. There is ultimately no unified literary
medium, but rather, a plenitude of local social languages.

In a situation of heteroglossia, the dominant perspective, or one’s own perspective, is itself

defamiliarised. This happens because it is made visible from the perspectives of others, as well as
one’s own. It ruptures the mythological relationship to language, showing the gap between words
and their meanings.

Bakhtin’s view goes against the view that language is simply a means to communicate
information. According to Bakhtin, language cannot relate directly to an external world. Rather, a
social field of interacting ways of seeing always mediates the relationship between each speaker
and the world. Any particular way of seeing illuminates some aspects of an object and obscures
others. The idea of language as simply descriptive turns it into a ‘dead, thing-like shell’. Any
language-use is mediated by social ways of seeing. Furthermore, these social ways of seeing are
always contested, in dialogue, and changing.

Speech is always directed towards or through a field of ‘alien words’ and alien value-judgements.
An active and engaged understanding of others’ discourse incorporates the other’s perspective
into one’s own frame, giving it new inflections and nuances. It is this possibility of learning from
and incorporating the other’s discourse that makes dialogue, and newness in language, possible.
Speakers try to aid this process by making their own statements resonate with the listener’s
frame. Dialogue thus orients to the perspective of the other, seeking to introduce new elements
into it. It is carried out ‘on alien territory’.

One undergoes ‘becoming’ or maturation by selectively assimilating others’ perspectives. One can
situate oneself socially by relating one’s own perspective to those of others. This process should
occur as a process of self-actualisation. It is the peculiar standpoint of ‘outsideness’ which makes
something new of the other’s perspective by merging it with one’s own.

There is a difficulty, however. The alien word of the other can be either ‘authoritative’ or
‘internally persuasive’. Whereas the latter is coextensive with self-actualisation and dialogue, the
former projects itself into the self in a reified way, as an object. Authoritative discourse cannot be
represented as the words of a hero in dialogue with an author in a novel. A novel can become a
site of heteroglossia because it can represent multiple speech-genres. It can thus represent the
debates of a time-period, and bring perspectives into fuller understanding of each other. A
dialogical novel reveals and relativises linguistic borders, making discourse travel across them.
Poetry, in contrast, is viewed with suspicion.

For Bakhtin, a mature subject should learn to reject authoritative discourse and adopt only those
parts of others’ perspectives which fit with her or his values and experiences. Such a subject would
have an active, independent and responsible discourse, respecting the alien word in its autonomy.
This kind of approach echoes today’s debates around languages. Debates around ‘language-death’
show divisions between views of language as expressive – carrying a way of seeing – or as
instrumental – primarily a means to communicate efficiently. The latter view is typical of
capitalism, and of massified societies, whereas the former is concerned at the decline of local
languages which relate densely to particular settings.

On a different note, Bhabha views the impact of migrants on language and identity as performing
a similar process to that theorised by Bakhtin.
Heteroglossia causes long-term linguistic and aesthetic changes. Bakhtin attaches enormous
social power to literature, suggesting that entire world-views are shaped by changes between
monological and dialogical types of literature. Epics and poetry create fatalistic and closed worlds,
whereas novels create open worlds.