Blogging with Bahktin

To discuss the significance of Bahktin's theories in blog form is most appropriate; the language systems that Bahktin claims are "dialogic" become manifested in a "physical" or "visible" form when one engages in the culture of blogging. Blogging, as a form, is ripe with heteroglossia. That is, the nature of the structure of a blog is only useful if its content complements its innate tendency for dialogue, response, and  a melding of belief systems, language systems, and creative processes and ideologies. "Form and content in discourse are one, once we understand that verbal discourse is a social phenomenon - social through its entire range and in each and every of its factors, from the sound image to the furthest reaches of abstract meaning." (Bahktin, 259) This idea, according to Bahktin, has influenced our inherent separation of style and content, a separation in writing that should not and cannot be made. When it comes to blogging, the idea of discourse between language systems and utterances is "personified" even "exaggerated" in its complete form, reinforcing both Schuster and Bahktin's assertions to expand our definition of language and style as an ever changing discourse that calls upon itself, others, and the "system" itself for defining.

Schuster's application of the term "Quality" to Bahktin's overall belief system (a discourse in itself?) was something of interest to me; inherently it seems that (though maybe nothing is inherent, but saturated with other discourses) Quality is an evaluation of content, not form. However, if the form itself (the language system) is inseparable from the many voices of dialogue that make the form, quality then becomes a facet of form as well, shaping content and meaning simultaneously. Here, Schuster's term of "Quality" can be closely related to Bahktin's analyzation of "Style." Quality, Style, Form, and Content could be said to be results of the dialogic and heterogenous nature of novel discourse; and yet, they are not only the results of novel discourse, but the origins as well. In blogging, it is the tension between these things that creates a floating center of meaning. The dissonance between resonating ideas, the consonance between overarching concepts, and the multitude of perspectives clashing together create the "style" of each new post, each new response.

My comment on a classmate's post is ripe with my own intentions, the intentions of generations before me, the intentions of the invisible yet ever present "hero" in my writing. Schuster himself admits that Bahktin's own theories and principles influenced not only what he was to write about in "Mikhail Bahktin as a Rhetorical Theorist" but also the "Style" and "Quality" of his work. Schuster tells us that Bahktin "reifies language, making it not into a living being but a vital medium which expresses the continual energy of its speakers." (Schuster, 597) In this sense, language is a lens that is not limited to its physical proportions, refracting ideologies intentions, ironies, and implications in both directions. These refractions are not only determined by what is being put into the lens, but what might be coming out, the environment of the lens, and the sum of the interaction between these things. A blog manifests these concepts, creating a literal dialogue between refracting sets of double-discourse and texts that overlap, in both the conceptual and realistic dimension of the digital world.

Though Schuster himself doesn't discuss the dialogic nature of discourse within a poetic setting, I might venture to claim that he would fully agree with Bahktin's partial towards the discursive nature of the novel and the less intentional discursive nature of a poem. Bahktin does not deny that heteroglossia plays a role in all dialogue, he does say that "the language of a poet is his language - he is utterly immersed in it, inseparable from it, expressing itself in it and without mediation...that is, a a pure and direct expression of his own intention." (Bahktin, 287) Bahktin's idea of a poem is an obedient form of language to the will of its creator, as content is not the intent of that creator, but style and "quality." Here, as Schuster so kindly helps us realize through a different point in his essay, Bahktin demonstrates that discourse and writing can be both implicit and explicit. Therein, style can be implicit and explicit at the same time, especially in regards to poetry, an art form that takes the "obedient" shape of the author's will. "Language is never unitary;" and just because agency may be an overlap of voices does not mean that those voices do not have equal pull within the scope of language and meaning. Though this struggle between discourses and elements within discourses will never be resolved, Bahktin beautifully demonstrates to us that the warmth on discourse left from struggle and hostility is what creates the system itself; a system that is flawed, ever-changing, and trapped within human understandings.

Can you feel that warmth on this blog post right now, and will you feel it as you witness the discourse it brings forth?