(Re)presentations and Dialogue [1 ed.] 9789027273161, 9789027210333

Citation preview

(Re)presentations and Dialogue

Dialogue Studies (DS) Dialogue Studies takes the notion of dialogicity as central; it encompasses every type of language use, workaday, institutional and literary. By covering the whole range of language use, the growing field of dialogue studies comes close to pragmatics and studies in discourse or conversation. The concept of dialogicity, however, provides a clear methodological profile. The series aims to cross disciplinary boundaries and considers a genuinely inter-disciplinary approach necessary for addressing the complex phenomenon of dialogic language use. This peer reviewed series will include monographs, thematic collections of articles, and textbooks in the relevant areas. For an overview of all books published in this series, please see http://benjamins.com/catalog/ds

Editor

Assistant Editor

Edda Weigand

Sebastian Feller

University of Münster

A*STAR - Institute of High Performance Computing, Singapore

Editorial Advisory Board Adelino Cattani

Marion Grein

Masayoshi Shibatani

Kenneth N. Cissna

Fritjof Haft

Talbot J. Taylor

Světla Čmejrková

John E. Joseph

Wolfgang Teubert

François Cooren

Werner Kallmeyer

Linda R. Waugh

Robert T. Craig

Catherine Kerbrat-Orecchioni

Elda Weizman

Stefanie Molthagen-Schnöring

Yorick Wilks

Università di Padova University of South Florida Czech Language Institute Université de Montréal University of Colorado at Boulder

Marcelo Dascal

University of Mainz University of Tübingen University of Edinburgh University of Mannheim Université Lyon 2

Tel Aviv University

Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft Berlin

Valeri Demiankov

Geoffrey Sampson

Russian Academy of Sciences

University of Sussex

Volume 16 (Re)presentations and Dialogue Edited by François Cooren and Alain Létourneau

Rice University

College of William and Mary University of Birmingham University of Arizona Bar Ilan University University of Sheffield

(Re)presentations and Dialogue Edited by

François Cooren Université de Montréal

Alain Létourneau Université de Sherbrooke

John Benjamins Publishing Company Amsterdam / Philadelphia

8

TM

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1984.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data (Re)presentations and dialogue / edited by François Cooren, Alain Létourneau. p. cm. (Dialogue Studies, issn 1875-1792 ; v. 16) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Dialogue analysis. I. Cooren, François. II. Létourneau, Alain, 1959P95.455.R47   2012 302.3--dc23 2012028401 isbn 978 90 272 1033 3 (Hb ; alk. paper) isbn 978 90 272 7316 1 (Eb)

© 2012 – John Benjamins B.V. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publisher. John Benjamins Publishing Co. · P.O. Box 36224 · 1020 me Amsterdam · The Netherlands John Benjamins North America · P.O. Box 27519 · Philadelphia pa 19118-0519 · usa

To Nicolas Bencherki, Émilie Pelletier and Sophie Richard With our deepest gratitude

Table of contents Introduction François Cooren & Alain Létourneau Dialogue: Object and representation Edda Weigand

ix 1

Towards an inclusive notion of dialog for ethical and moral purposes Alain Létourneau

17

Dogmatic dialogue: Essential qualities of judicial opinion-writing Karen Tracy

37

Representing gender in parliamentary dialogue: Are there any cross-cultural stereotypes? Cornelia Ilie

59

Dialogue as a truth-conveying discursive strategy Eric Grillo

83

Democracy and web-based dialogue Wolfgang Teubert

99

The metadiscourse of “voice”: Legitimizing participation in dialogue Robert T. Craig

125

Representation, re-presentation, presentation, and conversation Klaus Krippendorff

143

On the representation of a dialogue with God: Catherine of Siena and mystical communication David Douyère

161

Where is dialogue in classroom discussion? Heidi L. Muller

177

Dialogue entries and exits: The discursive space of discussion Dominique Ducard

195

Contribution-Representation-Subordination as conversational patterns: ­Manifestations of collective mind during routinized talk at work Bertrand Fauré & Nicolas Arnaud

215

 (Re)presentations and Dialogue

On the possibility of rhetoric as a dialogical guide for practical reason(ing): An old challenge in a new era Katia A. Lima

237

The role of the moving image in the representation of a sensible dialogue between users and space Anne Faure

257

Dialogue as a possibility for knowledge in organizations Marlene R. Marchiori, Miguel L. Contani, Patrice M. Buzzanell Socrates as character, Socrates as narrator: Dialogue and representation in Plato María J. Ortega Máñez Evidential information represented in dialogue Lori Czerwionka

271

289 303

Dialogues between two pupils during the process of writing a fictional story: Verbal erasures and their forms of representation Eduardo Calil

325

Author index

343

Subject index

345

Introduction François Cooren & Alain Létourneau* This edited volume contains some of the best contributions made to the 13th International Association for Dialogue Analysis conference, which was held in Montreal from April 26–30, 2011. This international conference gathered scholars from all over the world, inviting them to submit proposals addressing the connections between two important themes: dialogue and representation. It was a big success with 200 participants coming from 30 different countries and working in 15 disciplines. This diversity is, we think, reflected in the following chapters. When we proposed the conference title, Dialogue and Representation, we thought that this broad theme could be approached or interpreted in at least three possible ways: (1) Dialogue as representation, (2) Normative perspectives on ­dialogue/representation issues, and (3) Representations of dialogue. The first interpretation, Dialogue as representation, invited scholars to explore d ­ ialogue as an activity where many things, beings or voices can be made present, whether we think in terms of ideologies, cultures, situations, collectives, roles, etc. ­Addressing the question of dialogue as a form of representation could then lead ­scholars to explore what ends up being staged in this type of exchange, echoing the dramaturgic dimension of interaction, as already analyzed by key scholars like K ­ enneth Burke (1945) or Erving Goffman (1959). The second interpretation – Normative perspectives on dialogue/represent­ ation issues – offered scholars the possibility of exploring questions of n ­ ormativity, which are often associated with the notion of dialogue, when ­conceived as a morally stronger form of conversation (Buber 1970; Cissna & Anderson, 2002; H ­ abermas 1984; Jacques 1991). More precisely, we wanted to encourage s­ cholars to investigate the conditions by which specific interests, ­perspectives, or ­worldviews can be faithfully or authentically represented in dialogue. We were hoping that participants would also analyze effects of co-construction, which are typical of dialogic situations, as well as the normative issues that such effects would trigger.

*  Professor at the Department of Communication, Université de Montréal, and Professor at the Department of Philosophy and Applied Ethics, Université de Sherbrooke.



François Cooren & Alain Létourneau

Finally, the third interpretation – Representations of dialogue – invited ­scholars to address methodological questions related to the representation of this type of conversation. Echoing Bakhtin, contributors were invited to explore the polyphonic, heteroglot, or dialogic character of any text, discourse or interaction. The eighteen chapters featured in this volume address, each in their own way, these various themes and interpretations and demonstrate the high quality of current research in dialogue analysis. As we will see, research on dialogue today comes from a rich plurality of disciplines, methodologies and approaches. Linguistics, communication research (especially organizational), philosophy, applied ethics, discourse analysis, and conversation analysis, comprise just a few of these domains or approaches. Edda Weigand (Chapter 1) presents the challenges of her holistic theory of dialogue, a theory that represents dialogue as what she calls ‘a mixed game’ where human beings are endowed with key abilities of competence-in-­ performance. Recognizing the complexity of the object, we are led, according to her, to analyse ‘dialogue’ as naturally-occurring in the stream of life, a position that comes with some specific methodological exigencies that she highlights and proposes. In Chapter 2, Alain Létourneau critiques the work of two key dialogue ­scholars and practitioners – William Isaacs (1999) and Georges A. Legault (1998) – who have been working on the conditions of possibility of an ethical dialogue, while also being practitioners of dialogue. As Letourneau demonstrates, even though Isaacs and Legault exemplify the rich potentialities of dialogue, these two scholars tend to neglect the negotiated, rhetorical, and even aesthetic dimension of dialogue, and a good representation of persons and standpoints should take their interests and values more explicitly into consideration. As Letourneau shows, it is by acknowledging the interests involved that participants can reasonably and responsibly opt to abandon some of their own views and make any necessary ­concessions. Strategic considerations should therefore be included in our ­representations and theorizations of dialogue; a position that leads us to abandon a notion of dialogue as a pure exchange disconnected from negotiation. In Chapter 3, Karen Tracy analyzes the terms of a debate that took place between judges of a US state supreme court and which led to the writing of their non-unanimous decision regarding the constitutionality of a marriage law prohibiting the marriage of same-sex couples. Analyzing the six judicial texts of this decision, Tracy focuses on what she calls the ‘dogmatic-dialogic strategies’ that these judges implicitly mobilize when they represent their dissenting colleagues’ voices. As she argues, this dialogic-dogmatic style appears as the proper polyphonic response to the type of dilemma that these judges are facing. Although the expression ‘dogmatic dialogue’ might, at first sight, look oxymoronic, Tracy

Introduction 

elegantly shows how it rightly depicts the way these judges express and represent the controversial character of a continued societal dialogue. Cornelia Ilie (Chapter 4) presents an interesting comparison between the way institutional roles and power relationships are asymmetrically ­co-constructed in the UK Parliament and the Swedish Riksdag, especially as related to ­gendered‑ related identities. By focusing on the way female and male members of the ­parliament address each other, she analyzes what kind of impact these addressing strategies have not only on the outcome of the debates, but also on the evaluation of the male and female protagonists. Mobilizing Berit Ås’s (1978) theory of master suppression techniques, she shows how female members react when they feel that their voice is ignored, overlooked, or ridiculed by their male counterparts. While this type of adversarial confrontation proves to be more ritualistic and open in UK context, Ilie shows how it is more indirect and implicit in the S­ wedish parliament. In Chapter 5, Éric Grillo proposes to address the opposition between normative models of dialogue – whose conditions often seem too strong to allow a genuine dialogue to happen and be observed empirically – and more descriptive models of dialogue – which claim to account for any form of language use that might not be explicitly monological. As Grillo argues, adopting too broad a view of dialogue runs the risk of overlooking some of its key features, especially regarding its specific constraints on informational content as well as its ethical dimension. For a dialogue to take place, three requirements thus seem necessary and sufficient: (1) One must trust the speaker (ethical dimension), (2) What is agreed on must fit with what one already believes things are (logical dimension), and (3) One must assent to what is agreed upon, which leads the participants to draw the basis for further conduct (relational dimension). Wolfgang Teubert (Chapter 6) proposes to critically examine Jürgen ­Habermas’s concept of deliberative democracy and its connection with the notion of ‘civil society’. As argued in this chapter, newspaper blogs, chat rooms and other new forms of Internet forums could create the conditions for a public dialogue, conditions that were, according to this author, never truly met when debates were monopolized by traditional news media. Although Teubert remains skeptical as to the Internet’s capacity to make a real public sphere possible, he also shows how the Internet can open up interesting opportunities to make people’s ideas, attitudes, and opinions public, creating, for instance, the conditions of public unrest. In Chapter 7, Robert T. Craig analyzes the usage of the term voice, a key ­dialogic notion, as identified in a sample of arguments found in online searches. As shown by this author through multiple illustrations, ordinary metadiscourse – the discourse laypeople produce on key aspects of discourse – tends to define ‘voice’ (in the sense of ‘having a voice’) as positively connoted, as implying a

 François Cooren & Alain Létourneau

­ articipation framework and as dealing with problems of legitimacy, strength, p and identity. Interestingly, Craig shows how these problems – legitimacy, strength, and ­identity – echo the three universal validity claims put forward by Habermas’s theory of communicative action: rightness, truth and sincerity, which might have interesting implications for a normative theory of voice. Klaus Krippendorff (Chapter 8) proposes to critically examine the concept of representation through the analysis of several prototypical examples: photographs, roadmaps, computer icons, medical symptoms, the representation of absent others, and the sharing of representations. As argued by this author, an actual case of representation is, in fact, extremely rare, which shows that the usage of this notion is generally misleading and prevents people from realizing the process of attribution that is often at stake in this phenomenon. In order to respond to these shortcomings, Krippendorff thus proposes to not only substitute the words ‘re-presentation’ and ‘presentation’ for the alleged undifferentiated term ­‘representation’, but also to highlight, echoing Rorty (1980) and Shotter (1993), the coordination of understanding as it takes place in dialogue. In Chapter 9, David Douyère proposes to analyze an original form of dialogue, namely the mystical dialogue that Catherine of Siena (1347–1380) engaged in what she presented as her conversation with God. After exploring to what extent this exchange can be considered a dialogue, Douyère analyzes what C ­ atherine had to say about her conversation with the divine. More precisely, he shows how this ­dialogue constitutes both a representation and interpenetration of dialogues (with the self, with God, and of God with the world), which are supposed to lead to a form of spiritual transformation. This leads Douyère to explore what this specific text has to tell us about the theorization of dialogue in general, especially in terms of power relationships and construction of otherness. On a different note, Heidi Muller (Chapter 10) explores the use of dialogue as a means of facilitating engaged classroom discussion. In comparing three ­classrooms, Muller proposes to use the lens of dialogue to analyze how various dialogic orientations can impact on classroom interaction and learning processes. ­Echoing grounded practical theory approach (Craig & Tracy 1995) as well as Action-Implicative Discourse Analysis (a.k.a. IADA, Tracy 1995), Muller identifies key productive talk techniques as well as what she calls ‘normative classroom ideals’ that might practically inform teaching practices. More specifically, she identifies two dialogic forms that help us determine where dialogue should take place: (1) what she calls a dialogic classroom discussion, in which the instructor works with the students to identify what is talked about while determining how it is talked about, and (2) what she calls a dialectic discussion, in which the instructor works with the students to determine the way the discussion will ­proceed while determining what will be discussed.

Introduction 

In Chapter 11, Dominique Ducard elaborates on the work of the French ­linguist Antoine Culioli (1990, 1999) to explore the concept of dialogue from an enunciative viewpoint. In doing so, he compares this formal, empirically-based approach with philosophical models of dialogue, like the ones of Jürgen ­Habermas (1984), Francis Jacques (1991) or Karl-Otto Apel (1994). By studying the detail of two debates, he shows how analysts should free themselves from a c­ ertain logicism of representation or idealism, which positions dialogue as teleologically ­pre-defined according to a sort of ‘happy ending’. Dialogue, on the contrary, should be analyzed as a discursive space where intersubjective accommodations take place. The interlocutors thus continuously navigate between closedness and openness regarding possible alterations of their positions and orientations. Bertrand Fauré and Nicolas Arnaud (Chapter 12) propose to build on Weick and Robert’s (1993) concept of collective mind to explore the dialogical nature of collaboration and coordination. Three dialogical moves – contribution, representation, and subordination – are analyzed in the context of routinized interactions in organizational contexts. While these interactions could, at first sight, look superficial and uneventful, they show how these routines actually display a form of collective intelligence. More precisely, they demonstrate how contributions are subordinated and representation amended so that people can conversationally ­co-orient to a task at hand and its related problems without having to rely on shared representations, as it is usually believed. Katia Lima (Chapter 13) proposes to explore the rhetorical dimension of dialogue, showing that the art of discourse in action gives us the key to practical reasoning and dialogical forms of wisdom. Echoing Karl-Otto Apel’s reflection on the representative, expressive, and appellative functions of language, she defines the basis of what she calls a rational rhetoric, which acknowledges both the rational and affective dimensions of dialogue without reducing the latter to either of them. This reflection leads us to investigate the normative premises that should, according to her, dictate and regulate our dialogical practice of argumentation to better guide our decisions and conduct in our contemporary societies. In Chapter 14, Anne Faure investigates the dialogical dimension of architecture through the encounter of an observer with the digital recording of a built environment, presented through collages and montages. Examining the relationship between dialogue and representation, she analyzes the work of several artists who explore the complexity of an architectural space through the diversity of angles and actions. With the language of video, artists not only define a space, but also construct other possible spaces, which lead us to new architectural representations that can ultimately function as instruments for new forms of design. Marlene Marchiori, Miguel Contani and Patrice Buzzanell (Chapter 15) ­propose to analyze the conditions by which dialogue can promote or hinder the

 François Cooren & Alain Létourneau

construction of knowledge in organizational settings. Through a case study focusing on an innovation group in a governmental agency in Brazil, the authors show that dialogue ensures the conditions of a learning environment, especially when mutual openness is nurtured, as well as the recognition of uniqueness of situations, and mutual confirmation. As the authors demonstrate, creating the conditions for a knowledge-intensive organization includes the search for participative forms of management that promote dialogues, while dealing innovatively with the paradoxes, ambiguities, surprises, and ironies that constitute this type of collaborative process. On a different note, María J. Ortega Máñez (Chapter 16) explores Plato’s ­Dialogues by questioning the link between dialogue and representation. Focusing on both the theatrical and philosophical dimension of these dialogues, the author examines the dialogical form of mimesis as displayed through the philosophical problem of representation as it appears in Plato, as well as the way philosophy represents itself in these famous dialogues. As she shows, what makes representation visible in these reported dialogues is the mediating role of the narrator, which leads to an interesting fusion of their mimetic and diegetic dimensions; a fusion that is (strategically) hidden or exposed by Plato himself. In Chapter 17, Lori Czerwionka focuses on the possibility of marking or representing evidential information (i.e. the source of the information communicated) in Spanish dialogues taking place when bad news is supposed to be communicated. As she shows, dialogues make evidential information present beyond the lexical and phrasal levels of language. When interlocutors deal with implicit information (i.e. when the source of information is not factual, but based on inferences made by one of the speakers) the author note that dialogues seem to be more coherent and co-constructed. As she points out, this could be explained by the fact that interlocutors might arrive at different conclusions because of the inferential dimension of the premises. However, when they deal with explicit information, i.e. when the source of information appears factual and assured (because for instance one of the speakers saw or heard what happened), dialogue becomes more fragmented, which could be understood as a coping mechanism, if no place appears to be left to interpretation on the informer’s part. Finally, Chapter 18, authored by Eduardo Calil, analyzes the form of representation of ‘verbal erasures’ as displayed by two Brazilian pupils as they creatively deal with the co-writing of a story that they are conceiving. As the author shows, dialogism and haphazardness characterize this process: haphazardness because there is no way to anticipate what will emerge from their collaboration, a feature that highlights the eventful character of this type of co-construction; dialogism because each turn of talk is marked by a response to what precedes it, but also by associative relationships that trigger and alter the creative process.

Introduction 

As reflected through the diversity of these contributions, dialogic studies are alive and well. We hope that this volume will contribute to their flourishing and development, but also invite dialogue scholars to dialogue with each other about dialogism.

References Apel, K.-O. 1994. Le logos propre au langage humain. Paris: Editions de l’Éclat. Ås, B. 1978. Hersketeknikker [Master suppression techniques]. Kjerringråd. Buber, M. 1970. I and thou. New York: Scribner. Burke, K. 1945. A grammar of motives. New York: Prentice-Hall. Cissna, K. N., and Anderson, R. 2002. Moments of meeting : Buber, Rogers, and the potential for public dialogue. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Craig, R. T., and K. Tracy. 1995. Grounded practical theory: The case of intellectual discussion. Communication Theory 5 (3): 248–72. Culioli, A. 1990. Pour une linguistique de l’énonciation. Opérations et représentations, Tome 1. Paris, France: HDL, Ophrys. Culioli, A. 1999. Pour une linguistique de l’énonciation. Formalisation et opérations de repérage, Tome 2. Paris, France: HDL, Ophrys. Culioli, A. 1999. Pour une linguistique de l’énonciation. Domaine notionnel, Tome 3. Paris, France: HDL, Ophrys. Goffman, E. 1959. The presentation of self in everyday life. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. Habermas, J. 1984. The theory of communicative action. Reason and the rationalization of society (T. McCarthy, Trans. Vol. 1). Boston, MA: Beacon Press. Isaacs, W. 1999. Dialogue and the art of thinking together. New York: Currency. Jacques, F. 1991. Difference and subjectivity: Dialogue and personal identity. New Haven: Yale University Press. Legault, G.-A. 1998. Professionnalisme et délibération éthique. Sainte-Foy: Presses de l’Université du Québec. Rorty, T. 1980. Philosophy and the mirror of nature. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Shotter, J. 1993. Conversational realities. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Tracy, K. 1995. Action-implicative discourse analysis. Journal of Language and Social Psychology 14 (1–2):195–215. Weick, K. E., and K. H. Roberts. 1993. Collective mind in organizations: Heedful interrelating on flight decks. Administrative Science Quarterly 38: 357–81.

Dialogue Object and representation Edda Weigand* Decades ago André Martinet pointed to the crucial issue of theorizing when he distinguished between object and methodology and told us not to distort our natural object by methodological exigencies. A theory that approaches dialogue as it occurs in the stream of life will inevitably be a holistic adventure: starting from premises about the natural object and deriving from them an adequate methodology of representation. The complex whole in the end is human beings’ minds and their extraordinary ability of competence‑in‑performance. The paper first outlines the theoretical challenge of a holistic theory of dialogue. Premises about human beings’ actions and behaviour in complex surroundings are put forward and justified by recent findings in neuroscience. From them the methodology of principles of probability is derived. Second, different types of authentic examples are analysed in order to illustrate how human beings’ actions and behaviour can be described and explained in a holistic theory. Keywords:  theorizing; methodology; holism; competence-in-performance; dialogue; probability; justification; mind

1.  The issue When addressing the general topic of ‘dialogue and representation’, we should, in my opinion, introduce a third term ‘object’. Before we can deal with ‘representation’, we should know what we mean by dialogue, the object of representation. There is no common agreement concerning the term ‘dialogue’. In the literature different candidates have been proposed which will be examined in order to decide whether they can be regarded as object. The object does not reveal itself as such. Identifying something as object implies having some interest in focusing precisely on this kind of thing. Richard Feynman (2001) called it “the pleasure of finding things out”

*  University of Münster, Germany.



Edda Weigand

which guides our scientific interest. In this sense let us ask: what are the things we want to find out, and how can we represent them? In principle, human interests and pleasures can relate to anything. We know the ‘pleasure’ children take in playing a game without looking beyond the game. Can this be the scientific pleasure we take, for instance, in playing the game of rules or of logic without asking ourselves whether this game makes sense for human life? Can we simply assert that human language follows rules of logic even if there is no empirical or biological evidence for this assertion? Our brain can no longer be described as a black box. Hypotheses in the humanities and social sciences need to be verified, i.e. they need to comply with what has been experimentally proved in the natural sciences. Even if different disciplines have different scientific interests, in the end they address the same object: human beings’ understanding of the world of which they themselves are a part. We can therefore no longer be satisfied with establishing different independent systems of knowledge. In the light of biological evidence, what we all are striving for should lead to the unity of knowledge or consilience. 2.  Searching for our object ‘dialogue’ Let us now search for the ‘things’ we want to find out, i.e. for our object dialogue. If you ask someone what they consider to be the object dialogue, you will more or less get the answer: a dialogue is a verbal exchange of messages between two or more people. We are however also speaking of dialogue which takes place inside a person, the so-called inner monologue between a person and their self. There is obviously no object dialogue which is empirically manifest in what we call reality. Producing sounds in turn taking cannot count as dialogue yet, nor can the object dialogue be grasped by recording and transcribing sequences of sounds. Simply observing what happens when we are speaking will not help. What is missing is goal-directed observation, i.e. a question that guides observation, which includes, according to Feynman (2001, p. 173), “the vital factor of judgment about what to observe and what to pay attention to”. So let us first ask for “the vital factor of judgment” or for the constitutive criterion that makes up an object. Let’s take a practical example: looking out of the window we might discover forms and colours and identify them as blossoms, blossoms of a tree. What is our object? The combination of forms and colours or the blossoms or the tree in blossom? When we have a text in front of us we might ask: what is our object, single words, the text or something/someone behind the text or everything taken together? Words and textual elements are not pre-given as such but created by

Dialogue 

human beings, i.e. they are inevitably bound to the person who is using them. ­Isolating words or the text means isolating them from what we want to explain. Even if we take account of the fact that everything we perceive and recognize depends on the individual human eye, our object-of-study can only be the entire object if we want to achieve some understanding of what is going on. If you are interested in language, you must study who is speaking it: human beings (Marco Iacoboni). With this criterion of entirety in mind, let us now examine what the literature offers us as ‘objects’ for the term ‘dialogue’. The first candidate is called by different terms which in part overlap: conversation, discourse, spoken language or the authentic text in a corpus. I do not want to differentiate these terms but take them more or less as one candidate because they all focus on something exclusively empirical and variable. The problem they pose can be clearly seen with Yule’s example (1996, p. 4) of a conversation he listened to as an observer. (1) Her: So – did you? Him: Hey – who wouldn’t?

Yule is embarrassed because he cannot understand his fellow beings although they are speaking in his mother tongue. The reason is simple: speaking is intrinsically connected with thinking, and as observers we do not know what others think. Yule’s embarrassment results from the fact that he does not grasp the proper object: spoken language alone does not make up an entire object. The essential part is missing which is in our minds and cannot be empirically observed in the environment or added from outside the game. The same is true of another authentic example: (2) Her: One for her. Him: Eve, too.

The spoken language, recorded and transcribed, taken alone, will not help us understand this piece of discourse. In this case however what they are talking about is not enclosed within their minds but can be seen in the environment: it is a willow branch that the man is supposed to cut not only for the boy, but for her, Eve, too. The observer can therefore immediately connect what is spoken with what can be seen. Simply taken from a corpus however without the situational context the authentic text alone is not sufficient. The conclusion to be taken from both examples is obvious and has also now been experimentally confirmed by neuroscience: speaking is integrated with thinking and perceiving. The object we are looking for comprises the entire whole of integrated human abilities. Yet we need to go one step further and include another distinction. Seeing can mean seeing movements, actions, such



Edda Weigand

as cutting a willow branch as in Example 2, but can also include thinking such as when we identify a movement as a gesture, i.e. as a dialogic action intentionally carried out. In a conversation, for instance, an interlocutor may move forwards, casually, without communicative intention; we call this movement. He or she may however also move forward in order to demonstrate something beyond the proper activity of the movement, for instance, that the event he is talking about happened in the direction he pointed to by the movement; we call this a gesture. There is however even more to our object ‘dialogue’, as we can see when taking into account the next candidate, the view of dialogue as a network of intertextual relationships, for instance, in the Bakhtinian sense. Can dialogue be reduced to a system of relationships between texts or text segments? If we take this view then the crucial core of dialogue is missing which bears on human beings and their dialogic intentions as social individuals. An action game is constituted by some purpose which presupposes intention. In dialogic interaction we want to negotiate our claims to truth and volition and arrive at an understanding about our beliefs and practical actions. Even if it might seem that actions start from words, such as the word change in the last American election campaign, it is human beings who used these words as communicative means in order to achieve some purpose, in this case the purpose of gaining votes. There is yet another candidate for an object dialogue which we need to mention. It is based on some ethical attitude of “interhuman meeting” in Buber’s sense (Cissna & Anderson 2002). The term dialogue is thus narrowed down to specific dialogues carried out in this attitude. The question to be posed here is: can we delimit our scientific object by means of ideological postulates? To my mind, ­science is a descriptive activity and does not make moral claims. However, in so far as evaluation belongs to the object itself, as is the case with the human ability of taking a position, it has of course to be included. But that is another question. To sum up: Focusing on human beings means focusing on how they behave in the world, not in front of the world. For reasons of survival, human beings have developed the extraordinary ability to come to grips with the mix of order and disorder, of regularities and chance in ever-changing environments and different cultures. By their competence-in-performance human beings are able to adapt to varying conditions and to change direction if necessary; they have all the abilities needed to meet the challenge of dialogue in the stream of life, among them speaking, perceiving, thinking, reasoning, having emotions, recognizing intentions, evaluating, taking a position, adapting to changes and being prepared for individual particularities and chance. All these variables are included in the

Dialogue 

object of the ‘mixed games’ of performance and need to play a part in an adequate ­representation of them. Identifying an object means identifying the entire object and finding out how it works. If the object is human actions and behaviour, scientific investigations should aim to achieve results which comply with the evolutionary and survival needs of the human species. There is no independent object language or dialogue; the entire object is human beings acting and reacting on the basis of their ­competence-in-performance, i.e. by the integrated use of various abilities, in various and ever-changing action games. Action and reaction, the basis of dialogue, helps us to analytically structure the concepts of discourse and pragmatics which – without the dialogical key – remain vague and equivocal.

3.  Identifying our scientific interest Before addressing the question of how to represent the object in more detail, we need to introduce a further component: the scientific interest in studying an object. The same object – human behaviour – is differently addressed in different disciplines and receives different representations mainly because of different scientific interests. The first decision to be taken in this respect refers to what we want to achieve with our scientific efforts: are we satisfied with constructing artificial systems which are not backed by natural conditions or do we want to improve social life? If we decide on the second alternative we are deciding on a complex natural object which includes all the variables of performance. Our starting point is integration in various respects and this of necessity excludes establishing different independent systems of knowledge. The list of disciplines should be read as a list of different integrated dimensions of the unity of knowledge or consilience. This is the basis of the staircase model where “the various sciences do occupy different levels” but “form part of a single connected structure” (Gell-Mann 1994, p. 111f.): ↑ Psychology, linguistics, etc. ↑ .... ↑ Biology ↑ Chemistry ↑ Physics Figure 1.  Staircase model



Edda Weigand

In this sense linguists should ask themselves what their integrated part in studying dialogic language use is, why they have picked out this object, what the question behind it is. To my mind, the linguistic scientific interest is in finding out how human beings can come to an understanding in dialogue. This requires that we look beyond the limits of traditional linguistics and are to some degree acquainted with research results of the natural sciences, i.e. that we have some knowledge of the biological foundations of human action and behaviour. Identifying the linguist’s interest in studying a natural object and its effects on human life provides a stark contrast to linguistic approaches which stick to dogmas such as ‘language is a sign system’ or ‘a code’. Mediation between these two positions is in principle futile. Nonetheless, the controversy is again and again put on the agenda of Round Tables organized at scientific events. At a conference in Santa Barbara I listened to such a discussion between generativists and social scientists who tried to reach some common point of understanding. Generativists do not make the distinction between object and representation; they create their object methodologically by postulating a representation by rules from the very outset. The object is thus equated with a specific type of representation. At the end of the discussion they had to admit that their ‘pleasure of finding things out’ is nothing other than the fun of playing the game of rules. Even if they nowadays seem to take account of biological foundations, they even construct them in such a way that they fit their generative system. 4.  The order of object and representation The distinction between object and representation and the question of order is crucial for Dialogue Analysis. In the 90s, when IADA was founded, Sorin Stati, Franz Hundsnurscher and I were disappointed with the results which had been achieved in sociological studies by formal conversational analysis and which reduced dialogue to a sequence of turn taking. As linguists we took the opposite view and started with the model, with a rule-governed representation, which we considered to be the first step towards the goal of describing authentic texts. We ignored the fact that there is, in principle, no bridge from rule-governed communicative competence to performance, just as there is no bridge between generative competence and performance. Two completely different theories cannot be combined by addition. Following rules and adapting to chance are, however, integrated abilities in human beings’ minds. As social individuals we follow rules as far as they go and adapt ourselves to changes, individuality and chance whenever necessary. The complex ability of human competence-in-performance requires us to rethink theorizing.

Dialogue 

Decades ago, André Martinet (1975) had already pointed to the issue of the order of object and methodology and had even demonstrated the right direction to go when he postulated that the natural object should not be distorted by methodological exigencies. On the contrary, he asserted that methodology should be derived from the object.

5.  How to derive methodology from the object: Basic guidelines Having clarified some essential preliminaries of theorizing we are now ready to derive an adequate methodology from the complex object of human competencein-performance. I can only roughly demonstrate the procedure of derivation; for details I need to refer to my book “Dialogue: The mixed game” (2010). The first step is to outline premises which describe the object. If we decide on a natural object, i.e. language-in-performance, we need to accept that our object is subject to a degree of probability. The way to cope with it or the basic methodological devices will therefore be Principles of Probability: Premises about the object → Methodology Human competence-in-performance → Principles of probability in the mixed game Figure 2.  Deriving principles of probability from premises about the object

The next step will be to differentiate the methodological basis by d ­ istinguishing between different types of principles which are again to be derived from features of the object. If we accept that human beings are guided by needs, purposes and interests, the theory needs an action-theoretic basis: Goals and purposes as driving force → Action principle Figure 3.  Deriving the action principle

If human beings are social individuals, their communicative actions will be dialogically oriented, either as initiative actions which make a dialogic claim or as reactions which are expected to fulfil this very claim: Human beings as social individuals → Dialogic principle proper Figure 4.  Deriving the dialogic principle proper



Edda Weigand

From the premise that human abilities are integrated abilities, the conclusion to be drawn is that there is no such thing as language as a separate object. The ability to speak interacts with other abilities. Consequently, coherence can no longer be a matter of the verbal text alone but is established in the mind of the interlocutor: Premise → Methodology Interaction of abilities Coherence principle verbal, perceptual, cognitive means in intergration Figure 5.  Deriving the principle of coherence

We have thus derived the constitutive principles of action, dialogue and coherence from constitutive features of the object. In the same way we can derive regulative and executive principles from regulative and executive features of the object. In post-Cartesian times we can take it for granted that human abilities are integrated abilities, i.e. human beings need to mediate between reason and emotion and to regulate their self-interests and social concerns. In conclusion, regulative principles of emotion and politeness can be set up. Executive principles refer to strategies which determine the sequence of actions and need not be explicitly expressed. There is a further feature of interaction we need to take account of: the fact that these principles of probability are differently shaped in different cultures. I cannot dwell on the issue of culture here. To my mind, culture has its roots in the human ability to evaluate which characterizes human beings as cultural beings. At the same time human beings are social individuals who evaluate individually and this gives rise to the development of different cultures. Having thus clarified the relationship between object and methodology, let us now take up the term ‘representation’ once again and compare different ways of using this term. Representation is not the same as methodology; in a general sense it means description and does not yet precisely indicate the methodology used in the description. We can thus speak of different types of methodological representation: for example, logical representation or representation by paraphrases. Representation can refer to the whole object or to parts of it; we can thus, for instance, speak of cognitive representation. It can also refer to specific fields, as in the phrase ‘political representation’. Fields such as politics must not be equated with situations. The often discussed question of a typology of situations is misleading. There is no independent structure of situations in the world. We as human beings create the structure according to criteria of action. In this sense, political representation means the types of action games played in politics, and the way they are played.

Dialogue 

The question is how we can arrive at a typology of action games. I have to be brief and can only indicate a few essential points. Our starting point is the entirety of action games human beings play in everyday and institutional life, including literary games. To open it up means to detect “the architecture of complexity” (Simon 1962). In the area of complexity it is essential to give up any claim to explicitness or completeness. If complexity is more than chaos, it consists of a complex hierarchy which is completely different from the binary hierarchy based on division into parts we know from generative grammar. A complex hierarchy is not determined by division into separate parts but by integration and the interaction between the components and arises from the fact that the whole is more than the sum of all the interactions (see Weigand 2010). In a theory of action games the central criterion is the purpose of the action. On this basis I developed a typology of action games in my book “Dialogue: The mixed game” which takes the purpose of the game and specific sequential ­features as crucial criteria. The typology distinguishes between minimal games or ­one-phase games and complex games which consist of extended minimal games and complex games in the root sense. Minimal games can be clearly defined as ­having an interactive purpose which is processed in a two-part sequence of action and reaction, such as the directive game initiated by a claim to volition which is followed by a reactive speech act of consent. In extended minimal games, such as games of argumentation, the sequence of action and reaction is extended by subordinate sequences which negotiate the purpose of the game, in the case of argumentation by putting forth arguments pro and contra. Complex games in the root sense are multi-phase games which consist of subgames negotiating subpurposes, such as complex business games. Dialogic action games Minimal games One-phase games action ↔ reaction

Complex games In the narrow sense

In the root sense

Extended minimal games Multi-phase games one-phase, one purpose complex overall purpose negotiated in the sequence differentiated into subpurposes

e.g. directive ↔ consent

e.g. argumentation

e.g. business dialogues

Figure 6.  Typology of action games

Human actions and behaviour are, in the end, rooted in mental states of belief and desire which are expressed in dialogue as speech acts of a claim to truth or

 Edda Weigand

v­ olition. A directive speech act, for instance, makes a claim to volition and expects a reactive speech act of consent, positively or negatively. Whatever we do, it will be in some way an expression of our views about the world with a claim to truth or of coming to an understanding about actions to be carried out on the basis of claims to volition. The complex whole can be opened up by this view of human beings as interacting dialogic individuals. The basic methodological key is provided by the sequence of action and reaction which is crucial for Dialogue Analysis and allows us to consistently structure the vast and unstructured field of pragmatics and discourse. 6.  Sample analyses Let us now see how the Dialogic Principle proper works in opening up the complex object. In the action game the interlocutors try to make sense of all possible signals offered to them, empirical or not. They do not start with signs and their defined meanings and then turn into thinking individuals making inferences when rulegoverned constructions fail, as proposed in neo-Gricean frameworks. Their abilities of speaking, perceiving and thinking are from the very beginning integrated. The Dialogic Principle proper takes the key role in understanding what is meant by connecting utterances which at the verbal level do not seem to be connected: they are connected at the level of action by making and fulfilling the same claim: Coming to an understanding Action making a claim

↔

Reaction fulfilling that claim

Figure 7.  Dialogic principle proper

Let us now apply the Dialogic Principle to a well-known example from the literature (Brown & Yule 1983, p. 96): (3) There’s the doorbell. − I’m in the bath.

Examples of this type very clearly demonstrate that we mean more than we say. In contrast to traditional linguistic or cognitive approaches, an action-based D ­ ialogue Analysis can explain how this comes about. We do not need to add different levels which do not match, i.e. the level of general rules and that of individual inferences; but we must describe what interlocutors do from the very beginning: they take the

Dialogue 

first utterance as an initiative speech act which makes a claim to volition and the second utterance as a reactive speech act which fulfils the same claim. The interrelation of action and reaction is not determined by a fixed code or convention but is based on the interlocutors’ expectancy, i.e. on principles of probability. In language use we draw conclusions of different kinds and expect our interlocutors to do the same. These conclusions may run along rational lines or may arise from individual particularities which require special knowledge. Sometimes they are not conclusions at all, only associations or hints. We immediately understand dialogic sequences of utterances such as in Example (3) as internally connected in our minds because we take them as utterances not as sentences. It is not even necessary to describe the speech situation. Over and above what is verbally expressed we refer to habits of our life and simply know that the ringing of the doorbell means or implies that someone should open the door. We also know that being in the bathroom normally means that we are not prepared to appear in public. We rely on the fact that our interlocutor will make the same inferences and will therefore understand what we mean. Both utterances are thus connected by the conclusion: ‘if I am in the bathroom I am not prepared to open the door’. Reference to common habits create conventions which, when applied by human beings, can be relied on with a certain probability. What I call reference to habits is usually dealt with as encyclopaedic knowledge or knowledge of the world and added as a separate component to the verbal component. Yet what is world knowledge? It is what we believe we know of and think about the world. ­Language is meant and understood ‘in the stream of life’ (Wittgenstein 1967/1981), i.e. on the basis of our knowledge of everyday habits. Example (3) demonstrates that there is no independent world knowledge, only the probability of habits. The listing of ­so-called ‘world knowledge’ by enumerating an infinite number of items in a frame turns out to be an absurd endeavour. Having focused on the interaction of speaking and thinking in Example (3), let us now reconsider Example (2) which illustrates the interaction between speaking and perceiving: (2) Her: One for her. Him: Eve, too.

We can elaborate two characteristics: first, the actions which are perceived need not be expressed, and second, persons and objects can immediately be referred to by pronouns and need not first be introduced by NPs, as postulated by generative rules. Again we see that both utterances are connected by the Principle of Dialogue proper: making the claim to volition to cut a willow branch for the girl and fulfilling this very claim by a reactive speech act of consent. Even if spoken language may seem to be our object, or at least our starting point, at the level of

 Edda Weigand

representation it turns out to be only the tip of the ice-berg. The essential mass consists of initiative and reactive claims to truth and volition which are negotiated in dialogue. In this way, by elaborating the individual Principles of Probability, constitutive, regulative, executive, we can ‘represent’ our ‘object’ dialogue at the level of methodology. We have only dealt with a few constitutive principles in a very rough-and-ready manner and would need to include regulative principles and executive principles which are all involved in the mixed game of ‘meaning more than we say’. Rules are followed as far as they go, individuality and particular ­circumstances play their role where regularities have come to an end. The whole is not a completely arbitrary mix or a completely rational system. It is ‘a mixed game’ characterized by the feature of “near-decomposability” (Simon 1962) which allows human beings to decompose it to a certain degree, i.e. to mediate between order and disorder and to come to grips with the complexities of life. 7.  The authentic text: Object or representation? The empiricists postulate that our ‘object’ is the authentic text from which we have to start and that it has to be ‘represented’ by recording and meticulously transcribing any empirically noticeable element. There is however no empirical evidence as such; the object does not reveal itself. The claim that the authentic text is our ‘real’ object is nothing other than a hypothesis which strikingly contrasts with what we as interlocutors do in ‘real’ performance. We do not struggle to fix what has been said once and will never be said and perceived again in this way. On the contrary, we accept variability and adapt to it by focusing attention on some of the variables which seem relevant but at the same time we know that they might be irrelevant and have to be substituted by other variables. Empirical elements as such do not represent an object yet; they become ‘data’ only if we can attribute some meaning to them. It is human beings who recognize empirical elements as giving evidence to what they already have in their minds. I will demonstrate the very restricted role of the authentic text in the action game with an authentic example from my own experience (Weigand 2009, p. 297): (4)

(in English translation) H Don’t let yourself get infected! E Are you ill? H Didn’t you see the water? Everyone’s got a hobby. F I’d never do that when we pay so much just for the cleaning. E Ah, now I understand. You’re right. No, I won’t let myself get infected!

Dialogue 



(the original German text) H Lassen Sie sich nicht anstecken! E Sind Sie krank? H Haben Sie nicht das Wasser gesehen? Jeder hat sein Hobby. F Das würde ich nie machen, wo wir soviel bezahlen allein fürs Putzen. E Ah, jetzt verstehe ich. Sie haben recht. Nein, da lasse ich mich nicht anstecken!

I am quite sure that as an observer you will not understand what is going on in this action game. You may try to find some thread running through the text and arrive at an approximate, partial understanding by guessing. But does guessing play a role in language action? Not at all, we do not need to guess because we not only trust the verbal text but quite normally and unconsciously include what we know and perceive. Even if scholars speak of ‘the shared mind’, we are, in principle, unable to look into our interlocutors’ minds. We need to be insiders of the game in order to fully understand what is meant in complex dialogues. As an insider of the game I could tell you what is really meant in Example (4). On the spot however I only wanted to demonstrate that the authentic text, recorded and transcribed, does not provide a representation of the object yet. It represents an integrated part of it which by being isolated is deprived of its constitutive function. Human beings are neither bogged down in empirical chaos nor do they start from alleged methodological exigencies but approach the complex ‘reality’ quite differently. They are not worried about possibly losing an empirical element and do not hastily chase after whatever might turn out to be relevant. On the contrary, they accept the complex and its basic features of uncertainty and variability of expression. They deal with it by adapting to ever-changing action conditions in negotiating meaning and understanding. There is no recording of every empirical detail; instead human beings focus attention on what might emerge as coherent meaningful constellation. Focusing attention means trying to simultaneously grasp as many parameters as possible and letting the rest pass by. We know that not every element is relevant and do not care if some are lost. We can include them later when it turns out to be necessary to proceed from standard constellations to particular ones. Being competent-in-performance means letting elusive elements elude us and focusing on what counts on the spot. We trust that we will establish coherence in our minds. Transcriptions, on the contrary, are to some extent contradictions in themselves: they document what is only of momentary, transitory value and which will lose significance in the next moment. Recording and transcribing simply means documenting what can be heard and seen. From the perspective of the observer what can be heard and what can be seen need not be connected. The ability to

 Edda Weigand

speak is isolated from other abilities of the speaker which possibly interact and determine whether variations of speaking are relevant or not. So the question of relevance should not be begged by proponents of the analysis of spoken language. As insiders of the dialogic game we are not confronted with authentic verbal texts; we speak and think and perceive simultaneously and expect our interlocutors to do the same. Moreover, we do not care about casual variations because we know that they are of little relevance. They occur because perfect performance is impossible. The complexity of performance necessarily includes the overall law that any regularity can be broken. Human beings use their ability of ‘speaking’ on the basis of their competence‑inperformance, i.e. integrated with other abilities. By focusing on competence-inperformance we do not ignore rules and abandon ourselves to the ever-changing individual moment of speaking. The empiricist thesis that we have to start from any detail of the authentic text is nothing other than a postulate c­reated by methodology and not justified by any reasonable object. 8.  Change in theorizing I think it has become obvious that discussing the relationship between object and representation challenges us to rethink what makes up a theory. The object is not simply there in front of us; it is a specific scientific interest which allows us to identify our object-of-study by goal-directed observation and to derive from it an adequate methodological representation. The constituents of a theory can therefore be shown in their internal relationship as follows: Theory Object

Representation/methodology

Scientific interest Figure 8.  Constituents of a theory

Insofar as our scientific interest relates to natural phenomena of performance, an adequate theory will inevitably require the change from reductionism to holism. It is the challenge of New Science to work out how a holistic approach of complexity is to be designed. There is yet another question to be addressed, a question which goes beyond description and gets us back to the question of ethics in theory. The difference is that we are now dealing with the ethics of our own activity as scientists: why are

Dialogue 

we making such an effort to describe and explain what we are and what is around us? To my mind, a theory should aim to improve the conditions of human life. This includes evaluating ways of behaviour as acceptable and relates, to some extent, to what is traditionally dealt with in rhetoric under the heading of ‘successful’ action. In the Mixed Game Model rhetoric starts from human beings’ interests and is therefore not a separate field but integrated into dialogic action. Human beings are, by their very nature, persuasive beings: they want to be accepted in the community. The question is whether we can accept any kind of persuasion. I think scientists should take a position for humane action and behaviour and therefore for a humanized linguistics even if such an attitude goes beyond neutral description.

References Brown, G., and G. Yule. 1983. Discourse analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cissna, K. N., and R. Anderson. 2002. Moments of meeting. Buber, Rogers, and the potential of public dialogue. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Feynman, R. 2001. The pleasure of finding things out. London: Penguin Books. Gell-Mann, M. 1994. The quark and the jaguar. Adventures in the simple and the complex. London: Abacus. Martinet, A. 1975. Functional linguistics. In Studies in functional syntax, ed. A. Martinet, 9–81. München: Fink. Simon, H. A. 1962. The architecture of complexity: Hierarchic systems. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 106, 467–482. Yule, G. 1996. Pragmatics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Weigand, E. 2009. Language as dialogue. Edited by Sebastian Feller. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Weigand, E. 2010. Dialogue: The mixed game. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Wittgenstein, L. 1967/1981. Zettel. 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell.

Towards an inclusive notion of dialog for ethical and moral purposes Alain Létourneau* Many (more or less) systematic recourses to dialog have developed, some with ethical and moral purposes, either in the ends of resolving differences among people, or to take a decision on a difficult issue. Here we look more closely at two such recourses, especially around the authors and dialog practitioners William Isaacs and Georges A. Legault, who have been working on those perspectives since the late 1970’s. While reconstructing their theoretical way of positioning dialogue, we see overlaps between those approaches, among which similar difficulties around negotiation and argumentation. Speaking of an inclusive approach aims at surmounting those difficulties, which calls for a closer look at a series of points that a theory of competence would have to treat for giving a good account of an “ethical dialogue”. Keywords:  dialogue; ethics; morals; communication; negotiation; competence; argumentation; Isaacs; Legault

1.  Introduction The presentation given here is situated at the crossroads of many disciplines and fields: philosophy, applied ethics, argumentation theory, dialog analysis and communication studies. Concerning dialog analysis, I would like to start here a reflection about dialog as a capacity, if we are to understand dialog as ethics, what can be called ethical dialogue. Since the discussion will be about dialog used with specific purposes, it might be useful to situate the starting point on these purposes and on dialog. If moral and ethical purposes are to be distinguished, these notions will have to be clarified. Two different and recent trends that want to apply dialog perspectives to practical issues will be examined on specific questions. By treating some recurring difficulties of these notions of Dialog, we will see why it might be interesting to require an

*  Professor at the Departement of Philosophy and Applied Ethics, Université de Sherbrooke.

 Alain Létourneau

inclusive notion. Some theoretical remarks will then follow on questions around competence and the ethical characteristics of dialogue. As we probably know, to understand a discourse it might help to be able to ­situate the speaker. This is why I will specify that I have been since fifteen years now a professor teaching philosophy, and for a part also applied ethics, mostly to ­professionals in the province of Quebec, more precisely in Longueuil near ­Montreal. This means teaching in French to lawyers, administrators, nurses and doctors, public servants, teachers, in applied ethics but mostly about communication, dialogue and argumentation. Of course this practice of teaching and research comes in discussion, sometimes opposition and sometimes continuity with persons from the same school broadly understood. Let us start by saying that we do not understand, in that school, applied ethics as the application of principles to specific situations. There is no Moral theory that would be just waiting to be applied to this and that problem, even though we can reflect on what a utilitarian or deontology perspective might induce in confronting problems.1 To do applied ethics in the Sherbrooke school, as was initiated by authors like Legault and Malherbe, is to consider a question as it emerges in social practices. It is then to launch a dialogue with the people involved, putting them at work in a process of clarifying the issue at hand. Deliberative procedures are proposed in the form of a series of steps by which people are able to clarify the elements that play a part, put them in a certain order and take a decision. Most of the times, dialog is presented as an interaction between many people that is different from negotiation or argumentation. But it can also be useful to consider other practical applications of dialogue, for instance what was developed in the tradition of Bohm and more recently Isaacs, because there are overlapping features and questions shared with this other recent tradition we just mentioned. The Bohm-Isaacs tradition of practice is associated with organizational problems in general and not only with ethical discussions, and it has been used by many. Those two schools will be discussed further along the way. Teaching in ethics then is not seen as the teaching and learning of norms and good behaviours, it is seen more as the establishment of a dialog on normative and axiological problems. In this Sherbrooke school as in some other settings in Quebec, we tend to see dialog as a co-elaboration of meaning on practical issues that requires participation of the involved publics. There is not much emphasis on laws and regulations. What is discovered in practice is how much actors in

1.  It might also be useful to mention, as a starting point, that since about ten years I have been occupying myself with the discussion of environmental governance issues, an interest that shows itself later on in this paper.



Towards an inclusive notion of dialog for ethical and moral purposes 

­ rganizational settings and in other contexts (for instance, inter-organizational or o social) are split between values and priorities about problems, even though this does not come to the conscious mind as easily as we might think. We also learn that it is good and efficient to take back the ethical questions in dialog by starting with motivational and value issues, with a good hard look to reasonable consequences of feasible actions. The purpose of this paper then is to look, inside dialog analysis and from a practical philosophy perspective, to these two discursive strategies that have points in common. Notably, they turn around dialog seen as having practical consequences on difficult issues, and refer to it as a means to overcome difficulties. In the case of Legault, it is ethical questions formulated as dilemmas; in the case of Isaacs, it is organizational constraints and problems by educational strategies of expanding the capacity to enter into dialog. For Legault, dialogue is a c­ o-elaboration of meaning that means building together the constituents of the ethical problems, and for Isaacs dialogue is defined as the “art of thinking together”, a passing through the immediacy of words. We will see more details later. 2.  Standpoints of this paper Since the rediscovery of Bakthine’s work in the late 1970’s, some have ventured to show in which way communication is always dialogical, in the sense that it has to be distinguished from the semantic content, if we are to understand communication as an interactive process between people, texts and discourses. The development of a better consciousness of the pragmatic dimension of language has helped quite a lot in that sense. It will not be necessary to show here how meaning produced by a particular speaker is in close relationship to meaning produced by other speakers; intertextuality and dialogicity of communication acts or interventions have been well demonstrated, to the point of providing an object domain of research and expertise for dialog analysis and dialogical studies broadly construed. These developments of research on dialog can also be seen as complemented by tremendous work first in the philosophical school of American pragmatism, from Peirce, James, Dewey and Mead, and then at the micro-sociological level with the Chicago School, and onwards through Goffmann, Garfinkel, Sacks and others, in a series of scientific enterprises showing how interactions produce meaning. The differences to be seen between those different trends and approaches can here stay in the background while we try to situate more precisely the resources and limits of these two specific appeals to dialog that have been formulated for the most part in the 1990s and onwards. In those theories, the practical and the normative go hand in hand in the sense that recourse to dialog is not first and

 Alain Létourneau

foremost done in the scientific purpose of describing or understanding social phenomena, but with the aim to have some practical import and some valuable consequences, in the way of the betterment of a situation. These approaches tend to blend together reflexivity in Donald Schön’s sense, pragmatism and in some cases phenomenology with the actual purpose of enabling people to intervene at the practical level in social and organizational settings (Schön, 1984). In dialog practices and theories, we can see a tendency to dialectically oppose dialogue to other elements: communication (as in Bohm), argumentation (Bohm, Isaacs and Legault), strategic action (Buber, Habermas and Legault), negotiation (Legault, Isaacs), relation to instruments (Buber and Habermas). In the same vein, people would oppose ethics and morals, ethics and rules, etc. Those ­elements are clearly in overlap and need to be thought together. For reasons of space, I will not enter here in the detail of the discussion around Buber and Habermas (see L ­ étourneau 2002 for a treatment of this). Another difficult question that will s­ urface along the way is the question of competence, that has to be seen as s­ omething very complex and plural in nature when we discuss dialog. 3.  Distinction and unity between the ethical and the moral This has to do with the following question: should we have two distinct categories, the moral and the ethical, or just one term encompassing the two sides designated by these words? We know that etymology is of no utility in this debate, and that the uses of the words are diverse. In some cases, they are equivalents and can be employed alternatively, while in others a specificity of each is developed. This last option can be seen for instance in philosopher’s work like Ricoeur (2004), ­Habermas (1981) and Rawls (2005, 1972). In the present context, to speak of moral questions would be to discuss rules of justice and common behaviour. But an ethical life or an ethical reflection does not end with a specific behaviour; it can also mean a general orientation, a conception of the good life. We can associate morality with rules and behaviour on one side, and ethics with reflexivity, choice and critique on the other side, even though there is forcibly a connexion between the two. The connexion would be thought of as hermeneutical, founded both on critique and on belonging to, to take back Gadamer’s expressions (between Kritik and Zugehörigkeit; Gadamer 1975, 1960). Those dimensions can be seen united under what we could call the ethico-moral continuum, as a domain of investigation and as a practical and applied domain. Values are produced in a process that has to do with situations, the experience of dissatisfaction in front of problems, and desires towards some ends, ­according to Dewey which names this process valuation (Dewey 1939). When they are



Towards an inclusive notion of dialog for ethical and moral purposes 

c­ ritically evaluated and situated along the relevant dimensions of the situation, we discuss at the ethical level properly speaking, Dewey called that step appraisal. But there is a third step: even if they emerge in practices and discourses, values have to be interpreted in terms of specific actions in front of choices. Thus the present mention of “ethical and moral purposes” implies that dialog can be useful at the practical and empirical level of decision making processes involving in the end this or that specific behaviour. Some experiences attest to that, but a more precise documentation of the phenomena is still lacking, even though some written reports are available in the form of essays, graduate productions. As for the ethical, it refers to the complex process involving a plural setting of issues that have to come together in dialog precisely. By thinking as dialog the ethical level of an exchange of ideas that permits the development of a discursive reason happening in communication, we give a space into which decision making processes taking into consideration issues, values, consequences of possible choices can actually happen at the collective level. Experience of practitioners seem to show that dialog can be useful in r­ esolving specific issues of decision, and also as a general strategy to generate, for a ­gathering of people, the consciousness of some shared values. The very fact that processes initiated with groups are furthered until the end and that participants afterwards claim satisfaction is a first indicator of value, but of course verification would have to go further. E ­ vidence also suggests that dialog can help produce a common problem-setting of the ­situation or a reframing among participants and actors, develop a common ground by an ordering of values that can serve in the decision-making process. Some case studies already help establish this, but some more could be done in the future. What is the case for University processes is also the case for a private c­ onsultant firm (the Isaacs school), which does not publish results as such. It is impossible in the present context to enter more into those issues; I will have enough here of discussing relevancy and consistency of some starting points of these methods and to understand their meaning in the general strategy pursued by the authors. But it can also be assumed on the basis of anybody’s experience that dialog does help quite a lot in resolving ethical and moral issues, even though it is not a panacea and even though some issues are very hard if not impossible to resolve.2

2.  Let us refer briefly here to the question of the intractable conflicts or issues, either in war contexts or around environmental problems. See for instance Lewicki, Gray and Elliot (2002). In conflict resolution, dialogue does come up even in cosmopolitan problems, see Ramsbotham, Woodhoose and Miall (2011).

 Alain Létourneau

4.  C  ommon points and differences between two specific traditions of dialog’s application Methodologically, I refer to the main books and papers available by the authors, even though I had a good proximity to many of Legault’s teachings and have ventured some interventions myself, let us say that had to do with his approach, even though it was with specific accents and nuances. I have been following interventions in and around groups like CIRÉA, the Chair of applied ethics, then ERGÉA, sometimes more closely, sometimes from a distance, and all these have been close to Legault’s teaching one way or the other.3 I cannot say the same for Isaacs; some direct access to people involved could be useful, but books and online documents are available and I have used them in classes. These two different traditions have tried to find in dialog a practical recourse to move forward in communication, in the process of overcoming difficulties that could be encountered in terms of what could be called a dogmatic thinking and outlook, especially but not only on the treatment of ethical dilemmas or issues. There can also be situations of ambiguity or vagueness in moral issues that should be clarified. Georges-A. Legault is a retired applied ethics professor known in Canada and other parts of the French-speaking world. Developed since the 1970s, this ­philosopher’s approach started with a pragmatic analysis of law considered as a social phenomenon. It is centered on dialog as co-elaboration of meaning, which is to be used especially for treating ethical dilemmas. His overall sources to develop this original application of dialogue inside an applied ethics p ­ erspective certainly include classical pragmatism, Dewey in particular, Ch. Perelman, H ­ abermas and Francis Jacques. He still puts forward in some interventions, and has been ­applying in groups of all kinds and supervising people apply a practice of d ­ ialogue that starts by establishing what is the situation at hand. Already in Legault (1994), but later on also in his 1999 book called Professionnalisme et déliberation éthique, he distinguishes a series of steps that include for the participants to express their spontaneous u ­ nderstanding of the dilemma with the emotions they stir, then on to reflect on the rules that apply, the values involved, the action possibilities and their foreseeable consequences for whom. In case of a disagreement, the process aims to surmount given opinions or standpoints in contrast inside the treatment of an ethical dilemma. As the Belgian law and political philosophy professor Marc Maesschalck mentioned, in Legault’s approach moral orientation of the

3.  For more detail, I will refer readers to the website of the Chaire d’éthique appliquée of Université de Sherbrooke, at the following website: http://pages.usherbrooke.ca/cea/



Towards an inclusive notion of dialog for ethical and moral purposes 

actors comes inductively by the process of dialogic interaction (Maesschalck, 2010). As for William Isaacs, he relies on dialog as a way to practically treat and surmount organizational difficulties. Isaacs is the center actor of a consortium on dialogue since many years.4 He will talk more of dialogic leadership as the frame into which his action is to be understood, the subtitle of his 1999 book gives the focus: “A pioneering approach to communication in business and in life”. The workshops and formations of his private firm of consultants is now offered both in the United States and in the UK, and is developing, as can be seen by just visiting the website once in a while. As we might know, his conception was developed in close relationship to that of David Bohm, a popular writer who was also a physicist. Let us remember that Bohm died in 1992; he started his reflections on dialog not later than in 1970 and 1971, and Isaacs obviously was very soon involved in discussions with him. What Isaacs offers looks more like systematic exercises to augment attention, consciousness and a communication that is dialogic. Even if these authors are of unequal importance by means and breadth, they are examples of a new field of practice based on dialogue that seems to be rapidly expanding. 5.  Argumentation and negotiation According to Isaacs, the practitioners of dialog would have to proceed to a kind of bracketing of first appearance and of spontaneous theories, the process of dialog being thought of as a “passing through” language. Such a standpoint is not shared by Legault, that stays firmly attached to a pragmatist and philosophy of language perspective, and is not close to phenomenology. The question of argumentation is treated by Isaacs under the term advocacy in particular. There are two distinct moments in his presentation: in the first, he will call for refraining advocacy perspectives (into which people do not listen to the other’s arguments, “they reload”). We are then called to “let go” of argumentation, practice dialogue as a “passing through” the words to get somehow behind that, into the common thought. But at a further level of discussion, he will assert both the necessity for everyone to “voice” their thought and the need to equilibrate advocacy and inquiry (Isaacs 1999, p. 190). In Legault, argumentation is the focus only for the justification phase, when at the very last step (the 13th) he calls for a complete justification of the decision taken. At first and as a starting

4.  http://www.dialogos.com/programs/apcb.html

 Alain Létourneau

point, dialog will be seen and presented as something other than argumentation. Dialog is declared neither strategic and persuasive, nor is it confrontational and oppositional; it is a “sharing of meaning” point of view (Legault 1999, p. 162).5 Argumentation does not seem to play a part in the first nine phases of the process, for instance it does not play a role in the initial formulation of the dilemma or in the identification of the main value conflict present in the decision. It does intervene when the partners have to express the main argument to resolve the conflict. When he presents his analytical model, he will talk of “logical operations” that are required, for instance becoming conscious of the situation, clarifying the values acting in the discussion (“valeurs agissantes”). As for negotiation, both Legault and Isaacs situate their focus outside of that specific kind of mediation. As we know, negotiation involves resources to be divided and distributed somehow, in a process that in some contexts is formally regulated. Isaacs will formulate the difference in the following words: “The aim of negotiation is to reach agreement among parties who differ. The intention of dialogue is to reach a new understanding and, in doing so, to form a totally new basis from which to think and act. In dialogue, one not only solves problems, one dissolves them” (Isaacs 1999, p. 19). We will not find such a rhetoric of dissolution in Legault, but he will emphasize the difference between dialog in ethical discussions and negotiation. The aim of the ethical deliberation is not to share or divide some set of goods and resources between parties, it is to identify the value conflicts, it could be public security versus personal freedom, it can also concern interpretation of rules. He gives an example taken from the movie the Star Chamber: is the policeman justified to research and find a revolver inside a garbage bin on the street in front of a suspect’s house, without a warrant? Where is the frontier between the public and the private? (Legault, 1999, p. 79). These reservations have to be understood in a dialectical perspective, they can be seen as a dissociation of concepts in Perelman’s sense. Deliberation about ethical issues can happen in prioritization contexts among people directly affected by the decision or not. Let us imagine an ethical committee that has to decide whether a medical intervention will take place or should not. The hospital resources might be requested in the options in presence, but surely it would be abusive to reduce: the ethical deliberation of all committees to a simple negotiation on resources: the difference made can be very marginal and not count much in the whole of the situation compared to values like: human life, dignity, security. Of course this does

5.  Here is a quote from Legault 1999, p. 162: “[…] ces exemples permettent de relever trois points de vue différents dans l’activité communicationnelle: (i) le point de vue stratégique (persuasion), (ii) le point de vue du choc des idées (débat et discussion et (iii) le point de vue du partage de sens (dialogue).”



Towards an inclusive notion of dialog for ethical and moral purposes 

not mean that the parts in presence have no interest whatsoever in the situation, but at least we would try normally to avoid any direct conflict of interest in settling an ethical dilemma or question. And it would be abusive to reduce: the agent to an overly egoistical “rational agent”. In some other context, an organization can have to decide of a policy that might imply to receive better financial resources, while being potentially detrimental on the good reputation of the organization, even though this option would be perfectly legal: all goods considered being not at the same level, the adequate valuation of the issues in question is up for grabs and not determined in advance. The financial resources can be legitimate and still be seen as detrimental, if they were to hinder appearance of public ethos. In such a case, the values in presence, new resources to help and image, have to be distinguished and carefully evaluated by the people who have to decide. Proponents of values might get stuck in defending specific values, be symbolically affected by outcomes (issues of face). But these are process of dialog issues, that can be dealt with by animation. In some ethical dilemmas, proponents of different values in opposition can be holding interest standpoints and “represent” these interests by pleading for one standpoint and against the opposite position. But in other dilemmas, people could plead for values that do not affect them in particular and directly, but would affect them only potentially, in the long run and marginally as participants in an organization. Even though the process of dialog is not a negotiation as such, it will involve one way or the other the interests of the parties. The problem is that the interpretation of those interests is not something that is fixed and determined; they have to be reflected, constructed in discourse which means interpreted somehow. An ethical dialog then has to be able to integrate valuing processes based on specific interests from participants, and not to declare itself opposed to any of its constituent parts or conditions of exercise. Even the first expression of a person’s position on an issue in Legault’s model has to be the expression of someone, and will suppose some rhetorical composition. Investigation of components will be “logical” only if they are understandable in an argumentative discourse. The same type of reasoning can be made in front of Isaacs’ emphasis on removing ideas and arguments to arrive, by dialog and intuition, to an implicate order into which we will take the whole of the picture into view, and be able “at last” to think together. Any intuition has to come back with some wording and expression to be understood. No actor can avoid to justify him or herself in front of a potential partner that might lack this intuition on things. In his case, as we have seen argumentation has to be taken back into the perspective. 6.  Strategy to avoid dogmatism and relativism Sometimes people will take a firm position based on principles, claiming moral truths considered as factual truths. Even if values have relations to matters of fact,

 Alain Létourneau

as can be seen with the case of health, they still have to be valued by people in discursive acts, procedures that take place in a society, with actors and institutions. Values are socially constructed in a complex and variable manner. All the referents of valuation acts are not clear cut, and their relative place in comparison to other values is certainly not. All claims to value do not rest on undisputed facts, while some elements that might require valuing are ignored or not sufficiently taken into account. And if we suppose that we have agreed on the value, what is the better way to put the value in action or to actualize it? A dogmatic positioning about values, that does not reflect on those questions, will imply the dismissal of differing standpoints, sometimes based on different assessments of consequences. Strong stances by actors on the basis of some principle or firm attachment to a specific and defined value can intervene as a blocking mechanism if a collective decision making process is to be had in which a plurality of values will have to be put together. But p ­ henomena of blockage can also obtain by reference to other areas of disagreement: i­ nterpretation of the rules, their relative force, their applicability to the situation; representations (by means of a narrative or theoretical account) of the situation, place recognized or not to the actors or groups of actors involved or affected, representation (or absence thereof) in a political and organizational sense. In Legault’s approach, dialog is seen essentially as an ethical competence, this being opposed to other proposals like the traditional moral education ­according to which we learn to be moral by indoctrination or some injection of rules and principia. He also foregoes completely the “truthtelling” function, as when ­ ­people talk of “moral truths”; for him such a requirement would presuppose the ­philosopher as a “knower” of the truth, whereas on ethical values for him nobody has “the truth”; the best the “ethician-philosopher” can offer is the credibility of his dedication to ethics and the value of dialog as a mediating process. (Legault 1990). In Isaacs and already in Bohm, dogmatic thinking is criticized, but it is not specifically asserted about moral issues. It concerns ways of thinking, opinions that are taken for granted, points considered as obvious. They are the things that require to be put into perspective and suspended before some common thought can develop. This certainly amounts to a radical relativization of ideas taken as absolutes, showing again how relativism and dogmatism are two faces of the same coin (Létourneau, 2001). Some actors can dismiss altogether ethical or moral problems to put other considerations in the forefront; they can then highlight the relativity, cultural character of moral standpoints. These kinds of positioning might come with a non prioritization of ethical questions, leaving space for other preoccupations like opportunity, immediate or perceivable interest. Relativistic accounts will then counteract valid ethical questions. According to dialog proponents, we seem to be condemned to



Towards an inclusive notion of dialog for ethical and moral purposes 

circulate between those extreme standpoints, unless we try to ­construct some relevant way to get over this chasm by means precisely of ­dialog. There might be a rhetorical topos in this framing of the situation as either ­dogmatism or relativism, but it is hard to ignore those kinds of standpoints today in practice. At the same time, entrance in the process is crucial. In Legault what is required is for people to accept that the discussion will be ethical. If they accept that move, then dialogism can function as a process into which co-elaborative and collaborative meaning production and ordering can obtain. They could also prefer to treat the question in pure economical terms, or on other terms, and then proceed to try a co-elaboration with others at that level. Of course if people do not share the same starting point, we can arrive at non agreement. 7.  More details on the steps to treat a question according to Legault Legault’s approach of applied ethics is centered on a decision making process, a series of steps that are aimed to be conducted by dialogue all along the treatment. With dialog seen as a means to an end, there is some decision to take in common which will require a common understanding of the situation which also has to be constructed. Dialog will then act as a principle of “distanciation” for every partner in the communication exchange, into which everyone can position him/herself. In front of a moral difficulty, participants begin by stating their initial ­emotional reaction and standpoint towards the issue. They will give a narrative account of the situation, identify the rules that apply in that setting. They will name the v­ alues involved, which are seen as the motivational and a most ­important f­actor in the situation. They will identify the action problem, the ­different options, to be ­formulated dialogically in the end as a dilemma in terms of “to do or not to do A”, a formal expression that permits to focus the discussion by reducing ­alternatives. They will consider collectively the groups or persons that will be affected, and the consequences that can be reasonably expected in ­considering those p ­ ractical options and for whom. This will then lead to a decision in an o ­ rdering or ­hierarchization of values and consequences in situation, which will be followed by an argumentative justification of the whole of the standpoint taken. All those steps can and are followed in a perspective that is required to be d ­ ialogical, allowing different proponents to expose their ideas on each of the questions that have to be treated. This will be the basis to produce a synthetic formulation that will stand for the reference group and into which that group will recognize itself. At the formal level, there does not seem to be a recognition that participants are situated somewhere in the organizational life, have interests and values to

 Alain Létourneau

defend. In the discourse, dialogue is called to function as a device of meaning co‑construction. In practice, participants can plead values and interests of their unit, in a set of values and perspectives that have to be taken into consideration. The approach does not formally make room for a clear taking into account of ­strategic action from the involved players; dialogue is supposed to imply that ­players let go of their proper strategies to proceed to a meaning co-elaboration that is open to the resolution process. Idealization of the players seems required in that context, and in practice this goes in the direction of what Legault calls a­ uto-regulation, which requires actors to formulate and express requests in a responsible way. The decision will be taken by the group considered as a collective, as if a dialectic of detachment from specific interests and positions was facilitating the creation of a common and collective actor. 8.  Dialog as participation: About the Bohm-Isaacs school First, let us recall that in Isaacs’ book, there is no decision-making process e­ nvisioned, and we do not have a series of steps that leads towards that point. What we have is an organized series of questions to be asked that lead to a ­restructuring of a communication practice considered in the end as unified with thought. ­Expressing that dialogue is “a conversation with a centre, not sides”, he calls for a shift from argumentative debate to collective thinking. He focuses on four phases that are deemed useful and essential: listening, respecting, suspending and voicing as ways to build “capacity for new behaviour” (Isaacs 1999, p. 83 ff). He works to establish an ecology of thought, is opened to “widening the circle” to o ­ rganizational and system dialog, and to take back dialogue into democracy, in a “holistic” approach. Quite in a similar way, when he aims to render people ­conscious of c­ ultural ideas, he discusses the “architecture of the invisible” (Isaacs 1999, p. 30). The difficulty faced in ­organizational and social settings is seen as individual and as collective, either organizational or social, but in both cases it is cultural. The aim is to learn anew to talk and think together, by avoiding what he calls argumentative stagnation, or the false harmony of cherished beliefs (Isaacs 1999, p. 5). Isaacs’ theory refers to a holistic, “ontological-participationist” perspective, to something called an implicate order (see Bohm 1996). Because of the b ­ racketing of first appearances, we can talk of a “phenomenological” perspective here, even though he does not himself make that link. In that perspective, a strategy of ­rhetorical opposition between ground and surface, opinions of participants and collective thought, permits both to take a distance from asserted positions and to encourage a constructionist collective dialog process towards building some ­common ground, that is being done in dialog groups. In Isaacs’ perspective,



Towards an inclusive notion of dialog for ethical and moral purposes 

people are supposed to be able to distanciate themselves from their spontaneous frames and be able to reframe together the problems, provided they wish to ­practice d ­ ialog as an “art of thinking together”, in the same movement as the one by which they abandon argumentation (conceived as a rational struggle between participants, into which everyone wants to be the winner, to establish his reasons as the best). This allows leaders of dialog sessions in organizational contexts, to posit a specific domain of preoccupations seen as different from the ordinary domain of dealing considered as aiming to find win-win situations. These current distinctions are not descriptions of the process of fi ­ nding ­solutions in concrete social interactions as they occur, in which things are a little more complicated than a clear cut distinction between ethical dialog (or thought) and negotiation. They can be described at a rhetorical and pragmatic level, as “calls to” finding solutions, forging solutions, etc. As for the distinction between common thought and fixed opinions, it seems to forget the basic thread that reunites ­language and thought. In applied ethics, people are preoccupied by moral and ethical issues, involving specific elements like values, norms and rules, duties, but also (and for some, first of all) reasonably considered likely or highly ­probable consequences of actions on persons, communities, organizations – for my part I would also mention ecosystems and non-human living beings as worth ­considering. In any case, practical solutions have to take into account a plurality of ­sense-making, dialogic processes and not only the ethical one. The question is to be able to put together these different standpoints or positions towards an end, a placing-together that has also to be constructed by participants with the means of language and communication. 9.  Competence and dialog Competence and performance, as they are distinguished by Edda Weigand, are certainly present in dialog practices, when we interrogate the requests and actual use of dialog. We could start with a definition of competence as the ability to do something. We can certainly most of the times describe what this competence is in terms of what we do if competent in something, the single intended act will then be seen as a series of actions in conditions. Then a series of questions arise: can the competence be used or not according to choice, is it in effect in a relatively automatic manner, are there degrees of competence, how to define specific competences, is there a plurality of unified rules to express and structure a competence, what is the place of general rules and specific rules, of adaptability and flexibility of the competence in a variety of situations, how is it learned. Of course context in its great variability is of the first importance, being multidimensional and evolving

 Alain Létourneau

one way or the other. On that question, inquiry is always required and answers can be only as specific as the competences. Rhetorical and argumentation studies have showed how often communication in practice ends up in what is called in French “un dialogue de sourds” (Angenot 2008), a Dialogue of the Deaf; people talking and discussing without even understanding each other, far from being able to rely on common grounds to get eventually to a common vision of ends or of what is to be done in a ­situation. To go beyond the traditional opposition between monologic and dialogic forms of ­communication while maintaining that all communication is dialogical, E.  Weigand situates the dialogic character at the constitutive level of ­communicative function, while preserving the possibility of monologic versus dialogic at the level of realisation of patterns of action (Weigand 2009, p. 22). All dialogs are not successful in bridging differences, for instance in mediation processes; all dialogs are not able to permit effective discussion and deliberations respectively in theoretical discussions and in decision-making contexts. But dialogs are effectively able to construct some valid consensus in groups of actors; and to identify opposing values sustained in discourse by different actors. Sometimes the best one can do is come to an accord on what we disagree on (Malherbe 1999). In some cases dialogs are also able to find a way to help groups come to prioritize the options in presence while being able to take into account the secondary values. Then a better knowledge of what would be competent ethical dialogue might be helpful. On the task of identifying and treating ethical issues, there still is an enormous need of building competence at the agent’s level. And the effect of that competence building may be plural. The case of the rules of a rational discussion of F.  Van Eemeren, that are a list of requirements designed to help to conduct a rational discussion, might be useful to consider here, even if they are quite specific. Interestingly, in his theory the definition of the rules to participate in a rational discussion permit at the same time to describe fallacies as avoiding, as cheating or as ignoring specific rules, etc. For example, his first rule states “Parties must not prevent each other from putting forward standpoints or casting doubt on standpoints” (Van Eemeren, Grootendorst & Snoeck Henkemans 2002, p. 110). Even though the rule tells us what to do if we want to satisfactorily resolve a difference of opinion, fallacies are possible against the rule and do happen all the time, as the authors mention (notably variants of the ad baculum, the ad miserecordiam, etc.). This can happen by ignorance of the rules, by accident or by intent. It might not always be described simply as a lack of competence. In a similar way, by presenting his four maxims and his Cooperative Principle, Grice permits to reflect on the actual language acts as they normally function, a normative component being present. For the practice of things include transgressions of the maxims,



Towards an inclusive notion of dialog for ethical and moral purposes 

with the cooperative principle situated at such a level that it permits then to develop implicatures, as ways of explaining the situation. For instance, the ­Quality maxim expresses that your communication in a certain context should be relevant for the participants to that communication. Some participant might choose to be ­irrelevant… for instance with the aim of alleviating the discussion, and it can also be interpreted otherwise! If it seems that the maxims are not respected, we will produce implicatures to safeguard the cooperative principle (Mooney 2004; Cooren & Sanders 2002), but it is on the basis also of the actuality of that principle that we infer them. In any case, here again the formulation of the maxim does not end the reflection on competence and its breadth. There is a plurality of ways by which we can be efficient and competent in dialog or communication. This or that exchange can be deemed competent by some definition of competence. The question of sufficiency and adequacy towards an action has to look and interrogate: to what specific task is it deemed adequate or not, competence to do what exactly. The fact that communication is “always” dialogical in a bakhtinian sense does not preclude the requisite of a better dialogical practice, thought especially in terms of the relationship to the context, to the persons, etc. It could be expressed as a “response – ability” and as a “question – ability”, meaning by those terms ability to question, to respond, and to do both at the required moments. There is probably also an “appeal – ability” that is complementary, that would go with a “listen – ability”, as in the aptitude to be listened to and to be appealed to. Competence and Ethics have to be articulated together. People on the field that actually provide what we call “interventions in ethics”, while reporting back on their action, will stress the difficulty encountered by partners in naming ethical problems as such. It is not so obvious to name, identify and be ready to discuss values at play in a given situation.6 There obviously are levels of competence, even though some basic competence of dialogue is required and present in any human being, provided this person just exchanges meaningful signs and-or speaks. A variety of dialog competences is possible on the basis of some choices that probably have to do with values in the sense of valuations on the part of the persons. Said otherwise, if we can posit and give meaning to ethical dialog as a dialog that aims at some betterment of human life on the basis of some intrinsic value of humanity, in communication and our common life-world, there is also a competence in dialog to be manipulative and abusive towards specific ends, even if this might not be desired. Again, Van Eemeren’s rules of a rational discussion are a good illustration.

6.  A remark of Professor Kris Krippendorf (during the first draft presentation of this paper) reminded me of the importance of that fact, worth mentioning here.

 Alain Létourneau

They can be followed and seen as expressions of a competence in rational discussion, but they also show in a negative way how a competent speaker can transgress those rules. If dialog is considered as communication, let us represent it more basically as a sequence of actions with turns taken in the communication act; some implications of the discourse might be understood or not. Dialog can be produced with recognition of the value of the contribution of the other partner, or partially so, or really not. Dialog can be inquisitive and purposeful from a participant’s side, it could be so just in the right way, or to the point of being too much so, as it can also be sleepy and doll and disinterested. Dialog can refer or not adequately to values, norms, emotions, conditions, consequences of actions for participants and for others. Dialog can listen, express, respond, discuss, imagine, along various criteria, it can also correspond to rhetorical criteria: be entertaining, amusing, touching, etc. Those performances can be expressions of specific sets of competences, and of understandings of those, varying of course according to contexts; the social worker exercising his/her profession does not practice dialogue as would a ­colleague at coffee break, at least most of the times. Dialog can show interest or disinterest for the people and for the issues at hand, and again the disinterest could be expressed more or less. Dialog can help build a common sense of purpose and of capacity between people as it can be diminishing and even demeaning to people and to groups. It can strengthen a sense of opposition and conflict in reasserting what precisely is rejected by the other part. It can either be a reassessment of ancient framings or a reframing process that does function sometimes, to help people get out of limiting ways of seeing problems. The notion of capability, introduced by people like Sen and Nussbaum, introduces important human goods that might be validly taken into account (Nussbaum 2011). Many empirical and observational studies are still required. At one point, what would be needed is to build reflectively a model of a competent communication that could be called dialogic in a strong sense, and that would correspond to certain criteria useful in face of value conflicts and ethical dilemmas. The elements mentioned before might be a first step in that direction. Those questions could be be reconnected to resource sharing problems, for instance environmental issues or the use of public resources, and that would be conducive to a more efficient practical research and obtainment\conservation\restoration of public goods. That model would have to maintain the specificity of the ethical discussion while also taking into account reconstruction of interests as discursively deployed either by the actors in an explicit fashion, or as they are implicitly present in a discussion. One thing that should be clarified further is the connexion between inquiry as a research endeavour that is open to new ideas, data and f­alsification of previously held ideas, and the rhetorical-argumentative dimension of any communication.



Towards an inclusive notion of dialog for ethical and moral purposes 

10.  Concluding remarks: These processes considered as representation An inclusive notion of dialog developed at the ethical level certainly aims to render people able to think together, which requires language and can pursue some decision making ends that would take into account actual values, rules, actors involved or affected and all consequences. It would have to encourage and take into account not only people’s willingness to open up and participate in dialog to surmount ethical difficulties, but also their use of argumentation schemes and processes, their strategic intentions, the positioning issues of the actors in the organizational or social domains that is or are concerned. Such concerns are not really taken into account in Legault or in Isaacs. We did not fully develop these points that would be useful in that respect: they presuppose a practice of recognition (Honneth 1996) that implies allowing and recognizing the importance of face work (Goffman 1963), since these processes do play a part one way or the other in exchanges. Talking here about strategy implies to overcome a conception according to which any and all strategy is necessarily abusive, as can be perceived in a weberian-habermasian account (Létourneau 2002). This would be itself abusive because it would lack to recognize the necessity of determining goals, of planning and of establishing priorities and timetables, plus the fact that some elements have to be selected in communication and in the sequence of actions. Without reducing dialog in ethical settings to negotiation, we should not presuppose that there is no negotiation side to the issues, even if it is not the dominant feature. People that play a part in the deliberation conducive to decision are not neutral and without interests, but this does not imply automatically a disqualification. Transparence and clearness about these things is obviously preferable to occultness and secrecy. Such an inclusive notion would probably also have to take into account ­rhetorical and aesthetic dimensions, if it wants to reflect on what is actually being done in terms of dialogs. Effectiveness on those dimensions cannot be understood as always sophistic, human beings are also emotional beings that have to express themselves and be rejoined, provided they are not instrumentalized and stay real partners of rational discussion and of a dialogic construction of meaning. If we aim at an ethical dialog considered as discussion, all this has to be considered in the context of a specific situation that requires decision making or positioning according to a prioritization of values. What seems to be a key aspect in that perspective is to articulate the profound unity of inquiry with argumentation, provided it is understood as a research do be continued. Let us briefly consider also two elements, among many, on how we represent (= give voice to) standpoints and persons inside the applied perspectives that were briefly considered here. One decisive point is how we distinguish relevant themes

 Alain Létourneau

to be put together in dialog, and how they are somehow made to be seen and heard in the dialogue itself. Both people and standpoints need to be represented somehow, probably not in the same way. To give a good “representation” of persons and standpoints certainly cannot start with asking people to renounce what they are thinking and to let completely on the side their interests to enter into a meaning co-elaboration that would then be devoid of specific involvement. Of course, it is possible that in the dialog process, some concessions will have to be made, some standpoints will be abandoned by people, but this can not amount to a total absence of recognition and value. By hypothesis, it is precisely in the recognition of the interests involved that the participants can reasonably and responsibly decide to “let go” of some interest if required. The other very important question then becomes who and what gets to be represented and with what recognition. What concrete space of representation do partners have to express and debate questions, and which questions? This is where the question of representation then becomes an organizational question, a social and also a political question in the larger sense. Another important level of discussion concerns our way of representing ­dialog itself, and that is theorization of dialog, which was our main purpose here. Do we represent it as inclusive of strategic considerations, or as a pure encounter detached from negotiation and other similar push and pull? We should stay ­vigilant to avoid idealization of dialog, if we want to make it more effective concretely.

References Angenot, M. 2008. Dialogues de sourds: Traité de rhétorique antilogique. Paris: Mille et une nuits. Bohm, D. 1996. On dialogue. Edited by Lee Nichols. London/New York: Routledge. Buber, M. 1970. I and Thou. New translation by W. Kaufman. New York: Touchstone. Cooren, F., and R. Sanders. 2002. Implicatures: A schematic approach. Journal of Pragmatics 34 (8): 1045–067. Craig, R.T. 1999. Communication theory as a field. Communication Theory 9 (2): 119–61. Reproduced in R.T. Craig and H. Muller (eds.) (2007). Theorizing Communication. Readings across traditions (pp. 63–98). Los Angeles: Sage. Dewey, J. 1981/1925. Experience and nature. The later works, 1925–1953. Edited by Jo-Ann Boydston. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press. Dewey, J. 1939. Theory of valuation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Eemeren, F. H. van, R. Grootendorst, and A. F. Snoeck Henkemans. 2002. Argumentation: ­Analysis, evaluation, presentation. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Gadamer, H.-G. 1975/1960. Truth and method. New York: Seabury Press. Goffman, E. 1963. Behaviour in public places. New York: Free Press. Habermas, J. 1981. Theorie des Kommunikativen Handelns. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.



Towards an inclusive notion of dialog for ethical and moral purposes 

Holquist, M. 1990. Dialogism. New York: Routledge. Honneth, A. 1996. The struggle for recognition. Cambridge: MIT Press. Isaacs, W. 1999. Dialogue and the art of thinking together. New York: Currency. Lalonde, L., and al. 2008. Mélanges Georges-A. Legault. L’éthique appliquée, par delà la philosophie, le droit et l’éducation. Sherbrooke: Les Éditions Revue de Droit. Legault, G.-A. 1999. Professionnalisme et délibération éthique. Québec: Presses de l'Université du Québec. Legault, G.-A. 1994. Questions fondamentales en éthique. Manuel d’introduction aux notions d’éthique. Sherbrooke: Département de sciences humaines, Université de Sherbrooke. Legault, G.-A. 1990. La parole du philosophe-éthicien est-elle crédible? Philosophiques 17 (1): 21–43. Létourneau, A. 2002. La tension qui caractérise une éthique communicationnelle. Sherbooke: GGC. Létourneau, A. 2001. Éthique, religion et perspectives d’interprétation globales. Éthique publique 3 (2): 145–65. Lewicki, R. J., B. Gray, and M. Elliot. 2002. Making sense of intractable environmental conflicts: Concepts and cases. New York: Island Press. Maesschalck, M. 2010. Dialogisme et hétérorégulation. L’intervention éthique au risque de la réflexivité institutionnelle. In Mélanges Georges A. Legault, eds. L. Lalonde, F. Jutras and al., 95–114. Sherbrooke: Les Éditions Revue de Droit. Malherbe, J.-F. 1999. La logique des compromis, dilemmes et paradoxes en éthique clinique. In Compromis, dilemmes et paradoxes en éthique clinique, ed. J.-F. Malherbe, 119–130. Namur/Montréal: Artel-Fides. Mead, G. H. 1934. Mind, self and society from the standpoint of a social behaviorist. Edited by Ch. W. Morris. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Mooney, A. (2004) ‘Co-operation, violations and making sense’,  Journal of Pragmatics  36: 899–920 Nussbaum, M. C. 2011. Creating capabilities. Boston: Harvard University Press. Ramsbotham, O., T. Woodhoose, and H. Miall. 2011. Contemporary conflict resolution. The prevention, management and transformation of deadly conflicts. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Rawls, J. 2005; 1972. A theory of justice. Original edition. Cambridge, MA: Belknap at Harvard University Press. Ricoeur, P. 2004. Parcours de la reconnaissance. Trois études. Paris: Stock. Schön, D. 1984. The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action. New York: Basic Books. Todorov, T. 1981. Mikhaïl Bakhtine, le principe dialogique, followed by Écrits du cercle de Bakthtine. Paris: Seuil. Weigand, E. 2009. Language and dialog. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Weigand, E. 2008. Rhetoric and the mixed game. In Dialog and rhetoric, ed. E. Weigand, 3–22. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Dogmatic dialogue Essential qualities of judicial opinion-writing* Karen Tracy** This chapter examines an exchange that occurred among judges in one state supreme court through the texts that announced the court decision regarding the constitutionality of the state’s marriage law prohibiting same-sex couples from marrying. After describing the problem that appellate judges face when their Court makes a non-unanimous decision, providing background on U.S. society’s dispute about same-sex marriage, and overviewing the Andersen v. King County (2006) case, I describe a set of dogmatic-dialogic strategies that the justices used to represent the voices of their disagreeing colleagues. In the paper’s conclusion I argue why a dialogic-dogmatic style is a desirable, well-fitted response to the dilemma that judicial opinion-writers face.

1.  Introduction In most academic communities subtle textual expression is valued. Texts that make complex assertions and carefully draw the boundaries of claims that themselves are suitable hedged are the pinnacle of good writing. The texts of judicial opinions are not that way. Judicial opinion-writers draw clear, thick lines; their texts are full of categorical statements; absolute certainty about what is right and just is conveyed. To most academics, as well as the ordinary reader, “dogmatic” would come to mind as a descriptor of judicial writing style. To describe a professional group’s writing style as “dogmatic dialogue” might seem an oxymoron. Certainly, if we define dialogue as showing ­openness to others who think differently (Cissna & Anderson 2008), judicial opinionwriting would not be described as dialogic. But, if we conceive of dialog within a Bakhtinian (1984) framework, the writing of the law will be seen as deeply

* My thanks to Frank Beer, Bob Craig, Merrit Dukehart, and Rolf Norgaard for helpful ­comments on an earlier version of this paper. **  University of Colorado at Boulder. Email: [email protected].

 Karen Tracy

­ ialogic. Every text includes a rich assortment of others’ words, some of which d are inhabited as a direct expression of the author’s meaning, others of which are made ironic or treated hostilely. The law is also dialogic in a Socratic sense. The wise author of an opinion leads readers through possible questions and other viewpoints, showing why a particular interpretation – i.e. the one the author favors – is correct and true. In this paper I examine an exchange about “strict scrutiny” and “due ­process” that occurred among judges in one state supreme court in their texts that announced the court decision regarding the constitutionality of their marriage law that prohibited same-sex couples from marrying. I approach study of the six judicial texts that comprise the court decision not as a legal specialist but as a discourse analyst. As such, I am interested in understanding how appellate judges manage a communication dilemma inherent in announcing their court’s votes and reasoning (and for the majority, the Court decision) on an issue that is contentious among themselves, as well as in the larger society. The paper begins by describing the problem that appellate judges face when their Court makes a non-unanimous decision. Then I provide background on U.S. society’s dispute about same-sex marriage, appellate court procedures, and the particular case that is this study’s focus: Washington State Supreme Court’s opinions in Andersen v. King County (2006). The heart of the paper is a description of the dogmatic-dialogic strategies that the Washington justices used to represent the voices of their disagreeing colleagues. In particular I illustrate two categories of strategies: those that span contexts that are found in many other d ­ iscourse ­practices, and those that are particular to appellate court opinions. In the paper’s conclusion I argue why a dialogic-dogmatic style is a desirable, well-fitted response to the dilemma that judicial opinion-writers face. 2.  The judicial problem The Law is centrally about interpretation of texts, and its official interpreters (i.e. judges) frequently arrive at different meanings when they examine the same text. “In law, controversy,” as Amsterdam and Bruner (2000, p. 173) note, “is the order of the day, and meanings are almost always vulnerable to being contested.” In this terrain of fragile, contested meanings, what is striking about judicial language in written opinions is its certainty: Opinions are expressed as if they were the only conclusion possible. The dogmatic quality of legal opinions make sense when we recognize that the law’s focal aim is to decide which disputing party should (or should not) be given particular resources, punishments, or benefits. For judges to display tentativeness in writing – that a judge “kind of ” sees a decision as right but



Dogmatic dialogue 

that it is a close call and it could have gone the other way – is to undermine what U.S. society asks courts to do. A judicial opinion that is expressed with certainty when all or most of the opinion-writer’s colleagues arrive at a similar interpretation is one matter. It is quite a different matter, though, when the legal standing of an opinion would have changed if a single judge had voted a different way. When a Supreme Court ­decision is 5–4 or 4–3, it is especially important that the justice writing the opinion make an argumentatively compelling case for why their side’s vote and reasoning is correct. To be compelling a written judicial opinion must represent alternate interpretations in ways that make visible the obvious incorrectness of the alternatives. This opinion-crafting requirement is as important for judges who write ­dissenting opinions as it is for the opinion-writer who has the job of expressing the Court’s majority opinion. In a closely-divided court the communication problem in opinion writing is this: Judges must craft their opinions to not only legitimize the correctness of their own opinion but to delegitimize the opinions of competing equally expert colleagues. Before considering the strategies that a set of judges used, I provide background about the societal dispute and overview appellate court proceedings and the specific case. 3.  B  ackground on the dispute, Appellate court practice, and the case: The dispute about same-sex marriage At the start of 2011, 10 countries (e.g. Argentina, Canada, South Africa) and a handful of U.S. states permitted same-sex couples to marry (Same-sex marriage 2011). But, most U.S. states neither permit same-sex marriage nor civil unions. To be sure, attitudes in the U.S. have become more positive toward gays and lesbians over the last few decades (Andersen & Fetner 2008). Yet the issue of same-sex marriage remains hotly contested. In addition to the federal Defense of M ­ arriage Act passed in 1996 under President Clinton, forty U.S. states passed their own statutes or constitutional amendments defining marriage as a union of one man and one woman. An obvious reason that same-sex marriage is more contentious in U.S. society than Canada or European countries is the United States’ relative religiousness.1 Related to religiousness is the slower evolution of U.S. laws about non-marital sexual activities. It was not until 2003 that sodomy laws were declared

1.  Religiousness varies state by state in the U.S. but as a whole, the country is quite religious. http://www.gallup.com/poll/114022/State-States-Importance-Religion.aspx

 Karen Tracy

illegal in the U.S.; these same laws were taken off the books in Europe many decades earlier (Richards 2009). Opponents of same-sex marriage frame its legalization as the “cultural equivalent of a heart attack” (Wardle 2008, p. 207) and as “verbicide” (Christensen 2008, p. 275). Legalizing same-sex marriage, from their point of view, is seeking to normalize what is immoral. In contrast, proponents see the ability to marry the person one loves as a fundamental right that all citizens should be able to exercise. From Badgett’s (2009) point of view, same-sex marriage offer no more than a cosmetic makeover to marriage. “Opening up marriage to same-sex couples is just the latest steps toward renewing marriage’s continuing relevance in the twenty-first century” (p. 213). In U.S. public discourse, the debate about same-sex marriage can be described as a war of analogies in which legalizing same-sex marriage is treated as either the same as legalizing polygamy and incest, or as identical to the issue in Loving which forbade interracial marriage (Gertsmann 2008). Many years ago French traveler Tocqueville (2003, p. 315) noted, “There is hardly a political question in the United States that does not sooner or later turn into a judicial one.” The political question of same-sex marriage is just such an issue. It is one that state courts have been asked to decide. State courts are expected to apply the principles of law – precedent, their state constitution and its statutes – to society’s conflict about same-sex marriage and decide, neutrally, objectively, “legally” whether gays and lesbians should be permitted to marry. 3.1  Appellate court practice In the United States, there are 50 different state court systems, with each having a supreme court responsible for interpreting the laws and constitution of its state. Although a handful of the smallest states do not possess intermediate appellate courts, most states do (Langer 2002). In states with intermediate appellate courts, the supreme court will have control of its docket and will be able to decide which cases to take. Decision making in such courts, whether it is at the state or federal level, has two main stages. The first stage involves the justices, 7–9 of them most typically, deciding if they will hear a case. It is at this stage that the vast majority of petitions are rejected. Supreme courts only hear issues of certain types. Washington state’s Supreme Court, for instance, grants review of roughly 135 cases a year from the more than 1000 that apply. A case is taken “only if [it] involves a question which has given rise to conflicting appellate court decisions, an i­ mportant constitutional question, or a question of substantial public importance.”2 2.  See http://www.courts.wa.gov/appellate_trial_courts/SupremeCourt, downloaded January 3, 2011.



Dogmatic dialogue 

Once certiorari (i.e. agreeing to review a case) has been granted, the second phase of decision making begins. The party appealing a lower ruling and the responding party submit written briefs on particular legal issues that the court has specified as open for argument. In addition, other parties such as government bodies, corporations, or professional associations may submit friend of the court, i.e. amicus briefs. Whether amicus briefs are submitted, and how many there are, signal the importance of a case (Collins 2004, 2007). A next activity in assessing the merits of a case is for the court to hear oral argument. Appellant and respondent attorneys present remarks and address questions from the judges for a specified short amount of time, most commonly 60 minutes but sometimes a few hours when a side has multiple parties. Following oral argument the judges have a private conference in which they take a nonbinding initial vote (Dickson 2001). Based on which direction the vote seems to be headed, the chief justice, if he or she is in the majority, assigns who will write the court opinion.3 A draft of the majority opinion is circulated and the justices discuss with each other what the written opinion needs to state if a judge’s vote and opinion is to be retained with the majority. Meanwhile other judges may write and circulate concurring or dissenting opinions. As a court opinion is likely to be more influential if the vote is unanimous, or at least decided by a large majority (7 to 2) (Maltzman, Spriggs & Wahlbeck 2000), it is advantageous for the majority court opinion-writer to give attention in his or her writing to framing the issues in ways that will keep other judges on board. Dissenting opinions are generally less influential. At the same time, these opinions do not have the strong need to please others. As U.S. Supreme Court Justice Scalia commented: To be able to write an opinion solely for oneself, without the need to accommodate, to any degree whatever, the more-or-less differing views of one’s colleagues, to address precisely the points of law that one finds important and no others; to express precisely the degree of quibble or foreboding, or disbelief or indignation that one believes the majority’s disposition should engender – that is an unparallel pleasure. (Wrightsman 1999, p. 123)

Although the ideal of judicial decision-making frames the process as a neutral one in which facts of the case and legal precedent determine the outcome, most ­students of federal (Segal & Spaeth 1996, 2002; Wrightsman 1999) and state supreme court decision-making (Comparato 2003; Langer 2002) recognize that the judges’ political commitments play a significant role. As Bosworth (2001, p. 1) 3.  If the majority opinion does not include the Chief Justice then the most senior justice on the side likely to become the majority assigns the opinion writer.

 Karen Tracy

noted, “the role of the courts in the American system cannot be understood without seeing them as actors in a complex and dynamic struggle over public policy.” But while supreme court decisions involve making judgments about emotional, politically divisive issues, a decision must be framed and justified as a matter of applying precedent. Treating a decision as dictated by precedent, though, becomes suspect as courts divide into equal size factions and invoke “legal precedent” in contrary ways. Such was the case in the Washington Supreme Court’s decision about the constitutionality of its marriage laws. 3.2  Washington Supreme Court and Andersen v. King County In March of 2005 the nine-justice Washington Supreme Court met in a packed courtroom to hear oral argument about the constitutionality of its DOMA statute (Defense of Marriage Act), the kind of statute that a majority of U.S. states had passed following the Hawaii Supreme Court’s 1993 decision that extended the rights of marriage to same-sex couples, a decision overturned a couple of years later by a state constitutional amendment. Heather Andersen, one party of a same-sex couple, along with 18 other couples, was seeking to change the state’s marriage law. Judges in two different Washington trial courts, one with jurisdiction in King County, had ruled that the state statute restricting marriage to heterosexual couples was unconstitutional. Soon after the trial court decisions were announced, the decisions were appealed. Implementing change to the state’s marriage law was put on hold, and the two cases were bundled into a single one for the Washington State Supreme Court’s consideration. In ­addition to the briefs submitted by the gay plaintiffs and the state agencies, there were 21 amicus briefs submitted by groups either supporting or attacking the ­reasonableness of extending marriage to same-sex couples. At the time of oral argument, Massachusetts was the only state in the U.S. that had legalized marriage between same-sex partners. At the time, too, it was uncertain whether the Massachusetts court decree would remain in force. A goodly number of observers expected the state legislature and its citizens to overrule the court and pass a constitutional amendment defining marriage as between one man and one woman. Of note, states vary widely in how easy it is to amend their constitution. Massachusetts is a relatively difficult state as an amendment to the constitution requires the legislature to take action for two consecutive years before submitting it to a popular vote. Washington, in contrast, is a state that permits ballot initiatives from its citizens; it is a state in which it is comparatively easy to change the constitution. Another way that state supreme court judges vary from each other is in how insulated they are from their electorate. In states that elect their judges, rather



Dogmatic dialogue 

than have the governor, the legislature, or a merit committee appoint them, and when judges serve relatively short terms (i.e. six rather than eight or ten years), they will have more concerns about not alienating their citizens (Langer 2002). In ­Washington, justices must run for election and do so every six years. Thus, ­Washington justices are more directly accountable to citizen opinion than is the case in other state supreme courts. Typically supreme courts announce their opinions in the same session as the one in which they hear oral argument, or if it is late in a court session (i.e. May), at the start of the following one. The Washington Court did not release its written opinion for 16 months. In July of 2006 the Court released six of them. The opinions included the Court position, a plurality view signed by 3 judges, a concurring opinion signed by 2 justices, therein providing the court majority of 5 to 4. The court had voted to uphold Washington’s DOMA statute, but, because one of the concurring opinions agreed only with the vote and not the legal reasoning, the decision was a plurality opinion rather than a majority one. There was also a one page opinion from the Chief Justice concurring with the majority view; in this opinion the Chief Justice underscored what he saw as the main issue in the case. In addition, the four other justices signed a dissenting opinion. There were also two additional concurring-in-dissent opinions written and signed by sets of the three judges who were not the primary author of the dissenting opinion. Table 1 provides an overview of the six judicial opinions, including each opinion’s author and position, the names of the other justices who signed, and the opinion’s length. Figure 1 displays the content of the six opinions in terms of two dimensions: (1) positivity/negativity of stance toward same-sex marriage, and (2) stance about the constitutionality of Washington’s DOMA statute. S-S Marriage Positive

CD2 D, CD1 P, C

Negative

DOMA Constitutional

C-JO

Unconstitutional

Figure 1.   Content of opinions with regard to S-S marriage & DOMA constitutionality

In assessing the constitutionality of Washington’s DOMA statute, the court needed to address several issues. The first issue was whether DOMA violated the amendment to the Washington constituent that prohibited sex discrimination.

 Karen Tracy

A second issue involved determining if gays and lesbians deserved to be considered a group deserving “strict scrutiny.” Strict scrutiny, a legal concept developed in the 1950s during the Warren Court (Gaskins 1992) insures that a state does not continue discriminatory practices against groups of citizens that have long been disenfranchised. It must be implemented as the legal criterion, rather than the easier-to-meet standard of “rational basis,” when there has been a history of state-sponsored discrimination against a group. In the U.S. context, the central group to whom strict scrutiny has been extended is African Americans. A related third question that the court needed to address was whether the state could be seen as having a rational basis to make the distinction that only one man-one woman counted as eligible marriage partners. Table 1.  Overview of Washington court opinions Opinions by Majority Author and opinion identification

Madsen (Plurality) [P]

J. Johnson (Concurring in Judgment only) [C-JO]

Alexander (Chief J) (Concurrence) [C]

Other signers

Alexander (Chief J) C. Johnson

Sanders

–

Length

62 pages, 19 notes

56 pages, 54 notes

1 page

Opinions by Minority Author and opinion identification

Fairhurst (Dissent) [D]

Chambers (Concurring in Dissent-1) [C-D1]

Bridge (Concurring in Dissent-2) [C-D2]

Other signers

Chambers Owens Bridge

Owens

–

Length

41 pages, 30 notes

11 pages, 6 notes

33 pages, 15 notes

Between 2006 and 2009, eight state supreme courts made decisions about same-sex marriage. As state constitutions vary, the exact issue each court had to decide also differed. In every court in which it has been reviewed, marriage between same-sex partners has been a publicly contentious issue. Of the eight courts that issued opinions during this time frame, Washington took the longest to release its opinions, published the largest number of opinions, and was the only court that did not have a majority opinion. In sum, in Anderson v. King County the Washington Supreme Court was deeply divided. Not only were members of the



Dogmatic dialogue 

Court in strong disagreement with each other about how to vote, but the Court also divided regarding the correct reasoning for their votes. 4.  Method and materials The six opinions were downloaded from the Washington State Supreme Court website and studied using grounded practical theory (GPT) as the meta-­theoretical framework (Craig & Tracy 1995; Tracy & Craig 2010). GPT analyzes communication practices from the ground up with the goal of reconstructing a practice at three levels: (1) its focal problems or dilemmas, (2) the discourse strategies and discourse moves that reveal and manage problems, and (3) the situated ideal that captures participants’ beliefs about how they ought to speak or write when ­confronted with a practice’s problems. Individual studies typically focus on only one or two of these levels. Methodologically, GPT can use discourse analysis or ethnographic methods. Action-implicative discourse analysis, a method I (Tracy 1995, 2005) have developed to pursue GPT studies, treats the tapes/transcripts of talk or the written texts as the central data. But the focal discourse materials are always analyzed after developing extensive knowledge of the institutional practice. In this case, my study of Washington’s judicial opinions in Anderson v. King County was informed by observing oral argument in the Colorado Supreme Court, studying tapes and transcripts of oral argument and litigant briefs in multiple supreme courts considering challenges of their marriage laws (Tracy 2009, 2011a, 2001b; Tracy & Delgadillo in press) and by interviewing 12 state supreme court justices. I approached the opinions in Andersen v. King County asking “What are the discourse moves that reflect and the discourse strategies that manage the problem of presenting one’s view as correct when multiple competent others disagree?” In the next sections, I describe the eight strategies that Washington judges used to represent the voices of their disagreeing colleagues as unreasonable. 5.  Dialogic strategies in the law: Representing disagreeing others Opinion–writers referenced the Court’s other judges in one of two main ways. They either named the opinion-writer explicitly or they referred to the appellate-relevant membership category (plurality, concurrence, or dissent). The two forms of reference were also combined, especially within the dissent and concurring opinions (see Excerpts 4, 18, and 24). In addition to explicit references, opinion-writers also

 Karen Tracy

made implicit references. By virtue of the context of disagreement, an opinionwriter’s assertion could be seen (and was taken) as referring to a specific party. For instance in the opening of the plurality opinion, Justice Madsen asserts: Excerpt 1 (Madsen, p. 4)4 Personal views must not interfere with the judge’s responsibility to decide cases as a judge and not as a legislator. This, after all, is one of the three legs supporting the rule of law. Here, the solid body of constitutional law ­disfavors the conclusion that there is a right to marry a person of the same sex.

The chief dissenting opinion-writer (Fairhurst: 36, Footnote 39) treats this as a criticism directed at herself and responds with a strong counter-criticism, albeit locating it in a footnote: “Suggestions by the plurality and the concurrence that I reach this determination by ‘judicial fiat’ or based on ‘personal views’ are unsuccessful attempts to deflect attention from the discriminatory impact of unconstitutional statutes.” Of interest, the issue of how to present disagreeing colleagues’ views goes unmentioned in the practical guides that offer judges advice about how to craft a good appellate opinion (e.g. Re 1975; American Bar Association 1991). The problem of how to design one’s talk or writing to bolster self ’s view of a scene, an issue, or an action in the face of contesting others is a widespread communication challenge. It is a staple problem of political actors; litigants in court confront the issue; scientists arguing for the validity of different theories face it, and it is the stuff of daily life among workplace colleagues, families, and friends. The appellate genre shapes the form and substance of judicial strategies, but what is striking is the similarity to discourse strategies that occur elsewhere. In describing the strategies judges use, I draw attention to those that occur regularly in other contexts, as well those that are relatively distinctive in appellate opinion writing. 6.  Context-spanning strategies Judges made use of self-bolstering, other-critical strategies in opinion-writing that have been identified in other sites. The strategies included: (a) extreme case formulations, (b) reported speech, (c) skepticism markers, including scare quotes, and (d) the defining of key terms. Drawing on study of exchanges in ordinary conversations and small claims courts, Pomerantz (1986, p. 219) identified extreme case formulations as a device 4.  The identifying information on excerpts indicates the opinion and the page on which the quote is to be found. Boldface is used to draw attention to words and phrases that are the focus on analysis.



Dogmatic dialogue 

speakers used “to defend against or to counter challenges to the legitimacy of complaints, accusations, justifications, and defenses.” Extreme case formulations are words and phrases that express an intense degree of what is being asserted. Opinion-writers’ texts were full of them. Excerpt 2 illustrates the commonly occurring ones; Excerpt 3 illustrates a particularly creative set. Excerpt 2 (a) While desirable, nowhere in any marriage statute of this state (Madsen, p. 31 Footnote 12) (b) This court has never held (Chambers, p. 7) (c) There is nothing in these cases (Chambers, p. 9) (d) … the DOMA wholly fails a rational basis review (Bridge, p. 2) (e) The Defense of Marriage Act’s (DOMA’s) denial of the right to marry to same-sex couples is not rationally related to any asserted state interest, it is also not narrowly tailored to any compelling state interest (Fairhurst, p. 3) Excerpt 3  (Johnson, p. 7) The weighty record of history, overwhelming societal consensus, and the strong force of legal authorities from Washington courts and its ­legislature, as well as from the United States Supreme Court, do not allow such a cavalier and arbitrary r­ edefinition of marriage by a court.

A second discourse device that judges used was to quote the words of what another judge had written in his or her opinion. Quoting another’s words – often referred to as the use of “reported speech,” even if the medium is writing (Buttny 2004; Clift 2006) – not only represents another’s words but allows communicators, by virtue of a quote’s selected packaging, to convey an attitudinal stance toward what is being reported. Reported speech makes use of several different formats. In analyzing newspaper reports (Smirnova 2009) distinguished between liberal, where the gist of a person’s remark is summarized, and literal, where quote marks are used. Judges used both formats in their opinions. In Excerpt 4 we see majority voter Madsen using a liberal quote and expressing incredulity of dissent-writer Fairhurst’s view by virtue of describing it as “astonishing.” In legal settings, decision making is idealized as a process in which statues and case precedents are applied to facts. Conclusions are expected to be valid, not “astonishing.” To describe another’s assertion with this or related words (e.g. “surprising”) is to assess it as problematic. Except 4 (Madsen, p. 32) Justice Fairhurst’s dissent proposes, nevertheless, that there is a ­fundamental right to marry a person of the same sex. This is an ­astonishing conclusion, given the lack of any authority supporting it; no appellate court applying a federal constitutional analysis has reached this result. (italics in original)

 Karen Tracy

Reported speech, one could say, is the coin of appellate opinions. Judges not only directly quoted other members of their own court but quoted judges from many other courts. In Excerpt 5 concurrence-writer Johnson, uses an extreme case formulation, quotes two different judges, and makes clear his rejection of fellow ­Justice Madsen’s words about history and tradition by linking her words to an Orwell novel. Excerpt 5 (Johnson, p. 14) However, there is no basis whatsoever to conclude that same-sex “marriage” is historically fundamental in the sense that it does “belong, of right, to the citizens of all free governments;” … Corfield, 6 f. Cas. at 551….Nor is Justice Madsen’s claim that “history and tradition are not static,” [page citation] at least outside the context of a George Orwell novel.

Excerpt 5 also illustrates a third strategy used by justices to represent fellow judges’ opinions negatively – the putting of scare quotes around a word to signal skepticism. Scare quotes have several meanings, but a frequent one in writing, as well as in speech when performed with hand gestures, is to signal skepticism. In putting scare quotes around marriage, Johnson signals his skepticism that same-sex ­marriage deserves to be called marriage. Other devices besides scare quotes can convey that a writer is skeptical of an assertion. Another common one (Pomerantz 1989/90) is to preface what another said with adverbs (supposedly, allegedly, purportedly). Reporting another’s statement straightforwardly conveys an author’s belief in what the other has said; including this type of adverbial marker conveys distance and skepticism. Excerpt 6 combines scare quotes with an adverbial marker of skepticism to convey Fairhurst’s disbelief of Madsen’s claim that case law controls the interpretation that Madsen is arguing for. Excerpt 6 (Fairhurt, p. 1–2) Yet, Justice Madsen’s plurality opinion reverses those trial courts based on “[t]he case law” that purportedly “controls our inquiry.” Neither an objective analysis of relevant law nor any sense of justice allows me to agree with the plurality.

A fourth strategy used in judicial opinion-writing to represent other judges who disagree as unreasonable is to use a focal term presumptively defining it as one would prefer it to be defined. Judges and attorneys in oral argument about same-sex marriage in other courts regularly did this for the term marriage (Tracy, 2012). The side favoring extending marriage to same-sex ­couples defined marriage as an intimate bond between two people who love each other; those opposing marriage between same-sex partners treated one man-one woman unions as core to marriage’s meaning. Schiappi (2003) has



Dogmatic dialogue 

shown how battles about what is desirable political action with regard to “art,” “wetlands,” and “rape” are argued out by defining these terms in self-advantaging ways. Definitions reflect shared understandings, but they “are both the product of past persuasion and a resource for future persuasion” (p. 167). In Excerpt 5 we saw a majority voter problematizing a dissenting opinion-writer’s view of marriage. In Excerpt 7 we see how such definitional presumption works. J­ ustice Chambers sets up the issue facing the court presuming the meaning of ­marriage is a legally-recognized commitment between two people who love each other. Excerpt 7 (Chambers, p. 9) the proper question is whether marriage is a fundamental right that belongs to each of us by reason of our citizenship. Our founders would have answered that question with a resounding yes! Having determined that marriage is a privilege of citizenship, the next step is to determine whether the privilege is available to all on equal terms.

In addition to these discourse strategies that are used in many personal and ­institutional contexts to present others’ actions or opinions as wrong were four practices that derive their meaning from the appellate law context.

7.  Appellate law grounded practices Some appellate-specific strategies were used by opinion-writers in all camps; others were used only in dissents. The two used by all, I have labeled “The Law Demands (Prohibits)…” and “Others have Misguided Motives.” Two strategies used only by the justices in dissenting opinions were “Shifting the Burden of Proof ” and “WRWP – What’s Right Will Prevail.” “The law demands (prohibits)…”. Justices are the interpreters of the law, which itself could be described as a vast set of texts that include state and federal constitutions, statutes, and the many appellate case rulings that have occurred in federal and state courts. Cooren (2003) would locate the agency in the legal texts themselves. As I see agency to require judgment and ­responsibility – something only people possess – I would describe what is happening as judges framing themselves as spokespersons for the Law. Drawing on Goffman’s (1981) notion of footing, their written discourse downplays their authorship of the sentiments they present and frames their expressions as dictated by the institution of “the Law.” But as the law includes many pieces, there is considerable elasticity in what the law demands or prohibits. In this dispute about same-sex marriage, opinion-writers tended to highlight two different domains of the law.

 Karen Tracy

The justices who wrote opinions supporting the majority vote to uphold the DOMA statute as constitutional drew attention to the boundaries of judicial responsibility relative to the legislature. Their job as judges, they espoused, was to interpret the law; they did not have the right to create policy. Excerpts 8, 9 and 10 illustrate the particulars of how each opinion in the majority discursively worked to frame the law as requiring upholding the constitutionality of Washington’s DOMA. Excerpt 8 (Madsen, p. 3) The state constitution and controlling case law compel us to answer “yes,” and we therefore reverse the trial courts. In reaching this conclusion, we have engaged in an exhaustive constitutional inquiry and have deferred to the ­legislative branch as required by our tri-partite form of government. Excerpt 9 (Alexander, p. 1) Have the petitioners met their burden of overcoming the presumption that this statutory provision is constitutional? The answer to both questions is clearly “no,”… If we were to conclude otherwise, as do the dissenters, we would be usurping the function of the legislature or the people as defined in article II of the constitution of the state of Washington. Excerpt 10 (Johnson, p. 1) This is a difficult case only if a court disregards the text and history of the state and federal constitutions and laws in order to write new laws for our State’s citizens. Courts are not granted such powers under our constitutional system. Our oath requires us to uphold the constitution and laws, not ­rewrite them.

Dissenting opinion-writers, likewise, framed themselves as speaking for the law and doing what the law required. For them, however, the part of the law to which they drew attention was the Appellate Court responsibility to protect the civil rights of its citizens. Excerpts 11, 12, and 13 from the dissenting opinions evidence this discourse move. Excerpt 11 (Chambers, p. 2) Our constitution demands a deliberative process. We should not abdicate our responsibility to interpret Washington’s constitution to the judicial branch of a different government, let alone defer to an interpretation of a different clause of a different constitution. Excerpt 12 (Bridge, p. 14) It is not only our prerogative, but our duty under the tripartite system of government to provide prompt relief for violations of individual civil rights.



Dogmatic dialogue 

Excerpt 13 (Fairhurst: pp. 3 & 7) The plurality uses the excuse of deference to the legislature to perpetuate the existence of an unconstitutional and unjust law. I dissent… The plurality shirks its responsibility to the people of this state to enforce the rule of law embodied in our constitution and to uphold the fundamental principles of justice.

For the most part, judges treated their own interpretation of “the law” as a straightforward unproblematic reading that would be expected of any competent legal reader. The one exception to this was the occasional comment in dissenting opinions that cued the law might involve competing principles. This competition of principles was rarely explored in detail; rather it was cued through subtle wording choices that pointed to the inappropriate choice-making of the judges that decided differently. Excerpt 14 (Bridge, p. 6) The plurality too easily dismisses the proper role of the judiciary to protect the constitutional rights of those who have been historically disenfranchised from the political process. Excerpt 15 (Fairhurst, p. 11 Footnote 16) the plurality focuses too greatly on the deference afforded by rational basis review and in doing so, conducts no real analysis at all.

In sum, opinion-writers positioned themselves as spokespersons for the law, as merely doing what it required. At the same time that they engaged in this discourse move, they used another one: accounting for why equally competent, expert ­others could arrive at an opposite position. “Others have misguided motives.” Gilbert and Mulkay (1984) studied how biochemical scientists talked about their own research and that of scientists who were making competing claims. In discussing their own work scientists used an empiricist repertoire. Scientists referred to their own laboratory actions and reports as simply “doing science”; they were following protocols, just letting science reveal itself. However, when scientists discussed the claims of disputing others they used a contingent repertoire: Other scientists’ differing claims were caused by those scientists being inappropriately involved: not comfortable with being wrong, overly ambitious, simply sloppy, and so on. The reason others arrived at the decisions they did was because of their own personal motives – i.e. contingent factors, not the unfolding of real scientific knowledge. The law’s central issue differs from science’s, but in both domains differing opinions among fellow experts is troubling. In appellate opinion-writing about this issue (the constitutionality of existing marriage laws), judges’ motives were framed as misguided, interfering with a reasonable reading of the law for one of

 Karen Tracy

two reasons. The first reason, used by judges in the majority to problematize dissenters’ voices was to attribute a political commitment. Dissenting judges were framed as being “activist,” as using the law to further their own political commitments rather than, as judges should, applying the law in a neutral, objective fashion. Opinion-writers conveyed a negative assessment of their colleagues by the language they used to describe what courts should or should not do. Concurring Justice Johnson write the following: Excerpt 16 (Johnson, p. 21) Conversely, where courts attempt to mandate novel changes in public p ­ olicy through judicial decree, they erode the protections of our constitutions and frustrate the constitutional balance, which expressly includes the will of the people who must ratify constitutional amendments. Examination of ­history and tradition is therefore necessary to identify fundamental rights as the ­basis for judicial decisionmaking. This inquiry must not hinge upon the judges’ subjective feelings but must be based upon objective consideration of historical understanding. Excerpt 17 (Johnson, p. 22) Policy preferences of judges must not be advanced through the guise of ­newly created rights grounded in fads of political correctness.

The plurality opinion by Justice Madsen, likewise, presented the dissenting ­opinions as motivated by a political, social change agenda. Excerpt 18 (Madsen, pp. 4–5) Justice Fairhurst’s dissent declines to apply settled principles for reviewing the legislature’s acts and instead decides for itself what the public policy of this state should be. Justice Bridge’s dissent claims that gay marriage will ultimately be on the books and that this court will be criticized for having failed to overturn DOMA. But, while same-sex marriage may be the law at a future time, it will be because the people declare it to be, not because five members of this court have dictated it.

The inappropriate motives that led Justices in the majority to their opinions were the judges’ bigotry and prejudice. But in contrast to majority opinions that stated or implied political motives of the dissenting judges relatively straightforwardly, accusations of prejudice were more indirect. The negative motives or actions were named but less clearly and more distantly linked to the judges themselves. Excerpt 19 (Fairhurst, p. 2)  The plurality and concurrence condone blatant discrimination against Washington’s gay and lesbian citizens.



Dogmatic dialogue 

Excerpt 20 (Fairhurst, p. 35)  Historical ignorance and discrimination cannot be used, as the plurality does, as an excuse for continued denial of the fundamental right to marry and the liberty interest in choosing an intimate partner. Excerpt 21 (Bridge, p. 3) The passage of time and prudent judgment revealed the folly of Bowers [U.S. Supreme Court case upholding sodomy laws] a mistake born of ­bigotry and flawed legal reasoning.… Alas, the same will be said of this court’s decision today.

Majority opinion-writers, however, as we saw carried out similarly in a dissent opinion’s response to Excerpt 1, had no trouble recovering the challenge to their motives. Excerpt 22 (Johnson, p. 27) We vigorously reject any attempt to link the discriminatory antimiscegenation laws in Loving [U.S. Supreme Court case overturning state laws ­forbidding interracial marriage] with this State’s DOMA.

Favoring prejudiced laws or being a political activist were the main challenges made to judges’ motives, but they were not the only ones. Descriptions of disagreeing judges’ positions routinely included modifiers such as “disingenuous,” “imprudent,” abhorrent,” and “disturbing” that also cued questionable motives. In addition, although not common, judges directly described others’ actions in highly unflattering ways. – “Justice J.M. Johnson resorts to name-calling in an effort to refute this point” (Madsen, p. 27 Footnote 9). One of the most subtle ways that judges’ motives were challenged was to praise others who also disagreed. In her dissent, for instance, Justice Bridge names the lower court judges who had written opinions overturning existing marriage laws commenting, they “are to be commended for their uncommon courage and common sense in facing this issue” (Bridge, pp. 6–7). In praising the lower court judges, Bridge can be seen as implicitly criticizing the majority for its lack of courage. Shifting the burden of proof. The last two strategies were ones employed only in dissenting opinions. That these strategies were restricted to dissenting opinions follows from the different legal standing of the majority/plurality opinion versus dissents, at least for this issue.5 The majority gets to define what the legal issues of

5.  My thanks to a questioner during the keynote session who highlighted that burden-shifting can be done with smaller topical issues. Hence burden-shifting is not a practice that only ­dissenters can use. In the Washington case it was used only by the dissenters, but it need not be.

 Karen Tracy

a case are; a dissent can only call into question the decision’s framing. Burden of proof, an idea drawn from Richard Whatley, is a crucial one in the legal arena. In large measure, the party in a dispute who has the burden of proof, the one responsible for providing evidence to support a claim, is more likely to lose a dispute. For many matters in the law the kind of burden of proof (e.g. beyond a reasonable doubt vs. preponderance of evidence) and which party has the burden are clearly spelled out. Because a greater number of principles apply in constitutional law disputes, it is more complicated to determine. As Gaskins (1992, p. 3) notes about both contemporary public and legal argument about contentious issues, “shifting the burden of proof to our opponents becomes an irresistible argument strategy.” By virtue of their five votes, the plurality and concurrence won the right to define the key legal question. Thus, it was the dissenting opinions that first sought to shift the view of who had to persuade whom. The dissent sought to make the state responsible for showing it had a rational basis for excluding same-sex couples from marriage rather than what the majority framed as the issue: the gay plaintiffs showing adequately why the state was unfair to limit marriage to opposite-sex couples. We first saw this in Excerpt 7; Excerpt 23 also illustrates this strategy. Excerpt 23 (Fairhurst, p. 15) But DOMA in no way affects the right of opposite-sex couples to marry – the only intent and effect of DOMA was to explicitly deny same-sex couples the right to marry. Therefore, the question we are called upon to ask and answer here, which the plurality fails to do, is how excluding committed same-sex couples from the rights of civil marriage furthers any of the interests that the State has put forth.

Justice Madsen, the plurality opinion-writer, in fact, calls Justice Fairhurst on her attempt to shift argumentative responsibility, framing her move as distorting the expected judicial task. Excerpt 24 (Madsen, p. 6 Footnote 2) Justice Fairhurst’s dissent attempts to shift the focus from whether limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples furthers these interests to whether excluding same-sex couples furthers these interests. By doing so the dissent fails to give the legislature the deference required under the constitution.

Should the plaintiffs have to show that the state was being unreasonable in its laws about marriage or was it the state’s responsibility to make a case for why it is reasonable to exclude same-sex couples from marriage? Judges disagreed. Those with power had the right to label their colleagues, different focal question as ­inappropriately shifting the burden of proof. WRWP (What’s right will prevail). A final strategy used only by dissenting judges was to project that in the historical long run their opinions would be proven



Dogmatic dialogue 

correct and that their view would come to prevail. WRWP is the legal counterpart to what scientists use in the midst of disputes. Gilbert and Mulkay (1984) describe the interactional strategy that scientists on the losing side use as “Truth will out device” (TWOD). In contrast to truth, the main currency of science, it is justice and what is socially and morally right that is at stake in legal disputes. Dissenting judges can assert that future courts will come to see their views as what’s right. In the conclusion of her dissent Justice Bridge performs this action. Excerpt 25 (Bridge, p. 32)  Future generations of justices on this court and future generations of ­Washingtonians will undoubtedly look back on our holding today with r­ egret and even shame, in the same way that our nation now looks with shame upon our past acts of discrimination. I will look forward to the time when statesanctioned discrimination toward our gay and lesbian citizens is erased from our state’s law books, if not its history. I dissent.

8.  Discussion and final thoughts The texts of judicial opinions are always full of the voices of others. Most often, the others are judges from other times and other courts. However, when an appellate case involves a socially contested issue and results in a close vote accompanied by no agreed-upon reasoning for the decision, considerable communicative work needs to be done by an opinion-writer to show that the views of disagreeing colleagues are in error. When a good number of judges in an opinion-writer’s court reach an opposite conclusion, the opinion-writer needs to not only make a case for why his/her reasoning is correct but to show why the colleagues are in error. To manage this problem judges use a variety of discourse strategies. Some of these strategies are particular to the appellate context; others are inflected by the context and the disputing judge’s position but can be found whenever parties engage in strong disagreement. As a member of a different community of practice I initially found the style of writing in judicial opinions to be off-putting. Opinion-writers’ expressive certainty struck me as dogmatic and at odds with the complexity of the interpretive task they had. With additional reflection, though, I have come to see judicial expressive style as reasonable and suited to the task it has. Given that society requires judges to make decisions about socially divisive issues, a range of opposing, strongly asserted, “right” opinions may be the best communicative solution. Courts need to make decisions and those decisions need to be right. When m ­ ultiple dogmatic opinions form the voice of a court, such as we saw in the Washington case, the issue of dispute is implicitly framed as one deserving continued societal dialogue,

 Karen Tracy

even as the dispute is finalized, at least for the moment. Although disputes in other settings – religious reconciliation, political bridge building between enemies, interpersonal conflicts – may find dogmatic expression to be antithetical to dialogue, in the courts, dogmatism and dialogue not only co-exist as neighbors but seem productively linked to each other.

References Amsterdam, A. G., and J. Bruner. 2000. Minding the law. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Andersen, R., and T. Fetner. 2008. Cohort differences in tolerance of homosexuality: Attitudinal change in Canada and the United States, 1981–2000. Public Opinion Quarterly 72 (2): 311–30. Badgett, M. V. L. 2009. When gay people get married: What happens when societies legalize samesex marriage. New York: New York University Press. Bakhtinian, M. 1984. Problems of Dostoevsky’s poetics. Trans. T. E. C. Emerson. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Bosworth, M. H. 2001. Courts as catalysts: State supreme courts and public school finance. Albany: Sate University of New York Press. Buttny, R. 2004. Talking problems: Studies of discursive construction. Albany: State University of New York Press. Cheng, L., and K. K. Sin. 2008. A court judgment as dialogue. In Dialogue and rhetoric, ed. E. Weigand, 267–284. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Christensen, B. 2008. Same-sex “marriage” as verbicide: Reaffirming the linguistic and cultural heritage that once made “marriage” a vibrant word of substance and hope. In What’s the harm?: Does legalizing same-sex marriage really harm individuals, families or society?, ed. L. D. Wardle, 275–294. Lanham, MD: University Press of America. Cissna, K., and R. Anderson. 2008. Dialogic rhetoric, coauthorship, and moments of meeting. In Dialogue and rhetoric, ed. E. Weigand, 39–53. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Clift, R. 2006. Indexing stance: Reported speech as an interactional evidential. Journal of Sociolinguistics 10 (5): 569–95. Comparato, S. A. 2003. Amici Curiae and Strategic Behavior in State Supreme Courts. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers. Collins, P. M. 2004. Friends of the court: Examining the influence of amicus curiae participation in U.S. Supreme Court litigation. Law & Society Review 38 (4): 807–32. Collins, P. M. 2007. Lobbyists before the U.S. supreme court: Investigating the influence of amicus curiae briefs. Political Research Quarterly 60 (1): 55–70. Cooren, F. 2003. Textual agency: How texts do things in organizational settings. Organization 11 (3): 373–93. Craig, R. T., and K. Tracy. 1995. Grounded practical theory: The case of intellectual discussion. Communication Theory 5 (3): 248–72. Dickson, D. 2001. The supreme court conferences (1940–1985). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gaskins, R. H. 1992. Burdens of Proof in Modern Discourse. New Haven: Yale University Press.



Dogmatic dialogue 

Gertsmann, E. 2008. Same-sex marriage and the constitution. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gilbert, G. N., and M. Mulkay. 1984. Opening Pandora’s box: A sociological analysis of scientists’ discourse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Goffman, E. 1981. Forms of talk. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Johnson, T. R., J. F. Spriggs, and P. J. Wahlbeck. 2007. Oral advocacy before the United States Supreme Court: Does it affect the justices’ decisions? Washington University Law Review 85 (3): 457–528. Langer, L. 2002. Judicial review in state supreme courts: A comparative study. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Maltzman, F., J. F. Spriggs II, and P. J. Wahlbeck. 2000. Crafting law on the supreme court. New York: Cambridge University Press. Pomerantz, A. 1986. Extreme case formulations: A way of legitimizing claims. Human Studies 9 (2–3): 219–29. Pomerantz, A. 1989. Constructing Skepticism: Four devices used to engender the audience's skepticism. Research on Language and Social Interaction 22 (1): 293–314. Re, E. D. 1975. Appellate opinion writing. Paper presented at the Seminar for Federal Appellate Judges. Richards, D. A. J. 2009. The sodomy cases: Bowers v Hardwick and Lawrence v. Texas. Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas. Same-sex marriage. (2011, January 5). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 21: 31, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Same-sex_marriage&oldid=406114112 (accessed January 6, 2011). Schiappi, E. 2003. Defining reality: Definitions and the politics of meaning. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University. Segal, J. A., and H. J. Spaeth. 1996. The influence of stare decisis on the votes of United States Supreme Court justices. American Journal of Political Science 40 (4): 971–1003. Segal, J. A., and H. J. Spaeth. 2002. The Supreme Court and the attitudinal model revisited. New York: Cambridge University Press. Smirnova, A. V. 2009. Reported speech as an element of argumentative newspaper discourse. Discourse & Communication 3 (1): 79–103. Tocqueville, A. 2003/1835. Democracy in America. Trans. G. E. Beavan. London: Penguin. Toobin, J. 2007. The nine: Inside the secret world of the Supreme Court. New York: Doubleday. Tracy, K. 1995. Action-implicative discourse analysis. Journal of Language and Social Psychology 14 (1–2): 195–215. Tracy, K. 2005. Reconstructing communicative practices: Action-­implicative discourse analysis. In Handbook of language and social interaction, eds. K. Fitch and R. Sanders (pp. 301-319). Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum. Tracy, K. 2009. How questioning constructs appellate judge identities: The case of a hearing about same-sex marriage. Discourse Studies 11 (2): 199–221. Tracy, K. 2011a. A facework system of minimal politeness: Oral argument in appellate court. Journal of Politeness Research: Language, Behaviour, Culture 7 (1): 123–45. Tracy, K. 2011b. What’s in a name?: Stance markers in oral argument about marriage laws. ­Discourse & Communication 5 (1): 1–23.

 Karen Tracy Tracy, K. 2012. Everyday argument strategies in appellate court argument about samesex marriage. In Exploring argumentative contexts, eds. F. van Eemeren and B. Garssen (pp. 165–178). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Tracy, K., and R. T. Craig. 2010. Studying interaction in order to cultivate practice: Actionimplicative discourse analysis. In New adventures in language and interaction, ed. J. Streeck, 145–166. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Tracy, K., and E. Delgadillo. in press. Troubling the legal-lay distinction: Litigant briefs, oral argument, and a public hearing about same-sex marriage. In Legal-lay communication: ­Textual travels in the law, eds. C. Heffer, F. Rock and J. Conley. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wardle, L. D. 2008. The morality of marriage and the transformative power of inclusion. In What’s the harm?: Does legalizing same-sex marriage really harm individuals, families or society?, ed. L. D. Wardle, 207–238. Lanham, MD: University Press of America. Wrightsman, L. S. 1999. Judicial decision making: Is psychology relevant? New York: Kluwer Academic.

Representing gender in parliamentary dialogue Are there any cross-cultural stereotypes? Cornelia Ilie* To understand the emergence of gender roles in parliamentary interaction, it is useful to compare the ways in which female and male MPs use and misuse addressing strategies. Behaviours and interactional performances are interpreted in significant ways: by being acknowledged and appreciated, by being ignored, by being turned to ridicule. This chapter focuses on the gendered co-construction of institutional roles and power relationships in the UK Parliament and the Swedish Riksdag, and more specifically on: (1) how female and male MPs address each other during debates; (2) how (same-gender and mixed-gender) addressing strategies impact on interaction outcome; (3) how the effects of addressing strategies influence the ways in which female and male MPs are evaluated and reacted to. Keywords:  gender; parliamentary dialogue; addressing strategies; power; ­ cross-cultural; master suppression techniques; UK Parliament; Swedish Riksdag

1.  Introduction The adversarial nature of parliamentary dialogue and the confrontational style of interpersonal deliberation are constitutive features of parliaments as norm-­regulated and convention-based institutions. Actually, parliamentary dialogue represents one of the most ritualised forms of institutional interaction. The gradual ritualization of parliamentary proceedings has gradually been reinforced by an increasing regularisation of the collective behaviour and reinforcement of institutional roles of Members of Parliament (MPs), on the one hand, and by conventionalisation of the structures of the interpersonal dialogue and diversification of the concrete instantiations of confrontational encounters, on the other. Parliamentary turn-taking is monitored by the President of the ­Parliament (e.g. in the French National Assembly, the Portuguese Parliament),

*  Malmö University, Sweden.

 Cornelia Ilie

the Speaker of the House (e.g. in the UK Parliament) or Talman (in the ­Swedish Riksdag), by means of orderly speaker-selection lists. With regard to the orientation of the verbal interaction, the spirit of inter-group adversariality and ­in-group solidarity lies at the basis of the specific rules for addressing or referring to one’s interlocutor: in a rhetorically confrontational way when addressing a political opponent, but in a rhetorically amicable way when addressing a fellow party member. Forms of address carry significant communicative and interrelational potential in these institutional confrontations since they signal the addresser’s and the addressee’s degree of parliamentary seniority, their hierarchical positions in Parliament and in their own parties, their specific interpersonal relations, as well as the power balance between them. Prototypical forms of conventionalised parliamentary discourse are the ritualised addressing and referring strategies, i.e. strategies by means of which MPs address each other and refer to each other or to other MPs. When using institutional forms of address, MPs are expected to comply with both linguistic and institutional norms. The choice of addressing and referring strategies reveals information about the speaker’s position, attitude and relation to particular addressee(s) and to various audiences in terms of partypolitical allegiance, status, power and goals. At the same time, parliamentary interaction displays role shifts between the public roles of debating MPs (as members of their own party, as legislators, as representatives of a part of the electorate, as membe1rs/leaders of professional associations, as high officials, etc.), and their private roles (as family members, as members of the same constituency that they represent, etc.). Parliamentary conventions are both a prerequisite and a challenge for MPs, who are expected to comply with institutional norms (parliamentary order), while at the same time they attempt to break these very norms (parliamentary disorderly behaviour). For the analyst, it is when parliamentary dialogue regulations are challenged, subverted or violated that new relevant insights can be gained about the impact of discursive practices on the relationships between MPs and on the outcome of the debates. The strategic use of addressing and referring strategies, such as the shifting use of institutional and non-institutional forms of address, can be particularly enlightening with respect to debating MPs’ role hierarchies and power struggle over competing political goals. While role shifts are a natural occurrence in the discourse of speaking MPs, they can occasionally be subversively used when an MP wants to score points against a political adversary. A comparative investigation of the strategic uses of parliamentary forms of address in the UK P ­ arliament and the Swedish Riksdag (Ilie 2010b) indicates that the ways in which specific rules of parliamentary address are being observed or infringed involve significant distinctions in the behaviour of the



Representing gender in parliamentary dialogue 

respective MPs in the two p ­ arliaments. This applies to both same-gender and mixed-gender dialogic interactions in parliament. The goal of the present study is to examine and discuss the discursive and interpersonal functions of addressing strategies used by female and male MPs in the U.K. Parliament and the Swedish Riksdag. 2.  Gender roles in institutional dialogue In his insightful book Gender advertisements (1987) Goffman argues that gender is an institutionalised dialogic construct which is of relevance because it is adhered to and socially accepted. This may explain why gender specificity is the result of a particular environment, both physical and interactive, that has gradually emerged for particular purposes. Institutional environments are thus instrumental in establishing gender-specific practices that are reinforced through spatial frames (e.g. architectural style), dress codes and norms of behaviour, as well as interaction patterns and strategies (e.g. forms of address, monitored turn-taking structures, length of turn and modes of intonation). In this respect the study of parliamentary discourse strategies provides important clues about the ways in which multiple roles, including gender roles, are instantiated in parliament, as a community of practice regulated by particular institutional norms and discursive constraints (Ilie 2003, 2006; Wängnerud 2005). Gender roles are produced, reproduced and actualised through contextually gendered activities in communication. Along with their identifiable or attributed characteristics as social constructs, the enactment of gender roles has a ­tangible effect at the institutional level and at the same time is shaped through institutional communication. The long predominance of one gender in institutions has ­created and maintains institution-specific ideologies and gender-related ­expectations about how to behave, interact and speak (Kotthoff & Wodak 1997, p. ix). In ­addition, interactional styles traditionally used by individuals in authoritative positions become authoritative themselves and come to be seen as ‘speaking with authority’. The result of these combined processes is that expectations for how individuals in positions of authority should speak to those in subordinate ­positions are similar to expectations for how men should speak and interact. In parliament this has significant consequences on the ways in which female and male MPs are evaluated in their professional roles, based on their respective ­institutional performances and co-performances, as well as on collective and/or individual perceptions. As Bem (1993) pointed out, gender norms include a lens of ‘gender polarisation’ – the ideology that women’s and men’s behaviour is dichotomous. When

 Cornelia Ilie

viewed through this lens, women and men who diverge from gender norms tend to be perceived as speaking and behaving ‘like the other sex’. Tannen (1994) was one of the pioneering scholars in the field of gender and language gender ­studies who showed out that women begin with a disadvantage in workplaces that have previously had men in positions of power because these workplaces already have established male-style interaction as the norm. Reacting to earlier dichotomies that reinforced gender dichotomies, she proposes the framing approach for understanding the relationship among gender, power and workplace communication. Her approach combines the framing approach with a new theoretical construct of power and solidarity, helping to account for, and explicate, how language practices and gendered identities are dynamically linked in interaction. According to Tannen, the research focus should not be exclusively on power, but rather on how power and solidarity (in her terms, status and connection) interrelate, taking into account the conventionalised nature of many linguistic strategies. She justifiably claims that what is conventionalised is not simply a way of exercising power but ways of balancing the simultaneous, but conflicting, needs for status and connection. A distinctive feature of institutions such as parliaments is the importance of norms and rituals in shaping institutional practices and their outcomes. Through well-established rules and forms of behaviour, parliaments ensure order, stability and predictability, on the one hand, and flexibility and adaptability, on the other. This set-up suggests that parliaments, like other institutions, constrain certain types of behaviour while encouraging others. It is difficult to unsettle these established practices since they are perpetuated by institutional actors, who in the vast majority of cases are men. As newcomers to these ritual-centered and norm-­ regulated environments, women find it hard to challenge institutional norms because they are underpinned by male-specific values and characteristics. As a result of their dominance in parliaments, men access easily positions of power and they use these positions strategically, which prevents women from upgrading their institutional standing. Lovenduski (1998), like other feminist political scientists, made the important point that gender plays out differently in different institutions. She insisted that “the successful application of the concept of gender to the investigation of political institutions must acknowledge not only the complexity of gender but also the nature of the particular institution and the kinds of masculinities and femininities that are performed.” (Lovenduski 1998, p. 348). Consequently, the same type of institution, e.g. parliament, will display a wide range of similarities, but also variations, across cultural and national borders. Both inter-institutional and cross-cultural analyses can provide significant perspectives and results. For



Representing gender in parliamentary dialogue 

example, undertaking a comparative approach (of Australian, Canadian and UK Westminster-style bureaucracies), Chappell (2002) found that the operation of masculine gender norms in certain institutions, Parliament and judicial and legal systems in particular, made them hostile to the presence of women and lead to the production of gender insensitive laws. The ways in which institutional norms are reinforced shape interpersonal behaviour, institutional relationships, as well as opportunities for institutional engagement. A growing body of gender language research demonstrates that women in authority face a ‘double bind’ regarding professionalism and femininity. Thus, Lakoff points to the dilemma of the double bind that women have to struggle with: When a woman is placed in a position in which being assertive and forceful is necessary, she is faced with a paradox; she can be a good woman but a bad executive or professional, or vice versa. To do both is impossible. (1990, p. 206)

One of the sources for women’s inability to be perceived as being both a good authority figure and a good woman is that the ‘very notion of authority is associated with maleness’, as Tannen puts it. Moreover, if women and men do speak in similar ways, they are likely to be evaluated differently (Tannen 1994; West 1995). Recent research studies indicate that female MPs in various parliaments, including the UK Parliament and the Swedish Riksdag, feel that they are constantly scrutinised and unfairly criticised for their behaviour. For example, on several occasions Swedish female MPs have publicly exposed instances of gender discrimination in the Riksdag which constitute violations of good parliamentary practice. In spite of the internationally acclaimed high representation of women in the Swedish Riksdag, there are still instances when female MPs are subjected to unfair and biased treatment. Maud Olofsson, former Swedish Minister for Industry, Employment and Communications and former leader of the Centre Party, reported in a TV interview that, due to the criticism she has received (from men) as to her way of speaking, especially regarding the high pitch of her voice, she was forced to train to speak with a lower pitch. In order to understand how gender roles emerge during parliamentary interaction it is enlightening to compare the ways in which female and male MPs use and misuse addressing strategies in the two parliaments under consideration. Particularly significant is to see how their respective behaviours and interactional performances are being interpreted: by being acknowledged and appreciated, by being ignored, by being turned to ridicule, by being underrated, by receiving irrelevant personal criticisms.

 Cornelia Ilie

3.  Gendering interpersonal discourse strategies in parliament A gender-based examination of parliamentary addressing strategies requires an interdisciplinary approach since it involves, on the one hand, the analysis of (both conventional and interpersonal) linguistic patterns in a highly institutionalised discourse genre, and on the other, the specific adoption of a gender perspective on the interaction mechanisms and debating practices used by female and male MPs. In order to carry out such a comprehensive analysis – both in depth and in breadth – an integrative theoretical approach has been used that originates in discourse analysis (Ilie 2010a, 2010b), gender studies (Holmes & Meyerhoff 2003; Magnusson et al. 2008; Catalano 2009) and social psychology (Ås 1978). Such an approach makes it possible to systematically identify and examine instances of gender-related asymmetries in parliamentary interaction. Such asymmetries may be perceived in instances of either orderly (rule-observing) or disorderly (rulebreaking) parliamentary behaviour. While orderly parliamentary behaviour is normally expected to follow institutional regulations and language constraints (forms of address, parliamentary speech acts, monitored questioning and answering sequences), instances of disorderly parliamentary behaviour are normally identifiable as (un)parliamentary (inappropriate forms of address, name-calling, ­interruptions, irony, heckling, laughter). The addressing strategies used in parliamentary confrontation can both reinforce and challenge the power balance between MPs, both within same-gender and mixed-gender interactions. In order to effectively examine these strategies it is necessary to correlate micro- and macro-levels of analysis with regard to parliamentary debating norms, institutional procedures, gender roles and rhetorical speaking styles. Moreover, a comparative analysis can provide significant insights into commonalities and differences with regard to gender-related stereotypes, which reflect both institution-specific and culture-specific particularities. The present study extends the scope of previous investigations by focusing on a contrastive analysis of the subversive use of addressing and referring strategies in mixed-gender interaction in British and Swedish parliamentary debates. A primary goal is to show how micro-level analysis of forms of address can account for macro-level instantiations of gender roles and relationships in parliamentary dialogue. The present analysis focuses on the gendered co-construction of institutional roles of, and power relationships between, parliamentary interlocutors. Three aspects will be discussed in more detail: i. first, how female and male MPs address each other during debates; ii. second, how (same-gender and mixed gender) addressing strategies impact upon the outcome of the interaction;



Representing gender in parliamentary dialogue 

iii. third, how the effects of addressing strategies influence the ways in which female and male MPs are evaluated and reacted to. 4.  Strategic uses of parliamentary forms of address In keeping with Ilie’s approach (2010b), the examination of the four categories of parliamentary address has been carried out in terms of three parameters: (in)directness, (non)reciprocity and (in)consistency. –– (In)directness refers to speakers’ direct use of forms of address in the second person or indirect use of forms of address in the third person. –– (Non)reciprocity refers to the use by interacting MPs of identical/equivalent address patterns (reciprocal use) or of non-equivalent/different address ­patterns (non-reciprocal use). –– (In)consistency refers to the extent to which an MP sticks to the same form of address throughout his/her turn (consistent use) or shifts from one form of address to another within one and the same turn (inconsistent use). In general, according to ritualised debating rules, default parliamentary forms of address are supposed to display patterns of indirectness, reciprocity and consistency. This corresponds to the ideal concept of parliament as an arena for debate between members of equal status and in keeping with institutional norms. However, actual parliamentary debates exhibit many instances when the principles of indirectness, reciprocity and consistency are being violated, as will be shown in this paper. Strategic uses of forms of address emerge at the interface between sociocultural conversational practices and institutional interaction conventions in the parliamentary struggle for political power and control over discursive representations and constructions of facts and events. As far as the parliamentary use of pronominal forms of address is concerned, the third person pronoun is the officially acknowledged pronominal form of address in the House of Commons. It counts as the default form of address. In the Swedish Riksdag the third person pronoun is also the officially recommended form of parliamentary address. However, the use of the second person pronoun – both plural (‘ni’) and singular (‘du’) – is increasingly frequent in Swedish parliamentary debates (Ilie 2004, 2005). For analytical purposes it is important to make the distinction between forms of address and forms of reference. Let us consider an institutional formula like “my honourable Friend”, or “the honourable Gentleman/Lady”: they both can be used as either a form of addressing a fellow MP or a form of referring to a fellow MP in the UK Parliament, as illustrated in Excerpt 1 below.

 Cornelia Ilie

Excerpt 1 Mr. Gordon Prentice (Pendle) (Lab): Do we need more single-sex Muslim schools? The Deputy Prime Minister (Mr. John Prescott, Lab): My hon. Friend will know that a number of the local education authorities, which have the right to make that choice, have decided that there will be some of those schools – [Interruption] As my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) reminds me, there are five. It is for the local education authorities to make such decisions, and we should leave it to them.  (Hansard Debates, 9 June 2004: Column 267)

The form of address “my hon. Friend” with which the Deputy Prime Minister starts his intervention is used to target his questioner and current addressee, Mr.  ­Prentice, a fellow party member. When in the next utterance he refers to another fellow party member, Mr. Skinner, the Deputy Prime Minister uses a more explicit form of address: “my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover”. The supplementary information about the constituency – “the Member for Bolsover” – is added in order to avoid a possible confusion between the two MPs, each of whom is normally identified by the address/reference form “my hon. Friend” (since they are members of the same party as the speaking MP John Prescott). Moreover, the first occurrence of “my hon. Friend” is used as a form of address to actually address the questioner Gordon Prentice, whereas the second occurrence, “my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover”, is used as a form of reference, to refer to a third person (who is not the current interlocutor). While the default form of address in the U.K. Parliament is the third person, in the Swedish Riksdag the form of address may alternate between the third and the second person (although the third person is considered the default form of address). Swedish MPs take advantage of this situation (Ilie 2010b) by strategically switching from the third to the second person and vice versa through nonreciprocal and inconsistent use of forms of address, as Ronny Olander does in the following excerpt. Excerpt 2 Catharina Elmsäter-Svärd (m): […] Min fråga till Ronny Olander (s) blir: När du har kommit till den här insikten om problem på område efter ­område för kvinnor – vad blir då ditt svar? Ronny Olander (s): Fru talman! Elmsäter-Svärd vet mycket väl att vi inte bedriver någon statlig lönepolitik. Det gör varken ni eller vi.  (Riksdag Debates, 9 March 2005) Catharina Elmsäter-Svärd (Mod): […] My question to Ronny Olander (s) is: When you [sg.] became aware of women’s problems in a wide range of areas – what is your [sg.] answer then?



Representing gender in parliamentary dialogue 

Ronny Olander (SocDem): Madam Speaker! Elmsäter-Svärd knows very well that we do not support any state-driven salary policy. Neither you [pl.] nor we are doing that.

The dialogic sequence in Excerpt 2 illustrates clearly violations of all three principles of parliamentary address: indirectness, reciprocity and consistency. It is also significant that both interlocutors can be seen to use shifting strategies from forms of reference to forms of address. Elmsäter-Svärd starts by indirectly referring to Olander, her political adversary (My question to Ronny Olander (s) and continues by addressing him directly (When you [sg.] became aware of women’s problems in a wide range of areas – what is your [sg.] answer then?) and thus violating the indirectness principle. A similar strategy is used by Olander, who first uses the referring form (Elmsäter-Svärd knows very well…) and afterwards switches to the direct second person address (Neither you [pl.] nor we are doing that). It is significant that each of the two Swedish MPs resorts to shifts from indirect to direct address in one and the same turn. The usage of gender-specific titles is very different in the Swedish Riksdag as compared to the U.K. Parliament. In the latter, gender-specific titles like the hon. Gentleman and the hon. Lady represent default address titles alongside with institutional titles. In the Swedish Riksdag gender-specific titles like “herr” (Mr.) and “fru” (Mrs.) have gradually become obsolete and rather infrequent, with the exception of the recurrent Speaker-directed forms of address “herr talman” (=  Mr.  Speaker) and “fru talman” (= Madam Speaker). This is in line with the widespread change in social conventions during the last few decades, whereby the use of gender-specific titles has practically disappeared in Swedish (Clyne et al. 2006; Ilie 2010b). Addressing or referring to, say, Lena Andersson as “fru Lena Andersson” has become most unusual nowadays in Swedish, except when ironically meant in adversarial interaction. Nevertheless, the absence of gender-specific titles from the parliamentary range of forms of address in the ­Swedish Riksdag does not imply that there are no occurrences of gender bias in the ways women MPs are addressed and responded to, as will be shown later on in the article. 5.  Parliamentary practices and master suppression techniques Since parliamentary addressing and referring strategies are instrumental in reinforcing institutional behaviour patterns, institutional gender relationships, as well as institutional power balance, it is necessary to carry out an in-depth analysis of their use and misuse by MPs. Although speech acts involving forms of address and reference operate primarily at the micro-level, they implicitly bring about changes

 Cornelia Ilie

at the macro level of parliamentary events. Macrostructures are composed of ­reiterated micro-exchanges which not only create, but also sustain and recreate macro-structural processes. Unlike their male counterparts, female MPs are confronted with a number of social, ideological and psychological obstacles that impact negatively on their possibility to fully and effectively contribute to committee work and to decision-making processes. The discrepancies in institutional power between genders are particularly visible in the enactment and co-occurrences of behavioural and linguistic patterns of interaction. In order to correlate the micro with the macro-level analysis, the present approach integrates the pragmatic and discourse-analytical approach with the theory of the master suppression techniques which was developed by the Norwegian social psychologist Berit Ås (1978). Being herself a politician – the first Norwegian female party leader, Ås had the opportunity to closely observe and reflect on the explicit and implicit mechanisms used by influential individuals or groups in order to exert control and power over other individuals. According to Ås’s definition, master suppression techniques are strategies of social manipulation by which a person or a dominant group – consciously or unconsciously – exercises power to maintain their position in an (established or unexposed) hierarchy. They may be used on all kinds of suppressed groups. Hence they can be used not only by men with regard to women, but also by women with regard to men, as well as by women with regard to women and by men in relation to men. In other words, a master suppression technique is a tool a person uses to exercise power over someone else. This is achieved by using language differently, by using different words, by constructing sentences differently and often by behaving differently. Berit Ås’s theory helps to identify what is going on when individuals notice they are not listened to, when they are looked down upon, overlooked or ignored. In theory, such techniques may be used on all suppressed groups. However, Berit Ås pointed out that in many male-dominated institutional settings they are used in specific combinations and situations with regard to women. The five master suppression techniques identified by Ås can be described as follows: 1. Ignoring/Making Invisible is to silence or otherwise marginalise persons. ­Making someone invisible means that a person chooses to treat an individual or a group as if the person or group were not there. This technique, which can be enacted both verbally and non-verbally (through body language), deprives individuals of their identity and signals that they are inferior, insignificant and have no influence. Evidence shows that in parliament women MPs appear to be most affected by this technique. By learning to recognise



2.

3.

4.

5.

Representing gender in parliamentary dialogue 

this master suppression technique, women, as well as men, can avoid the feeling of insignificance. Ridiculing is to deliberately describe the efforts and arguments of, or the persons themselves, in a ridiculing fashion. This technique is used when women are made fun of, are laughed down, are called names – like bitch or whore or feminist – or compared to animals. It’s used when individuals are told that they are too sensitive or puritan. According to Ås it is often used when men discuss how and why women say something instead of discussing what they have actually said. It is a technique that creates a feeling of insecurity and silences the targeted individual. Some more frequent effects of ridiculing in institutional settings are: scornful laughter, scoring points (audience-related); embarrassment (interlocutor-related). Withholding Information is to exclude someone from the decision making process or marginalise her/his role by deliberately withholding information from her/him so as to make the person less able to make an informed choice. Formal and informal social rituals in traditionally male institutional settings – drinking after work, sauna sessions – allow men to meet and make preliminary decisions without involving their women colleagues. This suppression technique fosters discrimination and it results in competent persons feeling ignored, insecure and disconnected. Double Binding (Damned If You Do and Damned If You Don’t) – also called “the ‘can’t win’ approach” – is to put someone in a situation where she/he is belittled and punished regardless of which alternative she/he chooses; it involves being squeezed and pressured between mutually exclusive choices. For example, a female manager can be accused of weakness when she tries to listen and act democratically – and of lacking femininity when she shows her claws and forces her will through. And a female politician can be attacked for tunnel vision when she insists on women’s interests and for being a traitor when she doesn’t. This suppression technique is used when what women do and don’t do is equally wrong. The result is that it discourages initiative and results in constant guilty conscience, in addition to the feelings of inadequacy and burnout. Blaming and Shaming (Heaping Blame and Putting to Shame) is to embarrass someone, or to insinuate that they are themselves to blame even when they are victims; it thereby forces victims to accept blame. Thus the persons ill-treated feel deeply ashamed and partly responsible for what has happened. This suppression technique discourages assessing the actual or real source of problems and concerns. The result is that it encourages those ridiculed to ‘accept’ their lowered status by shaming them directly and in front of others.

 Cornelia Ilie

Since women and men are assigned different roles and expectations at school, in the family, at work and in politics, they acquire and develop different ways of behaving and of using language. Over time men have developed – consciously or unconsciously – mechanisms and strategies to ensure social and institutional power. A useful way to account for such strategies is to examine and compare how the five master suppression techniques are used by male MPs in addressing and interacting with female MPs during parliamentary debates: by being ignored, by being turned to ridicule, by being underrated, by receiving trivial objections and irrelevant personal criticisms. The identification of these techniques confirms several observations according to which male, as well as female, politicians make use of master suppression techniques to destabilise and/or neutralise political opponents. There are nevertheless instances when women use master suppression acts to challenge the authority of male MPs holding higher positions in the political hierarchy. At the same time, it is symptomatic that it is most frequently women who are unfairly treated. 6.  Master suppression techniques in parliamentary dialogue In what follows a comparative analytical approach will be applied to gendered addressing and referring strategies in the UK Parliament and the Swedish ­Riksdag. The particular uses and effects of these strategies show how microlevel analysis of forms of address can account for macro-level instantiations of gender roles, hierarchies and relationships in parliamentary dialogue. For the purposes of this study two distinctive instances of parliamentary dialogue have been chosen from each of the two parliaments under consideration, namely the Br­itish Question Time on 2nd April 2008 and the Swedish Interpellation on 17th ­February 2008. In both instances male MPs can be seen to apply the formal and informal ‘rules of the game’ that were established by men for men in a men-dominated environment. In so doing, they use (deliberately, as well as non-deliberately) challenging and demeaning techniques of addressing or referring to fellow women MPs. At the same time, it is both enlightening and heartening to see women MPs acting purposefully to challenge the taken-for-granted male confrontational practices in parliaments. In order to approach systematically the mixed-gender patterns of parliamentary interaction, Berit Ås’s theory of ­master suppression techniques will be used with respect to contextualised uses of addressing and referring strategies. The comparative perspective will shed light on particular ways in which gender operates across the cross-national parliamentary spectrum.



Representing gender in parliamentary dialogue 

7.  Gendering parliamentary addressing strategies in the UK Parliament As we could see in the sections above, parliamentary dialogue displays many instances where we can see strategic combinations of directness and indirectness, reciprocity and non-reciprocity, consistency and inconsistency in the use of addressing strategies. On examining addressing and referring strategies in the UK Parliament, it is particularly useful to follow the co-occurring discursive patterns, which often point to the speakers’ overt and covert agendas. Let us consider the following question-answer sequence during the Question Time session on 2nd April 2008 between Harriet Harman (Labour MP and the Leader of the House) and William Hague (Conservative MP and Leader of the Opposition): Excerpt 3 William Hague (Richmond, Yorks) (Con): On a lighter note, I should like to congratulate the Leader of the House on being the first female Labour Member ever to answer Prime Minister’s questions. She must be proud, three decades on, to be following in the footsteps of Margaret Thatcher, whom we on the Conservative Benches, and the Prime Minister, so much ­admire. I have just one question on Zimbabwe before the Foreign Se­cretary’s ­statement at 12.30 pm. Will the Leader of the House make it clear, on behalf of the Prime Minister, that Britain wants to send the clearest possible signal that the world will be there to help the people of Zimbabwe, on top of what she has just rightly said, and that there will be a comprehensive plan to assist them, whenever they are able, to move away from corruption and d­ictatorship, to the rule of law and democracy? Harriet Harman (Lab, the Leader of the House of Commons): I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his congratulations, but I would like to ask him: why is he asking the questions today? He is not the shadow Leader of the House; the shadow Leader of the House is sitting next to him. Is this the situation in the modern Conservative party – that women should be seen but not heard? If I may, perhaps I could offer the shadow Leader of the House a bit of sisterly advice: she should not let him get away with it.  (Hansard, 2 April 2008, Col. 760)

Hague starts his turn with a ritual speech act of congratulation targeted at to ­Harriet Harman – who is addressed through the gender-neutral form of address “Leader of the House”, to which Harman responds, predictably, with a speech act of thanking. However, Hague’s intention is not to enhance the importance of ­Harman’s position and of her personal merit, but rather to single out Harman as a novice in her new role of Leader of the House. In fact, instead of pointing to

 Cornelia Ilie

her professional achievement, Hague refers to her using a linguistic label based on a gender stereotype: “the first female Labour Member ever to answer Prime Minister’s ­questions”. Thereby he intends to marginalise her leadership role by indicating that she plays in a different league – the league of female MPs –, and not in the ‘main’ male parliamentary league. Hague makes here a ‘creative’ use of the first master suppression technique (Making invisible): while pretending to make visible ­Harman’s new prominent parliamentary role he actually tones down the significance of her outstanding achievement in reaching this leading position. Moreover, he uses this opportunity to score one further point by reminding Harman and the audience that the first woman MP ever to hold this position was in fact a Conservative woman, i.e. Margaret Thatcher. In this context Hague makes use of the second master suppression technique (Ridiculing) when he jokingly speaks about the Conservative MPs’ and the Prime Minister’s admiration for Margaret Thatcher. On making this mock reference, Hague’s immediate goals are to elicit laughter and score a point, rather than express genuine admiration for the two female politicians. Nevertheless Harman is not deterred by Hague’s master suppression techniques. After thanking him for his congratulations, she counter-attacks him promptly by calling into question his role and right to ask questions since it is normally the Shadow Leader of the House who should be doing that. At the time Hague was Shadow Foreign Secretary, whereas his fellow Conservative MP ­Theresa May (sitting next to him) was Shadow Leader of the House. Harman’s rhetorical question “why is he asking the questions today?” is meant as a reproach directed to Hague for encroaching on May’s parliamentary rights and responsibilities, including the role of asking questions at Question Time. She thereby objects to the fact that he has, without any apparent justification, self-assumed one of the important responsibilities of the Shadow Leader of the House, who happens to be a woman. This gives her the opportunity to criticise Hague for exerting the first master suppression technique (Making invisible) in relation to a fellow woman MP, thus reinforcing the practice according to which “women should be seen but not heard”. At the same time, Harman herself resorts to the first master suppression technique in her rebuttal to Hague, emphasising his objectionable behaviour which she ascribes to his gender bias. This strategy, which is meant to undermine his authority and popularity, is reinforced by means of the final rhetorical question: “Is this the situation in the modern Conservative party – that women should be seen but not heard?” In uttering this challenging question on an ironical tone, Harman uses the second master suppression technique (Ridiculing), by means of which she treats Hague condescendingly. In his next turn Hague continues to make use of master suppression techniques, as illustrated in the following excerpt:



Representing gender in parliamentary dialogue 

Excerpt 4 William Hague: Before turning to domestic issues, I was going to be nice to the right hon. and learned Lady. She has had a difficult week. She had to explain yesterday that she dresses in accordance with wherever she is ­going: she wears a helmet on a building site, she wears Indian clothes in the parts of her constituency with a large representation of Indian people, so when she goes to a Cabinet meeting, she presumably dresses as a clown. ­[Interruption.] As I said, I was going to be nice to her before her previous response. Turning to serious domestic issues, the Prime Minister is reported to have said on Monday night that no one would be worse off as a result of the doubling of the 10p tax band this weekend. Does the right hon. and learned Lady think that that statement was true? Harriet Harman: I would just start by saying that if I were looking for advice on what to wear or what not to wear, the very last person I would look to is the man in the baseball cap. Turning to the important question of the economy, it has been our ­Government’s determination to ensure that we have a strong, stable and growing economy, so that people can be in work, be in their jobs and be better off. […]

This time Hague resorts to the default gender-specific parliamentary title “the right hon. and learned Lady” when addressing Harman. The title indicates that she has a higher status than ordinary MPs, who are addressed simply as “the hon. Lady/­ Gentleman”. The qualifier “right” indicates that she is a member of the Privy Council (normally a past or present minister), and the qualifier “learned” that she is a practising lawyer. Hence this title is bestowed on a highly qualified MP, who in her case also holds the position of Leader of the House. In fact, her title indicates that she is on a higher level in the parliamentary hierarchy than Hague, who only qualifies for the lower title “the right hon. Gentleman”. In spite of this, Hague acts in a pseudoprotective manner as if Harman were vulnerable and in need of support when he ironically declares “I was going to be nice to the right hon. and learned Lady”. More significantly, he repeats this statement, but with an important qualification: “I was going to be nice to her before her previous response”, implying that because her response did not comply with his personal expectations he needs no longer be nice to her. This is a blatant example of the fifth master suppression technique (Blaming and Shaming), whereby the ill-treated persons are made to feel deeply ashamed and partly responsible for what is happening to them. In other words, it is Harman who should take the blame for Hague’s decision to stop being nice to her just because she ‘behaved badly’, according to him, by providing the ‘wrong’ response to his previous question. Afterwards he continues in the same patronising vein to provide a mock-account of her recent activities by s­ ystematically activating

 Cornelia Ilie

the gender ­stereotype of dressing codes: “she wears a helmet on a building site, she wears Indian clothes in the parts of her constituency with a large representation of Indian people, so when she goes to a Cabinet meeting, she presumably dresses as a clown.” It is easy to identify the second master suppression technique which is used by Hague to turn to ridicule Harman’s initiatives and activities by presenting a distorted picture of stereotypical clothing symbols. As in the preceding exchange, Harman reacts promptly to Hague’s genderbiased rhetoric by ridiculing and counter-attacking him along the same lines: “if I were looking for advice on what to wear or what not to wear, the very last person I would look to is the man in the baseball cap.” In doing that she defiantly performs an act of self-assertion. Her strategy is a combination of the first (Making i­ nvisible) and the second (Ridiculing) master suppression techniques, which shows that she has internalised male parliamentary suppression techniques. By continuing to treat Hague in an ironical manner, Harman aims to reduce his authoritativeness and to render him less influential. 8.  G  endering parliamentary addressing strategies in the Swedish Riksdag While parliamentary norms and addressing rituals are culture- and institutionspecific, the uses and effects of master suppression techniques display a wide range of similarities across cultural and national borders, although they may take different forms. In what follows I will focus on a few representative instances from the Interpellation in the Swedish Riksdag on 17th February 2008. The choice of this particular interpellation is motivated by the fact that it was much talked about in the media. In his interpellation, the Minister of Defence Sten Tolgfors was expected to answer questions from several MPs belonging to a parliamentary group in charge of a report concerning the government’s initiative to close down a military airport and military units in the area of Uppsala, 50 km north of Stockholm. The report pointed out the negative consequences of such a closedown. The authors of the report are MPs that belong to the same political coalition (the right-wing ­political Alliance) as Tolgfors, namely Cecilia Wikström (Liberal MP), Solveig Zander (Centre MP) and Mikael Oskarsson (Christian-Democrat MP and ­coordinator of the report). In connection with this interpellation the Swedish Minister for the Defence, Sten Tolgfors, was publicly accused of using male master suppression techniques when addressing two of the female MPs who contributed to the negative report, namely Cecilia Wikström and Solveig Zander. The accusations concern primarily his gender-biased use of addressing strategies when responding to them. Unlike



Representing gender in parliamentary dialogue 

the situation in the UK Parliament discussed above, Swedish Minister Tolgfors has  not been personally challenged by the questioning female MPs. First let us consider the following two excerpts: Excerpt 5 Anf. 75 Försvarsminister Sten Tolgfors (m): Fru talman! Mikael Oscarsson har frågat mig: […] Försvarsmaktens ledning ansvarar inför regeringen för att de krav och den verksamhet statsmakterna har beslutat genomförs. Med detta, fru talman, har jag besvarat Mikael Oscarssons tre frågor. Turn 75: The Minister of Defence, Sten Tolgfors (Mod):1 Madam Speaker! Mikael Oscarsson asked me […] The highest command of the Swedish national defence is accountable to the Government that the requirements and the activities decided upon are carried through. ­Consequently, Madam Speaker, I have answered Mikael Oscarsson’s three questions. (Swedish Riksdag, 17th February, 2008) Excerpt 6 Anf. 79 Cecilia Wikström i Uppsala (fp): Fru talman! Jag vill också tacka min kollega Mikael Oscarsson för att han har ställt den här principiellt mycket viktiga interpellationen till ­försvarsministern, och jag också tackar för svaret. […] Jag vill inte börja med att ställa ytterligare frågor, för jag inser att ­försvarsministern har fått ett antal redan att besvara från de tre tidigare talarna. Turn 79: Cecilia Wikström (Lib): Madam Speaker! I also want to thank my colleague Mikael Oscarsson for preparing and addressing this very ­important interpellation to the Minister of Defence. […] I do not want to start by asking further question, because I realise that the Minister of Defence has already received a good many questions from the previous speakers. (Swedish Riksdag, 17th February, 2008)

.  The political parties represented in the Swedish Riksdag are the following – in Swedish and English versions: –– –– –– –– –– –– ––

Socialdemokraterna (s) = The Social Democratic Party (SocDem) Moderata samlingspartiet (m) = The Moderate Party (Mod) Centerpartiet (c) = The Centre Party (Cen) Folkpartiet liberalerna (fp) = The Liberal Party (Lib) Kristdemokraterna (kd) = The Christian Democrats (ChrDem) Vänsterpartiet (v) = The Left Party (Lft) Miljöpartiet de gröna (mp) = The Green Party (Grn).

 Cornelia Ilie

In the Swedish Riksdag the third person pronoun is traditionally considered the default form of parliamentary address. A few illustrations of the use of this default form by both male and female MPs are provided in Excerpts (5) and (6) above. There is nevertheless a significant difference between addressing strategies in the Swedish Riksdag and in the UK Parliament. As we could see in the previous section, British MPs use institutional titles, gender-specific or gender-neutral forms of address, but they are not supposed to use personal names. Swedish MPs, however, can and do use personal names, as well as institutional titles. Both Sten Tolgfors in (5) and Cecilia Wikström in (6) address or refer to their fellow MPs in the third person by means of personal names – FN + LN (first name and last name) – (‘Mikael Oskarsson’) or institutional titles (‘forsvarsministern’ = ‘Minister of Defence’). Unlike British MPs, Swedish MPs start in a very formal way by addressing the Speaker (almost) every time they take the floor. This consistently used strategy of addressing the Speaker may contribute to the overall impression of greater formality regarding Swedish parliamentary addressing strategies. However, there is substantial evidence of the increasing use of the informal second person pronoun – both plural (‘ni’) and singular (‘du’) which has been discussed in Ilie (2004, 2005, 2010b). In this interpellation there are several occurrences of the use of the second person singular ‘du’, all of which are gender-related, i.e. the intended addressee is a female MP. For a better understanding of the implications of the use of the second person singular ‘du’ a discourse-based comparison will be made between Excerpts (5) and (6) above on the one hand, and Excerpts (7) and (8) below, on the other. Excerpt 7 Anf. 81 Försvarsminister Sten Tolgfors (m): Fru talman! Nej, Cecilia – alliansregeringen har inte alls haft några förslag om förbandsnedläggningar över huvud taget. Däremot lade den tidigare regeringen ned 60 förband under sina år vid makten. […] Det är också så, Cecilia, att det du efterlyser i form av en adekvat ­omvärldsanalys är gjort icke bara två gånger utan tre gånger – först av två sjupartieniga försvarsberedningar, där ditt eget parti ingår. […] Turn 81 The Minister of Defence Sten Tolgfors, (Mod.): Madam Speaker! No, Cecilia – the [right wing] Alliance Government has never advanced any proposals about the closedown of military units. ­Actually it was the p ­ revious government who, when they were in power, decided to close down 60 military units. […] Moreover, Cecilia, the situational and environmental analysis that you [sg] are asking for has already been carried out not only two, but three times – first by the two seven-party defence committees, where your [sg] own party is represented […]. (Swedish Riksdag, 17th February, 2008)



Representing gender in parliamentary dialogue 

Excerpt 8 Anf. 87 Försvarsminister Sten Tolgfors (m): […] Jag tror att Cecilia möjligen gjorde en felsägning när hon började prata om nedläggning av f 16. […] Jag tror att man kan konstatera följande: Detta lades ned av den tidigare regeringen och Socialdemokraterna […]. Där lider vi möjligen av att vi kommer ett antal år i efterhand med delar av den här debatten, Cecilia. Det är inte alls på det sättet som Mikael Oscarsson säger, att tre missiler gör att vi inte har något svenskt flygvapen. Det är inte heller på det sättet som han beskriver i sin interpellation […] Turn 87 The Minister of Defence Sten Tolgfors (Mod.): I think that C ­ ecilia may have had a slip of the tongue when she started talking about the c­ losedown of F 16. […] I think that we can realise the following: This was closed down by the previous government and the Social Democrats […]. This is where the present debate may come a few years late, Cecilia. Furthermore, it is not true, as Mikael Oscarsson says, that three missiles mean that we have no Swedish air defence weapons. The situation is not at all as he describes it in his interpellation. […]

A closer examination of the addressing strategies used by Tolgfors in (5) and (7) reveals a striking difference between the way in which he addresses his fellow male MP Mikael Oskarsson and the way in which he addresses his fellow female MP Cecilia Wikström. In (5) and (8) Tolgfors consistently addresses Mikael O ­ skarsson with deference by means of the institutionally endorsed form – FN + LN (first name and last name) – and in the third person. Actually, this formal ‘parliamentary’ addressing style in relation to Oskarsson is noticeable throughout the whole interpellation. At the same time, surprisingly enough, Tolgfors consistently addresses the female MPs – Cecilia Wikström and Solveig Zander – in a condescending way. Thus, in (7) he addresses Wikström by means of the FN (first name) alone, e.g. “No, Cecilia”; “Moreover, Cecilia”, and in the second person, e.g. “du efterlyser” (you [sg] are asking); “ditt eget parti” (your [sg] own party). A marked contrast is created between Tolgfors’s formal introductory address “Madam Speaker” and the casual form of address directed at Wikström – “Cecilia”, and “du”. It is surprising to see that although both Mikael Oskarsson and Cecilia W ­ ikström have tackled the same challenging issues by calling into question the proposed initiative to close down the military units, they are addressed in entirely different ways by Minister Tolgfors. While Oskarsson is addressed in keeping with parliamentary addressing conventions, Wikström is addressed very informally in a casual manner. Moreover, in (7) Tolgfors starts his response to Wikström in a confrontational way – with the negation ‘no’ – followed by the very unparliamentary use of her first

 Cornelia Ilie

name. Wikström, as can be seen in (6), complies with the parliamentary conventional forms when she addresses both fellow parliamentarians: FN + LN – “Mikael Oskarsson”; institutional title – “the Minister of Defence (= försvarsministern)”. In several of his responses to Wikström’s questions, Tolgfors adopts a patronising tone, addressing her by the first name and in the second person. This is a prototypical manifestation of the first master suppression technique (Making invisible) in that he tries to indirectly silence her by explicitly discarding the validity of her proposals and arguments. By treating Wikström’s contributions to the debate as insignificant, he wants to render her less visible, hence not worth taking into consideration. In (7) he starts ex abrupto by denying the accuracy of Cecilia’s statement regarding the Government’s proposals about the closedown of military units, and he continues in the same vein by dismissing her proposed situational and environmental analysis which, he claims, had already been carried out three times before. His verbal and non-verbal behaviour indicate that he is disturbed and irritated by the standpoints and arguments presented by Wikström. In a reaction of self-defence, Tolgfors also resorts to the fifth master suppression technique (Blaming and Shaming) by repeatedly correcting her, and thereby insinuating that the inadequacy of her statements shows that she is not well-informed about the issues under discussion. The intended effect is to embarrass her and consequently make her lose face in front of her fellow MPs. In his response in (8) Tolgfors activates the second master suppression technique (Ridiculing) when he ironically uses the paraphrase “a slip of the tongue” in “Cecilia may have had a slip of the tongue” to point out her ignorance rather than a mere formal inadvertence. His ironical tone is further reinforced immediately afterwards when he declares that “the present debate may come a few years late, Cecilia”. Although Cecilia is only one of the members of the parliamentary group who wrote the report, she appears nevertheless to be the target of Tolgfors’s strongest counter-attacks reinforced by master suppression techniques. Mikael Oscarsson, the report coordinator, is also targeted by Tolgfors, as in (8), but the addressing strategies comply with the official parliamentary form of address (FN + LN and the 3rd person singular): “as Mikael Oscarsson says”; “as he describes it in his interpellation”. 9.  Concluding remarks This article presents an innovative analytical approach that enables the analyst to systematically identify and examine instances of gender-related asymmetries in parliamentary interaction. The analysis shows how gender identities are negotiated, reinforced and/or challenged by observing or violating institutional norms



Representing gender in parliamentary dialogue 

of interaction. The strategic use of addressing and referring strategies, such as the shifting use of institutional and non-institutional forms of address, or of the third and second person pronoun, provide relevant information with respect to debating MPs’ gender and hierarchical roles, as well as to the power struggle over competing political goals. In order to carry out a comprehensive analysis – both in depth and in breadth – an integrative theoretical approach has been used that originates in discourse analysis, gender studies and social psychology. Particularly useful has been Berit Ås’s theory of master suppression techniques: (1) Ignoring; (2) Ridiculing; (3) Withholding information; (4) Double binding; (5) Blaming and Shaming. Her theoretical framework of analysis helps to identify what is going on when individuals notice they are not seriously listened to, when they are looked down upon, turned to ridicule, overlooked or ignored. These are techniques that can be used on all suppressed groups. However, this analysis confirms the findings of previous researchers who reported that in male-dominated institutional settings these techniques are used in specific combinations and with specific purposes in relation to women. For the purposes of the present study a comparative investigation has been carried out between shifting uses of parliamentary addressing and referring strategies in two particular debates in the UK Parliament (Question Time) and the Swedish Riksdag (Interpellation). The particular uses and effects of these strategies show how micro-level analysis of forms of address can account for macro-level instantiations of gender roles, hierarchies and relationships in parliamentary dialogue. While the two parliaments display certain similarities between the ways in which male MPs address and refer to female MPs, there are also differences with regard to particular situational elements, discursive features and interpersonal relationships. Thus, in the British Question Time session under consideration the cross-gender adversarial confrontation is largely ritualistic and consists in consistently and mutually challenging the power balance between female and male interlocutors. In the Swedish Interpellation session, the cross-gender adversarial confrontation appears to be more subtle and apparently more subdued, although it also involves challenging the power balance. A particularly relevant difference between the British and the Swedish manifestations of gendered parliamentary confrontations can be attributed to their differently institutionalised discursive and rhetorical styles. The ways in which specific rules of parliamentary address are being observed or infringed involve significant distinctions in the behaviour of the respective MPs in each of the two parliaments. In the British parliamentary tradition adversarial encounters, whether same-gender or cross-gender, are integrated into a political rhetoric that praises open confrontation based on irony, sarcasm and wit (normally meant to entertain and elicit the audience’s laughter in addition to scoring political points). More

 Cornelia Ilie

often than not, women MPs who, like Harriet Harman, reach high positions in the parliamentary hierarchy and succeed in maintaining their standing are actually playing by the same rules as male MPs. She too resorts to master suppression techniques to respond to the ones used by her male adversary. The ­Swedish parliamentary rhetoric has emerged and evolved within a consensus-based political culture of ‘serious’ talk and no laughter. There have been, however, recent paradigm shifts in the speaking and interaction styles of Swedish MPs that indicate a change towards more confrontational encounters. At the same time, there are cases when female MPs, like Cecilia Wikström, are singled out from a mixed group as the t­arget of male master suppression techniques. In both parliaments gendered addressing strategies are often embedded in female MP-targeted master suppression techniques that result in turning issue-focused discussions into person-focused parliamentary confrontations.

References Ås, B. 1978. Hersketeknikker [Master suppression techniques]. Kjerringråd. Bem, S. L. 1993. The lenses of gender: Transforming the debate on sexual inequality. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. Catalano, A. 2009. Women acting for women? An analysis of gender and debate participation in the British House of Commons 2005–2007. Politics & Gender, 5 (1): 45–68. Chappell, L. 2002. Gendering government: Feminist engagement with the state in Australia and Canada. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press. Clyne, M., H.-L. Kretzenbacher, C. Norrby, and D. Schüpbach. 2006. Perceptions of variation and change in German and Swedish address. Journal of Sociolinguistics 10 (3): 287–319. Eckert, P. 1989. Jocks and burnouts: Social categories and identity in the high school. New York: Teachers College Press. Eckert, P., and S. McConnell-Ginet. 1992. Communities of practice: Where language, gender, and power all live. In Locating power: Proceedings of the second Berkeley women and language conference, eds. K. Hall, M. Bucholz and B. Moonwomon, 89–99. Berkeley, CA: Berkeley Women and Language Group, University of California-Berkeley. Goffman, E. 1987. Gender advertisements. New York: Harper Torchbooks. Holmes, J., and M. Meyerhoff, eds. 2003. The handbook of language and gender. Oxford: Blackwell. Ilie, C. 2003. Discourse and metadiscourse in parliamentary debates. Journal of Language and Politics 1 (2): 269–91. Ilie, C. 2004. Insulting as (un)parliamentary practice in the British and Swedish Parliaments: A rhetorical approach. In Cross-cultural perspectives on parliamentary discourse, ed. P. Bayley, 45–86. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Ilie, C. 2005. Politeness in Sweden: Parliamentary forms of address. In Politeness in Europe, eds. Leo Hickey and Miranda Stewart, 174–188. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Ilie, C. 2006. Towards a pragma-rhetorical approach: From rhetoric to pragmatics and beyond. In Pragmatics, ed. A. Thorat, 16–37. Aundh, India: Institute of Advanced Studies in English.



Representing gender in parliamentary dialogue 

Ilie, C. 2008. Talking the talk, walking the walk: Candidate profiles in election campaign interviews. In Proceedings of the IADA Workshop “Word Meaning in Argumentative Dialogue, eds. G. Giovanni, S. Cantarini, S. Cigada, M.C. Gatti and S. Gilardoni.” Homage to Sorin Stati. Volume II. L’ analisi linguistica e letteraria XVI (Special Issue, 2). Milano: EDUCatt. Ilie, C. 2009. Strategies of refutation by definition: A pragma-rhetorical approach to refutations in American public speech. In Pondering on problems of argumentation. Twenty essays on theoretical issues, eds. F. H. van Eemeren and B. Garssen, 35–51. Berlin: Springer. Ilie, C., ed. 2010a. European parliaments under scrutiny: Discourse strategies and interaction ­practices. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Ilie, C. 2010a. Identity co-construction in parliamentary discourse practices. In European ­parliaments under scrutiny: Discourse strategies and interaction practices, ed. Cornelia Ilie. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Ilie, C. 2010b. Strategic uses of parliamentary forms of address: The case of the U.K. Parliament and the Swedish Riksdag. Journal of Pragmatics 42 (4): 885–911. Kotthoff, H., and R. Wodak. 1997. Communicating gender in context. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Lakoff, R. 1990. Why can’t a woman be less like a man? In Talking power: The politics of language. San Francisco: Basic Books. Lovenduski, J. 1998. Gendering research in political science. Annual Review of Political Science 1: 333–56. Lovenduski, J., and A. Karam. 2005. Women in parliament: Making a difference. In Women in parliament: Beyond numbers, eds. J. Ballington and A. Karam. Stockholm: IDEA. Magnusson, E., M. Rönnblom, and H. Silius, eds. 2008. Critical studies of gender equalities. ­Nordic dislocations, dilemmas and contradictions. Göteborg: Makadam. Tannen, D. 1994a. Talking from 9 to 5: Women and men in the workplace: Language, sex and power. New York: Avon. Tannen, D. 1994b. The sex-class linked framing of talk at work. In Gender and discourse, ed. D. Tannen. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wängnerud, L. 2005. Sweden: A step-wise development. In Women in parliament: Beyond ­numbers, eds. J. Ballington and A. Karam, 238–247. Stockholm: IDEA. West, C. 1995. Women’s competence in conversation. Discourse and society 6 (1): 107–31. Wodak, R., ed. 1997. Gender and discourse. London: Sage.*

Dialogue as a truth-conveying discursive strategy Eric Grillo* As this chapter shows, dialogue is the one among the discursive strategies we can engage in, that makes it possible to fulfill three requirements simultaneously: the ethical requirement, for we must trust the speaker; the logical one, for the proposition at issue must fit in some way or other with what we already think “things are”; and the relational one, for we must assent to it, that is, perform an act that makes it explicit that we will hereafter take it as a basis for our further conduct. To that extent, it might be assumed that it provides us with, if not the only one, at least with the best and shortest way to move from unacknowledged truth to mutual agreement.

1.  Introductory remarks As it is nowadays widely agreed in the field of Dialogue Studies “ There is no generally agreed concept of dialogue”.1 As a matter of fact, a brief glance at the current literature in the field shows that we still lack a unifying concept of dialogue upon which some kind of general theory might be grounded. On the contrary, the state of art leads one to admit that “various perspectives can be taken which result in different concepts of dialogue and correspondingly in different methodologies of dialogue analysis”.2 But why, one may ask, should such a situation be held to be unsatisfactory? Doesn’t it merely mirror the fact that dialogue can be accounted for in many ways and from various points of view? Provided the all of them are all at once legitimate, relevant and fruitful (which obviously is the case) it seems hard to see what may be wrong with them. So far so good. No doubt that in the past few decades

*  University of Paris 3 Sorbonne Nouvelle. 1.  As was rightly reminded by the organisers of the 13th IADA Conference while presenting the conference theme. 2.  ibidem.

 Eric Grillo

many approaches have contributed to the advancement of our knowledge and the improvement of our understanding of Dialogue. Yet there’s one detail that’s worth noticing, namely the fact that many of the various contemporary approaches to dialogue, in spite of their undeniable diversity, seem to be directed towards the overcoming of the “difficulties” and “limitations” of one so-called “Classical Model” of dialogue, from which they all try to depart. This was made perfectly clear by Per Linell (1998) who, about ten years ago, wrote: The classical tradition defines “dialogue” in a basically normative way; we are concerned with “good dialogue” which also implies ethical demands on a “morally charged, authentic relationship” (pp. 12–13).

The tradition that is being referred to here is obviously that of Plato’s philosophy and, according to Linell, the view of dialogue that underlies it has to be overcome for several reasons. The first one is that such a “platonic” conception of dialogue seems to have remained an ideal defining a set of norms for “true dialogue” in quite wide, though perhaps mainly “academic” circles of western civilization (p. 11)

Clearly, what is being stressed upon here is that philosophical conceptions of dialogue are often (if not always) normative. To that extent, they tell us what “true dialogues” ought to be, while failing to tell us what real dialogues actually are. Hence the second “charge” against philosophical accounts, as Linell puts it as an empirically grounded model of communication, such a view of dialogue based entirely on symmetry and equality would be unfruitful and counterfactual  (p. 13)

Let’s try to summarize: the “Platonic” philosophical conception that underlies the “classical model” of dialogue makes it all at once normative and idealistic and ethnocentric and unfruitful and counterfactual. So that it seems urgent to get rid of it. This is precisely what Linell endeavours to do, primarily by adopting what he calls “another kind of definition,” that is to say a definition being grounded in a strong empirical basis and implying minimal theoretical preconception; such methodological choices lead him then to define “dialogue” as “any interaction through language (or other symbolic means) between two or several individuals who are mutually co-present” (p. 13). I agree with Linell (and those who share his views) that “genuine dialogue” in the strong philosophical sense may be hard to find. But at the same time I must confess that I still feel very uncomfortable with the kind of strategy he adopts, which consists in widening the meaning of the term “dialogue” to make it fit with



Dialogue as a truth-conveying discursive strategy 

empirical data. For there is a counterpart, namely that the resulting definition turns out to be so weakly discriminating that it fails to account for what it is that makes dialogue a specific type of discursive practice. The same holds regarding the properties that, still according to Linell, characterize what he calls “dialogicity,” namely “sequential organization,” “joint (social or interactional) construction” and “interdependance between acts (local units) and activities (global units)” (pp. 8–9), for none of them seem to apply to dialogue alone. Linell himself acknowledges it and recognizes that “they also apply generally in all human cognition and communication” (p. 9). But then, it becomes difficult to understand in what sense he can claim, as he does, that they are “essential in dialogue.” Dialogue studies have then to face a kind of aporia: on the one hand, the “classical” model of dialogue provides us with a quite well-defined concept, but the conditions it imposes on it are so strong that something like a “genuine dialogue” seems very unlikely to be observed. On the other hand, current approaches that take the term “dialogue” in a broad sense seem to be committed to the conclusion that almost every kind of language use that is not explicitly monological becomes ipso facto a variety of dialogue. The present paper might be seen as an attempt to find a way out of this ­aporia and to restore in favour the “classical model,” at least to some extent. In my opinion, taking the term “dialogue” in too wide a sense leads to the overlooking of some features and properties that are specific to dialogue, so that they make it discernible from other kinds of verbal interaction. So, I’ll hereafter focus on these features and properties, first by paying particular attention to some (dia)-logical constraints on informational content, and then to the ethical dimension involved in dialogical activity. Finally, the particular relation to truth that dialogue seems to bring forth will be stressed upon. I don’t deny that some of these features and properties may also appear in other forms of talk-in-interaction. Yet I’ll argue that they work in dialogue in a very particular way which is precisely what makes it so specific a verbal exchange. Moreover, I’m close to believing that the reason why dialogue is so widely held to be of high socio-cultural and personal value is to be sought for in the very feeling of its specificity, however unconscious it may be. Just try to ask someone “What is it that makes dialogue worthy of social and personal interest?” The most frequent answer you’ll probably get will be its being directed towards a kind of agreement that is not a mere concession, nor even a compromise, but a genuine mutual assent. We’re not saying that every dialogue always provides such a result, but the underlying belief seems to be that would dialogue be carried out in the proper way, it would in the long run reach such an end.

 Eric Grillo

I’ll take such a belief to be what allows dialogue to work socially as a kind of “canonical form” of conflict resolution; and I’ll try to show that such a ‘virtue’ can be accounted for in terms of the above mentioned features and properties that will be focused on below. 2.  Dialogue as a “discursive strategy” Being taken for granted that defining dialogue may be hopeless, but at the same time that adopting too wide a conception misses something of the specificity of ­dialogue, my first task will be to characterize it so that we can make a d ­ iscriminating use of the concept without loosing all empirical plausibility. In that aim, I’ll refer back to the pioneering works of Francis Jacques (1985, 1988, 1991), one of the “founding fathers” of the French tradition in Dialogue Studies, and pay particular heed to the notion of “discursive strategy” that he worked out in the eighties. Jacques’ purpose was explicitly a philosophical one and his “philosophy of dialogue” is before anything else a philosophy of relation. It constitutes an attempt to get rid of the old paradigms of “consciousness” and “subjectivity” in so far as, according to him, they both rely on “egological premises” that lead to intentional conceptions of meaning (ranging from early phenomenology to contemporary philosophy of ordinary language; for more details, see Grillo 2000) and thereby to directional, asymmetrical models of communication. In Jacques’ view, such models ultimately rely upon a misconception of what a relation really is. As we have learned from logicians a relation can’t be reduced to a mere property of (one of) the related terms; on the reverse, we must consider that it is the relation itself that “creates” so to speak the terms it relates. A relational term has to be distinguished from what it may stand for, particularly from the kind of entity that “embodies” it. This is what “egological” conceptions often fail to do, and the reason why, according to Jacques, they must be overcome, which can be done only by theories taking as their starting point the “Primacy of Relation,” as of course Jacques’ does. Such a claim has important consequences when applied to language use study, for it entails that meaning is neither a private concern nor a mere individual ­undertaking: it is always an inter-personal activity. Jacques’ key notion of “dialogism” is intended precisely to “capture” the fact that meanings are relationdependant: it is always within the boundaries of a given “interlocutive relation” that meanings can be produced and specified, so that both participants in the interaction contribute more or less to the “significance process.” That’s why, as pragmaticians have shown, the utterance meaning never reduces neither to the speaker’s meaning nor to the sentence meaning alone.



Dialogue as a truth-conveying discursive strategy 

The relational dimension of meaning, once stated, is what allows Jacques to consider “dialogism” as a constraint on significance, although he admits that there may be various degrees of dialogism, depending on the kind of relation a given linguistic exchange initiates. This is the philosophical background upon which Jacques’ notion of d ­ iscursive strategy is to be understood. Along with the general principles just reminded, it suggests that the various discursive practices that constitute our “communicational experience” might be discriminated according to the kind of relation that holds between participants in each case, in other words, on the “degree of ­dialogism” each one imposes on the interaction. Thus, as Jacques puts it, a discursive strategy will be “a set of coordinate communicative interactions that construct step by step their context”3 (1988, p. 52). Now, if we want to distinguish the various strategies from one another, we must focus on the particular relation that each one “embodies” and that depends itself on what Jacques calls the “relational pairing” (couplage relationnel). It ­determines the way in which the participants are “tied together” and hence the structure of the interaction that’s going on, as well as the set of constraints and rules they have to follow in order to satisfy it. Let’s take an example. It is well known that a Doctor mustn’t disclose information about his patients. Now suppose my mother’s Doctor is also my best friend; he has just examined her and before leaving, I find myself alone with him; then I ask him: “Now, as a friend of mine, tell me the truth about mum’s disease.” In uttering such a request, I suggest that the prevailing relation is no longer the asymmetrical relation Doctor-Patient, but the symmetrical relation Friend-Friend and hence, that the constraints and rules to be followed thereafter are those holding between friends. Thereby I allow (and invite) him to tell me things he wouldn’t have disclosed otherwise. In a more technical way now, a discursive strategy can be characterized by means of several parameters that always occur, although in various ways according to what relation the relational pairing generates. The first one is the enunciative convention (convention énonciative) that governs the turn-taking; it determines whether or not the participants are on a par as to their “right and duty” to speak. The second one is the interlocutive relation, as Jacques says, which may be symmetrical or asymmetrical. The third one is the communicative interaction which may be strong or weak and the last one is the finality (finalité), in so far as a discursive strategy may have either a practical or a theoretical aim.

3.  (…) un ensemble coordonné d’interactions communicatives construisant peu à peu leur contexte » Our translation.

 Eric Grillo

Just as dialogism did, these parameters admit various “degrees of strength” according to which they impose various sets of constraints and rules on what the participants can say and do in each case. Some of these rules (the structural ones, as Jacques calls them) affect the semantic structure of the utterances and govern the illocutionary consistency of the speech acts. Others (called sequential rules) concern the concatenation of the speech acts and regulate the convergence of the argument relative to the particular purpose4 of the strategy. Such a characterization makes it plain that a discursive strategy is to be thought of as a goal-oriented interactional process, so that the participants have to follow the constraints and rules implied in order to reach the purposed goal. To that extent, it must be assumed that a discursive strategy also has “felicity conditions,” in addition to those that apply to speech acts. This last point helps us understand why it is legitimate to speak of “constraints”; for it turns out that the participants in verbal interaction aren’t absolutely free: not only does the relational pairing tie them together in a particular way, but it also prescribes them, so to say, the boundaries within which the goal of the strategy may be attainable. At its highest degree (that is in dialogue) the relational pairing will result in a “dyad of persons” acting as a “self-organized system” to which each contributor at each step must subscribe if the strategy is to be successful. In terms of Jacques’ conceptual apparatus then, dialogue would be considered as a particular “discursive strategy,” namely one in which a “strong relational pairing” results in a “dyad of persons” that are on a par as to the turn-taking (enunciative convention); they are therefore engaged in a symmetrical interlocutive relation that leads to a strong communicative interaction, all that holding whatever the “finality” may be, dialogue admitting, as we’ve seen, practical as well as theoretical aims. At this point, it must be clear that dialogue (as a discursive strategy) imposes specific constraints on what the agents can say and do in the context of a given verbal interaction. From now on, I’ll focus on such constraints and, for the sake of clarity, I’ll examine first, how the fact of being dialogically built affects the ­“informational content” of discourse; second, what is at stake in the “ethical dimension” of d ­ ialogue and third, what kind of privileged relation to truth it has, that may allow us to hold it a “truth-conveying discursive strategy.”

4.  The purpose of a strategy has to be distinguished from its finality; while the former governs what is being dealt with “here and now,” the latter concerns the outcomes that may potentially follow. For instance, the purpose of a negociation is to get a compromise between conflicting interests, while its finality is to find a way out of a crisis.



Dialogue as a truth-conveying discursive strategy 

3.  Dia-logical constraints on “informational content” Jacques’ conception entails several important consequences that are worth ­reminding before we deal with the question of the “informational-content”. To begin with, it must be emphasized that a discursive strategy being but a subclass of discursive practices, is a goal-oriented activity. As such, it never amounts to a mere collection of unrelated utterances. Even when we’re dealing with weakly cooperative strategies, they remain describable as global units (to borrow again from Linell) the constituents of which must cohere in some way or other and converge towards some given target. The second point to be kept in mind is that speaking of ‘strategy’ implies that we consider a verbal exchange as a complex activity within the boundaries of which each utterance can be viewed as a “move” that takes place in an ever-changing context. So that in order to decide what an utterance does (how it contributes to the progression of the strategy) we must consider in what particular “state of context” it was uttered, to what previous move(s) it can be connected, and what next possible move(s) it calls for. Thus, the contextual change provides us with a kind of measurement for the valuation of what a given utterance does as a “contribution”: suffices to note what new information it introduces and hence, to what extent it modifies the context. As Asher & Lascarides (2003) pointed out, there are several logical constraints that apply to such a process. First, there must be some piece of information available in the previous context (including co-text) to which the new one can be attached by means of what they call rhetorical relations (such as Narration, Explanation, Elaboration, Contrast, Correction and so on). Second, due to the “underspecification” in which compositional semantics often leaves some parts of discourse (such as pronouns antecedents for instance) there are often several possible “attachment points” to which the new information might be connected, and consequently several possible “values” for a given contribution, so that the “updating process” remains always more or less tentative. In order then to avoid or, at least, to limit an interpretative inflation, Asher & Lascarides (2003) suggest that the updating process be subordinated to what they call the “Maximal Discourse Coherence Principle” which prescribes that the chosen connection be that which provides discourse with maximal coherence while allowing for the maximal number of resolved underspecification. Now, such constraints seem to be absolutely general, so that it may be argued that they are immune to the discourse being dialogically produced or not. As I will try to show, this is not the case however. If we agree with Jacques’ “gradual” conception of discursive strategies, we must remember that the set of discursive strategies can be ordered (so to say) according

 Eric Grillo

to a scale of dialogism that depends on the relational pairing that governs a given strategy. Strong ‘relational pairing’ results in highly cooperative strategies, some of which (including dialogue) being even describable as self-organized systems to which the participant’s moves have to submit if the strategy is to be satisfied. As the relational pairing weakens, strategies become cooperative to lesser and lesser a degree, until we reach the lowest level where we find strategies (such as altercation) in which even coordination (let alone cooperation) can no longer be warranted. Undoubtedly, such differences affect the interactional “monitoring” of the informational content of discourse. For a highly cooperative strategy (as dialogue is) prescribes (as one of its “felicity conditions”) that the updating process be either mutually carried on or else at least mutually controlled, so that no contextual change can be effective unless it has been mutually settled. As a result, as the interaction proceeds, a new relevant informational content is introduced to which, due to its mode of settlement, each partner may refer to as a piece of mutually warranted information. Clearly enough, strategies that are weakly or minimally cooperative do not allow for such a mutual settlement, and sometimes even exclude it, as we see in altercation and controversy (Dascal 2003) in which each participant having a partial private aim, carries out the updating process in a more or less independent way, while aiming at making his own interpretation to prevail, according to his own interests and private goals. Thus, the weakening of cooperation (and even coordination) that follows from the weakening of the relational pairing makes the contextual change either a random process or else a conflicting one, to the effect that instead of the interactional settlement of a “common informational base,” the participants are led to an “informational parsing,” each of them having access to (potentially) different informational contents. The same holds regarding the topic progression of discourse (Linell 1998, p.  180ff) as the strategy goes on. In so far as it requires (as Linell points out) ­coherence between “topical episodes” as well as convergence towards a given target, it relies on the “updating process” and hence will be all the more straightforward since the latter be mutually carried out. If what has been said hitherto is correct, we can draw the conclusion that the “informational import” of a given strategy is relation-sensitive and dependent to the highest degree on the way in which the “informational content” is being ­processed and settled. Hence, discursive strategies may have very different “epistemic outcomes,” ranging from mutually warranted shared information (in case of dialogue) to irreconcilable private conviction (in case of controversy). This has been pointed out by Dascal (2003) who rightly emphasizes that it is part of the salient features of (philosophical) controversies that



Dialogue as a truth-conveying discursive strategy 

both the identification of conversational demands and the process of pragmatic interpretation (that run for the most part smoothly and tacitly in ordinary conversation) are pervasively problematized and consequently raised to the level of explicit issues in dispute (p. 284)

This may suffice to explain why contents are barely called into question in controversies. For in that case, what is called into question is quite exclusively the addressee’s “ability and willingness to understand and to acknowledge” (p. 284). As Dascal explains, controversies have the structure of the disputatio in which protagonists aim at nothing but winning one over the other(s); in other words, the “relational pairing” here nearly amounts to nothing. Consequently, the agents act as opponent and defendant, the one having obligation to criticize the other obligation to defend; but the opposition cannot hinge round the contents proper, for both the opponent and the defendant hold as an “axiom” that the other can but misrepresent any argument that is not his own. As Dascal puts it, controversies seem to be governed by a “null charity principle”. This is not to say that controversies cannot have epistemic outcomes however; but it means that such outcomes cannot take place among the protagonists. In fact, they are directed towards the “third party” (as Dascal calls it) that is always present in controversies, that learned public who is being all at once addressed to, for it has (and it can) to be convinced, and referred to as an “impartial referee.” The reason why I spoke of “dia-logical” constraints at the beginning of the present section should be clear enough by now; it was to stress the fact that such constraints on informational content are not only nor purely logical, but are all at once logical and relational, and to suggest that even the logical aspects of the “informational content processing” might be relation-sensitive. In the next section, I’ll try to enlighten this “sensitiveness” in showing that it also has to do with what I would call “the ethical dimension of dialogue.” 4.  The ethical dimension of dialogue From what has been said so far, it results that the settlement of informational content is not an autonomous process nor is it a purely logico-linguistic one. Not only does it depend on contextual information as well as on a whole range of communicational devices (such as gesture, posture, facial expression, intonation and so on) that participants use in working out pragmatic interpretations (Dascal 2003), but it is also relation-sensitive, as we now see. This imposes on the agents’ moves an additional constraint, namely that of being relation-preserving. Not in the broad sense of preserving the phatic function of language that Jakobson rightly emphasized, but in the much more important sense of preserving that particular ­relation

 Eric Grillo

that the “relational pairing” initiates and which defines what might be called the ­communicational profile of a given discursive strategy, in so far as it determines how (that is to say, under which relational conditions) it can be successfully carried out. For it must be kept in mind that a verbal exchange is a complex activity that is all at once goal-oriented and other-oriented (Linell 1998). We speak to or with someone as a means to attain some extra-linguistic end. So, there are two kinds of constraints that the agents’ moves have to follow and fulfil namely (a) those that govern the “contents” and have to do with what the strategy is about, what it aims at and (b) those that govern the relation itself and have to do with how it must reach that aim so as to be “successful”. Thus, it turns out that a discursive strategy may fail in two different ways: either it fails to bring about the relevant ­informational content, and the problem it deals with remains unsolved; or else it fails to preserve the appropriate relation that the “relational pairing” requires and then we “switch” from one strategy to another that may not suit with a given aim. This explains why different strategies may have different results, depending on relational requirements. It seems plain, for instance, that (even) a compromise would be out of reach in a dispute, that it would be held a satisfactory result in a negotiation, but would remain unsatisfactory in a dialogue. So that we must admit that, as it was already the case with other constraints, the “relation-preserving” one admits different “degrees of strength” according to the strategy at issue. It also turns out that what is at stake in the “monitoring” of the relation itself is no less than the success or failure of the strategy. Then the question arises as to know why and how the participants in linguistic interaction fulfil such a requirement, and in dealing with it we’ll be led to the ethical dimension of dialogue, as we will see below. An elegant and straightforward answer has been suggested by Dascal (2003) so I will discuss it after having briefly reminded the fundamentals of his conception. Dascal’s 2003 work on “Interpretation and Understanding” is devoted to “pragmatic interpretation” and it is carried out within a Gricean framework. Dascal’s most general claim is that the uttering of a sentence by a speaker in the context of a verbal exchange raises a conversational demand that the addressee has first to understand and then to satisfy as well as he can. To begin with, Dascal considers that “the mere participation in linguistic exchange involves both the assignment and the acceptance of a series of obligations” (p. 96). Such obligations, when taken seriously, give rise to a variety of “duties” that differ according to whom they concern: for the speaker, they amount to a duty to make oneself understood, for the addressee; they take the form of a duty to understand. Grice’s “conversational maxims” on the one hand and Davidson’s “principle



Dialogue as a truth-conveying discursive strategy 

of charity” on the other hand give us an idea of how such “duties” turn out to be followed. Obviously, their fulfilment implies first some “communicational skills” in so far as “verbal interaction relies upon the existence of various systems of rules  –  phonological, syntactic, semantic, pragmatic – as well as broad social ­constraints governing interaction in general” (p. 84). Moreover, as Dascal stresses, “Communication can only proceed under the shared assumption by speaker and hearer that at least a substantial portion of the rules is both shared and followed by both of them” (p. 84). It also implies some “sense of obligation” for, according to Dascal, “We only communicate (…) with persons with whom one shares a repertoire of ­communicative actions (i.e. a ‘code’) and whom one expects to have the goodwill necessary to comply with the duty of understanding” (p. 95). It seems difficult at first sight not to agree with Dascal’s view, in so far as it merely amounts to making the “relation-preserving constraint” part of what might be called the “ethical requirements of communication in general”. Thereby he answers the “how-and-why question” in a natural and quite convincing way. Yet I’ll not follow such a line of argument, for it leads to some undesirable ­consequences. Let’s try to state why. In Dascal’s view, the “relation-preserving constraint” would have to belong either to the “series of obligations” or else to the “broad social constraints” that linguistic exchange involves. In either case, it would govern the interaction “from outside” so to say and hence would ultimately depend on “the agents’ goodwill”; the latter are then always liable to fulfil them or not regardless to the kind of ­interaction they are engaged in. But once again, this leads to overlooking the specificity of dialogue. For instance, we may concede that the refusal to disclose some piece of information or to ratify some result may be acceptable in strategies like dispute, controversy, negotiation and even ordinary conversation. In so far as the all of them admit to a mere partial sharing of the goal as well as a partial agreement on informational content, such a move would not prevent the strategy to proceed. But in the case of dialogue, things look very different: the mutual sharing of the goal and the mutual settlement of content it requires not only strengthens the relational preserving constraint but it also makes it an internal constraint in raising it to the very status of felicity condition to the strategy itself. So that such moves as those above mentioned, were they to take place in a dialogue, would not merely sound odd, but would be self-defeating relative to the goal, for they would amount to a pragmatic contradiction: I can’t share a common goal and not disclose information that is relevant to it; I can’t aim at mutual understanding and not agree with what has been mutually settled, and so on.

 Eric Grillo

Dascal himself seems to acknowledge that there is something special with dialogue, for he concedes that “Ideally, perfect understanding would be possible (…) when one is able to fully place oneself in the other’s point of view” (p. 93). He even admits that two communicative situations may approximate such a standard, namely “the mother-child early relation” on the one hand, and the “I-Thou relationship in true dialogue” (sic) on the other; but he soon discards it in saying that “these two poles of the communicative situation are equally extreme in that they characterize either an initial non-recoverable stage or else an ideal hardly ­achievable model of communication” (pp. 96–7). Here I will not follow Dascal, for I think that the positive social valuation of dialogue which, as we’ve reminded above, seems to be widely agreed upon, relies on the specific ethical requirements it imposes on the interaction. In so far as such requirements are not merely ‘external’ but actually belong to the felicity conditions of the dialogue itself, people that initiate such a strategy are so to say committed to fulfil them, and are mutually committed to do so. So that dialogue also has “ethical outcomes” (what Jacques [1985] sometimes called “dialogical virtues”) the most salient one being that it clearly rules out violence from discourse. Thereby, it creates the conditions thanks to which dialogue participants may find themselves endowed with the capability of “placing oneself in the other’s point of view,” as Dascal would have said. In so doing, it paves the way for the mutual recognition of the addressee as an Alter Ego. As for my part, I’m near to thinking that dialogue itself constitutes a kind of “matrix for ethics” or, to put it otherwise, that it is by means of dialogue that we move from mere sociality to morality. Consider the “sense of obligation” that according to Dascal, linguistic exchange involves. As long as we hold it to be a mere social norm of fairness (as Dascal seems to do) it “precedes” dialogue and because of its being “external,” each participant must presume that it is followed by both of them. But if what has been said is correct, dialogue can’t run on mere presumption, for they may lead to increasing misunderstanding and hence threaten the success of the strategy. Dialogue requires more: that the agents commit ­themselves to the exertion of their “sense of obligation” in a conscious, deliberate and responsible way, and that they actually do must be mutually ratified. Thus, the main “virtue” of dialogue might be to show how to reconcile free agency and social (interactional) constraints. Let’s sum up what has been stated so far. We started by observing that in ­taking the concept of dialogue in too wide a sense one is led to overlook what makes dialogue so specific a verbal exchange, widely praised for its social and p ­ ersonal value. Then we argued that Jacques’ concept of “discursive strategy” could account for the specificity of dialogue and, by focusing first on the “informational-content processing” and then on the “ethical dimension of dialogue,” we gained better



Dialogue as a truth-conveying discursive strategy 

understanding of it. Yet there is a last aspect for which dialogue is being socially praised, namely the kind of privileged relation to truth it seems to have. In order to “complete the picture,” I’ll take it into account, and this will occupy the next (and last) section. 5.  Dialogue as a truth-conveying discursive strategy In dealing with that last problem, my argument will be very similar to the ­preceding one, for two main reasons; first I consider that the requirements that constitute the kernel of the specificity of dialogue (the mutual sharing of the goal on the one hand, and the mutual settlement of the contents on the other) are the very same that impose on the agents’ moves the additional constraint of being ­truth-preserving. Second, I take for granted (and I’ll try to show) that the constraints that govern the monitoring of truth settlement in dialogue are but the logical outcomes of the ethical requirements that have been analysed above. A survey of the literature in the field of Dialogue Studies shows that the ­question of truth-in-dialogue is often dealt with in a “Gricean fashion”. Thinkers agree that something like a “cooperation principle” is needed if communication is to be possible at all, and that such a principle gives raise to several “maxims” according to what aspect of the communicative process it governs. When truth comes at issue, one revolves to the “maxim of quality” (or something equivalent) which prescribes that the participant in verbal interaction must try to make his contribution so that it is true. But here again, we soon have to face difficulties that may ultimately lead to the overlooking of the specificity of dialogue, as I’ll try to explain below. To begin with, the mere reference to a “maxim” makes the truth requirement “external” to the strategy. As we have seen above, a maxim is always liable to be followed or not, for it depends on the agent’s goodwill. To that extent, that what is said be true remains a mere presumption. But as we’ve seen, dialogue barely can run on mere presumption. All the more so since, as in the present case, the p ­ resumption is twofold; for on the one hand, it must be assumed that each ­participant knows the maxim, and that they both follow it; on the other hand, in so far as all that the maxim prescribes is that the agent “tries” to make his contribution true, it remains presumably true. This may suffice if by “dialogue” we mean ordinary linguistic exchange, but it is too weak a constraint to fit with dialogue defined as a discursive strategy. Clearly, what the maxim deals with is no more than what Peirce (CP 5.570) called “ethical truth,” that is “the conformity of an assertion to speaker’s or writer’s beliefs”. In other words, it deals with veracity, not with “logical truth” which Peirce

 Eric Grillo

defines as “the concordance of a proposition with reality”. But in so far as dialogue is concerned, the mere presumption of veracity is too weak a constraint. First, because it doesn’t rule out the possibility for the agent to lie or to strive to manipulate the exchange at his own advantage. Moreover, it may lead to a kind of misunderstanding that do not result in disagreement proper, but in what I would like to call “mis-agreement” which turns out to be much more damaging to the issue of the dialogue. For it must be noticed that the constraint of mutual settlement still works when we disagree, as Asher & Lascarides (2003) rightly claim: “the participants of course may still disagree in a dialogue, but then that will be what is settled: they may agree to disagree” (p. 362), while it ceases to work in ­mis-agreement, which results from the fact that “speaker may agree to settle an issue in conversation [sic] without really believing it” (p. 362). As a consequence, one participant may afterward take for granted what the other still holds to be doubtful: they agree in words, while disagreeing in thought. So that the issue will be different for each, contrary to what the sharing of a c­ ommon goal allows them to expect. One may consider, as Asher & Lascarides seem to hold, that this has little importance in conversation. But in case of dialogue, this would amount to self-defeating moves. Once again, we’re led to the conclusion that the constraints that are imposed on dialogue are stronger than the ones governing other kinds of linguistic exchange, whatever they may be. In the same way as we did in dealing with the relational constraints, we may then consider that dialogue involves as one of its felicity conditions something like a “truth-preserving constraint”. It would not identify with the constraint of mutual settlement of content, but merely specify it in prescribing that that part of content that is held to be true as well as the one that still remains doubtful be also mutually settled. In other words, it requires that the participants commit themselves to what they “agree to agree”. This entails several important consequences. First, it clearly rules out up to the mere possibility of mis-agreement; second, it shows that dialogue doesn’t rely on “presumption” and “belief ” alone, but requires assertion and assent in the Peircean sense of the terms, that is as acts that the agents actually perform and that contain “an element of assuming responsibility, of ‘taking the consequences’” (CP, 5-546). This means that in performing such acts, the agent commits himself to the truth of a proposition in the sense that he makes it explicit that he will hereafter take that proposition as a basis for his further conduct (including thought), at least so long as he will find no good reason to change it or rule it out. In so far as responsibility and commitment are concerned, we must recognize (as we suggested earlier) that the “truth-preserving constraint” on the agents’ moves has to do with the “ethical dimension” of dialogue: it constitutes so to speak its “logical counterpart,” and shows that it also has epistemic outcomes.



Dialogue as a truth-conveying discursive strategy 

For in order to agree that a proposition is true, participants must mutually ­recognize that they are both consistent, and mutually accept to submit to the “verdict” of one “impartial referee” (be it an expert, a theory, an encyclopaedia, or an experiment) that is mutually held to warrant the truth of the proposition at issue (Vernant 2004, p. 100). This helps us understand why dialogue not only seems to have, but a­ ctually has a privileged relation to truth (what I tried to capture in speaking of ­“truth-conveying discursive strategy”): the reason is that it is that particular discursive strategy in which the various dimensions of truth (that is the ethical, the logical and the relational ones) may combine and reconcile, so as to reach the highest p ­ ossible degree of “warranted assertibility” (Dewey 1938). 6.  Concluding remarks In his now famous Discourse on language (1971), Michel Foucault focused on the settlement of truth and he pointed out that it never reduces to the mere fact of telling the truth (dire le vrai); it requires more, namely the fact that what is being advocated be also in the true (être dans le vrai). As the History of Sciences shows (Foucault’s example was Mendel’s conception of heredity), it often occurs that a true theory or a true statement ultimately lacks the kind of agreement it would deserve as true, so long as it fails to be “in the true,” that is to take place within as well as to fit with some general framework of previous conceptions being already agreed upon and acknowledged. So, as Foucault rightly noticed, there may be a gap between truth and agreement; but on how to fill it, he said but few things. He merely suggested that in order to “be in the true,” one has often to change one’s mind or get the others to change theirs, so that they (possibly) come to share a common view of “things as they are”. As it now seems to me, this was but another way of saying that the settlement of truth always involves the threefold requirement that has been stated above: the ethical requirement, for we must trust the speaker; the logical one, for the proposition at issue must fit in some way or other with what we already think “things are”; and the relational one, for we must assent to it, that is perform an act that makes it explicit that we’ll hereafter take it as a basis for our further conduct. Provided what has been said so far is correct, we’re now in position to understand better what we called the specificity of dialogue: it consists in Dialogue being the one among the discursive strategies we can engage in, that makes it possible to fulfil these threefold requirements simultaneously. To that extent, it might be assumed that it provides us with, if not the only one, at least with the best and shortest way to move from unacknowledged truth to mutual agreement.

 Eric Grillo

References Asher, N., and A. Lascarides. 2003. Logics of conversation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dascal, M. 2003. Interpretation and understanding. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Dewey, J. 1938. Logic: The theory of inquiry. New York: Henry Holt & Co. Dummett, M. 1981. The interpretation of Frege’s philosophy. London: Duckworth. Foucault, M. 1971. L’ ordre du discours. Paris: Gallimard. Grillo, E. 2000 Intentionnalité et signifiance, une approche dialogique. Bern: Peter Lang. Grillo, E. 2005. Two dogmas of discourse analysis. In Power without domination: Dialogism and the empowering property of communication, ed. E. Grillo, 3–41. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Jacques, F. 1985. L’ espace logique de l’interlocution. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Jacques, F. 1985. Trois stratégies interactionnelles: Conversation, négociation, dialogue. In Echanges sur la conversation, eds. J. Cosnier, N. Gelas and C. Kerbrat-Orecchioni, 45–68. Paris: Éditions du CNRS. Jacques, F. 1991. Consensus et conflit, une réévaluation. In La communauté en paroles, H. Parret, 97–123. Liège: Mardaga. Linell, P. 1998. Approaching dialogue. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Peirce, C. S. 1958. Collected papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, 1–6 vols. 1931–1935 ed. by C. ­Hartshorne and P. Weiss, 7–8 vols. ed. A. W. Burks. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Vernant, D. 2004. Pour une logique dialogique de la véridicité. In Cahiers de linguistique­ ­française, 26, ed. L. Filliettaz, 87–111. Geneva.

Democracy and web-based dialogue Wolfgang Teubert On the background of the so-called Arab Spring, I discuss the issue of ‘civil society’ as postulated, for instance, by Jürgen Habermas and his concept of deliberative democracy. It is argued that his insistence on rationality and the need for an organised debate would ask for an arbiter limiting the democratic rights of participants. In reality, however, there has been little public dialogue in the public sphere of western societies. The surrogate debate offered by largely monopolised news media is hardly democratic, and before the arrival of the new medium internet, a debate involving all interested citizens did never evolve. There are some indications that newspaper blogs could become the forum for a public dialogue as a prerequisite of democracy, even though manipulation by interested parties could question their authenticity.

1.  Introduction Google lists 44 hits for “dialogue is essential” in the context of “deliberative democracy.” The first definition we find on this browser for this concept is “Deliberative democracy is the nationwide movement to make citizen participation meaningful and effective.” It is offered by the Deliberative Democracy Consortium, “a network of practitioners and researchers representing more than 50 organizations and universities, collaborating to strengthen the field of deliberative democracy.”1 Doug Walton, an expert for organisational change and systems theory, describes what the social sciences have come to call deliberative democracy: Democracy represents the ideal of a government legitimated by the will of the people. In theory, well-informed voters, with unhindered access to public information and the right of free speech, rationally discuss the advantages and disadvantages of various alternatives and cast their votes for politicians who will represent their constituency’s interests. A core concept of democracy is the attempt to perpetuate a more or less rational discourse between the government and citizens.  (Walton 2007, 370)

1.  http://www.deliberative-democracy.net/

 Wolfgang Teubert

This is a picture of true democracy at work, isn’t it? We were all thrilled by the people taking to the streets in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, and, perhaps a bit more reluctantly, also in Yemen and Bahrain. In April 2011, Wim Kok, Dutch prime minister from 1994 to 2002, was full of praise of this development. I have condensed his text to the essentials: Everything seems to indicate that that we are witnessing is a new ‘wave’ of democratization – the Jasmine Revolution, the Arab ‘Spring’, or the beginning of an Arab democratic movement… The motor has been people power…[I]t appears to have been citizens and not organized civil society that have joined forces … to claim the expansion of their civil and human rights and demand a change in political structures. … But a critical question remains. To what extent can the ‘protesters’ … be considered ‘organised civil society’? Organized enough to … interact and mutually engage with government and to play the role we all are convinced civil society can and should play … in a democracy?…. Organized civil society and civil society dialogue is necessary in a democratic society. … Much needs to be done to commit these countries to a truly democratic transition process, and Europe should take an active role in supporting them.2

Should the Arab citizens really look to Europe and America, to the western world? Is this where we find civil societies with citizens embracing dialogue among themselves and with those who make the decisions in their name? I fear not. For Wim Kok has introduced a salient caveat: Civil society, and the dialogue within, needs organising. The Tunisian and Egyptian regimes were really good at organising society. People were told in no unclear terms what was expected of them. Order was maintained by a range of awards and punishments. This is what we find in western countries as well. Every so often, elections are organised, allowing people to cast their vote and to elect their deputies, representing ideally the volonté générale in carefully regulated assemblies. But where is the civil society debating the ­common good, and ensuring that those in power execute the demands shared by the people that would make institutions democratic? Wim Kok and many others seem to believe that it doesn’t exist in the Arab countries, while it is a hallmark of western societies. Doubt is allowed. So far, the popular uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt have not created a civil society in this sense. The old power networks, and those in the west who backed them over many decades, still control the situation. Looking back after one year, nothing much seems to have changed. There has been a great spectacle, but the power elites have survived save a few expendable front figures who emigrated to

2.  www.clubmadrid.org/img/noticias/2011/04/Talking_points_Wim_Kok.pdf



Democracy and web-based dialogue 

safer shores. The western democracies do not seem to be unduly concerned about this situation, as long as those in charge pay lip service to democracy. If this is so, it begs the question about the quality of democracy in western countries. Perhaps we have to remind ourselves that in the west, too, the only form of democracy acceptable seems to be one that it comprehensively policed. Not every opinion, for instance not those demanding a turnaround of the class system or an alternative to Wall street capitalism, can be tolerated. How democratic are those who police our civil societies? Who monitors those who monitor us? On 30 July 2011, the Metropolitan Police of London advised the public that the political philosophy of anarchism is not privileged to take part in civil dialogue. It issued this statement: “Anarchism is a political philosophy which considers the state undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, and instead promotes a stateless society, or anarchy. Any information relating to anarchists should be reported to your local police.” (Guardian 31 July 2011). Perhaps we, the citizens in western countries, should be less patronising teaching others about democracy and take a closer look at our own civil societies. While I am glad to say that in this case the police had to retract the following day, people do get arrested for accessing contraband political information on the Internet.3 People, it seems, have realised that the state functions without their input. Fewer and fewer people care about politics. Why should they? No one is listening to them. Elections offer little choice, when the platforms of the three national parties represented in the House of Commons read more or less as clones of each other and the voting system keeps alternative parties firmly out of parliament. It is not so surprising that a growing number of citizens don’t even bother to show up for elections. England is not Egypt. In the land of the Magna Carta there is more liberalism, and there are fewer violations of human rights, there is less hunger, and there is, we hope, less corruption. But what about civil society? Is ‘Big Society’ a more democratic society? England has always been a country of many classes. Today

3.  There is, among other cases, the case of the ‘Nottingham Two’. “The Nottingham Two were a student and a staff member of the University of Nottingham arrested in May 2008 for suspected involvement with Islamic terrorism. University staff had notified the police after finding an English copy of the so-called Al Qaeda Training Manual on a computer. Both men were released without charge in the following week after it became clear that the document, freely available from US government websites, was used for research about terrorism in the context of a university course, and that neither had any other connection to terrorism.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nottingham_Two) What if the Al Qaeda Training Manual had not been downloaded from a US government computer, what if the ‘perpetrators’ had not been involved in certified research project?

 Wolfgang Teubert

it has become perhaps even more stratified, while society has become ever more fragmented, everyone fighting for their particular interests. This is, I believe, a key difference to what the situation is in Tunisia or Egypt. What has lost out is solidarity. In Tunisia, there seems to have been a rather clear division between those running the country and those being run. For both sections, there were strong bonds keeping them together. The way events in Tunisia unfolded, uneducated shopkeepers exercised solidarity and engaged in a civic dialogue with jobless university graduates. That is not what we would find in Britain. Not even in times of extreme austerity, an austerity hitting predominantly the poorer part of the population, this kind of public uprising we saw in those Arab countries could happen here. The riots occurring in early August 2011 in some British cities (I will come back to them later) were not a call for a more democratic society but an outcry of consumers who feel themselves excluded from the shopping malls. The section of a purposefully fragmented society that has been labelled the underclass is taking the blame, young, often black males, jobless, poor, ghettoised in dilapidated council estates, without a voice and without an outlook. By breaking into the brand stores such as Adidas, they claim their right to consume, and they don’t stop there. They confront those hardly better off than themselves: the people living in the same neighbourhood, including the little shop-owners who can barely scratch a living. There is no solidarity between the two groups, even though the progress is held back by very similar constraints. They don’t talk with each other. The owners of these small shops were those who first asked the government to send in the tanks to quench the riots. The rioters, on the other hand, were swiftly sent to prison. So how helpful is what social philosophers tell us about deliberative democracy and the civil society? Who should engage in dialogue with whom? Who should speak and who should listen? This will be my first section. My second s­ ection is on the interrelationship of the public sphere with government and what we call the markets or the economy. My third section is on the role of media. The next section addresses my central issue: Are newspaper blogs suggesting the emergence of a civil society engaged in democratic debate? My concluding section looks puts a question mark on the whole agenda of a deliberative democracy. 2.  Deliberative democracy and the public sphere For Ilan Kapoor, Habermas’ deliberate democracy is a vision “that is geared to reaching consensual decisions” (Kapoor 2002, 459). In the words of Habermas, “[d]emocratic will-formation draws its legitimating force not from a previous ­convergence of settled ethical convictions but both from the communication ­presupposition that allow the better arguments to come into play in various



Democracy and web-based dialogue 

forms of deliberation and from the procedures that secure fair bargaining power” (Habermas 1996, 24). For me, and, I might add, for Chantal Mouffe, it is not at all clear that the notion of a “better argument” is free of deontological force. Who decides what the “better argument” is? Who decides whether certain procedures offer a “fair” participation? In her 1999 paper ‘Deliberative democracy or agonistic pluralism’, Mouffe expresses her criticism of Habermasian rationality and the belief he places on seemingly universal modes of argumentation (Mouffe 1999). Is it really “the better argument” that succeeds in the Habermasian ideal speech situation, defined as inclusive, symmetrical and free of coercion? It would have to be a dialogue in which participants, i.e. the citizens making up a civil s­ ociety, ideally refine their opinions, develop greater tolerance for different opinions and gradually identify common ends and means, the so-called common good. “The idea of a public sphere is that of a body of ‘private persons’ assembled to discuss matters of ‘public concern’ or ‘common interest,” says also Nancy Fraser, summing up the early Habermas of The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. (Habermas 1989) “The public sphere is constituted on the principles of equality of all participants, of a multiplicity of competing publics, that dialogue is restricted to a discussion of the ‘common good’, and not about private interests” (Fraser 1992, 118). Opinion remains divided on whether there is such a thing as a ‘common good’ and how it could be determined. How realistic is it to abstract from private interests? It seems improbable that those who own banks and those who feel exploited by them would ever agree on a common good, or on what would constitute a fair compromise. The more fragmented a society is, the less people will share the same ideals. For supporters of a deliberative democracy, and for Habermas in particular, rationality is as universal as mathematics. But rationality is not something people are born with. It has to be learnt. It is not easy to find someone who isn’t convinced their own arguments are rational and reasonable, while those of their adversaries are characterized as irrational. Those advocating rationality therefore are c­ alling for an authority that has the last word on what is rational and what is not. For in the eyes of Habermas, some people are “deluded” (“verblendet”), and they will try to turn the dialogue into a “systematically distorted communication” (“­systematisch verzerrte Kommunikation”) (Habermas 1971, 154). There has to be a higher authority deciding who is allowed to say what in public discourse. I can’t find such a solution desirable. What Habermas obviously is afraid of is that without the enforcement of the maxim of rationality, the public sphere is agonistic, even anarchic. For me, that seems not such a bad idea. It is hard to see how people in a diverse society could ever agree on a common good. Even if they agree on a covenant of their community, a constitution of some kind, we cannot expect them to concur on how it should be interpreted. Affluent people don’t depend on public health care, others do. Why should my taxes pay for

 Wolfgang Teubert

the health bill of an irresponsible drug addict? A compromise all would accept as fair is unrealistic. What makes society democratic is not an uncontested common good but a never-ending dialogue, the participation in a collective if plurivocal reflection of a discursively created reality. If there is a common agenda, then it emerges more from the acceptance of a common enemy than from a consensus of a common good. There seems to be a collective ‘us’ only if there is also a ‘them.’ The people engaging in the Arab spring united against their oppressors. In the western world, mainstream media construct as the enemy of the ‘hard-working middle class’ the undeserving poor: migrants who rob us of our jobs, certain ethnic minorities refusing to accept the jobs they are offered, anti-social youngsters causing trouble and people on welfare wasting our taxes. In countries like Britain or Germany, few people question the authority of their media. Instead of debating public issues ourselves, we consume the exhibition fights our newspapers engage in. The reason why today much fewer people seem to be interested in discussing politics or economics is that staged debates we can watch on TV seem to be more relevant than whatever we, the people, could contribute. it can’t get any better than to see BBC’s political star commentator Andrew Marr interview the prime minister or the leader of the opposition. Politics has become part of celebrity culture, something to consume, not something to take part in. The younger generation, in particular, are hardly troubled by public matters. Deliberative democracy à la ­Jürgen Habermas is a utopian fantasy. I think this is the reason why C ­ hantal Mouffe is so critical of rationality and of consensus. For her, H ­ abermas’ ‘ideal speech situation is a “conceptual impossibility.” (Kapoor 2002, p. 285 [Note 4]).

3.  Th  e public sphere: Civil society minus the state and perhaps also the economy? This is Nancy Fraser’s (1992) elucidation of the public sphere in a deliberative democracy: It designates a theater in modern societies in which political participation is enacted through the medium of talk. It is the space in which the citizens deliberate about their common affairs, and hence an institutionalized arena of discursive interaction. This arena is conceptually different from the state; it is a site for the production and circulation of discourses that can in principle be critical of the state. The public sphere in Habermas’s sense is also conceptually distinct from the official economy; it is not an arena of market relations but rather one of discursive relations, a theater for debating and deliberating rather than for buying and selling. (p. 110)



Democracy and web-based dialogue 

The public sphere thus comprises two distinct entities, namely the state and civil society; and it is also separate from the economy, which is governed by private interests. However blurred the borderline between civil society and the state may be, supporters of the concept of deliberative democracy insist on drawing this line. But they don’t tell us how a fragmented society of special interests will arrive at “shared interests” through debate. Neither are we told what the role of the state is. How is it linked to civil society? Is it just the recipient of public opinion of the ‘common good’, or does it also interfere in civic debate, nudging it in a certain direction? On which side of the divide do we locate the parliament? It is hard to detect evidence for a democratic debate that we are supposed to find in a civil society. On a national or even regional level, outside of the media, people do not have a forum to discuss among themselves what they like and what they don’t like. Normally people, ‘citizens’, would not interact with each other but only with what Louis Althusser (2001) would call ‘ideological state apparatuses’ and their representatives. This is not surprising. Societies the size of the modern nation state cannot be but fragmented. There is little common ground between those who make it up. The only common good (if we should call it that) are values setting ‘us’ apart from ‘them’, the carefully constructed common enemy. Such values are said to be shared by all citizens of a nation, for instance patriotism, a sense of justice and of social responsibility, fairness and moral rectitude. They are rarely defined, because each attempt would show both how hollow they are and how much they are shared by ‘them’, as well. It is exactly because a general Habermasian democratic debate, involving civil society as a whole, was thought to be an utter illusion that the idea of direct democracy was abandoned pretty much everywhere, with Switzerland as an astounding exception.4 It was replaced by what is called representative democracy. In parliament, rules determining the rights of these deputies can be laid down much easier by those assuming the role of supreme arbiter. But even in parliament there is

4.  In the cantons of Switzerland, any change of legislation proposed by regional government or parliament needs to be ratified by the citizens in a referendum, and citizens have the right to vote in their own new legislation at any time. This is also the case for Switzerland as a whole. Several times during the year, citizens are called to the ballot box, voting on up to a dozen issues. In addition, there are frequent elections of local, cantonal and federal representatives and government officers. As undesirable as some of the outcomes are (e.g. the interdiction to build minarets by a 57% majority on the federal level), there is a lot more civic debate in Switzerland than in countries with a representative democracy, agonistic, anarchic and irrational it may appear. Could it be that having a sense of purpose has a positive effect on deliberative democracy?

 Wolfgang Teubert

hardly a ‘rational discussion’ of the ‘common good’ that would allow, in the words of Habermas quoted above, “the better arguments to come into play in various forms of deliberation and from the procedures that secure fair bargaining power.” It is as good as unheard of that members of parliament would change their mind due to the force of an argument. As I have shown in an earlier paper, when discussing controversial matters, members belonging to one party or the other would repeat their key arguments time and again until the issue is finally voted upon strictly along party lines (Teubert 2008). While parliament ideally can be seen as the conduit between the state and civil society, it is not considered to be the relevant factor to turn public demands into governmental action. In the archives of Google News, there is not a single article indicating that the House of Commons in general, or a member of parliament, in particular, is said to listen to the people. Interestingly, it is almost always the government that seems to be the addressee of the will of the people. When in 2009, in dealing with the global financial crisis, the members made an effort to engage in a meaningful debate threatening the unregulated playgrounds of our financial institutions, it only took the orchestration of the socalled expenses scandal involving all members of parliament who had claimed more than they were morally entitled to, to turn them into a bunch of powerless eunuchs and the nation’s laughing stock. Their standing in public opinion has never been lower. The German chancellor Angela Merkel seems to suggest that the representative democracy as we find it practised in the western world needs to be renegotiated. In a radio interview, she said on 1 September 2011: “We are living in… a parliamentarian democracy and therefore the budget right is a core right of parliament. Consequently we have to find ways to construe the participation of parliament in such a way that it is conformant with the markets.”5 Perhaps we have to accept that the counterpart of civil society is not any more the state, embodied by parliament, the government and the judiciary, but the markets. The markets tell government and the people what needs to be done. They are all-powerful, but not accountable. They are a bit like the dragons of our medieval western world, an irritable lot, and they need to be pacified, or they will demand sacrifices, threatening death and destruction if the demands (money instead of pretty virgins) aren’t met. The media tell us all about their emotional states. These are some of the hits found in Google News on 22 August 2011:

5.  http://meinungen.1und1.de/forum-1und1/post/13029363?sp=231



Democracy and web-based dialogue 

(1) The financial markets have lost faith in policymakers Bernanke disappoints the markets Panic sweeps through the markets Fear has returned to the financial markets The markets are worried about liquidity in Europe The markets are reacting with fear and uncertainty The findings will do little to soothe nerves in the financial markets

The markets and their feelings have to be assuaged, and they let us know what we must do to soothe them. It seems what they like most is money and politicians not afraid of their voters to provide them with it, either by extracting it from the taxpayers or by deregulating the markets. These are the sorts of requests they make, taken from Google News on 4 October 2011: (2) The markets want politicians to do more to help solve the debt crisis The markets want to see a bold policy move in Europe The markets want to see actions from policy makers The markets need policy-makers to step back  The markets want massive amounts of money thrown at the problem, ­regardless of who pays (so long as it’s not the banks holding the debt!) At the same time, “the markets” require political leaders to take resolute decisions The markets need to see a credible long-term consolidation package

The role of the state and its ideological apparatuses has changed. It is not any more the centre of power. Neither are politicians there to execute what civil debate has defined as the common agenda of society. Legislators, government and the judiciary have to feed the insatiable appetite of the dragon. Habermas’ deliberative democracy has been unmasked as a chimera. The state has become accountable only to the (increasingly international) financial institutions, not any more to its citizens. politicians don’t these days take their cues from the people but from the markets. Together with the media, they have to make the public believe that what the markets want is the common good. Creative use of language makes it possible. A focal object of this discourse is the ‘economy’. According to the New Oxford Dictionary of English, economy means “the wealth and resources of a country or a region, especially in terms of production and consumption of goods and services.” (NODE, 1998). The word is sufficiently abstract to avoid unwelcome questions. People are told they should be happy to live in a wealthy country; they are not encouraged to ask in whose hands this wealth is. We have been brainwashed to believe what matters most for a country is what is good for the economy. On 4 October 2011, Google News lists 311 hits for the phrase “good for the economy”, for example:

 Wolfgang Teubert

(3) Low taxes are good for the economy Regressive taxation is good for the economy Disasters and destruction are good for the economy Promoting oil/gas exploration is good for the economy, jobs and energy independence It’s good for the taxpayer because we won’t be wasting money on welfare that’s unnecessary and it’s good for the economy

This (admittedly biased) selection shows that what is deemed to be good for the economy mustn’t necessarily be also good for people, whether they are hit by disasters or on welfare or looking for a job. People are made to believe that what is good for the economy is the highest common good, even if the average person gets poorer year after year. What is more worrying that the promoters of deliberative democracy, Habermas among them, situate the economy outside of the public sphere and outside of the state (Garnhem 1992, p. 361). But if state and economy are two different matters, then civil debate does not have to concern itself with the economy, for supposedly it sets the programme for the state, but not for economic activities, which are, after all, pursuance of private interests. Indeed, the markets see themselves, unlike the state institutions, as not answerable or accountable to the public. The British Freedom of Information Act exempts all commercial affairs, even if the money at stake is provided by the ­taxpayer (Heelan 2011, 4). The discourse object ‘economy’, as we find it used by the media, is also used as a smokescreen behind which we finding hiding those who own most of a nation’s wealth. It denotes the ensemble of the activities they are engaged in. As individuals they are, to a large extent, kept out of media discourse, or they are referred to by innocent, even endearing terms such as investors, people intent to make economy stronger for all of us by putting at risk their well-earned money. The term ‘investors’ obscures the distinction between those investing their own money and those who deal with other people’s money, thus helping to divert the attention from the fact that financial power is exercised a tiny segment of society owning the lion’s share of national wealth. While over the last few years the word bankers may, for some, have become an expression of abuse, we are told very little about those who ultimately own the banks. Of course, there are the other stakeholders, for instance the upper management, the robber barons of our time. Yet they too escape being talked about most of the time. Owners as well as managers refuse to take part in the civil debate of the public sphere. The interaction between the public sphere and the state is ideally based on democratic principles, regulating what citizens and what their government can do and what they mustn’t do. Because the markets position themselves outside of the public sphere, these rules do not apply to them. Time and again we have been told that a good economy is a deregulated economy. According to Google News, the number for media articles containing deregulate and economy quadrupled from



Democracy and web-based dialogue 

the eighties (326) to the nineties (1240) of last century. The way it is seen in our days, the system of deliberative democracy, or any kind of democracy for that ­matter, apparently does not extend to the economy. What has become abundantly clear since the global financial crisis broke out in 2008, is that the public sphere has lost the state as its addressee. Now the state is answerable to the markets. The state is under obligation to do whatever the economy demands. The banks dictate how the state has to extricate them from potential losses, namely by milking the taxpayer, and no amount of civil debate has any effect on their demands. Habermas’ deliberate democracy has become more utopian than ever. The (post-)modern state does not answer any more to its citizens – it must do what the global corporate power centres demand. The global corporate world cannot be summoned to take part in civil debate. If democracy depends on an unhindered access to all relevant information, the corporate world hides their financial activities behind a shroud of secrecy. Everything to do with commerce is strictly confidential, we are told. 4.  The role of the media For Habermas, the public sphere is the social space in which private people come together to debate the common good. It is open to all citizens on an equal basis and governed by the principle of rationality. This picture is, of course, a utopian vision. There was never a time, and there will never be a time when a civil debate in which all citizens have the opportunity to participate in a symmetric dialogue determines the political agenda. In a more recent book, Between Facts and Norms (Habermas 1998), Habermas has responded to such criticisms. Now he defines the public sphere, in the words of Eliza Tanner (2001), as a communication network in civil society that has deep links to the lifeworld, or people’s everyday experiences. So the concept is not linked to a specific place, but includes all the communication networks where information and opinions are processed, synthesized, and filtered until they become public opinions in this communication structure. … These opinions develop as people rationally debate issues. The public sphere is not necessarily a place or organization, but a concept that describes the communication flows in social spaces. Spaces are those situations in which people share communication, which can be specific places where people are actually physically gathered. However, the spaces become much more abstract the further removed they are from the physical world into a world of people linked through mass media. (pp. 384–385)

It is certainly true that newspapers process, synthesise and filter information and opinions. But do they link people and give them a space for their civil debates?

 Wolfgang Teubert

Traditionally, readers could write letters to the editor, and the editors filtered out what they saw fit for print. But whatever their claims, newspapers never were where the public sphere took place. In Habermas’ 2006 paper on ‘Political communication in media society’, we can hope to find some clues how the public sphere and mass media are supposed to interact. We are told that [m]ediated political communication in the public sphere can facilitate deliberative legitimation processes in complex societies only if a self-regulating media system gains independence from its social environment, and if anonymous audiences grant feedback between an informed elite discourse and a responsive civil society.  (p. 411)

I am not sure what a self-regulating media system independent from its social environment is. Would it entail independence from entrepreneurial intervention or from its audiences? I assume that in this idealised framework newspapers themselves are thought to provide the “informed elite discourse,” while civil society is reduced to a responsive behaviour. How are they thought to provide feedback, and to whom would they provide it? Where do we find the civil debate of deliberative democracy? (Habermas 2006, 412/13). Habermas seems to suffer from a blurred vision when he insists that media power “remains ‘innocent’ to the extent that journalists operate within a functionally self-regulating media system. The relative independence of mass media from the political and the economic systems was a necessary precondition for the rise of what is now called ‘media society.’ This is a quite recent achievement even in the West and does not reach back much further than the end of the ­Second World War.” On the same page, Habermas shows that he is not unaware that media tycoons can exercise political influence: “A special case of damage to editorial independence occurs when private owners of a media empire develop political ambitions and use their property-based power for acquiring political influence” (p. 419, emphasis in the original). Some might say this is more the rule than an exception. To me it seems there is very little debate among citizens about the common weal in the western world. These days, people do hardly contribute public discourse; most of the time they are content to consume it. The public discourse they consume is overwhelmingly media discourse. Can we expect the media to engage vicariously in a debate that should be ours, and would they speak on behalf of us citizens? Newspapers report not only news, they also offer their pages to professional commentators. Do these commentators represent the interests of civil society? It is usual for privately owned newspapers to claim their editorial independence. This is why Rupert Murdoch famously told the former owners of the



Democracy and web-based dialogue 

Wall street Journal that “any interference – or even hint of interference – would break the trust that exists between the paper and its readers, something I am unwilling to countenance.” Nevertheless it often seems the editors have a good intuition for what their employer wants. They are good at telling people what they should do. When the Conservative Party was surprisingly returned to government after Margaret Thatcher had been ousted, the Sun, another paper in Murdoch’s media empire, claimed: “It was the Sun wot won it.” How strong the clout has been that the ­Murdoch empire held over British state apparatuses, whether the government, relevant quangos or even the police, has been debated widely by members of parliament, radio and TV journalists and also newspapers commentators in connection with the phone hacking scandal that in the end led to the closure of the largest News Corporation Sunday paper, News of the World, in 2011. Many complain that newspapers today are more the mouthpieces of their owners than of the citizens, or even, for that matter, of politicians. It is the newspaper editor who decides which government minister is given a voice, and they make sure she or he says the right thing. Today the news media are the gatekeepers regulating access to what becomes public domain. The media industry has persuaded governments that the citizens as we knew them are a thing of the past. Citizens have been transmogrified into consumers. The Communications Act, passed in 2003 by Tony Blair’s New Labour government, regulates the British media industry. In the almost four hundred pages of the Act, the word citizens comes up just three times. Citizens have been replaced by over 70 occurrences of the word consumer. Consumers can choose the newspaper they buy, but they have no voice in public discourse. What Ofcom, the quango regulating the media industry, are concerned about is less a plurality of views, a debate between newspapers of different political leanings, than the question of a fair competition between newspaper conglomerates, and their access to the market. There was a time when the political spectrum of at least the print media was much wider than today. National quality newspapers in Britain today are conservative or even reactionary (e.g. Daily Telegraph), pro-business (e.g. Times), liberal (e.g. Independent), or pro-Labour (Guardian). There used to be the Daily Herald, a paper of a more socialist leaning, close to the more radical trade unions and so popular that it became, in the thirties of last century, the world’s bestselling daily newspaper. It had to close down in 1964, because of a boycott of advertisers. Today, advertisements account for at least two thirds of the income of newspapers. Even if editors can keep clear of the influence of his paper’s owner, they must make sure not to lose their commercial advertisers, who, as we are reminded by ­William Gamson et al., tend to demand a “supportive atmosphere”. Procter & Gamble, for instance, demanded that their advertisements “were not to be placed

 Wolfgang Teubert

in any issue that included any material on gun control, abortion, the occult, cults, or the d ­ isparagement of religion” (Gamson 1992, 378). 5.  The blogosphere: A virtual public sphere? The transformation of citizens into consumers does not bode well for a deliberative democracy. There are, however, still some people left who want to engage in political discussions, and they have learnt to use the internet to make their voices heard. Today we find an abundance of political blogs. What makes many media and social studies people unhappy is that all these blogs and chatrooms devoted to political issues cannot be forced to engage in a ‘rational’ dialogue on how best to achieve the ‘common good.’ Bloggers encounter all sorts of criticism from advocates of a deliberative democracy. As we know from Lawrence et al., deliberation “entails a dialogue between opposing views, but blog authors tend to link to their ideological kindred and blog readers gravitate to blogs that reinforce their existing viewpoints.” (Lawrence 2010, 152) It is suggested that “blogs reinforce readers’ and authors’ ideological perspectives instead of challenging them” so that they “reaffirm their existing opinions.” (142) This is because “individuals prefer social contexts populated by others who share their core political values and avoid social discourse with people who disagree with them profoundly over politics.” (144) Participation in the blogging sphere therefore is seen to come with increased polarisation. The authors draw support from Habermas, claiming that for him “bloggers are only valuable to public debate insofar as they serve a ‘parasitical’ function of criticizing and correcting the mainstream press” (142). Indeed I find that Habermas, too, is deeply sceptical about the impact blogging may have on civil debate. He is concerned with the often reported view that “people who more extensively use the electronic media, and consider them an important source of information, have a lower level of trust in politics and are more likely to take a cynical attitude towards politics as a consequence.” To him, these findings suggest “that the very mode of mediated communication contributes independently to a diffuse alienation of citizens from politics” (2006, 422; emphasis in the original). Cynicism is apparently not a commendable attitude in respect to the information citizens are given. But Habermas’ take on blogging has also been criticised, notably by Douglas Kellner (2000): While the media in western democracies … are intricately intertwined within the state and economy, in ways Habermas does not acknowledge, nonetheless oppositional media and new media technologies such as the Internet are …



Democracy and web-based dialogue 

serving as a new basis for a participatory democratic communication politics.” … [Habermas] does not envisage how new media and technology could lead to an expansion and revitalization of new and more democratic political spheres.”   (p. 278)

Other researchers, as well, see the advent of blogging in more positive terms. Aliaa Dakroury and William Birdsall, for instance, point to an “communicative consciousness arising out of the technological, cultural and political implications of global interactive communication” and hope that this will “lead to the construction of a broad-based, rather than an elitist, public sphere far more extensive and dynamic than that of the eighteenth century as characterized by Habermas” (­Dakroury 2008, p. 7). This new political consciousness seems to be restricted to a tiny minority of people. Only for them “politics is becoming denser, wider, and possibly more pluralistic and inclusive. But, at the same time, the mass of unengaged citizens is being subject to greater communicative exclusion and experiencing increasing disengagement,” as Aeron Davis sees it. (Davis 2010, p. 746) According to his article, only 3.3% of UK citizens use the internet as their source of political information. “[O]nline political participation is correlated along the lines of income, education, age, race and, above all, an existing predisposition to participate in realworld politics” (p. 747). The Internet has indeed changed our understanding of public discourse. It has opened up opportunities to people to make their ideas, attitudes and opinions public, but setting up a new blog or by contributing to one or the other of the myriad of political blogs already existing. Such blogs invite everyone to participate in political debates. Some present a wide range of opinions; others are dogmatic and sectarian. Some blogs are quite popular and go on for years; others disappear quickly. Some operate by strict rules and exercise censorship, while others seem to be more anarchic. What Habermas does not like about them is that they do not subscribe to the principle of rationality. Questionable as this maxim is, we still have to ask ourselves if they are really part of the public sphere. Do they impact on the more traditional manifestations of public discourse, on newspapers, radio and television? Do they leave their mark on debates in parliament? Do they reach people who do not themselves contribute to blogs? What I want to look at in some detail is the relatively recent web feature of online news services (newswires, newspapers, radio and TV stations) offering readers, listeners or viewers the opportunity to comment on there texts, whether news items or editorials. This feature is what I call a mini-blog. It gives those who want to comment on such a text the opportunity to share their ideas with whoever else accesses this blog. The contributors have come to be called commenters

 Wolfgang Teubert

(to distinguish them from the commentators we traditionally find in the political sections of media). Many commenters do not necessarily view themselves as bloggers. Rather, they see themselves as contributing to the public sphere in general, and not as part of a special interest group as they regard typical political blogs. For other commenters, however, there is little difference between contributing to an independent political blog or to a mini-blog offered by a newspaper for a news article or an editorial. They would regard themselves as the counterweight to the authoritative, professional voices of public discourse. What do such commenters have to say about blogging, and thus perhaps also of themselves? The starting point of my exploration is the unprovoked and entirely unexpected outburst of a very senior BBC journalist, Andrew Marr, on a venerable Sunday morning politics programme, on 10 October 2010:

(4) A lot of bloggers seem to be socially inadequate, pimpled, single, slightly seedy, bald, cauliflower-nosed, young men sitting in their mother’s ­basements and ranting. They are very angry people.

OK – the country is full of very angry people. Many of us are angry people at times. Some of us are angry and drunk. But the so-called citizen ­journalism is the spewings and rantings of very drunk people late at night. It is fantastic at times but it is not going to replace journalism… Most of the blogging is too angry and too abusive. It is vituperative. Terrible things are said on line because they are anonymous. People say things on line that they wouldn’t dream of saying in person.6

Marr’s message is that blogs do not conform to the principles of a rational discourse. The blog posts, the contributions to blogs, are not designed to find a common solution to the problem of achieving a ‘common good.’ There is no blogexternal authority making sure that contributions are rational. While, as said above, many blogs follow a political line, are neo-liberal or traditionally conservative or liberal in the civil sense or lean to the left, mini-blogs enable any newspaper reader to participate in the public sphere, as a citizen, not as someone pursuing their private special interests. These are the only blogs Jürgen Habermas finds acceptable, while all the others do more evil than good: “[T]he rise of millions of fragmented chat rooms across the world tend instead to lead to a fragmentation of large but politically focused mass audiences into huge numbers of isolated issue publics. Within established national public spheres, the online debates of web users only promote political communication, when news groups

6.  http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2010/oct/11/andrewmarr-blogging



Democracy and web-based dialogue 

crystallize around the focal points of the quality press, for example, national ­newspapers and political magazines” (Habermas 2006, 423). Again Habermas offers his narrow vision of a hierarchical, elitist, hardly democratic society excluding not only those engaging for what he calls “isolated issues,” for instance those fighting against the exploitation of Canadian tar sands, but also disenfranchising those who obtain their information from the tabloids. The Andrew Marr story made headlines throughout the British press, whether tabloid or quality, and generated unsurprisingly a huge amount of c­ omments on the mini-blogs associated with the articles. I first explore the Guardian, a paper read by well-meaning educated people, often with a soft spot for Labour. What I expected to find was a damning condemnation of Marr’s preposterous claims. But this is what I found instead (here and in the following shortened where necessary): (5)

Bomberesque: Fundamentally, I agree with AM’s point Glaschris08: He’s basically right, though Peterbracken: Marr’s basically right Maranello575: Here I am ‘having my say’ and I think he’s right Frameboy: I’m afraid he is right BigBananaFeet: No, but sherioushly, he’s right Reynardmandrake: Spot on, Andrew Marr! Londonsupergirl: I do see his point

This was rather unexpected. Are bloggers self-hating psychopaths? Perhaps not. Perhaps those who wrote these lines, actually a minority among the contributors, do not see themselves as bloggers, but as serious, rational commentators. They would agree with Habermas, no doubt, that bloggers are vain, irrational, egotistical, narrow-minded and not at all interested in the ‘common good.’ We can find solace in the fact that more than ten percent of all comments have been removed by the Guardian watchdog, due to unsuitable, i.e. abusive content. That is a lot more than we would normally find for a Guardian blog. It shows that many commenters see themselves abused by Marr. Fortunately some negative comments sailed past the Guardian watchdog:

(6) Sailaway: Marr doesn’t present real news; he creepily presents the ­government line Madibo: [Marr’s] job is to cultivate his contacts with established politicians and re-write press releases Mwhouse: the BBC has replaced real news, with its own brand of ­dumbed-down, patronising, uncritical hogwash Senesino: We are from Public Schools. We work at the BBC. We will tell you what to think. We will force you to pay us for our propaganda. Burch: Citizens! Know your place! Speak only when spoken to!

 Wolfgang Teubert

Obviously the commenters disagreeing Guardian readers see Andrew Marr as a member of the public school Oxbridge old boys’ network, running smoothly state apparatuses like the BBC, with the mission to keep liberal, progressive people like the Guardian readers from forming their own minds and rebelling against those in charge at the crucial posts in the country. The traditionally conservative Daily Mail, a tabloid with a wide, rather mixed readerships also offered a mini-blog for this news item, and it is fascinating to see that there, Marr comes across not as part of the old boys establishment but quite the opposite, as a protagonist of a leftist conspiracy:

(7) KJC, UK stuff the EU: What an arrogant, middle-class lefty BBC ­employee, sucking at the teet of the public sector Marr is.

Andy, Stoke: Sorry Mr. Marr, the people want truth not politicized leftie socialist propaganda garbage shouted by yourself Chris, Southampton: Of course Marr disapproves. Unlike him these ­‘citizen journalists’ don’t spend 23 hrs a day spewing left-wing drivel as he does. Tangerine Man, Poulton le Fylde: What a horror this man is – he and his leftwing EU loving BBC employer are not allowed into our home. Disillusioned, Middle England: People like Marr, and the rest of the trendy, left wing bunch, do not like the truth.

Jürgen Habermas is right, of course. Even these newspaper blogs do not bring about a dialogue between citizens of all beliefs. Guardian readers tend not to listen to Daily Mail readers and vice versa. Nor would we find, on the Guardian blog, a dialogue between those in favour and those against Marr’s views. On the other hand, not even Habermas can deny that in these blogs debate is happening, and as it is taking place in the open, accessible in principle to anyone and inviting everyone to contribute if they like, it is not so dissimilar from the civil debates called for by his conceptualisation of a deliberative democracy. These debates happen spontaneously, are carried out without an arbiter insisting on rationality (apart from the watchdog purging abusive comments), are in many ways anarchic, but organise themselves in obviously meaningful ways, moving the debate in a certain direction. Thus we may find commenters talking to each other and jointly developing an idea in a playful mode. My example is taken from a mini-blog related to a news story in the Independent on 3 March 2011, about the imminence of a cabinet decision granting Rupert Murdoch to expand his pay-TV empire and thus increasing the stranglehold he has on the British media landscape. Taking this news item as a cue, some commenters moved on to comment on the corruptness of politicians and other government officials:



Democracy and web-based dialogue 

(8)  tomkyle Wonder how many Condems will end up in the employ of the Murdoch Empire on ‘retirement’ from politics….  Kamal in reply to tomkyle I am actually thinking of starting a website ­dedicated to tracking all politicians and civil servants who join a company that they used to deal with in government.  tomkyle in reply to Kamal Hi, brilliant idea. Would make for fascinating reading.  Matt Emulsion in reply to tomkyle I think it would be safe to assume pretty much all of them. A list of those that don’t might be easier to compile. capa75 in reply to Matt Emulsion Good one !  Bathcity in reply to Kamal It will allso be interesting to see how many of the private companies awarded contracts to run public services over the next few years donate(d) to the Conservative Party!

There is something like a conversation going on. The idea that Murdoch’s News Corporation strategically undermines the probity of politicians and civil servants is spun forth and applied to the whole sphere of the corporate sector. We can take this example of interaction between commenters as an attempt at dialogue, perhaps even a tiny step towards the deliberative democracy model of Jürgen Habermas. I will present one last example. As mentioned in my introduction, on 7 August 2011, riots broke out in Tottenham, a London suburb with a large ­proportion of working poor, poor pensioners, unemployed youths and a mix of ethnic minorities. Apparently the uproar was triggered by a policemen who unprovokedly shoot dead a black young male who he thought was armed but had not exhibited any aggressive behaviour. These riots showed strong tensions between an overwhelmingly poor but nevertheless very fragmented population, and quite astonishingly the different groups, perpetrators causing damage to property and looting shops, victims whose property was looted or whose flats were set on fire, onlookers who also came from nearby suburbs, were not defined so much by ethnic origin than by age, common subculture and the acceptance or non-acceptance of middle-class values. The rioters were not angry about being unable to participate in the democratic process. They were incensed about being denied the status of consumer. They did not struggle to take part civil debate; they wanted to equip themselves with goods like Adidas shoes, trendy clothes, widescreen TV sets, and what else defines a young person as a respectable consumer. On 9 August, the consistently conservative and nationalistic Daily Telegraph ran an article about these riots, whose content was summed up by its first paragraph, printed in bold:

 Wolfgang Teubert

(9) London riots spark shock and gloating around the world The extraordinary spectacle of anarchy, arson and looting on London’s streets resulted on Tuesday in some of the world’s most authoritarian ­regimes – including those of Iran, Libya and even Robert Mugabe – ­gloating over the ‘failure’ of Britain’s liberal society.

The report dealt with the media reaction to the riots in countries considered unfriendly. For instance, a conservative Iranian newspaper was quoted as saying “The violence and continued chaos in the UK are the result of factors like human rights violations in the country, prejudice against immigrants and coloured ­people, incidents like the Murdoch scandals and the country’s critical economic conditions.” The mini-blog for this article lists 34 comments, a rather low number, perhaps indicating that commenting on it was felt to be quite a challenge. As was to be expected, a majority of commenters did refrain from comparing Britain to countries mentioned in the report, e.g. China, Iran, Libya and Zimbabwe; instead they came out in favour of stricter law and order, blaming the leftist (?) government and the police for being too lenient: (10) …Britain has abdicated so much to the leftist feel-goodies that they have in place an entire generation of people who have no sense of responsibility, no work ethic, no sense of values, no moral compass and no respect for anyone who does. …. The BNP [British National Party] may have had a point all along. I sense a radical shift to the ‘right’ coming on. We need it. A nationalistic hard line, and authoritarian regime that demanded loyalty, discipline and obedience from young men would be just the ticket. Get rid of the liberal elitie fairies now. Destroy them. its not being liberal that has caused this – they have this skewed. but its beacause our government is corrupt and incompetent, it allows our ­bankers to rip us off, it allows our institutions to be racist whilst p­reaching ­multicultricsm for the population and wrapping red tape around us, its ­employing foriegners to do our work, its for paying ridiculous benefit to lazy alcoholic single mothers and lazy ppl wo claim to be disabled, its ­because were managed by a human government

6.  Some concluding thoughts Will blogging, at least the kind of commenting on media texts discussed here, (re)introduce the voice of the people into the political process? Could it have an effect on public opinion? I remain sceptical. What is needed, first of all, is more research on the relatively recent phenomenon. Critical discourse analysis,



Democracy and web-based dialogue 

­ ialogue studies and corpus linguistics could co-operate in the analysis of recurd rent structures and patterns and thus help to relate it to the concept of deliberative democracy. How much repetition, how much continuity is there? How large are these emerging communities of commenters and comment readers, and are they growing or do they run out of steam? Are contributions just random, or would we find in more substantial mini-blogs, running over three days and containing between 300 and one thousand comments, some development of argument, some evidence of self-organisation? To what extent do comments repeat opinions previously voiced in the same newspaper? Is there any evidence that they have an effect on subsequent articles? What do comments say about their contributions? What is their attitude to control and censorship? For me, it has been a truly amazing discovery how far removed the ideal of deliberative democracy is from the (discursively constructed) reality I experience day after day. To vary Wim Kok’s question quoted in my introduction, to what extent can western democracies claim to constitute “organized civil societies”? If there ever were citizens debating some ‘common good,’ they have become transformed into consumers. Instead encouraging citizens to engage in a dialogue, mapping out a social reality to be collectively embraced, media discourse reminds consumers to exercise their rights to choose one product over the other (as long as they can afford it). In the modern, fragmented society, the interests of many particular groups compete for the attention of state institutions. Bankers and other entrepreneurs want to reduce their tax burden; middle-class families want a privileged education for their children, and even the poor put up a fight against benefit cuts. Governments wanting to stay in power have to give in to those demands that are echoed in mainstream media. They reflect first of all the interests of those in control of news contents the advertisers and media owners. If their demands go against the wishes of the voting middle class, the government tend to bring in the experts, in order to quell opposition. Government (and media) will explain that there is no alternative to measures taken, regardless of what people may want. Over the last decades, citizens have been brought to accept their own incompetence in political and economic matters. It may be a marvellous idea that, as Wim Kok puts it, “organized civil society and civil society dialogue is necessary in a democratic society,” but it is not what we find in western countries. If the Habermasian model of a deliberative democracy with a public sphere in which citizens debated on an equal level the common weal of a society and with a government that would then execute this volonté générales was always a utopian impossibility, does the advent of the internet signal a new era for western democracy? Will the option to comment on newspaper articles, to engage in a dialogue with other citizens, by contributing to political blogs, twitter initiatives and social

 Wolfgang Teubert

networks, make a difference? Will it be possible to pool such efforts, thus creating a force the markets or the political institutions have to acknowledge? Doubts are allowed. Public discourse, reduced to media discourse, has been too successful in fragmenting society, in replacing a sense of solidarity as it may have existed a hundred years ago, by a sense of reckless competition. Each of us has been taught that it is either ‘us’ or ‘them’. Differences in opinion and in strategy are solved by majority vote, by one party defeating the other, not by debate aimed at compromise. Debate aimed at achieving consensus is, however, how the boardrooms of companies operate, and this is what makes them so overwhelmingly successful.7 This is where democracy is truly happening. Once you have been accepted as a member of the old boys’ network, you are wrapped up in a blanket of solidarity. We, the people, on the other hand, are told that we have to fight our way individually. The trade union movement, essential for debating the ‘common good’ of the working class, has been widely put to rest. The three or five percent of commenters on media blogs won’t revive it, and if they tried, I fear the anarchy of blogging would be swiftly abolished. For the markets and those state apparatuses entrusted to ensure that the markets get what they want are already watching blogging with growing concern. Research projects are in place aimed at lifting the anonymity of bloggers and commenters, of participants in chatrooms or twitter or social networks like facebook. When suspected of involvement in untoward behaviour, for instance calling protest actions, they, or even whole mobile networks, are increasingly shut down.8 At the same time, software is developed to create virtual avatars giving the right kinds of comments and thus influencing the opinions of real bloggers.9

7.  Cf., for instance, Cooren 2004. 8.  Shutting down Blackberry and social network sites was discussed in connection with the August riots in London. It has happened elsewhere, for instance in San Francisco, ­according to the Daily Dot of 20 August 2011: “ The Bay Area Rapid Transit agency, or BART, cut power to its underground cell-phone network on Thursday in order to quell a protest against last month’s shooting of Charles Hill by BART police.” (http://www.dailydot.com/news/ anonymous-­protest-shuts-down-transit/) 9.  See the Guardian of 17 March 2011: “The US military is developing software that will let it secretly manipulate social media sites by using fake online personas to influence ­internet conversations and spread pro-American propaganda. A Californian corporation has been awarded a contract with United States Central Command (Centcom), which oversees US armed operations in the Middle East and Central Asia, to develop what is described as an ‘online persona management service’ that will allow one US serviceman or woman to control up to 10 separate identities based all over the world.”



Democracy and web-based dialogue 

Perhaps one of the few ways left to people to reclaim the public sphere is to organise public unrest, whether in Tunisia or in Tottenham, and even then protests will hardly have a lasting effect. Whether Tottenham can be compared to Tunisia is open to (civil) debate. Media still are to some extent plurivocal, particularly if we include those more on the fringes, such as Aljazeera. Here are three voices: (11) a. Aljazeera 11 August 2011: From the Arab Spring to Liverpool? …The UK riots have unique roots, but British youths’ alienation is similar to the disenfranchisement behind Arab revolts. Dr. Clifford Stott, who specialises in crowd psychology at the ­University of Liverpool, said that while people involved in the riots in the UK were no doubt aware of the uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East, “it would be rather foolish to equate uprisings in Syria or Libya with what we’re seeing in the UK right now.” While there is no real causal relationship, however, he noted that in societies that see outbreaks of riotous behaviour, the existence of large disenfranchised population is a common factor. b.  Reuters, 9 August 2011: London riots point to much wider risks of youth unrest  … Young, lacking opportunity, angry at the system and organizing phenomenally fast over social media, London’s rioters show some of the same characteristics as the pro-democracy demonstrators of the “Arab Spring.” But while those in the Middle East have marched in the hope of ­positive change, Britain’s violence has been almost nihilist, focused on looting and a quick burst of the sort of publicity and power inner-city youth feel they have long been denied. … c.  Daily Telegraph, 8 August 2011: London riots: the underclass l­ashes out London’s rioters are the products of a crumbling nation, and an i­ndifferent political class that has turned its back on them. … This is the most arcane of uprisings and the most modern. Its ­participants, marshalled by Twitter, are protagonists in a sinister flipside to the Arab Spring. The Tottenham summer, featuring children as young as seven, is an assault not on a regime of tyranny but on the established order of a benign democracy. One question now hangs over London’s battle-torn high streets. How could this ever happen?…

Unrests in the “benign democracy” of the western world cannot be but riots. They could perhaps also be interpreted as the people’s frustration over a toothless, emaciated democracy of a political and economic system that doesn’t give a damn about a common good.

 Wolfgang Teubert

In her careful analysis of the South African transition from the apartheid regime to the ANC-led new government under Nelson Mandela, Naomi Klein has shown that democracy as a form of government was only introduced after all relevant decision-making had been moved from the parliament to the established institutions of the power elites. She quotes the human rights activist Yasmin Sooka who said that the transition “was business saying ‘We’ll keep everything and you [the ANC] will rule in name. … You can have political power, you can have the façade of governing, but the real governance will take place somewhere else.’” (Klein 2007. 203f.) I very much doubt if the forces in charge will allow a civil society practicing deliberative democracy on the web to change that.

References Althusser, L. 2001. Ideology and ideological state apparatus. In Lenin and philosophy and other essays, 86–126. New York: Monthly Review Press. Cooren, F. 2004. The communicative achievement of collective minding: Analysis of board meeting excerpts. Management Communication Quarterly 17 (4): 517–51. Dakroury, A. I., and W. F. Birdsall. 2008. Blogs and the right to communicate: Towards creating a space-less public sphere. IEEE International Symposium on Technology and Society, 1–8. Davis, A. 2010. New media and fat democracy: the paradox of online participation. New Media and Society, 12 (5), 745–761. Fraser, N. 1992. Rethinking the public sphere: A contribution to the critique of actually existing democracy. In Habermas and the public sphere, ed. C. Calhoun, 109–142. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Gamson, W. A., D. Croteau, W. Hoynes, and T. Sasson. 1992. Media images and the social ­construction of reality. Annual Review of Sociology 18: 373–93. Garnhem, N. 1992. The media and the public sphere. In Habermas and the public sphere, ed. C. Calhoun, 359–376. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Habermas, J. 1971. Der Universalitätsanspruch der Hermeneutik. In Hermeneutik und Ideologiekritik, 120–159. Frankfurt am MaIn Suhrkamp. Habermas, J. 1989. The structural transformation of the public sphere. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Habermas, J. 1996. Three normative models of democracy. In Democracy and differences. ­Contesting the boundaries of the political, ed. B. Seyla, 21–31. Princeton, NJ: Princeton ­University Press. Habermas, J. 1998. Between facts and norms. Contributions to a discourse theory of law and democracy. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Habermas, J. 2006. Political Communication in Media Society: Does Democracy Still Enjoy an Epistemic Dimension? The Impact of Normative Theory on Empirical Research. Communication Theory, 16(4), 411–426. Heelan, J. 2011. It’s already happened. Letter. London Review of Books 33 (19): 4. Herzog, D. 1998. Poisoning the minds of the lower orders. Princeton: Princeton University Press.



Democracy and web-based dialogue 

Kapoor, I. 2002. Deliberative democracy or agonistic pluralism? The relevance of the HabermasMuffed debate for third world politics. Alternatives 27: 459–87. Kellner, D. 2000. Habermas, the public sphere and democracy. In Perspectives on Habermas, ed. L. E. Hahn, 259–287. Chicago: Open Court Publishing. Klein, N. 2007. The shock doctrine. London: Penguin. Lawrence, E., J. Sides, and H. Farrell. 2010. Self-segregation or deliberation? Blog readership, participation, and polarization in American politics. Perspectives on Politics 8 (1): 141–57. Mouffe, C. 1999. Deliberative democracy or agonistic pluralism. Social Research 66 (3): 745–58. New Oxford Dictionary of English (NODE) (1998). Oxford: Clarendon Press. Tanner, E. 2001. Chilean conversations: Internet forum participants debate Augusto Pinochet’s detention. Journal of Communication 51 (2): 383–403. Teubert, W. 2008. What is the role of Arguments? In Dialogue and rhetoric, ed. E. Weigand, 95–118. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Walton, D. 2007. Revitalizing the Public Sphere: The Current System of Discourse and the Need for the Participative Design of Social Action. Systemic Practice and Action Research 20: 369–86.

The metadiscourse of “voice” Legitimizing participation in dialogue Robert T. Craig* Discourse analysis of a sample of arguments about “voice” found in online searches supports tentative conclusions about the normative structure of this concept in ordinary metadiscourse. Centrally concerned with “voice” in the sense of “having voice” (legitimate participation) in a communicative process, the study finds that “voice” in ordinary metadiscourse: (1) is positively valenced; (2) implies a participation framework of principal/principle, agency, communicative process, and dialogized others; and (3) encounters pragmatic problems of legitimacy, strength, and identity that become topics of metadiscursive argumentation. A closer examination of arguments about legitimacy finds that voices are rhetorically (de)legitimized through appeals to (a) abstract principles, (b) personal (un)worthiness, and (c) beneficial or harmful consequences. Keywords:  Metadiscourse; voice; argumentation; participation framework; normative valence; legitimation; internet discourse; pragmatics

1.  Introduction This study examines arguments about “voice” found in samples of Internet discourse. This work contributes to a larger project in which we are exploring pragmatic concepts and arguments about communication in ordinary metadiscourse for the purpose of engaging normative communication theory in critical reflection on practical communication problems (Craig 1999, 2005). Previous studies in this project have examined pragmatic uses of “argument” metalanguage (e.g. Craig & Tracy 2005, 2010), and public arguments about “dialogue” and “rhetoric” (Craig 2008, 2010). It appears that some of the central normative issues involving “voice” have to do with representation, agency and legitimate participation

*  Send correspondence to: Department of Communication, 270 UCB, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, CO 80309-0270. Email: [email protected].

 Robert T. Craig

in communicative interactions, especially in public discourse and democratic political processes but also in other spheres of life. English dictionaries distinguish numerous senses of the word “voice,” only some of which are centrally relevant to this study. We are not concerned with the physiological production of vocal sound in a person’s larynx except as a source of metaphors having to do, for example, with strength or tone of voice that may be used in arguments about other matters. We are not concerned with the many technical uses of “voice” in phonetics, grammar, music, or literature except perhaps tangentially in cases where, for example, grammatical voice might imply an assumption about agency or literary voice might be used by analogy to explain the crafted production of an authentic persona or communicative style. We are centrally concerned with “voice” as it relates to legitimate participation in dialogue. Relevant dictionary senses of voice as a noun refer to: – an agency by which a particular point of view is expressed or represented (once the proud voice of middle-class conservatism, the paper had fallen on hard times). – [in sing.] the right to express an opinion: the new electoral system gives minority parties a voice. – a particular opinion or attitude expressed: a dissenting voice. (New Oxford American Dictionary, 2003) In theoretical discourses, related senses of voice refer to aspects of democratic political and cultural participation or to certain pragmatic aspects of language and dialogue in general. In a critical analysis of voice under conditions of neoliberal political economy, Couldry (2010) distinguishes voice as a process in which particular perspectives on the world are expressed and acknowledged from voice as a value that favors forms of social organization in which the process of voice is effective. People may or may not have effective voice in Couldry’s sense, depending on conditions. For Bakhtin (Morris 1997) voice is the linguistic realization of a particular view of the world that distinguishes an individual character or social type; but voices do not exist in isolation, nor do they represent static world views. Every voice incorporates and responds dialogically to the speech of others so that voices interpenetrate, diverge, multiply, and evolve. Blommaert (2008) combines Bakhtin’s dialogic construction of voices in discourse with a Couldry-like critique of the social conditions that prevent particular voices from being perceived or understood by others. Goffman’s (1981) concept of participation framework provides another way of understanding the multiple and shifting qualities of voice that connects with the ordinary sense of voice as an agency (which, for Goffman, involves two ­distinct roles, the “author” and the “animator”) that can be distinguished from



The metadiscourse of “voice” 

the “principal” whose point of view the voice expresses. Finally, Cooren’s (2010) concept of ventriloquism adds further complexity to the dynamics of voice, both by expanding the range of agents that are capable of having voice and by showing that the figures voiced by interacting participants are equally capable of speaking for themselves, so the speaker can be at once the ventriloquist and the dummy whose voice is ventriloquized by another. This study examines a corpus of ordinary metadiscursive arguments on voice that can be analyzed theoretically and engaged in conversation with theories of voice such as those just mentioned. As in previous studies on the rhetoric of “dialogue” (Craig 2008), data were taken from Internet searches conducted primarily through Google. Because the proprietary Google search algorithm is not publicly available (and apparently changes frequently) this method does not provide a scientifically describable sample of that vast linguistic corpus that comprises the World Wide Web. However, it does provide access to a diverse range of contemporary natural language texts that can be examined to identify relevant examples for qualitative analysis. Numerous search strings have been tested to identify ones that capture relatively high concentrations of texts in which relevant, pragmatically oriented arguments about “voice” can be found. Interesting examples are culled, usually from the first 50 or so search results. Research is ongoing, and to date about 60 short texts have been logged for further analysis. For example, the search string “should not have a voice” (in quotes) returned about 3,360,000 hits from Google. Among the first 50 hits were numerous irrelevant texts (e.g. arguments about whether certain video game characters should have speaking voices) along with a variety of texts either advancing or refuting arguments on the claim that some person or group “should not have a voice” in some matter or process. One of the early hits referred to an online comment on a news story about a recent US Supreme Court decision that struck down a law prohibiting political donations by business corporations:

(1) the big mistake is that corporations were defined as people. they are not people, and they should not have a voice in elections. (http://www. politico.com/news/stories/0410/36303.html #ixzz0xwiDRVs9)1

The argument in (1) uses the concept of voice to oppose the Supreme Court decision. It relies on the premise that only human individuals are entitled to a voice. This example is interesting in part because it raises an issue for Cooren’s (2010) theory of dialogue. While not denying Cooren’s descriptive-analytic principle that

1.  Examples are reproduced verbatim, including any typographical or other errors that appear in the source texts. Omitted material is indicated by ellipses […].

 Robert T. Craig

non-human actants can be fully-fledged participants in ­dialogue, it denies the ­normative legitimacy of their participation in political elections. In turn, Cooren’s analysis suggests that some qualification is needed to the commenter’s premise in light of the fact that various kinds of collective and non-human actants do participate in social interaction, as Cooren shows. The empirical ­question raised for this study is whether or in what conditions a legitimate right to “voice” is attributed in ordinary metadiscourse to particular categories of agents. This research suggests that collective human agents such as corporations can have legitimate voice (although this can be controversial, as Example 1 illustrates), and that animals can have (or be given) a voice, but that the right to a voice is rarely attributed to other kinds of non-human agents. For example, Google searches replacing X in the phrase “X should have a voice” with various words produced the following numbers of hits: corporations (18,600), unions (35,400), countries (54,900), the church (54,400), religion (29,300), animals (26,000), idea (2), freedom (1), human rights (1), the environment (4), nature (2), living things (1), your car (0), spices (0), ingredients (0), equipment (0), machine (0). These results suggest that non-human participants in human activities like driving and cooking are not regarded as having a legitimate right to a “voice.” On the other hand, the search string “your car tells you that” returned about 19,200 hits (for example, the fuel gauge tells you it’s time to refuel), and “ingredients tell you that” returned about 4,970 hits (many referring to the ingredients listed on packaged foods). If an obligation to listen to what cars or ingredients “tell” us is implied by some of these texts, then it could be argued that the question of legitimate voice is implicitly in play.2 Of course, this is only a brief glance at an issue that requires more systematic study, and there is much more to be learned about the pragmatics of “voice” in general. In the remainder of this paper I first offer some preliminary observations on the metadiscursive concept of voice, broadly informed by the ongoing research. Then returning more specifically to the issue of legitimate voice, I analyze a series of examples of arguments asserting or denying that certain parties should have the right to participate in a dialogue. I conclude by indicating directions for further research. 2.  Preliminary observations on the pragmatics of “voice” This section provides a tentative reconstruction of some normative features of the metadiscursive concept of voice as it seems to be emerging from the ongoing research. In order of increasing complexity, these observations focus on: (1) the

2.  Thanks to François Cooren (personal communication) for this insight.



The metadiscourse of “voice” 

normative valance of voice, (2) the participation framework of voice, and (3) the communication problems that motivate metadiscursive arguments about voice. 2.1  Normative valence Like “dialogue,” “voice” is a positively toned word. Metadiscourse about dialogue reveals a typical assumption that dialogue is generally a good way of communicating (Craig 2008). Although people may argue that dialogue is impossible, unnecessary, inappropriate or potentially counterproductive in particular circumstances, essentially no one ever argues or assumes that dialogue is a bad thing in general. Similarly, voice is universally and generally assumed to be a good thing to have in communication. I have found no text that argues against the idea of voice in general, although, as we will see, the possibility or legitimacy of a particular party having voice in particular circumstances is often questioned. Example 2, which at first glance may look like an argument against voice in general, instead illustrates how “voice” has a positive valence even when arguing against the idea that people in general should have a voice.

(2) “There’s a real problem with this Internet thing and everyone thinking they have a voice,” he said. “This is where freedom can get out of hand. ­Everybody should not have a voice is what we’ve just proven by the Internet. Because I’m convinced that Jesus Christ could come back onto this earth and forgive everybody’s sins, and it’d be the greatest day in mankind ever. Somebody would take a picture of him. They’d put him on a Web site like TMZ, and the first comment would be ‘Jesus is a douche bag.’ You know what I’m sayin’? (http://www.cmt.com/news/country-music/1593384/ kid-rock-offers-views-on-music-industry-politics-and-oprah.jhtml)

The speaker in (2) argues that everyone should not have a voice on the Internet because the privilege is too often abused. The implication is that voice is a good thing to have (a privilege) that should not be granted to people who abuse it. 2.2  Participation framework Metadiscourse about “voice” typically implies a participation framework (­ Goffman 1981) in which the following components can be distinguished: –– Principal/Principle: that which has or is given a voice: an individual, group or universal agent having a distinct, relevant point of view to be expressed; or in the more inclusive sense proposed by Cooren (2010, p. 67), the point of view to be expressed, which may be that of an abstract principle or standpoint rather than a human agent. Voice is always the voice of someone or some position.

 Robert T. Craig

–– Agency: a human or nonhuman agent that “voices,” “gives voice to,” or “is the voice of ” the position of the principal/principle, serving as author (creator of a message that expresses the view) and/or animator (performer of the message). Voice always requires some agency or means of expression. –– Process: the voice of a principal/principle is addressed to and heard by others within a communication process that typically is oriented to some collective judgment or decision. Voice in a process may be granted by an official procedure or by others who choose to listen, may be claimed by a principal that chooses to speak up, or may be given by an agency that chooses to speak on behalf of a principal or principle. Voice is usually directed upward or outward from a position of limited influence to others who judge or decide. To have voice means to have legitimate and effective participation in a process but usually not the ultimate power to decide. Even in the extreme case of an agent that has the power to decide, to frame that exercise of power in terms of voice (e.g. “the voice of the commander must be obeyed”) implies the independent agency of others who could fail to transmit or obey the decision. –– Dialogized Others: within a communicative process the identity of each voice is dialogized in relations of alignment or opposition to the voices of others (e.g. liberals, or “them”) and to the process as a whole (e.g. a strong voice, a dissenting voice). A voice always exists in relation to other voices, whether present or noticeably absent (“silent” or “silenced”) in a process. 2.3  Communicative problems Metadiscursive arguments about voice address issues that seem to arise from pragmatic problems of three main kinds: normative legitimacy, strength, and identity. The ideal voice would be legitimate, strong, and clear in what it represents, but voices vary and issues arise in all three dimensions. The legitimacy of a voice can be asserted or denied; ways of strengthening or weakening a voice can be debated; and the specific identity of a voice (the principal or principle represented) can be asserted or questioned. Interestingly, each of these kinds of issues thematizes one of the three universal validity claims posited by Habermas’s (1984) theory of communicative action: intersubjective rightness (the normative problem of legitimizing or delegitimizing a voice), objective truth (the instrumental problem of strengthening or weakening a voice), and subjective sincerity (the expressive problem of communicating the authentic identity of a voice). Although this ­Habermasian connection is interesting, the implications are not pursued in this paper. Instead, after some brief further elaboration of the three pragmatic problems of voice, we present a more detailed analysis of arguments for and against the legitimacy of voices.



The metadiscourse of “voice” 

2.4  Legitimacy Many arguments about voice in ordinary metadiscourse are pragmatically designed to legitimize or delegitimize the participation of particular parties (individual or collective) or the influential expression of particular views. These arguments concern the right or worthiness of a party to speak either for itself or on behalf of some other party, collective, or principle, or the right of a party or view to be heard or heeded by others. In Example 1, corporations are disqualified from voice because they are not people. Not infrequently arguments about worthiness have an ad hominem character insofar as they do not address the pros and cons of a position but rather the standing or deservingness of a voice to participate in a dialogue (albeit a party may be considered unworthy because their views are intolerable). Who has a right to speak for a group or principle is often at issue. One source of legitimacy is the compulsion of conscience: Although normally reluctant to participate, a party has no choice but to speak up for what is right. Reasons for speaking out with varying degrees of legitimacy include being personally compelled by feeling or principle, having a personal stake in an issue, moral pressure, or political pressure; and parties are criticized for failing to speak out when they should. Voice as a value (Couldry 2010) is invoked strategically in defense of particular voices whose legitimacy may be questionable on other grounds. It is good to include as many voices as possible in a process, but there can be trade-offs between breadth and quality of participation: Increasing the number of participants can lower the quality of deliberation (see Example 2) or impede efficient decision-making. These are some of the many themes that appear in arguments about the legitimacy of voices. A more detailed examination of some arguments about normative legitimacy follows a brief look at communication problems concerning the strength and identity of voices. 2.5  Strength Voices vary in strength, and the metadiscourse of voice is frequently concerned with the pragmatics of strengthening favored voices or weakening disfavored ones. The strength of a voice has two main components: – Strength of expression (the choice to speak up; the number, spatial spread, and loudness of those speaking; and the degree to which these many voices speak “as one” rather than being “diluted” by dissenting or inconsistent messages). – Receptivity of the process (the choice by others to hear, listen to, or heed a voice; strength or weakness of competing voices; and a voice’s systemic power ranging from the right to speak, the right to a vote, the right to a veto, and so on).

 Robert T. Craig

The legitimacy of a voice can be a source of strength (through confidence of expression and receptivity of the process) as can strength of expression be a source of legitimacy (as those who speak up claim a right to participate). Arguments in these cases are not about the legitimacy of a voice but about ways to strengthen a voice by building up an impression of its legitimacy or weaken a voice by casting doubt on its legitimacy. Numbers are a source of strength but also of weakness if the many voices fail to speak “as one.” Thus, a clear identity (see below) can also be an important source of a voice’s strength, and control over “message” becomes a pragmatic goal more difficult to achieve as the number and internal diversity of a voice’s constituents increase. Illustrating a metadiscursive argument about strengthening a voice, the writer in (3) attempts to negotiate the tension between strengthening a voice by bringing an allied group into a process while minimizing the power of that ally to “dilute” the voice when differences arise.

(3) It might be valuable to have a class of non-voting members who could participate in our debates and discussions, but not have a vote when it came to making ultimate decisions and setting policies. This would allow us to coordinate the common ground between ccTLD and gTLD registrars without diluting our voice on issues where we might differ. Furthermore, we might want to consider encouraging ccTLD registrars to become ­ICANN-accredited, whether or not they choose to offer gTLD’s directly. Personally, I feel that would strengthen (instead of weaken) our voice in ICANN. Also, it would increase their perception & voice in ICANN and the Internet ­community…. (http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/registrars/ Arc01/msg00479.html)

2.6  Identity A third type of pragmatic problem has to do with the need for a voice to have a clear and distinct identity. An authentic voice is always the voice of someone or something with a distinct point of view having something relevant (knowledge, experience, vantage point, interests) to contribute to the dialogue. A clear identity can be a source of both legitimacy as well as strength, but the issues that emerge around identity are different from those specific to legitimacy or strength of voice. Problems of identity are problems of expression and representation: Exactly who or what does a voice represent? What are its relations of alignment and opposition with other voices? The sincerity or authenticity of a voice can be questioned. A voice can be misunderstood. There may be a s­ truggle to “find” a voice because the principal’s identity is internally divided, uncertain, or not yet fully formed. A voice can be misrepresented by an agency in the role of author (as “the media” are often accused of doing) or poorly p ­ erformed by an animator. Increasing the



The metadiscourse of “voice” 

number and diversity of participants in a collective voice can muddy the voice’s identity, which also contributes to diluting its strength. Example 4 presents an argument about the need for a clearer and more authentic collective identity:

(4) I believe that fathers should have a voice that companies should want to hear. As you will come to hear from some of the other Revolutionaries, ­being a Stayat-Home Dad (SAHD) is becoming more and more common and as fathers we too are buying and making decisions for the h ­ ousehold, but many companies only cater certain decisions to us, and many times these decisions fall into the purchasing of alcoholic beverages and e­ lectronics. This needs to change!

I also believe that it is time for Dads to stand up and let people know what makes us tick. It is not always the media portrayed picture of the beer drinking, sports loving, woman lusting man, but instead, men who are doing what they can to balance their lives and to be engaged with their families in all types of ways. It is time for guys to stand up and say enough is enough and to let the world hear that as fathers we are planning to make a difference in not only our childrens’ lives but in the community and world around us! (http://dadrevolution.com/2010/04/23/introducing-dad-of-divas/)

The writer in (4) argues that the voice of stay-at-home dads is misrepresented by the media, so dads need to speak up for themselves and express their unique, authentic identity – “a voice that companies should want to hear,” once they are able to distinguish it. Arguments about the strength and identity of voices will not be examined further in the space of this paper. Returning to the problem of legitimizing voices, the following section provides an initial rough map of some of the more prominent lines of argument through a series of examples. 3.  “Should [not] have [a] voice”: Legitimizing and delegitimizing voices Most of the examples in this section were found in Google searches using the search strings “should [not] have [a] voice” (all combinations with and without each of the bracketed words). In each case a writer explains why some party or view should or should not have a voice in some matter. The arguments can be roughly placed into three main groups, suggesting three types of grounds on which voice can be legitimized or delegitimized: abstract principle, personal (un)worthiness, and beneficial or harmful consequences. Of course, texts often argue on multiple grounds but most often they have a primary emphasis on one of the three approaches. The following subsections present examples of each kind.

 Robert T. Craig

3.1  Abstract principles Perhaps the most common way of arguing for or against the legitimacy of a voice is to appeal to abstract principles such as human rights, democracy, or the law. Abstract principles that are widely believed have authority that can be used to justify a voice for parties that may be problematic in other respects. Arguing on the basis of principle also presents a positive image of the one making the argument as a person of principle. Principles are invoked tactically and can be interpreted to support opposite claims about voice. Example 1 invoked the principle that only people should have a voice to oppose allowing corporate political contributions. But, of course, corporations are made up of people who have a democratic right to assemble, and so denying corporations a voice means denying those assembled people their (collective) voice. Example 5 illustrates this reasoning, analogizing corporations to other kinds of free associations of people such as labor unions.

(5) Why only corporations? What about an LLC? Unions do not vote, should they not have a voice? Where do you draw the line? How many people can “peaceably assemble” before they are restricted in voicing a political opinion? (http://voices.washingtonpost.com/­postpartisan/2010/06/ the_judiciary_committees_weird.html)

Similar arguments appear on the issue of whether religion should have a voice in the public sphere, with many asserting that it should not in a modern democracy; but of course religions also are assemblies of people:

(6) Rep. DeGette’s comments are stunning. According to her, if a group of people who are in association with one another because of their Christian faith, they should not have a voice in the crafting of public policy. What she is asserting is that if your ideas and actions are a product of your faith, you’re a second class citizen and your voice should not be heard. (http://www.opposingviews.com/p/rep-diana-degette-pushes-radical -anti-religious-agenda)

Principles of democratic inclusiveness can be invoked absolutely, as in (7), or on grounds that a particular group has a legitimate stake in a process, as in (8).

(7) First of all, just because someone is a racial or economic minority, they don’t deserve to have their voice heard? This is America Irobb, not Iran or Russia…. (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/thecat77/why-i-am -blogging-across-_b_737480_61564197.html)



The metadiscourse of “voice” 

The writer in (7) invokes democratic inclusiveness implicitly by contrasting “America” to other nations that are presumed to be less democratic. “America” should stand up for its principles without exception. Example 8 employs a more qualified principle of inclusiveness such that students who are not permanent residents of a community might be excluded legitimately but argues against exclusion in the present case.

(8) Of course they should have a voice, just because they don’t live here ­permanently doesn’t mean their decisions shouldn’t have an effect on future generations of students. Students nowadays are more well informed about the dangers of smoking. I’d like to see you stand out there in the middle of Westminster Ave and tell them they don’t matter. (http://www.fultonsun.com/news/2011/jan/24/petition-repeal -smoking-ordinance-lacks-support/)

In contrast to previous examples that legitimized a group voice (corporation, ­religion) by describing the group as a collection of individuals, (7) implies that students as a group are a permanent part of the community that deserves a voice even if individual students, as temporary residents, do not. The writer also describes the current students as personally worthy of a voice (because knowledgeable), a theme developed further in the next section. Examples (9)–(11) illustrate some different ways that principles can be invoked with emphasis on their particularly strict or compelling implications for the legitimacy of a voice.

(9) But the principle of “no taxation without representation” also means “no representation without taxation.” One should not have a voice in the ­national government if one is not paying the fee to be a member of the ­nation. Yet half of Americans are doing just that…. In fact, half of ­Americans who pay absolutely no Federal income tax have just as much vote in national politics as the wealthiest person who pays millions of ­dollars. Why is this fair? (http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/ the-scientific-­fundamentalist/201101/no-representation-without-taxation)

The writer in (9) assumes that voice should be distributed according to a principle of fairness such that those who contribute more to a community (by paying income taxes in this case) should have a greater voice than those who contribute less. This is claimed to derive somehow from a democratic right of representation. The following example argues that feminists must accept women to oppose abortion as feminists or else contradict the feminist principle of equality under which “every woman has a voice.”

 Robert T. Craig

(10) One wonders whether a pro-life woman can be a feminist? That other women, such as Palin, want to reframe the abortion debate in new feminist terms, arguing that abortion hurts women and is, therefore, anti-woman, doesn’t bother me a bit. And it shouldn’t bother older-school feminists. Equality, after all, means that every woman has a voice. (http://brainerddispatch.com/stories/062510/opi_20100625006.shtml)

Finally, in (11) an Iraqi journalist who famously threw a shoe at U.S. president George W. Bush argues that he was compelled by conscience to act as the “voice” of patriotism. Here it is the principle itself that deserves a voice: the principle is given voice by the journalist as agent. (11) If I have wronged journalism without intention, because of the professional embarrassment I caused the establishment, I apologise. All that I meant to do was express with a living conscience the feelings of a citizen who sees his homeland desecrated every day. The professionalism mourned by some under the auspices of the occupation should not have a voice louder than the voice of patriotism. And if patriotism needs to speak out, then ­professionalism should be allied with it. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/­commentisfree/ 2009/sep/17/why-i-threw-shoe-bush)

3.2  Personal (un)worthiness A second main way of legitimizing voice is by appealing to positive personal qualities or behaviors (intelligence, loyalty, personal involvement in the issue, etc.) that render an individual or group worthy of voice. Negative qualities (incompetence, disloyalty, etc.) similarly delegitimize a voice. Example 2 took this approach in arguing that people who post uncivil comments on the Internet do not deserve a voice. The following writer argues that “moochers” (welfare recipients) should not have a voice. (12) Good ole Mr. Wilson, if one can’t prove who he or she is why should they be able to vote? Voting is to important to treat the process lightly. I agree more people should be voting unless they are on the welfare rolls. ­Moochers should not have a voice in the way our country is run ­because they only vote for the candidates that continue to send them money that belongs to those that pay taxes. (http://www.gwinnettdailypost.com/state/headlines/Top_Georgia_court _upholds_states_voter_ID_law__117518043.html)

Note the contrast between (12) and an earlier Example (9) that argued for a similar policy based on the abstract principle of fairness without personally blaming nontaxpayers. Here the argument is framed in terms of negative personal qualities and behaviors of “moochers” that delegitimize their voice. In the following case



The metadiscourse of “voice” 

it is “ignorant people” who should not have a voice because of their insensitive behavior. (13) I would just like to point out that why the 3 of you losers battle back and fourth on what you know about Andrew Krisinski being doped up, a ­fckuing lunatic, and brainwashed. There are 9 kids in total that lost there ­father and mother, 5 of Andrew’s, 2 of Christa’s and 1 of Dennis’. Rather then trying to be detectives and talking shiit about a dead man and his problems, how about you be god damn humans and send your heart out to all of the children and not pass judgement. Ignorant people should not have voice ­because they only say things that can hurt the living of the dead. (http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2009/04/ after_piscataway_­murdersuicide.html)

The following example is interesting for the way it uses positive personal qualities of the speaker (insight, independence) to justify granting a political right for non-party members to vote in partisan primary (nominating) elections. In this case the abstract principle of democratic inclusion faces a potential counterargument based on the exclusive right of political party members to a voice in party affairs. The force of this potential counterargument can be blunted by portraying non-party members as insightful, disinterested, etc. and therefore worthy of voice. (14) Independents should have voice in primaries […] I believe I’ve always had great insight into the candidates seeking their party’s nomination or elected office. As a reporter who covered the p ­ olitical beat, I also had opportunities to interview candidates from all parties and cover their conventions and primaries. In covering local government, I also got to see both their accomplishments and their failures. I believe this strengthened my independence from having an alliance with any of the political parties … No one should be shut out of the political process. (http://www.mycarrollnews.com/content/ independents-should-have-­voice-primaries)

Other rhetorical uses of personal worthiness are illustrated in the following examples. In (15) a spokesman for profit-making universities counters the objection that they are exploiting military veterans by arguing that veterans who have ­sacrificed so much for their country deserve a “voice” in selecting a college that suits them, a possibly rather disingenuous use of the concept. (15) Harris Miller, president and CEO of the Association of Private Sector ­Colleges and Universities, an industry lobbying group, said the growth of military and veterans is military and veteran students choose for-profits because they offer flexibility and career training needs.

 Robert T. Craig

“I just don’t understand how we can trust young women and men to literally lay down their lives to protect our country, and yet we say they should not have a voice in terms of what kind of educational system suits their ­particular needs,” Miller said. (http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/2010/12/ ap-colleges-cashing-in-on-vets-120910/)

Not only personal sacrifice but effort on behalf of good values can legitimize voice. In (16) the U.S. Secretary of Transportation announces on his official blog that bicyclists will be given a greater voice in transportation policy because they are such effective advocates for good values such as livability and sustainability. (16) Somewhere in the frenzy, I managed to thank summit-goers for being such effective advocates for livable, sustainable, bike-friendly communities. Well, that was fun, but the dust has settled and I have news. The crowd’s ­enthusiasm was so contagious, the idea of introducing a major policy ­revision in that setting quickly evaporated. Today, I want to announce a sea change. People across America who value bicycling should have a voice when it comes to transportation planning. This is the end of favoring motorized transportation at the expense of ­non-motorized. (http://fastlane.dot.gov/2010/03/my-view-from-atop-the -table-at-the-national-bike-summit.html)

A final example of argument from (un)worthiness, Example (17) works differently from the preceding and broaches an important theme that should be taken up more fully in another paper: the call to speak up. (17) We live in an era where the bad people among us are feeling emboldened by the silence and compassion fatigue of the good ones. But after all we’ve been through, after all we have done and suffered to bring about change, we cannot afford silence or fatigue, cannot afford to turn the conversation over to the voices of loud intolerance. So thank Eric Holder for the reminder. If good people do not lead this ­discussion, the bad ones happily will. (http://www.dailycamera.com/ci_13114244)

In (17) the unworthiness of “bad people” is a reason why “good people” need to speak up and exercise their voices in order to shift the balance of “the conversation.” Worthy voices should speak up to dialogically weaken unworthy ones, one of many reasons why people with legitimate voice should speak up. 3.3  Beneficial or harmful consequences A final set of arguments can be distinguished that (de)legitimize a voice by pointing to likely beneficial or harmful consequences for the process in general (e.g. gain of



The metadiscourse of “voice” 

needed expertise, loss of civility), for specific hearers (e.g. the opportunity to hear, the likelihood of hearing something offensive), or for those having voice themselves (e.g. the cultivation of leadership skills, personal danger). Examples 18–24 illustrate several of these lines of argument. Relevant expertise benefits the process: (18) HIPAA privacy officers should have voice in emergency planning; last-­ minute prep out of the question […] The last thing any hospital needs in an emergency is to scramble to figure out what it needs to do to comply with state or federal regulations. (http://www.hcpro.com/HIM-258425-2972/HIPAA-privacy-officers-should-have -voice-in-emergency-planning-lastminute-prep-out-of-the-question.html)

For the best outcome (a winning sports team in this case), expert voices should outweigh the non-expert voices of fans on strategy: (19) Any business will tell you that listening to the voice of the customer is good. Unfortunately, sometimes the customer is not as informed to make the decisions on how to improve the product. In this case, a business should listen to what the customer wants (a winning franchise) and dictate strategy not by what the customer thinks should be done, but what the experts say. (http://www.turfshowtimes.com/2011/2/9/1984165/a-note -on-vetoseto-and-a-quick-rant)

In contrast to negative views of the open Internet such as we saw earlier in Example 2, the following argues that “everyone should have a printing press” so we Internet users will be able to pick and choose the voices we want to hear: (20) When I started blogging back in 2003, I would tell everyone how a­ wesome it was. A common refrain back then was “not everyone should have a p ­ rinting press.” I didn’t agree then and I don’t agree now. everyone should have a printing press and should use it as often as they see fit. Through things like RSS and Twitter’s follow model, we can subscribe to the voices we want to hear regularly. And through things like reblog and retweet, the voices we don’t subscribe to can get into our readers, dashboards, and timelines. (http://www.businessinsider.com/everyone-should-have -a-voice-on-the-internet-2010–11)

An interesting feature of (20) is that the right to a voice implies the right to speak but not the right to be heard, reflecting a consumerist orientation toward public discourse that seems increasingly common. In this regard an underlying ­assumption of (20) is not so different from that of (2): We shouldn’t have to hear what we don’t want to hear. On the other hand, Example 21 argues that the Segwey company will benefit from hearing what is said on an independent blog that will give voice to issues

 Robert T. Craig

about their product that the company itself should avoid discussing. Note in this case it is “those things” (i.e. the issues) that deserve a voice: the principle not the principal is the focus of legitimation. (21) What they need, more than their own corporate hubris, is straight talk in the abstract that comes from outside their ranks. Hence this site. And there are issues afoot that they would be wise to not touch with a ten foot pole. Still, those things should have a voice. (http://www.digitalsecrets.net/­glidewalk/Home1.7.html)

In the following example, women in a developing country should be given voice on water issues because they themselves will benefit from this leadership opportunity, thereby also advancing the larger purpose of gender equality. (22) Women’s role in providing water is important, and so are their voices. “Women carry the burden of providing water for their families. Yet often their voices are not heard on water problems. It’s high time that women take the lead in finding solutions.” Deeply ingrained gender inequalities in society limit not just what women can accomplish, but also what they think they can accomplish. With the right opportunities, though, women become leaders in solving their water woes. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13M_qWa_0BU)

The final two examples illustrate ways that a process can benefit by either granting or denying a voice. In (23), giving students a voice in a college town will create an “improved dialogue,” while in (24), limiting the voice of certain groups will create a more efficient decision-making process. (23) Eckerdt spoke briefly during the city council meeting, stressing the ­importance of an improved dialogue between city officials and CSU ­students, who make up a large part of the Fort Collins population. “In this community, about 39 percent of Fort Collins residents are between ages 18 and 34 and about 25,000 of those are CSU students,” Eckerdt said. “It’s important that our voice is formally at the table.” (http://www.collegian.com/index.php/article/2010/09/090810_ascsuvoice) (24) If presbyteries conducted their meetings like the General Assembly, m ­ eetings that now last four hours would take two days, because every ­action item considered by a committee would require debate and an up-or-down vote. […] Ecumenical, theological and missionary advisory delegates should be eliminated. Young adult advisory delegates (YAADs) should be r­ etained, but without voice at plenaries. They should have voice but no vote in ­committees. (http://www.pres-outlook.com/reports-a-resources/ ­presbyterian-heritage-articles/11094.html)



The metadiscourse of “voice” 

Inefficient process is a cost of democratic voice. As Oscar Wilde is said to have remarked, the problem with socialism is that it takes up too many evenings. 4.  Conclusion This study has conducted an initial overview of the metadiscourse of “voice” as found in Internet discourse, supplemented by a closer focus on the rhetorical pragmatics of legitimizing and delegitimizing voices. Perhaps the clearest conclusion to be drawn is that further research is needed to map the full complexity of this metadiscursive concept and subject it to an appropriate normative critique. Further exploration of arguments is needed, especially with regard to instrumental concerns for strengthening and weakening voices and expressive concerns for establishing the authentic identity of voices. As was noted, the central issues of legitimation, strength and identity of voices thematize, respectively, the three universal validity claims posited by Habermas’s theory of communicative action. The implications of this observation for a normative theory of voice have yet to be considered. Several important themes in the metadiscourse of voice have hardly been touched on in this paper and need closer study. Two will be mentioned here briefly. First, there is the question of “silent” voices in a process, which may result from the “silencing” of voices by some powerful agent or may be a voluntary choice. The latter case of silence as a voluntary act raises a second normative issue: the obligation to “speak up” or “speak out” that may be opposed to the right or preference to remain silent. A final question to be mentioned here arises from a comparison of the Internet data on “voice” that has been gathered so far with data gathered earlier for studies on the metadiscourse of “dialogue” (Craig 2008). In brief, Google searches for arguments on dialogue were notable for their international, indeed global diversity of hits, whereas searches for arguments on voice have so far have turned up a heavy preponderance of North American sources. Is this an artifact of the Google search algorithm operating on the author’s geographical location, or is the theme of “voice” especially prominent in North American discourse at the present time?

References Blommaert, J. 2008. Bernstein and poetics revisited: Voice, globalization and education. ­Discourse & Society 19: 425–51. doi: 10.1177/0957926508089938. Cooren, F. 2010. Action and agency in dialogue: Passion, incarnation and ventriloquism. ­Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

 Robert T. Craig Couldry, N. 2010. Why voice matters: Culture and politics after neoliberalism. London: Sage. Craig, R. T. 1999. Metadiscourse, theory, and practice. Research on Language and Social Interaction 32: 21–29. Craig, R. T. 2008. The rhetoric of ‘dialogue’ in metadiscourse: Possibility-impossibility arguments and critical events. In Dialogue and rhetoric, ed. E. Weigand, 55–67. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Craig, R. T. 2005. How we talk about how we talk: Communication theory in the public interest. Journal of Communication 55: 659–67. Craig, R. T. 2011. Arguments about ‘rhetoric’ in the 2008 US presidential election campaign. In Proceedings of the 7th Conference of the International Society for the Study of Argumentation, eds. F. H. V. Eemeren, B. Garssen, J. A. Blair and G. R. MItchell, June 29-July 2, 2010 (pp. 301–314). Amsterdam, the Netherlands: Sic Sat. Craig, R. T., and K. Tracy. 2005. “The issue” in argumentation practice and theory. In The practice of argumentation, eds. F. H. v. Eemeren and P. Houtlosser, 11–28. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Craig, R. T., and K. Tracy. 2010. Framing discourse as argument in appellate courtrooms: Three cases on same-sex marriage. In The functions of argument and social context. Selected papers from the 16th biennial NCA/AFA Conference on Argumentation, ed. D. S. Gouran, August 2009 (pp. 46–53). Washington, DC: National Communication Association. Goffman, E. 1981. Forms of talk. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. Habermas, J. 1984. The theory of communicative action; Volume 1: Reason and the rationalization of society. Trans. T. McCarthy. Boston: Beacon Press. Morris, P., ed. 1997. The Bakhtin reader: Selected writings of Bakhtin, Medvedev, Voloshinov. New York: Oxford University Press.

Representation, re-presentation, presentation, and conversation Klaus Krippendorff* In this paper I will examine several prototypical examples of “representations” to shed light on what this common conception actually entails. I will argue that experientially verifiable representations are extremely rare and that their use as metaphors for what language supposedly does is epistemologically misleading and serves at best discourse communities that seek to prevent their members from realizing their involvement in the phenomenon they talk of. To avoid such undifferentiated uses, I am suggesting to replace “representation” by “re-presentation” (making present again), by “presentation” (creating present realities or illustrations in narratives) or by the coordination of understanding in conversations. This is a shift from correspondence theories of truths via coherence theories of truths to viable conversational practices of living. Keywords:  representations; maps; symptoms; conversations; appropriating the voices of others; discourse

1.  From folk notions to scientific theories and back According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word “representation” exists in the English language since the 15th century. Today, it is deeply engrained in many facets of everyday life. We assess whether a painting is a good likeness of s­ omething we know. We ask whether a lawyer is representing her client adequately. We judge whether the written account of a meeting accurately reflects what was said. A member of parliament is expected to speak in the name of  his or her constituency. We wonder whether a sample of subjects is a statistically adequate representation of the population of interest. Above all, we say we talk about things outside of us and conceive of language as a means of representing the facts of the world.

* Gregory Bateson Professor Emeritus for Cybernetics, Language, and Culture at The Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania. Email: kkrippendorff@ asc.upenn.edu.

 Klaus Krippendorff

I contend that all scientific pursuits can be traced to folk notions. Scientific discourses adopt metaphors from everyday life, energy by physics, for example, or space by geometry, redefine these notions in order to render their entailments measurable and consistently theorizable, and then bring them back as objective accounts of facts, rendering the folk conceptions as inferior if not fallacious. G ­ ranting scientific discourse that superiority has the effect of surrendering the multiplicity of everyday conceptions to coherent and, I would suggest, ­intellectually imperialist if not potentially oppressive constructions. Indeed, the most productive sciences have thrived after drawing an ideally tight boundary around their subject matter and limiting their attention to what is inside of it. So, physics concerns itself with material phenomena excluding ­language, human action, and the role that physicists play in constructing their physical universe – as if it existed without them. This applies to Werner Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, which posits a limit to observation but does not theorize observers, and John Wheeler’s (1994) conception of the physical universe, which acknowledges the role of humankind but offers no theory of physicists and their discourse. Closer to my topic, “language” comes from the Latin noun lingua, meaning “tongue.” It originally referred to speech. However, linguists, from Ferdinand de Saussure (1916/1959) to Noam Chomsky (1957), have been pursuing a concept of language as a system of rules for generating the grammatical expressions of a language. In Saussure’s conception, linguistics cannot concern itself with human speech for being simply too unruly and must limit its concerns to the study of its stable features, to an abstraction. Valentin Vološinov (1986) (or Mikhail Bahktin to whom the former is sometimes attributed) aptly calls this notion of language abstract-objectivist as it abstracts the human use of language out of its c­ onception, and treats language as an autonomous system with its own laws to be stated ­without reference to human involvement. In addition, most areas of linguistics are based on writing (Linell 2005). They are concerned with words and sentences, not with utterances or interactions. Because of this self-imposed restriction, as well as the prevalence of text in contemporary society, linguistics has been enormously productive, and succeeded in shaping education and communication in formal organizations, even everyday discourse. When ordinary speakers are asked about their conception of language, most of them reproduce the abstract-objectivist conceptions of contemporary linguistics, exemplified in writing not talk, largely because they have been taught ‘its’ rules since ‘grammar’ school. Theorizing with the authority of a science easily sidelines folk practices. Saussure could not possibly ignore what ordinary speakers of a language know they do, which is: talking about things and doing things with words. But aboutness had no place in his linguistics. So, Saussure became an early p ­ roponent of an ­associated science, semiology, now called semiotics, conceived of as a social



Representation, re-presentation, presentation, and conversation 

science that would study the signification of (linguistic) signs as part of social life, especially studying the laws that govern them. Thus, the abstract-objectivist notion of language gave birth to an equally abstract-objectivist discipline that took language to be a system of representations. Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914) (1958), probably the most influential semiotician to date, and a contemporary of Saussure (1867–1913) but separated by the Atlantic, theorized the “essential conditions for something to be a sign:” There had to be an object (or representant), a sign (a representation of the object) and an interpretant (a connection between the object and the sign on account of which a sign represents, stands for, or signifies its object). For Peirce, the interpretant is not a person but an empirically verifiable if not objective connection, such as causality (for indices), resemblance (for icons), or conventions (for symbols). Because an interpretant can be a sign as well, his theory allows for signs of signs, signs of signs of signs, etc. – all ultimately rooted in the reality of the objects they represent. Bertrand Russel (Whitehead & Russell, 1910), seeking to prevent paradoxes in any theory of representation, proposed his famous Theory of Logical Types that forbids propositions containing different logical types. In set theoretical terms, “the name of a class cannot be a member of the class.” The injunction against confusing logical levels became also a popular slogan of general semantics (Korzybski 1994): “don’t confuse the map with the territory” or the word with its meaning. The theory encourages representations to form logical hierarchies: There are objects. Propositions about objects occur in a basic language. Propositions about language occur in a meta-language, etc. This prompts John Stewart (1995) to say that semiotics is committed to a two-world construction: the world of objects and the world of signs. The Theory of Logical Types insists that they must be kept apart or paradoxes will undermine any theory of language as representation and render representations incomprehensible. I am reviewing these widely popular and theoretically hardened conceptions of language as a system of representation to make clear what I want to retire. I am suggesting that these scientific conceptions are utterly artificial, haunt academic conversations, have infested everyday discourse, and create epistemological illusions that prevent us from coming to terms with what we are doing in language, even who we are. 2.  Some prototypical representations – or are they? Let me explore a few examples of what are commonly called representations. To cast the net widely, I will use an iconic, indexical, behavioral, medical, political, and a cognitive example.

 Klaus Krippendorff

2.1  Photographs A photographer carries with her all of her experiences of photography, her ­competence in using her camera, her eyes, trained to recognize appealing compositions, and her ways of interacting with her subject matter. Say at a sports event, she is part of a fast changing environment. She has the choice of various positions, camera settings, timing, and foci of attention, but is technologically limited to record what appears within the rectangular frame of a view finder, which she is forced to superimpose on the multitudes of what she observes. A camera is an optically reliable copying device, but only within a chosen frame. Notwithstanding the possibility of digital image manipulation, we take the accuracy of a camera for granted and trust that the resulting photograph depicts what objectively was in front of its lens at a time the photographer shot it. But for whom does a photograph represent what? Arguably, the photographer is the only one who can judge whether what she saw with her own eyes is truly represented in the image she created. However, once the depicted event is gone, the photograph no longer represents anything intersubjectively verifiable. When viewing it again, its photographer may re-fresh her memory, re-call experiences she had at the scene or re-cognize what she had captured in the image. So: Visual images can make their creators’ past experiences present again. Hence, for its photographer, a photograph is a re-presentation.

Re-presentations are available only to those who had earlier experiences with what an image depicts. Viewers without firsthand experiences of the event captured in an image could not possibly make present again what they had never seen before. Thus, and probably for most connoisseurs of photography, it would simply be delusional to speak of photographs as representations or as re-presentations. Photographs allow us to imagine what photographers may have seen and, because photographs are somewhat durable, to imagine it repeatedly. So: Except for their creators, visual images may make something present in their viewers’ imagination.

For the latter they then are presentations – notwithstanding the experiences that undoubtedly are needed to make out shapes and categorize objects, people, and situations, recalling like experiences from the past and situations other than where a photograph comes from. Viewers of photographs reassemble their past experiences into something that makes sense to them in view of these photographs. This process does not, however, provide access to what a photographer experienced when shooting it.



Representation, re-presentation, presentation, and conversation 

Moreover, pictorial matter rarely stands alone. Pictures appear in print, show up on walls, and on the internet. In her Ph.D. dissertation, Mary Bock (2010), inquired into video-journalistic practices and, as an aside, developed several important notions regarding pictorial communication. She acknowledged that pictures on their own are always ambiguous, mean very little, if anything at all. A  picture, say of a crowd, may not tell whether it was taken of a protest, of a religious gathering, people waiting to see a celebrity, or commuters being stuck on account of a subway delay. The picture of a black circle surrounded by a crust could be the close-up of a gunshot wound, the bird’s eye view of a crater, the pattern on the wings of a butterfly, or of a painting. In print, it is their captions or their surrounding story that provides the otherwise missing meaning. The ­common belief that a picture says more than a thousand words applies only after verbal explanations have been provided and considered. Drawing on experiences as a photographer, Bock suggests describing: acts of taking pictures as acts of decontextualization, acts that omit everything not physically recorded, including everything the journalist brings to the scene of her work and what she experiences there. This is a loss of meaning that nobody else can recover when examining the photographic product, unless the journalist explains her images, recontextualizes them in narratives, in language. Bock traced the communication of visuals from the act of taking pictures through newsrooms and to mass audiences and found that they pass through various gatekeepers’ conversations, news managers, writers, and editors with own agendas and intentions. In each instance, images are interpreted, selected, cropped, rearranged, or discarded, i.e. repeatedly decontextualized and recontextualized, changing their meaning as they travel from one conversation to another, until readers provide their own context for visualizing what they see and may talk of. The idea of describing that process as one of encoding and decoding representations ignores the individual experiences, institutional structures, and conversations through which the meanings of photographs are shaped, kept aligned with what had happened, or turned into something not necessarily related to what the photographer experienced on the scene. For viewers and readers, photographic images are best considered illustrations of narratives.

2.2  Roadmaps When comparing a roadmap with the satellite photo of the area it supposedly r­ epresents, one is hard pressed to make out their supposed resemblances. ­Circles take the place of irregular clusters of houses and gardens. The widths of lines connecting them may easily be 1000 times wider than the roads on satellite images. A  roadmap shows no fields, forests, rivers and mountain ranges

 Klaus Krippendorff

but lots of names, a grid of coordinates, and state or county boundaries, none of them found in satellite images. Cartographers speak freely of maps as representations on account of their supposed indexicality and topological correspondences. They assume a God’s eye perspective on what they draw, yet stay pretty much on the surface they depict. They work in archives where they copy and compare existing maps. Satellite images are relatively recent sources of data and difficult to relate to where one stands. But what do roadmaps represent or make present again for their users? I would say nothing either. They play a rather different role. Intending to drive from Philadelphia to Montréal, Montréal being not in sight from where I live, I cannot possibly get there without some kind of map on which I can identify my current location, where I want to be, and possible paths connecting the two points on the map. If one of these three elements is missing, the map fails its user. It is on that roadmap that we can distinguish shorter and longerroutes, find the names of cities we need to drive through or want to visit along the way, and guess how long it might take us to get to our destination. To envision a route implies some kind of map. Driving on a road, we cannot see much more than a few hundred feet of what is ahead of us. Vision alone would not suffice to know where we are going and the trees and gasoline stations on the road do not point to Montreal. It is a map that enables us to conceptually break a larger journey into smaller manageable segments, to render the landmarks that come in view as milestones in the direction we want to go. Without knowing the numbers of the highways we are following, the names of the cities we pass, we are lost. Indeed we use a far-reaching map while interpreting the limited surroundings we have in sight. It is a map that transforms what we see into milestones along our journey. Only a map can inform us of the larger context in which we find ourselves and what we can expect when we move in certain directions. It helps us to judge whether we are on track or not. In fact, unable to locate ourselves on a map or not recognizing what a map suggest we should come to and see, we are lost, and left scrambling to reorient ourselves. For a driver, a roadmap does not represent a territory it defines it, renders it meaningful, and makes a journey comprehensible. Maps may not be territories (Turnbull 1993), but turning the battle cry of general semanticians on its head, I would say: Maps constitute their territories. Territories are indistinguishable without maps.

This is not to confuse the two. Indeed, the word “cat” cannot scratch us. However, without the word “cat” we would not be able to say what scratched us. The v­ egetation along the road does not tell us whether we are driving through Pennsylvania or New York State. Satellite images do not show the boundaries that matter in everyday public life.



Representation, re-presentation, presentation, and conversation 

Beyond roadmaps, wars have been justified by reference to maps. America was discovered following maps. Israel was created from ancient maps. The name of the Republic of Macedonia is challenged by allusions to maps. Electoral districts are subject of gerrymandering for political convenience. Maps rarely describe. They often precede or prescribe actions involving territorial claims. In the hands of their users, maps can become powerful political tools (Wood 1992), especially when they do not represent what supposedly is. Even in property disputes, surveyors do not use helicopters but start from deeds and official maps. With their help, physical features obtain the meaning of geometric reference points from which a land area may be interpreted. Surveyor markers are not defined by nature but on authorized maps. Maps do not passively represent territories, they aid in active efforts to define them. Conceptual aids for navigation at sea or traveling in a territory are common although their forms may not resemble the iconic maps we know of (Wood 1992). But boundaries are far more culture specific. American Indians had no conception of the settlers’ idea of land ownership much as we would have a hard time conceiving of maps of the air we are breathing. All maps are social constructions. 2.3  Computer icons The computer screen on which I am writing this essay shows numerous icons. Peirce defines icons as representing objects on account of resembling them. Superficially, we can recognize depictions of trashcans, file folders, printed pages, magnifying glasses, paintbrushes, printers, and cameras. My screen shows also other graphic things with no obvious similarity to objects in everyday life. They need to be learned, and would hence be called symbols. But what do these computer icons represent? A digital computer contains nothing resembling icons from the world of paper. We may be convinced of discarding a file by dragging it into a trashcan but in fact, this does not get rid of it. A computer can be thought of as transforming 0s and 1s in a memory, very many of them, but always the same number, called its capacity and measured in bytes. Discarding a file merely tags a corresponding number of bytes as available for overwriting when needed. While designers of computer architecture establish unambiguous relationships between clicking on the location of an icon and what happens inside a computer, users need not and typically do not have a clue of computer code or what a computer actually does. All that users enact is their own conceptions of what clicking on an icon brings forth on the computer screen. So, what do icons on computer screens represent? No particular object, thing, or happening. They have operational meanings for users. In fact, c­ omputer

 Klaus Krippendorff

i­nterfaces are designed to accommodate a multitude of cultural available conceptions and metaphors that users could bring to interactions with them. The only requirement is that the consequences of these conceptions are afforded by the machine. An affordance (Gibson 1977, 1979) is not a representation but the quality of operationally supporting a conception. Affordance becomes evident in interfaces that remain meaningful and is violated when user actions have uninterpretable consequences – without ever revealing how and why they do not afford user conceptions (Krippendorff 2006, p. 111–114). In other words, Computer icons may trigger user conceptions and enacting these conceptions has visible consequences. User conceptions are either afforded by the machine (and hence meaningful to its user) or not afforded (and hence not interpretable).

So, what do the icons of computer interfaces represent? They certainly do not resemble what a computer is made of or the computations that clicking on them initiate. There is no discernible similarity between icons and computer code or what their use does. For computer designers, icons mean little. Clicking on where they are located initiates complex algorithms. For computer users they are part of the narrative of what can be done with them. Users can fancy any illusionary conception of what a computer does for them – individual personalities, conceptions of the paper world or mythical powers – provided the actions they encourage are supported by the machine. Hence computer icons do not represent anything inside the computer but are imbedded in afforded user conceptions. 2.4  Medical symptoms Since antiquity, symptoms (from the Greek “accident,” “misfortune,” “that what befalls”) are conceived of departures from the normal functioning of the body, noticed by the befallen, and interpreted by medical professionals as indicative of a disease. Contemporary semiotics conceives symptoms as signs of objectively measurable physiological abnormalities. However, medicine evolved in a long history of reconceptualizations of diseases, symptoms, and treatments. Ludwik Fleck (1979), for example, describes the rollercoaster history of what is now called syphilis, starting with mythical conceptions as astrologically induced and as God’s punishment for sinful lust, to empirical-therapeutic conceptions that gave rise to experiments in treatments, which led to new conceptions of diseases and distinctions among different treatment effects, to experimental-pathological conceptions that theorized the biological mechanism of diseases. Medical discourse is a work in progress. It co-evolves with the emergence of new abnormalities, advanced



Representation, re-presentation, presentation, and conversation 

tests, innovative equipment, and new treatment options; responding to­engineering, the pharmaceutical industry, and not to forget the health insurance industry. Not to deny a physiological ground, diseases have evolved into complex systems of socially sanctioned distinctions for the convenience of the medical community to provide its services. So Symptoms are discursively constructed keys to legitimate practices within the medical community. Symptoms do not represent anything on their own. The medical practices they suggest merely need to be afforded by patient bodies.

Representational claims of physiological conditions notwithstanding, symptoms are co-constructed during medical consultations. They are offered as answers to medical questions in mostly asymmetrical exchanges between doctors and patients, where the questions are institutionally expedient rather than conversationally emergent (Bartesaghi 2009).They legitimate medical practices ranging from further examinations, treatment options, to the entitlement of insurance compensations. 2.5  Representing absent others There is a long tradition of applying logic to formal social organizations, ­command structures, delegations of authority to subordinates, and functional ­differentiations. Abstract logical conceptions of organizational realities invariably encourage representational hierarchies: subordinates, superordinates, superordinates of superordinates, etc. or representatives of neighborhoods, of districts comprised of neighborhoods, of counties comprised of districts, and of states comprised of counties. Just as explicated in the Theory of Logical Types, on each level different kinds of concerns are addressed, different kinds of decisions are made, different kinds of conversations take place, and these levels must not be confused. Confusing logical types in logic creates paradoxes, in formal organizations: corruption, cronyism, and dictatorships. One can distinguish two ways of becoming a representative of absent others. Representatives may be elected, as are members of a parliament, consented to, as are informal leaders, deputized, as are sheriffs, appointed to a position, as are ambassadors or judges. Those chosen to represent others might possess qualities that are thought to be shared with or cherished by these others, or they may have earned the special trust to faithfully channel the voices of their constituency into conversations to which these voices have no direct access: parliaments, courts, ­collective negotiations, and board meetings. Fundamental to this logic of representation is that these voices are expected to bridge two logically distinct conversations and

 Klaus Krippendorff

Participation in conversations among “representatives” is predicated on excluding those they claim to represent.

The second way is by self-proclamation, by claiming to represent certain convictions, institutions, the poor, the unborn or abstract categories of others, like when Washington politicians assert what “the American people” want. Even when constructing the mental illness of someone else, as in the narrative account of a co-student called K, reported by Smith (1978), that construction denies accountability to the very person the narrator asserts to be concerned about. What such third-person accounts represent is virtually unascertainable. What could validate the claim to represent absent others? When members of a constituency actually exist, conversations within that constituency could do so. Representations of others are always provisional. For example, the trust initially bestowed upon a spokesperson may erode. Elected representatives may be recalled by their constituencies and the right to speak in the name of an institution may be revoked by the appointing authority. So it is the conversations outside the privileged conversations among representatives that can validate or invalidate claims of representing others. However, when someone proclaims to represent abstractions, non-existing others, or those constructed to have no voice, representation meets a different challenge: Acceptance in conversations among self-appointed representatives. Talk about who represents whom or what may well be subject of negotiations, challenges, and defenses until consensus is reached and representatives are addressed or respected as being of a certain kind. The third-person “they” refers to outsiders of the conversations among representatives. Claims to speak for absent others always are rhetorical moves. The ability to plausibly speak for more people, in the name of important institutions, or claim privileged access to reality, experts, hidden or divine authorities, especially to represent abstractions, tend to be given more weight than those who speak only for themselves. Within the conversations among representatives, the representativeness of representatives cannot be tested precisely because representatives speak for absent others. In these conversations, representation becomes a claim of power. Elsewhere (Krippendorff, 2010, 2009b) I suggested that whenever someone claims to speak for absent others, on behalf of others, in the name of others, as a member of a category of people, or as being different from those present, conversation erodes into another form of human interaction, into discourse (­Krippendorff 2011, 2009a, p. 217–234), into a constrained form of communication in which authenticity becomes uncertain (who is actually talking? – François Cooren (2010) is pursuing a nice metaphor for this phenomenon: “Ventriloquism”), individual accountability dissolves (how can one question absent others?), and political power plays replace conversational moves, for instance, in considering who



Representation, re-presentation, presentation, and conversation 

speaks for more or the more important others. The notion of speaking for absent others or invoking rules is one characteristic of discourses. Carelessly labeling people as “representatives,” short circuits the question of who is actually speaking for whom and how their rhetorical moves sustain or shape a discourse they seek to maintain. I suggest avoiding the word “representative” and focus instead on what claims of this kind set in motion, the discourse dynamics it defines, and how those claimed to be represented are silenced. 2.6  Sharing of representations One of the epistemologically more pernicious claims – permeating popular c­ ulture and popping up even in academic discourses on communication – is the idea that communication, if successful, should yield shared representations in the communicators’ minds. I suppose the idea goes back to Descartes’ conception of the human mind as an organ that maps the world outside of it and is a manifestation of the ocular metaphor, materialized in cameras. In this conception, the natural world is the ultimate authority of correct understanding. And when objects of this world are present or talked about among communicators, cognitive representations of them are presumed to become shared or same for those present. I should point out that this conception also underlies many practices in science: letting data decide among alternative hypotheses and sharing scientific findings among colleagues in the belief that every able scientist understands scientific reports alike and as written. Indeed, many conversations result in saying “I understand.” However, concluding from this assertion that someone represents the world or what was said just as the other participants do, has no experiential basis. For once, nobody can compare an unattended world with how it is perceived. All we have to rely on are our perceptions. Nobody can step out of his or her body and take a God’s eye view of the world. As Heinz von Foerster put it, objectivity is the illusion of being able to observe something without being an observer (in Poerksen 2004, pp. 1–23). For another, we have no direct access to the conceptions of others. We cannot see what is going on in someone else’s mind. All we can observe are the behavioral or narrative consequences of someone asserting he or she has understood what was said. Understanding has no reference point other than in subsequent conversations, or in joint actions that may or may not go where the parties involved hope to go. In other words, understanding or a lack of it may become evident in subsequent coordinations – without a clue of anyone else’s understanding. Language is indispensible in this endeavor, certainly in claiming to understand. The associated concept of “misunderstanding” – blaming others for not understanding something as intended – distributes privileged access to the ­

 Klaus Krippendorff

­ sychological reality of others unevenly. It tends to be invoked by authorities of p others, whether they are psychoanalysts, parents, teachers, or superiors, all in efforts of behavioral control. Knowledge tests in education and aptitude tests in business, presume the existence of external standards of correctness. In ­opposition, I suggest: Direct access to others’ understanding is impossible. Cognition cannot be shared. Claiming the ability to access and compare mental representations is a rhetorical strategy to force others to submit to an understanding not of their own.

The common thread through the preceding examples of representations is the contradiction between the generalizing, theoretically or logically motivated, and institutionally sanctioned metaphors of representation – the abstract-objectivist conception of language as a hierarchical system of representations pursued in logic, linguistics, semiotics, and the sociology of social organization – and ­reflective ­practices of living, including an awareness of the conversational use of language. Therefore, I am suggesting that we systematically Refrain from theorizing what is bodily1, experientially, and observationally impossible.

By that I mean refraining from calling images representations when it merely illustrates something of which we have no past experiences; refraining from interpreting maps, signs, icons, and words as representations when the issue is their use; refraining from interpreting medical symptoms, even scientific theories, as representing reality without acknowledging the discourse and intended actions of d ­ octors or physicists whom these constructions serve; and refraining from treating as representatives those who claim to represent abstract idea or absent others without conceivable evidence for their claim or without consent from those whose voices they claim to channel from one conversation into a present one. Calling the rather diverse phenomena underlying the prototypical representations I reviewed above by the same name assumes commonalities that hide the diverse processes that create and sustain these phenomena. Claiming what is bodily, experientially, and observationally impossible, theorizing from a God’s eye perspective, especially without consideration of the epistemological implications of one’s vocabulary, and without reflection on the discourse in which one’s theories are legitimized, deserves careful scrutiny, vigilant critique, and replacement by more differentiated concepts.

1.  When presenting this paper, I said “biologically” impossible. Biology is a discourse, however, and I do not wish to privilege the theoretical conceptions of biologists. Therefore, I prefer to make our untheorized body the epistemological criterion for what we can legitimately claim to be capable or incapable of doing.



Representation, re-presentation, presentation, and conversation 

3.  And conversation I agree with Richard Rorty (1989) who suggested that revolutionary changes come about when new vocabularies and compelling metaphors begin to get hold of our speaking, leaving the existing concepts to die out on their own. I believe we can retire unjustifiably generalized, theoretically over-determined, epistemologically untenable, and socially disastrous concepts, like representation, by not merely analyzing these conceptions as detached observers but by participating in conversations that replace them with profoundly new and exciting concepts. This is what conferences on dialogue can do. Let me take up photography again. Imagine a conversation involving family photographs. From an outsider’s perspective – and analysts are always outside, above, or in charge of their subject matter – family photographs consist of portraits, pictures of people in various situations, actually quite uninteresting when found, say, at a flea market. But in family conversations, they become alive for their participants: “this is your great grandfather fishing,” “this happened when you were two years old,” “isn’t the resemblance between your brother and your grandfather striking?” “you wouldn’t wear her hat today, but it was very fashionable then,” or “here we are on vacation, the whole family and Aunt Ruth.” Ochs and Capps (1997) show how memory of this kind is negotiated in family discussions. They show how memory, far from being evident in an individual’s ability to recall past experiences, is negotiated in family discussion with the most authoritative member having the last word on what actually happened. Thus, memory is socially constructed in language. Taking to heart what I said above, we cannot possibly recall what happened to us when we were two years old, and we may have never met our great grandparents. So, these photographs are hardly re-presentative of anything we knew. They are images alright. It is in conversations that these otherwise meaningless images obtain meanings. We see an image, said to be of a great aunt. We hear her stories – true or embellished – and get a sense of what she may have been like. Stories associated with family photographs enable us to imagine where our family came from, what our ancestors looked like, or how we grew up. Family photographs become what we hear of them, not what they meant to the photographer. I talked to a colleague of mine who confided in me a common story. He said he had a whole box of old ­family photographs but knew little of who is who and how they relate to him. These are photographs alright and one can reasonably assume that a camera recorded what was in front of its lens, but what caused these images, what they mean was not in the box. I suggest, however, that the stories family photographs trigger for their narrators are secondary to the acts of participating in the conversation among family members. It is in such conversations that family is practiced, and in the

 Klaus Krippendorff

case of family photographs, that the continuity of the family is constructed and visualized, and that their members find mutually meaningful places in the family history and future. Thus, family photographs do not merely present an unexperienced past but facilitate the continuity, coherence, and the sense of togetherness that constitutes a family. So, family photographs participate in holding a family together, a process that does not relate to representation. The example of icons on computer interfaces suggests much the same. They do not represent anything physical or as understood by its designer, but enable actions whose consequences allow their users to move on, remain in increasingly meaningful interactions with the machine, and ultimately encourage conversations with others. Generalizing, one might say that all signs (icons, indices, symptoms, and symbols), words, and speech acts derive their meaning from what their use accomplishes for those involved – not what they resemble or represent. Regarding representations of absent others, it was Mikhail Bakhtin (Holquist 1990) who introduced an important metaphor into literary scholarship: the voices of others that authors can invoke or silence in how readers read their texts. ­Changing the discussion from political representation to the voices that may or may not be carried from conversations with constituencies into privileged conversations among so-called representatives shifts the questions we will ask from what the politics of a situation is to how politics is practiced, who is heard and who is silenced, and the dynamics such selectivity sets in motion. I have argued that conversations are constitutively open to all participants (Krippendorff 2009b). But conversations among members of parliaments, board meetings, labor negotiations, even officers policing the streets in the name of a government are not. In the latter, interactions are inherently political: jockeying for influence, playing out poker cards, and using absent others as props to gain rhetorical advantages. What so-called representatives say to each other are no longer intelligible as conversations but take on different forms: debates, negotiations, committee meetings, briefings, and power struggles. Typically, in privileged settings, representatives come to assume roles that compete with their original commitments and the voices they were meant to channel become weaker if not silent. This is the dilemma of long term U.S. Senators who live in Washington away from the conversations within the communities they vouched to make heard. This is also the path of popular leaders who end up as dictators, no longer able to listen to the voices of others. Such dynamics are difficult to understand when analysts are entrapped in the logic of representation. Getting out of this trap requires c­ onsiderable efforts. A word on understanding understanding: Conversationally, the speech act “I understand” cannot possible mean having reached consensus on some ­conception or sharing representations, as I argued above – abstract theories of representation notwithstanding. Saying that indicates merely that my understanding suffices me – without spelling out what it consists of or entails. Conversationally, it



Representation, re-presentation, presentation, and conversation 

signals my willingness to move on, perhaps to a different topic. Mutually affirmed, understanding may be seen as coordinated but not the same. Coordination needs to be continuously manifest relative to what something co-present [see Newcomb’s (1953) co-orientation theory] and be afforded (Krippendorff 2008). Affirming that we understand is all we can say of understanding. 4.  Epistemological conclusions I want to conclude by slightly rephrasing Richard Rorty (1980, pp.371–372) ­suggesting that when saying something, we need not be seen as speaking about something outside of us nor expressing our view about a subject. We might just see us as participating in a conversation rather than contributing to an inquiry. S­ aying things is not always saying how things are. Asserting that is not a case of saying how things are either. Rorty draws on Ludwig Wittgenstein (1953) and Martin Heidegger (1976) who recommend that we see people as saying things without externalizing mental representations of reality or describing what exits besides participation in conversations or dialogue. To drop the notion of representation, of correspondence for sentences as well as for thoughts, and see utterances as connected with other utterances rather than with the world means decrying the very notion of having a view, while avoiding a view about having views. (End of the rephrase.) John Shotter (1993) echoes the same by suggesting that in conversation we should be talking of joint actions and concerns, not about things. Humberto Maturana (1978, 2008) introduced the idea of languaging as the coordina­ tion of behavior, which I have embraced and extended to a reflexive notion of ­coordination of second-order understanding and acting (Krippendorff 2006, 2009a, pp. 65–70). There is Bakhtin’s notion of voices, Cooren’s metaphor of ventriloquism, Martin Buber’s (1958) dialogue and other stepping stones toward a new way of languaging without the theory-induced illusions associated with the undifferentiated notion of representation. Introducing new vocabularies into our conversations and talking in new ways with each other can revolutionize how we understand ourselves in the larger conversation of humankind. What we do in the world will follow from how we talk. Busily describing or complaining how things are maybe a waste of time. Engaging each other in creative conversations, listening with respect to what we say to each other is a gift we can give each other, and moving with excitement into uncertain futures may not be easy for everyone but is worth trying.2

2.  I wish to acknowledge Mary Angela Bock and Mariaelena Bartesaghi for reading a draft of this paper and making valuable comments and suggestions.

 Klaus Krippendorff

References Bartesaghi, M. 2009. Conversation and psychotherapy: How questioning reveals institutional answers. Discourse Studies 11:153–77. Bock, M. A. 2010. One Man Band: The Process and Product of Video Journalism, Ph.D. Dissertation, Philadelphia, PA: The Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania. Buber, M. 1958. I and thou. New York: Macmillan. Chomsky, N. 1957. Syntactic structures. The Hague: Mouton. Cooren, F. 2010. Action and agency in dialogue: Passion, incarnation and ventriloquism. ­Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Fleck, L. 1979. Genesis and development of a scientific fact. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Gibson, J. J. 1977. The theory of affordances. In Perceiving, acting, and knowing: Toward an ­ecological psychology, eds. R. Shaw and J. Bransford, 67–82. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Gibson, J. J. 1979. The ecological approach to visual perception. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin. Heidegger, M. 1976. The age of the world view. Boundary II 1–15. Holquist, M. 1990. Dialogism: Bakhtin and his world. New York: Routledge. Korzybski, A. 1994. Science and sanity; An introduction to non-Aristotelian systems and general semantics. 5th ed. Fort Worth, TX: Institute of General Semantics. Krippendorff, K. 2010. Discourse and the materiality of its artifacts. In Matters of communication: Political, cultural, and technological challenges to communication theorizing, ed. T. R. Kuhn, 23–46. New York: Hampton Press. Krippendorff, K. 2009b. Conversation: Possibilities of its repair and descent into discourse and computation. Constructivist Foundations 4 (3): 135–47. Krippendorff, K. 2009a. On communicating; Otherness, meaning, and information. Edited by F. Bermejo. New York: Routledge. Krippendorff, K. 2008. Towards a radically social constructivism. Constructivist Foundation 3 (2): 91–94. Krippendorff, K. 2006. The dialogical reality of meaning. The American Journal of Semiotics 19 (1–4): 19–36. Linell, P. 2005. The written language bias in linguistics. New York: Routledge. Linell, P. 1998. Discourse across boundaries: On recontextualization and the blending of voices in professional discourse. Text: Interdisciplinary Journal for the Study of Discourse 18: 143–158. Maturana, H. R. 2008. Anticipation and self-consciousness: Are these functions of the brain? Constructivist Foundations 4 (1): 18–20. Maturana, H. R. 1978. Biology of language: The epistemology of reality. In Psychology and biology of language and thought, ed. G. Miller and E. Lenneberg, 27–63. New York: Academic Press. Newcomb, M. T. 1953. An approach to the study of communicative acts. Psychological Review 60:393–404. Ochs, E., and L. Capps. 1997. Narrative authority. Journal of Narrative and Life History 7 (1–4): 83–89. Poerksen, B. 2004. The certainty of uncertainty; Dialogues introducing constructivism. Charlottesville, VA: Imprint Academic.



Representation, re-presentation, presentation, and conversation 

Peirce, C. S. 1958. Collected papers of Charles Sanders Peirce vols. 1–6, 1931–1935 (edited by C. Hartshorne & P. Weiss); vols. 7–8 (edited by A. W. Burks). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Rorty, R. 1989. Contingency, irony, and solidarity. New York: Cambridge University Press. Rorty, R. 1980. Philosophy and the mirror of nature. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Saussure, F. de. 1916/1959. Course in general linguistics, eds. C. Bally and A. Sechehaye. New  York: Philosophical Library. Shotter, J. 1993. Conversational realities. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Smith, D. E. 1978. “K is Mentally Ill;” The anatomy of a factual account. Sociology 12 (1): 23–53. Stewart, J. 1995. Language as articulate contact: Towards a post-semiotic philosophy of communication. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. Turnbull, D. 1993. Maps are territories: Science is an atlas. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Vološinov, V. N. 1986. Marxism and the philosophy of language. Cambridge, MA: Harvard ­University Press. Wheeler, J. A. 1994. A septet of sibyls: Aids in the search of truth. In At home in the universe, 3–22. Woodbury, NY: American Institute of Physics. Whitehead, A. N., and B. Russell. 1910. Principia mathematica. Cambridge: University Press. Wittgenstein, L. 1953. Philosophical investigations. Oxford: Blackwell. Wood, D. 1992. The power of maps. New York: Guilford Press.

On the representation of a dialogue with God Catherine of Siena and mystical communication David Douyère* Mystical dialogue would seem to elude analysis, in that there are no witnesses. Catherine of Siena, a 14th-century Dominican “tertiary”, revealed her mystical experience to her confessor and secretaries, who set down her account and edited The Dialogue of Divine Providence, constructing a representation of the phenomenon based on what she told them. “A soul” (that of Catherine) engages in an exchange with God. He desires a renewal of His Church, and invites the world to take up a dialogue with Him. Is this a case of “ventriloquy”? No. This is God expressing Himself, in dialogue with a mystic. For us, the representation of this dialogue with God contains an “invention of the Other”. Keywords:  dialogue; mysticism; Christianity; ventriloquy; communication We do the same when awake as when dreaming: we only invent and imagine him with whom we have intercourse – and forget it immediately.  Friedrich Nietzsche, in Beyond Good and Evil †

1.  Introduction A dialogue can be apprehended, observed and transcribed if it mobilises l­ anguage, argumentation and otherness, but it can also be internal, and not highly “­ visible” as such. It can even bring in what is posited as non-human otherness. This is the “dialogue with God” that can be found in – or at least owes its existence to – ­mystical (and notably Christian) literature. It is composed of language, affect and ­discussion. It implies a certain duration. The body is also concerned, but only its emanations are perceived and represented. For third parties, a dialogue is ­transmitted by a confession or a document that “attests” to it, and would propose

*  Université Paris XIII. Translated by John Doherty. †  This

thank.

quotation was brought to my attention by Nicolas Bencherki, whom I would like to

 David Douyère

to make it known. To “give an account” of a dialogue, and to publicise it, are the objectives of those who believe, and claim, that they have experienced it, as though it were necessary to assign other words, and another body (of paper), to what has been “heard” and shared. Catarina Jacobi Benincasa (1347–1380), whom we know as Catherine of Siena, was canonised in 1461, and in 1970 she was the first woman to be named a Doctor of the Church, by Pope Paul VI. Her Dialogue was intended to bear witness to her communication with God, as a consecrated laywoman living a life of devotion and prayer,1 but also one of political and diplomatic activity. The dialogue in question betokened an exchange between a “soul” and its “Father”, entrusted to the scriptural work of secretaries. It was not just an exemplar of a literary or philosophical form, or the pedagogical illustration of what a Christian’s relatedness to God should be. It was evidence of a revelation obtained in ascesis, through prayer. This is a case of “mystical experience”, as in Michel de Certeau’s analyses (1976, 1982) of how (notably in 17th-century Spanish Christian mysticism) language and desire can give rise to a “conversation”, a “colloquy” with God that splits the subject apart by the way in which language invents (discovers) and produces dialogue. Language and affect, along with the body in a state of paralysis, ­provide the setting for a dialogue that “alters” (renders “other”) the interior/­ exterior ­presence of God. I propose to use the term “mystical communication” to designate exchanges with someone who does not, perhaps, occupy a position differing from the one allocated by the subject. The term “mystical” is commonly attached to the genre of literature that treats of dealings with the divine, and the “communication” is experienced as fully bilateral and reciprocal. The idea of communication also draws attention to the linguistic and mutualistic dimension of the relationship. And mystical experience articulates the dual acceptation of “communication”: both the exchange itself and the way it is conveyed to others. Viewed in this light, the Dialogue is a dualistic form of “mystical communication” – both a relationship and a representation of that relationship. After setting out an epistemological and methodological framework for the analysis, I will examine what Catherine says about her “dialogue” with God, and the comments made by her confessor and champion, the Dominican Father ­Raymond

1.  Catherine was not a member of a religious order, but of a sisterhood, the Mantellate, an order of Penitence that belonged to the Dominican “third order”. The group she belonged to, the Bella Brigata, or Famiglia, included lay persons, both male and female, as well as ­ecclesiastics (Lacelle 1998).



Catherine of Siena – the mystical dialogue 

of Capua (1330–1399). I will then look at how the dialogue goes forward, as illustrated by certain passages from it. And finally, I will turn to Catherine’s extension of the concept of a “dialogue”, from the exchange between her soul and God to the one between God and the world, of which her own dialogue simply, constitutes a sign or an image. 2.  Analytical framework Research on dialogue, which has given little time to religious or mystical phenomena,2 may nonetheless be tempted by this particular limiting case, in that Catherine’s experience raises fundamental questions about the complex reality of dialogue (Weigand 2010), which takes in the mode of existence of the interlocutor, referentiality (texts), affect (Weigand 2004; Plantin 2004, 2011), relationships of power and domination (Maier 1993), the evolution and term of the dialogical process, etc. 2.1  In what respect is this a “dialogue”? Catherine’s Dialogue comprises alternating statements and an interlocution. And among the titles it swiftly acquired (including The Book of Divine Doctrine), was that of Dialogues. As a specimen of a literary genre, it may imply, literally, a conversation with God, offering a mystical experience by proxy, or by surrogacy. Is the God to whom Catherine is talking a transcendental “you”, or an “eternal Thou” (Buber 1923)? Or, on the contrary, is this just a substitute God who has been brought in to make up for an absence, or a counterpart to the addressees of Catherine’s numerous (almost 400) letters, which, as suggested by Portier (1992), had been the previous channel for her mystical doctrine? This interpretation is external to the work, but also to the experience it transmits. Dialogue implies an interlocution (Buber 1930). So is this the case here? ­Christian mystics would hold that it is so – but would anyone else agree, apart from those who share the faith? If the other protagonist is imagined, is there a dialogue? Can one – should one – talk about a “dialogue with an absent figure”?3 Such a figure, synonymous with its own evocation, would be precisely what ­dialogue brings into existence, thus engendering a performativity that could be 2.  In the minutes of Dialoganalyse (I–VIII, and 2000), only one article (Eckhard 1993) ­mentions religion. 3.  I wish to thank Gérald Gaglio, who used this expression at the 2011 IADA conference in Montréal.

 David Douyère

applied to any other instance of the phenomenon, in that it makes the figure in question “exist”, for a given individual. Dialogical communication constructs this figure through the mobilisation of memory, affect and experience. And it reconstructs an exchange that has come to an end, or is nonexistent. Dialogue, created on one’s own, engenders presence. It is a demiurge, reintroducing a figure that had disappeared. The “absent figure” does, however, have a corporeal reality, because Christian doctrine holds that the Church is Christ’s body. As a result, the Eucharist is the sacrament of God’s presence, and indeed the body of God made Man, who can be present in prayer through the mediation of the Holy Spirit. An institution drawing on the elements of a tradition posits the presence of a supreme being with which a dialogue is practicable, and which of itself makes this dialogue possible, given the similitude between Man and God, through His “Incarnation”, His becoming-man, and His will. Catherine was thus aided – “guided”, one might say – in her dialogue with God. In this research I propose to take Catherine’s experience at face value – though without entering into a Christian spiritual logic – in order to shed light on this limiting, enigmatic figure of dialogue. I will also consider that there was a dialogue, since Catherine says so. It is not for me to say that no such thing took place. But I will talk about “dialogue 1” and “dialogue 2” in order to distinguish between the immediate, lived dialogue (1) and the written dialogue (2), which is a representation of the dialogue, while accepting that the former was a determinant of the latter. The Dialogue also brings us face to face with a “dialogism”, in Francis Jacques’s sense (2005: 78), i.e. “the noetic possibility of thinking with the Other, this Other potentially being oneself, through the interiorisation of a structure that validates, primarily, the Other-than-oneself ”, insofar as it is “the formal structure of any discourse that is divided up over two (or more) enunciative instances in a relation” (emphasis original). For Jacques, dialogue is a dimension (“the upper edge”) of dialogism. A dialogue is also, in the Bakhtinian sense, an interaction with other forms of discourse, or texts,4 in a reference that constructs a dialogism, which is textual and referential, but also conceptual. This can be seen in Catherine’s work, as a 4.  The “notes” in the analytic French edition of Catherine’s Dialogue (Portier 1999) are ­instructive in this respect, giving Father Eric T. de Clermont-Tonnerre’s listing and explication of the Biblical and Evangelical references, but also the infratextual currents. He shows how the text interacts with other texts, and indeed draws on them, or is formed by them; and how, for Catherine, the dialogue with God begins before He speaks to her, when she hears the Scriptures being read in religious services as “the Divine Word”.



Catherine of Siena – the mystical dialogue 

number of authors have shown (see Courcelles 1999, for her references to Thomas ­Aquinas). She stands at an intersection of theology (and spirituality), communication, literature, history and political science. 2.2  The disciplinary framework of this research The present research is located within the field of communication, to which dialogue is central, if not intrinsic. My approach, though it brings in theological and mystical Christianity, is not theological as such (Létourneau 2000). It is not based on Christian beliefs, and does not have to do with any rationalisation or theoretical elaboration of a religious faith. I am not adopting the position of a historian, and my perspective is not exhaustive. Nor is it textual or literary. It could be defined as “communicational” (Miège 2004; Olivesi 2004), in the sense that it engages with discourse on communication, and its modalities. What is of interest to me is the way in which “dialogue” is constructed – for ­present purposes, the way in which the Dialogue transcribes/constructs a dialogical experience. Going further, in the perspective of a study on the religious theorisation of communication, and of communicational practices in religion (Douyère 2010a, 2010b, 2011a, 2011b), whose aim is to arrive at a “theology of communication” (Létourneau 1996) in which a “dialogue” of Man with God is inherent (Gabel 1971; Douyère 2011c), I am concerned with the way that mysticism “communicates” with God, and also the way in which, starting with the dialogue between God and the “saint”, another dialogue appears – that of God with the world, or of Man with God. The Dialogue is thus an index and an image, an appeal to a more wide-ranging representation of the world as dialogue and communication. It is in this framework that I propose to consider Catherine’s dialogue with God, looking both at what she herself says5 and what Raymond of Capua, who became her confessor in 1374, wrote in his Life of Catherine of Siena (1385–1395). In this way I hope to clarify the way in which Catherine’s dialogue was transcribed, and the transition from dialogue 1 to dialogue 2. I will then explore the modalities of the dialogue, and how it was seen by Catherine herself.

5.  The present text intends to be faithful to G. Cavallini’s version of the Dialogue (1995), which gives a profoundly restructured image of the text, based on MS 292, dating from the 14th century, and now preserved in the Casanatense library in Rome. The quotations come from Algar Thorold’s 1907 translation of the Dialogue. Among the secondary sources I used were Portier 1990; Lacelle 1996, 1998; Courcelles 1999, 2003; Fawtier and Canet 1948; ­Leonardi and Trifone 2003; O’Driscoll 2008.

 David Douyère

3.  What Catherine says about her “dialogue” with God The Dialogue is a representation of a “dialogue”, put forward as genuine, between a soul and God (dialogue 1). It transcribes, and brings to Christians, a message from God, and an exchange with Him (dialogue 2). It is also the trace and product of a dialogue which no longer exists, but which modern ethnomethodologists would very much like to have observed: that of Catherine dictating her exchanges with God to her secretaries, as Raymond reports, and as she is depicted in certain paintings. In his biography of Catherine, Raymond discusses the conception of the ­Dialogue, as experienced and dictated by her. Catherine returned to Siena and became actively involved in the composition of a book, which she dictated in the vernacular, upon the inspiration of the Spirit from Above. She had secretaries to write down the letters, which she sent to diverse countries. She begged them to be attentive, and to observe her in the ecstasies that she so often had […] and, with all due care, at such moments, to write down everything that she should dictate to them. They acquitted themselves scrupulously of this charge, and thus composed a book filled with great and most useful thoughts which the Lord revealed to Catherine, and which the Saint pronounced in the common tongue.6 What is singular and wonderful is that while she performed this dictation her spirit was distracted,7 and her senses incapable of activity. Her eyes saw nothing, her ears heard nothing, […] her touch had no sensibility during her periods of distraction. And this is the state in which she dictated her entire book, through the work of the Lord, who thus gave us to understand that it was not the result of any natural virtue, but the fruit of light infused by the Holy Spirit. And I do not doubt that any intelligent reader who carefully meditates on these thoughts will arrive at the same conclusion.  (Raymond of Capua, Life of Catherine of Siena, III, I)

The conditions in which the Dialogue was written down have been a subject of much debate among historians, and Raymond’s account is not to be taken literally. The passage just quoted is clearly hagiographical, written with a view to Catherine’s canonisation (Courcelles 1999), and also with the intention of casting a favourable light on this member of the Dominican order. As is common in accounts of medieval saints, there is an emphasis on the other-worldly, intimately bound up with everyday life, and an attestation to divine presence.

6.  I.e. the language of Siena. 7.  Carried off, in other words (by God).



Catherine of Siena – the mystical dialogue 

Raymond’s account brings together dialogues 1 and 2, which are in fact inseparable. Dialogue 1 is that of the initial mystical experience, dialogue 2 its “transcription” and representation, with, of course, a genetic interpretation (in that the first gives rise to the second). But there is another approach, for example as expressed by Certeau (1992), which looks at how, in a “fable” (fabula), narration or mystical missive, language can report (or produce) experience. And this approach may also be heuristic. In any case, there is a relationship of production between the two dialogues. 3.1  Regarding dialogue 2 The passage quoted above immediately raises the question of the relationship between ecstasy and writing. Can writing act as a replication of ecstasy, making Catherine the undistorted channel of a divine message?8 The question of the Author, and of revelatory veracity, clearly forms a background to all this, in that the degree of proximity to the revelation is proportional to its authenticity. The writing process was a complex affair, involving God Himself, the Holy Spirit (who ensured the truth and continuity of the process), Catherine, her secretaries and Raymond. Then there is the reader, who must validate the message, and its origin. So much effort, just to say: “It’s not me who’s talking.” (Latour 2002) This is a denial of being the originator of a message. And in my research on ­Christian “communication” I increasingly find this to be the distinctive feature of the position adopted by Christianity, like that of the ancient Greek poets who did not “create” their works, but “received” them.9 What Raymond describes is a sequence of communication and transmission through which the Divine Word, in a certain way, touches ordinary humanity, in manuscript form. This is something that might well have interested Derrida in his deconstruction of writing systems (Derrida 1978), and which he might have described with the precision of amused irony. Raymond’s text gives another sign of the Dialogue’s divine origin, namely the nullification of Catherine’s senses that runs through his account of the Dialogue as a sign of ecstasy. For him, her sensorial “absence” from the world and her phenomenological disconnection signify a presence somewhere other than in her manifest anaesthesia. This type of mystical trance is of course interesting to psychiatrists, who observe similar phenomena in certain pathologies (Kroll, Bachrach 2005). 8.  This question has led the editors and translators of the Dialogue into difficulties that nowadays cannot but seem quaint. Guigues (1953), for example, in the preface to his French translation, wonders whether the dialogue was written during the ecstasies, or just afterwards. 9.  I owe the suggestion of this parallel to Bertrand Legendre.

 David Douyère

It was her sense of the precious character of what she had been given that made Catherine decide to have her visions written down. Two years before her death, she received such clarities about truth that she felt obliged to spread her light all around by consigning it to writing. And it was then that she asked her secretaries […] to be ready to write down all her words when they should observe her to be in ecstasy. (Raymond of Capua, III, III)

The transcription (dialogue 2) is thus an “obligation” induced by the force and tenor of the exchange (dialogue 1). 3.2  Regarding dialogue 1 The manifestation of God, as a precondition of the dialogue, occurs right at the start of the work, to which orison, prayer and withdrawal into the self, Eucharistic communion (considered as an encounter with God through the sacrament) and the discreet presence of the Virgin Mary, on whose feast day the dialogue begins, are indispensable adjuncts. The memory of the evangelical text contains a promise: “To him who will love Me and will observe My commandment, will I manifest Myself; and he shall be one thing with Me and I with him.” (Prologue) These words, which Catherine attributes to Jesus, are a paraphrase of John 14: 21–23. They are taken literally, as prerequisites to the possibility of a dialogue. Right from the start, the situation is clearly asymmetrical: Catherine is “a servant of God”, who is all-powerful. Holding forth, He remains the master. This is not a dialogue of equals. As Maier (1993: 234–235) points out, it is an exercise of power, and God holds all the cards: physical might, action, status, prestige, charisma and persuasiveness. The strange thing is that such a commanding figure would consent to a dialogue in the first place! But this is not just a dialogue with the “Father” of all things – it is a dialogue with Truth itself. The dialogical situation is that of the orison, in other words a particular state through which Catherine the believer devotes her whole being to God in silence and prayer. God, desired and yearned for, is in a sense present even before appearing and speaking, in that He is invoked, formed and called up in prayer. Which no doubt encourages Him to speak. “[W]hen she was lifted up in prayer, with great elevation of mind, God was not wont to conceal, from the eye of her intellect, the love which He had for His servants, but rather to manifest it” (prologue). The dialogue is thus internal, and not externally vocalised. It mobilises the “soul”, “intelligence” and love – the quintessence of a person – through prayer, in a spiritual perspective formulated by Saint Augustine (as the “reditus in se ipsum”, or return into oneself). Self-knowledge, from a Christianised Socratic and Platonic viewpoint (Hadot 1981), is a sine qua non. What is in question is a certain inner



Catherine of Siena – the mystical dialogue 

dialogue involving an external presence, discovered within oneself. And this is just what God says: “[Y]ou further ask the will to know and love Me, who am the Supreme Truth. Wherefore I reply that this is the way, if you will arrive at a perfect knowledge and enjoyment of Me, the Eternal Truth, that you should never go outside the knowledge of yourself, and, by humbling yourself in the valley of humility, you will know Me and yourself.” (prologue) That God should be “accessible within the self ” does not signify that He can be reduced, in medieval Christian terms, to a part of the self. This dialogue takes place with exteriority, and not just between self and self. Catherine meets an “Other” with whom she has a long-standing acquaintance (Raymond of Capua 1385–1395). To begin with, Catherine “addressed four requests to the Supreme and Eternal Father.” They were “for herself […] for the reformation of the Holy Church […] for the whole world, and in particular for the peace of Christians who rebel, with much lewdness and persecution, against the Holy Church,” and “to provide for things in general, and in particular for a case with which she was concerned” (Prologue). Contemporary editors such as Cavallini (1995) and Portier (1999) (see Courcelles 1999) have seen these requests as the essential core of the Dialogue. And God responds, successively, to her requests. So ­Catherine, in a sense, “leads” the dialogue, insofar as this term may be applied to someone who, with regard to her interlocutor, sees herself as being in a state of weakness and inferiorisation, in wrongdoing and sin. The dialogue is part of a long-standing relationship, and of Catherine’s dedication to God. As R ­ aymond writes (I, IX): “Her Spouse and Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, beloved above all things, deigned to appear to her as soon as she was enclosed in her cell, and informed her of everything that might be useful to her soul.” Of her exchanges with God, he says: “The Lord […] visited and consoled her soul with great and admirable revelations.” (II, VI). The divine dialogue is sometimes superimposed onto a human dialogue. “At times, while conversing with other persons, she saw before her our Lord, and spoke to Him with her soul while the tongue of her body continued to speak with her fellows.” (Raymond of Capua, I, IX) Not only was this dialogue internal, expressed by the soul, but it was the very acme of dialogue, surpassing all others: “Speaking of herself, Catherine often told me that it would be difficult to find two men who had such an assiduous commerce as she with her Spouse, the Lord of all men, our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Ibid.). The exchange between Catherine and God also took what appeared to be a corporeal form: God “opened her ribcage” (Raymond of Capua, II, VI), took her heart and gave her His. She also received the stigmata (but in spiritual form only, because she would not accept physical stigmata), lived without a heart of her own, felt her strength decline, etc.

 David Douyère

When she spoke God’s Word, she was not in control: “It is absolutely impossible for me […] to speak otherwise, or of anything else.” (Ibid.) She was, so to speak, a mere mouthpiece. In parallel, and almost in contradiction, there was an awareness of a linguistic shortcoming in the expression of the divine: the words (dialogue 2) were not adequate to the vision (dialogue 1). There was the ineffability of this God who nonetheless spoke. In reality, according to Raymond, it was the divergence between the content of the divine colloquium (dialogue 1) and the way it was related ­(dialogue  2) that struck Catherine most forcefully. The dialogue, by definition, could not be other than imprecisely reported.

4.  From Catherine’s dialogue with God to God’s dialogue with the world Catherine’s dialogue with God is also with “Truth” proclaiming itself. God states what He expects. He becomes angry. He recalls His love for Man. Catherine talks to Him and beseeches Him. And it soon becomes clear that this is a sort of image or metaphor of another dialogue – that which, according to Christian theology, God carries on with Man and the world. There is metonymy here, in the displacement and enlargement of the represented dialogue. Then there are the readers, who are also invited to engage in what Catherine takes to be a possible dialogue with their “eternal Father”. In the text, the dialogy is widened to embrace, not just the relationship of a soul to its God, but also the world. Such is, no doubt, the very function of representation (dialogue 2) of dialogue (dialogue 1). 4.1  How does this dialogue with God take place? God is surprisingly loquacious. He intervenes frequently and lengthily. But His vocabulary does not differ greatly from Catherine’s. (He can presumably adopt the language of His hearers at will!) He speaks because He has a project, for the world (of course), but also for the Church, about which Catherine questions Him (prologue, second request). This is a call for reformation, in the true sense (and before the word took on a capital letter). God is shocked by the Church’s indifference, corruption and simony, and He wants to restore order. What is being expressed here is a political and ecclesiastical position, taken by one of the Old Testament versions of God. These are equally the lines along which Catherine conducts her worldly ­activity, as can be seen in her numerous letters. And her activity is inspired by the Divine Word. Her dialogue with God is thus not “mystical”, in the sense of ­“ethereal” or “abstract”, but decidedly political.



Catherine of Siena – the mystical dialogue 

It should no doubt be noted that in her own time Catherine was an important figure in ecclesial politics. She was active in diplomacy, notably in her correspondence, campaigning for the return of the Pope from Avignon to Rome and for a crusade against the Turks. She also opposed the Western Schism of 1378 (Gélinas, in Lacelle 1998: 33). The political importance of her voice in a highly patriarchal society is surprising, but it may have been a result of her “revelation”. This dialogue with God was thus a stimulus to an exercise in “problem-­ solving” with regard to sinfulness in the Church, and spiritual inadequacy. It targeted not just the prelates, but also the Pope, in cases where the latter was deemed to be at fault (CXXVII). So the dialogue takes place in the context of a divine plan for reform of the Church (renovatio; see Lacelle 1998: 173), in whose implementation Catherine wishes to be instrumental. Hence her desire to disseminate her message as widely as possible.10 In the dialogue, God criticises His people, and recalls everything He has done for them. He is never wrong. He is Truth itself, and His words are not in question; which is admittedly a somewhat peculiar form of dialogue. Catherine agrees, develops, complies. She receives and understands the divine Word. The interlocutors are in agreement, sometimes to the point where their voices and views blend together. The dialogue is choral; the voices are in unison. Catherine is on God’s side, but she does not consider herself worthy of Him. As a result, the Dialogue is also a call to personal moral reform, and in particular a taxonomy of the virtues necessary to spiritual progress. Dialogical markers abound in the text. “I have shown you, my dearest daughter…” (IV), or “You ask Me…”, which could also be epistolary indices. God reminds Catherine of what He had told her: He quotes Himself, referring to previous statements, “as, in another place, I have said more clearly” (CXXVII). At the end of the dialogue (CLXVI), He states, with methodical eloquence, how He has acceded to Catherine’s requests: “I have now, oh dearest and best beloved ­daughter, satisfied from the beginning to the end your desire concerning obedience. If you remember well, you made four petitions of Me with anxious desire.” Finally, He invites her, and the world, to weep and pray, so that He may “do mercy to the world” (Ibid.). The unfolding of the dialogue sees God becoming more exacting: “I demand this of you now more than at first, for now I have manifested to you My Truth.” (Ibid.) The dialogue being parenetic, and thus suggestive of action, has a cost. The spiritual imperative has become more pressing. It leads to urgency: “hasten along

10.  In recent times the text has been used in both reforming and reactionary, traditionalist ways.

 David Douyère

this way of truth, so as not to be taken prisoner if you go slowly.” (Ibid.) This corresponds to the feeling of urgency that was already present in Catherine’s letters: “Let us sleep no more, it is time to arise.” (See Lacelle 1998) Through this dialogue Catherine is alerted, and she must not be slow to act. The dialogue has a praxeological aim: a reform of mores, for the salvation of the world, and the Church. It also has an eschatological dimension: it may change the end of time. The text ends with an anticipation of the Parousia – the ultimate, terminal encounter with God, of which there is no knowing whether or not it is a dialogue, because “dialogue” supposes an otherness which, for Catherine, will be annulled by eternal life. But there is also an incentive to “obedience”, and to pious action in life. The Dialogue ends with a return to the idea of a divine response that has been present, de facto, throughout: “Having first given the grace to ask the question, You reply to it, and satisfy Your servant, penetrating me with a ray of grace.” The dialogue is a gift from God. 4.2  From one dialogue to another: God’s “dialogue” with the world For Catherine, the Dialogue, as a written representation of another, spiritual dialogue, is so named because it evokes a further dialogue (which we might call “dialogue 3”) – that which God engages in with humanity, through Christ, the “reconciling Word” (O’Driscoll 1993). And so it is a figure of the world “in the process of salvation”. The dialogy of the text denotes nothing less than a theological dialogy of the world. The image of the bridge is central to the Dialogue, representing the bond between God and Man. The bridge is Christ, the incarnation of God. It is “mercy”, because Christ brings God’s pardon for people’s sins, according to Christology. But it is also a sign of His dialogue with His creatures. It might be thought of in a spatial way: two entities, namely humanity and divinity, communicate through Christ, who is both man and God. God speaks to Catherine, and thus, in pursuit of the Covenant, as sealed by the Old Testament, He establishes a dialogue with Man. But the incarnation of Christ, God’s gift to humanity in Christian theology, is itself a dialogue, and also the sign of God’s relationship with the world. Catherine’s spiritual Christology is cosmogonic, in that the world is perceived as being “in dialogue” with God – a highly unequal dialogue, once again. And the title of the work is a metaphor of the relation between Man and God, motivated by a failed nexus in the earthly paradise. In other words, the salvation of the world depends on the resumption of an interrupted dialogue. A dialogical conception of the world comes through in this exchange with God. In His “salvation plan”, He speaks to the world in order to save it. He also



Catherine of Siena – the mystical dialogue 

speaks to Man. For Catherine, the fact of representing this dialogue of God with the world, and with Man, is a way of entering into a dialogy. The Dialogue is a spur to conversion, in a turn towards self and a turn towards God. It has a proclamatory and hortatory function. It describes a dialogue (between God and the world), raises awareness of a dialogue, and is an actual appeal to dialogue. From this point of view, it plays the mystagogical role of an entry point into the mystery of this dialogue with (and by) God. One of the interlocutors is already there, awaiting the other. Let the dialogue begin! Which might indeed be a subtitle of the Dialogue for our times. 5.  Conclusion 5.1  One Catherine’s Dialogue constitutes a representation and interpenetration of dialogues (with the self, with God, and of God with the world) whose function is that of spiritual transformation. It reports a “state” and an exchange, experienced in ecstasy, between the “soul”, turned in upon itself, and God, who expresses Himself “in person”. This sanctified, separate conversation, granted by God to the world and humanity, is the key to a personal dialogue with Him. It is also, as we have seen, a call for action to reform the Church, and the self. It activates and renews terrestrial realities. To borrow a term from organisational studies, it is “transformational communication”. Dialogue is a moment of an activity which it develops and renews, and from which it cannot be separated. The polysemic nature of this dialogue is clear (cf. Buber 1923, 1930). The world is dialogue; the dialogue is that of the soul; and the mystical exchange is dialogue. This is a polysemic expression of otherness, real or necessary. Catherine’s way of representing her dialogue with God preserves, or restores, or reconstitutes, “mystical communication”, while adopting a dialogical literary and spiritual form. Language is its inevitable mediation, if not its horizon. In reality, it is the epistolary interlocution with which the dialogue seems to be impregnated. Like a letter, Catherine’s dialogue expresses distance, in the form of a “bridge” (the Word, Christ). But there again, is a bridge not a spatio-architectural expression of dialogue? 5.2  Two In her “dialogue” with God, is Catherine “ventriloquising” Him (Latour 2002)? Is she His puppet? It might be supposed that she takes her voice as a woman to be inadequate, and requires God’s voice to make herself heard (Courcelles 1999),

 David Douyère

to enunciate a message that could not be borne by her voice alone. This “dialogue” is thus something of a construction and a positioning of the self in a context of credible speech, God being the foundation of existence and discourse. But this is the opposite of “ventriloquism” as conceptualised in communicational situations by François Cooren (2010), whereby a value or a principle is objectified through words, exchanges or an invocation, or an evocation, of values. Here, it is the value or the principle itself that is objectified (God is Truth, and it is Truth that speaks to Catherine); which corresponds to the Christian s­ ignification of Christ’s Incarnation. The principle is the principal, and it does not delegate. Or  rather, of course, as Cooren might put it, Catherine inscribes (inspires) the principle, which in turn is what speaks. This “scenography” of speakers makes the dialogue look like a theatrical construction. It opens up the space in which the principle speaks of its own accord. Catherine rejects ventriloquism, or Cooren-style objectification; or at any rate (since her words are infused by values) she regards it as insufficient. For the sake of reality, God must make Himself manifest as “He who is”. (Cf. the Biblical “I am that I am.”) Catherine’s action indicates a limit to incarnation and ventriloquism. It is not enough to embody or signify; God must appear, in His own right. And the same goes for Christ and Mary. An analysis of Catherine of Siena’s dialogue with God may, it seems to me, contribute to the theorisation of dialogue as a horizon of language, an activation of the body and emotion, an interplay of domination and power, and a relationship to action or a compensation of absence, if not a continued construction of otherness through a dialogue that could “bring alive” the Other, and thereby contribute to the emergence of a differentiated subject.11

References Arnaldez, R. 1989. Réflexions chrétiennes sur les mystiques musulmans. Paris: OEIL. Ashley, B. 1977. Guide to St Catherine’s dialogue. Cross and Crown 29: 237–49. Bernadot, V. 1941/2008. Catherine de Sienne. L’audace de la parole au service de l’Église. Paris: Le Cerf. Bondi, M., and S. Stati, eds. 2003. Dialogue Analysis 2000, 10th IADA Anniversary Conference. Bologna, 2000. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Buber, M. 1930/1969. Dialogue. In La Vie en dialogue, Trans. J. Loewenson-Lavi, ed. Martin Buber, 103–147. Paris: Aubier Montaigne.

11.  I dedicate this text to the memory of Roger Arnaldez (1911–2006), an acute analyst of Christian, Rhenish and Muslim mysticism (Arnaldez 1989). It was in a conversation with him, quite some time back, that the seeds of the present project were sown.



Catherine of Siena – the mystical dialogue 

Buber, M. 1923. I and thou. Trans. W Kaufman. London: Scribner. Capua, R. 1385–1395/1960. The life of St Catherine of siena. London: Harvill Press. Cavallini, G. 1998. Catherine of siena. London: Geoffrey Chapman. de Certeau, M. 1992. The mystic fable, vol. 1: The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Trans. Michael B. Smith. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. de Certeau, M. 1976. L’énonciation mystique. Revue des sciences religieuses 64 (2): 183–215. Cooren, F. 2010. Action and agency in dialogue, passion, incarnation and ventriloquism. ­Amsterdam: John Benjamins. de Courcelles, D. 2003. Le désir de Catherine de Sienne: du langage thomiste au langage de l’âme. In Langages mystiques et avènement de la modernité, 107–142. Paris: Honoré Champion. de Courcelles, D. 1999. Le “Dialogue” de Catherine de Sienne. Paris: Le Cerf. Derrida, J. 1978. Writing and difference. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Douyère, D. 2011a. Communication: On being an angel, incarnation and angelic communication in medieval Christian theology: Modern reflections, starting with Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologica. (John Doherty, Trans.). Communication and Critical / Cultural Studies 8 (2): 188–93. Douyère, D. 2011b. La prière assistée par ordinateur. Médium 27: 140–54. Douyère, D. 2011c. De l’usage chrétien des médias à une théologie de la communication : le père Emile Gabel. Le Temps des médias 17: 64–72. Douyère, D. 2010a. La communication sociale : une perspective de l’Église catholique? Jean Devèze et la critique de la notion de ‘communication sociale’. Revue internationale de c­ommunication sociale et publique 3–4: 73–86. Douyère, D. 2010b. Communication et religion chrétienne catholique. Cahiers de la Sfsic (Société française des Sciences de l’Information et de la Communication), 5: 17–18. Eckard R. 1993. Monologische une dialogische aspekte von messe und gottesdienst. In Dialoganalyse IV, Referate der 4. Arbeitstagung Basel 1992, ed. Löffler Heinrich, 241–247. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Fawtier, R., and L. Canet. 1948. La Double expérience de Catherine Benincasa (sainte Catherine de Sienne). Paris: Gallimard. Gabel, E. 1971. La Communication sociale: approches théologiques. In L’Enjeu des médias, ed Pierre Fertin. Paris: Mame. Guigues, L.-P. 1953. Préface. In Le Livre des dialogues, Catherine de Sienne. Paris: Le Seuil. Hadot, P. 1981. Exercices spirituels et philosophie antique. Paris: Études augustiniennes. Hundsnurscher, F., and E. Weigand, eds. 1986. Dialoganalyse, Referate der 1. Arbeitstagung ­Münster 1986. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Jacques, F. 1982/1991. Difference and subjectivity: Dialogue and personal identity. Trans. Andrew Rothwell. London: Yale University Press. Jacques, F. 2005. La croyance, le savoir et la foi. Paris: PUF. Kroll, J., and B. Bachrach. 2005. The mystic mind, the psychology of medieval mystics and ascetics. New York: Routledge. Lacelle, E. J., ed. 1998. “Ne dormons plus, il est temps de se lever”, Catherine de Sienne ­(1347–1380). Montréal: Fides. Lacelle, E. J. 1996. Préambule à la 2e edition. In Catherine de Sienne, Le Dialogue, i–xxxvi. Paris: Le Cerf, 1999. Latour, B. 2002. Jubiler – ou les tourments de la parole religieuse. Paris: Les Empêcheurs de penser en rond. Leonardi, L., and P. Trifone, ed. 2006. Dire l’ineffabile. Caterina da Siena e il linguaggio della mistica. Florence: Edizioni del Galluzzo, Fondazione Ezio Franceschini.

 David Douyère Létourneau, A. 2000. Regard épistémologique sur la théologie comme discipline. In La théologie, pour quoi, pour qui?, ed. J.-G. Nadeau, 301–321. Montréal: Fides. Létourneau, A. 1996. Critique de l’idéologie dans le cas d’une théologie de la communication. Théologiques 4 (1): 111–33. Löffler, H., ed. 1993. Dialoganalyse IV, Referate der 4. Arbeitstagung Basel 1992. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Maier, R. 1993. Dialogue and power. In Dialoganalyse IV, Referate der 4. Arbeitstagung Basel 1992, ed. H. Löffler, 233–240. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Miège, B. 2004. L’Information – communication, objet de connaissance. Brussels: de Boeck. O’Driscoll, M., ed. 1993. Catherine of Siena: Passion for the truth, compassion for humanity: Selected spiritual writings. New Rochelle, NY: New City Press. Olivesi, S. 2004. Questions de méthode, une critique de la connaissance pour les sciences de la ­communication. Paris: L’Harmattan. Plantin, C. 2011. Les Bonnes raisons des émotions, principes et méthode pour l’analyse de la parole émotionnée. Berne: Peter Lang. Plantin, C. 2004. On the inseparability of emotion and reason in argumentation. In Emotion in dialogic interaction, ed. E. Weigand, 265–276. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Portier, L. 1990/1999. “Introduction”, and “Postface, Style et figures dans le ‘Dialogue’ de sainte Catherine de Sienne”. In Catherine de Sienne, Le Dialogue 2nd ed., pp. i-iv, 371–407. Paris: Le Cerf. of Siena, C. 1378/1907. The dialogue of saint catherine of siena. Trans. Algar Thorold. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co. of Siena, C. 1378/1980. The dialogue. Trans. Suzanne Noffke. London: S.P.C.K. de Sienne, C. 1992. Les Oraisons. Trans. L. Portier. Paris: Le Cerf. of Siena, C. 1378/1995. Il Dialogo della Divina Provvidenza ovvero Libro della Divina Dottrina. Edited by Giuliana Cavallini. Siena: Cantagalli. of Siena, C. 1378/1999. Le Dialogue. 2nd ed. Trans. Lucienne Portier. Paris: Le Cerf. of Siena, C. 2000–2008. The letters (Vols. I-IV). Trans. Suzanne Noffke. Tempe, AZ: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. Stati, S., E. Weigand, and F. Hundsnurscher, eds. 1991. Dialoganalyse III, Referate der 3. Arbeitstagung Bologna 1990. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Weigand, E. 2010. Dialogue: Tthe mixed game. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Weigand, E., and F. Hundsnurscher, ed. 1989. Dialoganalyse II, Referate der 2. Arbeitstagung Bochum 1988. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Weigand, E. 2004. Emotions, the simple and the complex. In Emotion in dialogic interaction, ed. E. Weigand, 3–21. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Where is dialogue in classroom discussion? Heidi L. Muller* Is dialogue a productive normative ideal for facilitating engaged classroom discussion? Using the theoretical discourse of dialogue as a lens through which to reflexively examine and reconstruct three cases of IFCCD (instructor facilitated collegiate classroom discussion), two classrooms are analyzed as being constructed through two different versions of dialogic discussion while the third is analyzed as being constructed through the talk of the expert-novice dialectic. Dialogue is found to be an informative lens through which to theorize IFCCD and both dialogue and dialectic are considered as practically useful ideals for instructors to enact in talk as a means of managing the experienced dilemmas of the communication practice of IFCCD. Emergent findings and instructional implications of the study are also addressed.

1.  Where is dialogue in classroom discussion? In addressing the question of the relationship between dialogue and classroom discussion, the approach taken in this paper is practical in nature, seeking to draw links between theoretical discourses of dialogue and actual enacted group communication practices. The specific group communication practice under investigation in this paper is instructor facilitated collegiate classroom discussion (IFCCD). As seen in Tracy and Muller (2001), communication theories can be used as lenses to analyze communication practices. Thinking of dialogue as a set of ideas within the phenomenological tradition of communication theorizing (Craig 1999), there is a wide array of reflective theoretical discourses about dialogue that could provide lenses on the practice of IFCCD. Craig and Zizzi’s (2007) identification of a three part dialogic sequence in actual interaction in a small group interaction, Buber’s (1948) idea of reaching betweenness at the “narrow ridge,” Rogers’ (1994) ideas of unconditional positive regard and self-acceptance as essential elements of dialogue, and the idea of dialogue as a relational q ­ uality (Anderson, C ­ issna  & Arnett 1994) are all possibilities. One can also examine how the ideas of key ­dialogue ­theorists (such as Bakhtin 1981; Gadamer 1980; *  School of Communication, University of Northern Colorado, Greeley, CO 80639. Email: [email protected]

 Heidi L. Muller

Hegel 1807; Husserl 1931; Kristeva 1986) add important layers to what is seen when the practice of classroom discussion is examined. Further, within the reflexive loop of practical theory (Craig 1996), just as the lens of dialogue provides insight into the communication practice of discussion, what is learned through the examination of IFCCD can also inform theoretical discourses about dialogue. As is demonstrated by Tracy and Tracy’s (1998) study of facework and 911 operators and Tracy and Muller’s (2001) study of school board meetings, practical explorations of discourse can also inform existing theoretical discourses. In a classroom setting, this can be seen in the way that Hawkins (1974) draws on practical experience with teaching to propose an image of “I, Thou, and It” as an expansion of Buber’s (1948) model of dialogue. In previous research, the lens of argumentation has been used to examine IFCCD (Muller 2001, 2003). This current study undertakes a similar project using the lens of dialogue to see what is illuminated in three specific cases of IFCCD. Examining these three cases begins to provide insight into what differing dialogic orientations to discussion give to and take away from classroom interaction. These explorations also begin to inform normative theories about discussion and ­dialogue, offering possibilities for diagnosis of classroom difficulties. Thus, this paper explores how the ideals of dialogue can lead to a richer understanding of the practice of group interactions such as IFCCD, and how reflection on practices such as IFCCD can enhance or challenge dialogue theory. 2.  Data collection and analysis The data set being analyzed was collected using a grounded practical theory approach (Craig & Tracy 1995) and action-implicative (ethnographically informed) discourse analysis (Tracy 1995). This methodology is grounded in Craig’s (1989) notion of communication as a practical discipline and the reflexive theory-practice loop between communication practices and practical communication theories. The undertaking in grounded practical theory is to reconstruct communication practices at three levels: the dilemma/problem level, the situated ideals level, and the talk techniques level. Through reconstructing these three levels, practical theories of communication practices can be constructed. These theories are not only descriptive of how practitioners actually talk and experience participating in a specific communication practice, but also include a normative component (Craig & Tracy 2005), which may then, in turn, allow for a process of diagnostic work in relation to the observed practice itself (Tracy & Muller 2001). The communication practice under investigation in this study is instructor facilitated collegiate classroom discussion (IFCCD). In collecting the data, the



Where is dialogue in classroom discussion? 

researcher sat in on three courses over the duration of a semester. Classroom sessions were audiotaped and selected class sessions were also videotaped, as were two interviews with each instructor and one focus group with students from each course (three total focus groups). The three classes took place at the same large western state university and were: a sophomore level philosophy and society class taught by graduate student teacher Clark Webster, a junior level critical t­ hinking/ current issues class in the communication department taught by instructor A ­ melia Eisner, and a social support seminar in the communication department taught by assistant professor Jana Raines. The data was transcribed primarily at the level of verbals. Speech characteristics such as nonfluencies, restarts and overlaps were consistently transcribed, but nonverbals such as pause length, intonation and vocal emphasis were not typically transcribed. In the transcript I stands for the instructor, M stands for a male student, and F stands for a female student. Within a class M3, for instance, refers to the same person throughout the transcript. An initial analysis and full transcription of this data set is available in Muller (2002). Reconstructing the problem levels involves coming to understand what is experienced as particularly problematic for the participants. In some cases these problems can be identified as a collection of dilemmas as in Tracy’s (1997) study of academic colloquium. At others the difficulties are still dilemmatic in nature but are experienced as more of an overarching tension that permeates the practice, as can be seen in Ashcraft’s (2001) study of a feminist organization. Here problems will be discussed as they are relevant to thinking about the place of dialogue in each of the three classroom discussions. The situated ideals level is reconstructed through coming to understand the “shoulds” that practitioners use to help them manage the experienced dilemmas/problems. The techniques level is reconstructed through identifying in the discourse the talk techniques those ideals lead the practitioners to use to manage the dilemmas in the flow of the interaction. In this paper, the ideals of the instructors in these three classrooms are discussed as they relate to notions of dialogue and techniques are discussed as they are relevant to these varying notions of dialogue. 3.  Dialogic discussion Version I In an interview, instructor Amelia Eisner made the following comment:

A: Yeah. Openness…. So…trying to just show that it’s through vulnerability that we grow. If we’re not ever willing to share the idea or try something or ask a question then… there’s no guarantee that I don’t…I will try my best… to remain open to whatever’s said…but you know you can’t control…every facial expression or something…so there’s no guarantee that you don’t slap people down a little bit along the way but just trying not to.

 Heidi L. Muller

Taking dialogue as a state of openness, acceptance of the other and what they are saying, akin to Rogers’ (1994) unconditional positive regard, this instructor seeks to model this kind of dialogic orientation in her participation/facilitation of the discussions in her classroom. This ideal can be seen in this short excerpt of talk in her classroom. The topic under discussion during this excerpt is a reading on the banking concept from Freire (1970). F2: And our, I think our education system has been changing and that it has  87 changed a lot and that even when I was growing up in high school and  88 middle school I think I had a lot more opportunity to express myself then  89 and more of a teacher student relationship rather than just.  90 I: Okay, so it’s not quite your experience, what he’s saying.  91  92 F2: But I think he, I think he’s right that like it, I can completely agree with him that I think this happens a lot.   93  94 I: Okay. F2: More in other countries and like it’s still not as much as it could be here.  95 I: Okay, okay. Yeah?  96 M3: Well I moved schools actually in high school and the problems, the  97 ­schooling and the teachers there are exactly what Friere is talking about.  98  99 I: Really M3: Yeah with the sorts of information and what they’d expect, and when 100 I moved to [this state] I found that it was different. 101 I: So it could differ state to state, area to area. Yeah? 102 F15: I’ve noticed that everyone has their own style and like I’ve had some 103 ­teachers that have totally been banking, trying to get through their 104 c­urriculum, and that’s all the do, and they don’t really talk to you or ask 105 your opinion or anything, they just like deposit it. 106 I: So it differs teacher to teacher. 107 F15: Exactly, and there are other teachers where, you know, it’s like in here 108 where you want to have discussion to happen. 109 I: Okay, okay. Yeah? 110 M4: Um I agree with this guy because I’m from [other state] and pretty much 111 like whenever I was taught it was like listen to me because I’m making 112 money and I’m going to get you there faster. And I transferred out to 113 ­college here and it’s completely different, everybody’s a lot more relaxed 114 and just like well think about it, how does it make you feel. 115 116 I: Huh. M4: How will it help you in the future and things like that. 117 118 I: Interesting. 119 M4: And I like the way it is here instead. 120 I: Interesting. Yeah? F3: Um I was going to say it differs on subjects, at least here in my experience. 121

One could analyze Amelia’s comments as being supportive or as using active listening techniques, but they could also be examined as dialogic. Through providing



Where is dialogue in classroom discussion? 

mini-summaries, in lines 91 and 102 she accomplishes “turning toward” the current speaker as students not only listen to the speaker’s comments but hear them be affirmed by the facilitator. The work done by this instructor could be termed dialogic facilitation because, rather than doing things like drawing connections to the material or to comments made by other students, by focusing on the specifics of what a speaker has just said, through “encapsulating” what the speaker has just said, the facilitator enacts a state of dialogic openness with the current speaker. This state of openness consists of attending specifically to what a participant is ­saying. By repeatedly and consistently talking in this way the instructor m ­ odels, for all discussion participants to see and hear, attending to what the current speaker is saying, being open to it and in one’s talk showing that one is attending to what is being said. Additionally, when looking more closely at Amelia’s turns (comparing lines 96 and 110 to line 102) there may be something going on here other than attending to the specifics of what is being said by the current speaker. In line 102, ­Amelia ­summarizes M3’s comments and then invites another speaker onto the floor. However, lines 96 and 110 show a different transition from speaker to speaker. As Beach (1995) has pointed out, the word okay can do a lot of conversational work and repeating okay can be part of accomplishing concluding an interaction (as in ending a phone call). In both of these cases, the instructor seems to be doing work to conclude the interaction with the current student and then move on to the next. In discussions in this classroom, while it is important to attend to what the speaker is saying, it is also important to keep the discussion going and not have any one student spend too long on the conversational floor. In discussions in this classroom, dialogue seems to encompass both a state of openness and a state of participation. As discussion participants, we need to both listen to what others are saying and work together to keep the discussion going. “We” are discussing, and, in fact, there are examples in the discourse of this classroom where an individual student seems unwilling to give up the floor and at some of these times the instructor will make several attempts at concluding the sequence with the student and even go so far as to change the activity the class is doing in order to keep the “class discussion” moving. In the class we, in the words of the instructor, are to “hear from every voice, every week.” Our job as participants is not necessarily to make specific points or even to have our individual voices be heard, but rather we are here to talk with each other. To do that, dialogue provides us a model. We need to be open to each other, connecting to each other and accepting of each other both in terms of listening and talking. We all have equal access to the floor and the ideal is to talk in ways that continually construct that equality of access. We need to listen in ways that allow us to talk in ways that keep the discussion going, and we need to talk in ways that do not close off the discussion to anyone in the classroom. Stated another way,

 Heidi L. Muller

one of the things experienced and practiced in this classroom is an interactional dialogic notion, akin to intertextuality (Kristeva, 1986), that the words and speech currently being used alter what has been said previously and alter what will be said in the future. To talk with others is not just to make one’s point, but to talk in the context of others and what they have said and may yet say. Does this ideal always happen? No, it does not, and when students get “too open” they may say things that close off some members of the class from participating (such as an instance reported in an interview where a student made a “joking” comment about sexual orientation) and this is one of the difficulties of this kind of discussion facilitation. To remain open to the comment and yet keep the discussion open to all and the energy needed to do that is the central dilemma experienced in this dialogic orientation to discussion facilitation. 4.  Dialogic discussion Version II In a second classroom, the orientation to dialogue is somewhat different. The focus in this classroom still seems to be on openness but that focus seems to be at a somewhat more abstract level than it is in Amelia’s class. In Amelia’s class, she achieved “turning toward” through repetition of and connection to specific words in a student comment. This approach seems in keeping with Rogers’ (1994) client-centered approach to talk. However, in Clark Webster’s class, the orientation to dialogue seems to be more in keeping with that of Buber (1937). In Amelia’s class, the instructor was guiding the class in becoming a “we” talking and learning together. In Clark’s class, the students are all I’s whom he is trying to guide to be more able to articulate their own individual thoughts. However, to do this, they need to engage in a way where he, as the instructor, and all other potential conversational partners (the rest of the students in the class) are engaged as Thou’s rather than It’s. I am working to become more articulate, but I am not working to stand out from or “best” anyone else in the conversation. I am working to better know and express myself in the presence of and through engagement with others. In his own words:

C: And I think to me it’s like the class has to tell you what it needs. I mean if nobody ever commits the fallacy of the circular argument in the class, one, I’d be really surprised, and two, then they don’t need to talk about it. If they’re, if they’re, to me it’s sort of like they’re shaping me while I’m shaping them. I don’t know, you know there’s this much of me and only this much of me is going to make it into the classroom, right? But it might be this, or this, that they need, not necessarily you know what I would come in pre-establishedly and think oh, this is what they should know, okay….they didn’t come into



Where is dialogue in classroom discussion? 

the room to serve my ideas about what’s going on, and I have the right as the teacher to impose a certain amount of my idea on the room, okay, and in fact I have to. I tried when I first started ­teaching, I had this it’s all egalitarian we’re just going to let it be this kind of ­democratic anarchy, and my discovery was there was always some guy, and it’s always a guy, who was going to use that to kind of run amuck, right, to show, you know look at me, here’s my ego, aren’t I cool….You know? It’s like, if you want to run things then you know get a degree and do it ­yourself. So I’ve modified that but I still think that they have some, right isn’t the right word, it seems better to me to be open to the class pushing in various directions. .

In this classroom, the instructor needs to be fundamentally open to the students and what they are saying. In addition, the students find that to engage in discussion in this class is to be open to what the instructor is saying. F17: Yeah, he’s kind of like the big encyclopedia that stands there. People can bounce their ideas off of him but ultimately he’s the one that can say yes or no. And he does, and he challenges you on your own points. Like he won’t just let you say something and leave it at that, and that’s part of the reason there’s so much confusion, but at the same time he challenges everybody individually in such a big class, it’s kind of a neat thing.

In this class, to discuss is to engage in an unending exploration of one’s own thoughts. The way Clark engages students can be seen in this excerpt from a ­discussion of Plato’s dialogue Crito: I: I was thinking about this sort of in a more abstract way because we had 147 this discussion a couple of weeks ago about opinion. Whose opinion 148 should matter in this? 149 F2: Socrates. I: Socrates’ opinion. Okay. 150 F2: He believes it’s right. 151 I: He’s the one in the situation. Now is it possible for someone’s opinion to 152 be wrong about something as important as this. 153 154 F2: Yes. I: Yes, okay. So, how do you decide between the various contending o ­ pinions? 155 Let’s suppose you’re Socrates for a moment. You’re looking pretty healthy 156 for having been dead for so long, but let’s suppose for a moment that you’re 157 Socrates. How do you decide? I mean this seems like a pretty important 158 issue, this is not merely you know in my opinion rayon shirts are good and cotton shirts are bad. This is two days from now you’re going to be a 159 corpse or two days from now you’re eating lamb and baklava in Thesala. 160 A ­common dish I’d assume at that time of year. So I mean this isn’t, this 161 isn’t just a matter of taste. It’s a matter of whether you’re going to live or die. 162 How do you decide? Yeah?

 Heidi L. Muller

163 M9: I don’t think there is such a thing as a wrong opinion, because I mean it’s 164 just the way you feel about something, the way you feel about something doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re wrong. 165 166 I: Okay. It is my concerted and uh deeply held feeling that when I let go of 167 this chalk it’s going to hover in the air. 168 M9: Well that’s I: Was I right? There was no matter of right or wrong here? 169 170 M9: Well is that your opinion that it’s going to happen? 171 I: Sure. M9: Well your opinion’s not wrong because that’s the way you feel, but, I don’t 172 173 know how to explain it better, but

Lines 163–164 show one of the ways in which Clark challenges or “extrapolates” student comments. He offers a scenario that would be consistent with the point just introduced by the student and thus puts the student comment in a new ­perspective. The student then has the opportunity to examine his point from a new perspective. In the next excerpted lines, M9 seems to be ready to end the interchange. Through his formulation in 237–238, he seems to be telling Clark that he has ­gotten the point, is done trying to get his viewpoint across, and is letting Clark know that he has “learned” through this interaction. Clark’s response continues to challenge the student’s comment and again emphasizes that the process is ongoing. 237 M9: I guess I’ll take from this that uh you can always be right on a moral o ­ pinion 238 but on an intellectual opinion you can be wrong, so I’ll give you that. 239 I: Okay. 240 M9: But um but do you agree with me that you can you’re always right on a moral read? 241 I: No, absolutely. I don’t agree with that either. 242 M9: But 243 [class laughter] 244 I: But, thank you. 245 M9: Uh 246 I: Okay, we’ve at least gotten half way to where I am, okay. 247 M9: Well I don’t think I’m 248 I: Oh, that’s fine. I mean I’m not trying, I’m, I’m actually trying to push the 249 whole class in a certain direction which you’re helping me with. So that’s 250 good, I think that’s good. Now I’m going to get you and then kind of work my way back.

At first this kind of challenging interchange may not seem to have much of a dialogic orientation, but the argument here is that through challenging everything that is said, the instructor, Clark, is in fact valuing everything that is said. In addition to that, value is placed on talking through things. As M9 finds out over and



Where is dialogue in classroom discussion? 

over again in this exchange, each comment is a starting place. There are, of course, times when individual students in this class make comments that seem like an attempt at “the final word,” “the trump card/unassailable argument,” the “correct answer.” These “game-ender” comments are the fundamental challenge or dilemma of keeping discussion going in this classroom. Just as students can get “too open” in Amelia’s class, in Clark’s they can be “too closed” and make comments that seem to disallow any kind of following dialogic exchange. At such points, the instructor works to maintain the dialogic orientation through talking in a way that explicitly values the student contribution (rather than saying something like “put a bag over your head until you can engage”) and through such keeps the discussion open for further dialogic exchange. The following is one such instructor response: 400 I:  Okay. I think that’s a correct analysis of his thinking, which comes back 401 around to what you and I were kind of pushing around on, and also this 402 question about opinion. And the question that we have to ask ourselves in 403 order to make this a little clearer is what was Socrates teaching?

Through such comments like this, all comments by all students are valued and the discussion retains its dialogic nature. Just as in Amelia’s class, when students talk in a non-dialogic fashion the instructor does work to refashion the discussion to again have its dialogic character and the most drastic move made by both these instructors is to alter the direction of the discussion through conversational moves like asking a new question (above) or moving to a different class activity. In both these dialogic discussions, the discussion is dialogic because the instructor never talks in a way that isn’t dialogic.

5.  Dialectical discussion When looking at the discussions in the third classroom in this data set, dialectic rather than dialogue (Gadamer 1980; Bahktin, 1981) seems to be a more informative lens in understanding the discourse. In this classroom, the dialectical tension exists between the expert talk of the instructor and the novice talk of the students. The dilemma in this classroom is trying to communicate across this expert-novice divide. In the following quote from the student focus group and then an interview with the instructor, the inability to understand what the other is saying is a shared experience of all in this classroom. First from the students:

F4: Obviously it’s like she’s read all these articles before, and not that I don’t think she does a really, she tries really hard to present what she says you know what she feels it’s about, but sometimes I feel like she’s a ­verbal term paper. I think that it’s kind of like, she says it several times and

 Heidi L. Muller

s­ everal ­different ways but sometimes I’m like, come again? It’s just like she ­continues to say it and she maps it out for you but she does it in such a way sometimes that it’s really hard to follow. At least for me.

And from the instructor, Jana Raines:

J: Yeah. Yeah so these times where there’s been the energy where people are getting engaged and talking to each other is ideal but I don’t think it’s going to happen very often in that class. I think that the other material is stuff where that might be able to happen but they don’t see each other because they’re not facing each other. And so unless it’s something that ­really gets them going um and what gets them going is, I don’t know, I don’t get it. I mean I think it’s things that they can relate to with their personal ­experience, that they have a strong opinion on, um, I don’t know. I mean the thing that’s hard for me with discussion teaching and it’s been so in this class too is they say things that just don’t make sense. And then I’m like well what am I supposed to do with that? How, you know, or they might be ­saying something that makes sense but it doesn’t make sense to me. So everyone else in the class appears to understand the point that’s being made and I don’t get it, and so but I have to respond in some way to it, so um. And I think there’s also a concern with wanting to know what I think. Because of the exams. And so I’ve tried.

One thing of note that came out of the focus group with students in this class is that the students genuinely like the instructor. It is not that they are not interested in talking about the material and it is not that they feel in any way silenced by the instructor. It is just that students often really struggle to make sense of what she says, and the instructor at times also struggles to make sense of what students are saying. What seems interesting about this classroom discussion is that it has the potential to work, all parties want to make it work, and yet it never really feels like it does. Through a brief examination of the discourse in this classroom, a sense of why discussion feels so difficult in this classroom emerges as does the beginning of a picture of the talk of a classroom discussion that is more dialectical than dialogic. The following excerpt is a relatively typical exchange in this classroom: 110 F8: For my grandma that died of cancer, I forgot what she had, but she like 111 wouldn’t let any of the grandchildren see her, and like that was kind of a 112 big conflict because she didn’t want us to remember her sick like, wanted 113 us to remember her. And it’s a concept that I totally agree with, but like we 114 weren’t allowed to give her any support so that was kind of kind of it was 115

just like, we wanted to see her and she didn’t want us to do it, didn’t want us to, so it was her decision not to receive support, or she was selective of the support she wanted.



Where is dialogue in classroom discussion? 

J: Part of what that highlights in part is this idea that there can be c­ ompeting 116 needs, that what one person needs in a situation like this might be 117 ­incompatible with what another person needs. That in order to provide 118 you with what you need, that creates stress for me, and that might be in 119 120 121

terms of that kind of situation or it might be in terms of being the kind of ­caregiver that they need, you know, they need that support but that creates stress for me that I then have to give it.

This excerpt is fairly typical in that it shows a very common talk technique used by the instructor, a technique of “expertising.” In lines 116–121, Jana seems to work off the idea of “conflict” presented by F8 and translates that into “competing needs” and “stress” which are terms one would read in the social support literature. The dialectical tension between the more everyday talk of F8 and the more expert talk of Jana is seen in this excerpt. Is F8’s “conflict” the same as Jana’s “competing needs?” Are they talking about the same thing, and, if they are, does it make sense to hear one’s idea talked about in a different vocabulary? As was seen in the interview and focus group excerpts, the answer to these questions is often no, it does not make sense. Yet even though a lack of understanding is experienced, the typical discussion in this class unfolds as a back and forth between these two kinds of talking. This discourse seems dialectical because the instructor almost always talks like the expert (she uses the correct terminology and accurately talks about theories and perspectives as they are accepted/interpreted within the discipline) and students talk like novices (they talk about their experiences, thoughts, and ask questions using everyday language). However, as can be seen in the next set of excerpts, there are times when a discussion seems to get going: I: How many of you are familiar with Social Exchange Theory? 1 2 F9: Costs and rewards? [pause, other mumbled voices] 3 I: Um, vaguely, but we’re gonna talk about it more specifically because it’s 4 related to the issue of reciprocity 5 F10: Costs minus rewards, no, rewards minus costs equals profits. And if your 6 profits are negative, then your relationship is poopy 7 8 [Laughter] F10: But if your profits are positive, then your relationship is well balanced. 9 10 11 12 13 14

Right? I: That’s part of it. So rewards minus costs equals profits. Social exchange ­theory is um a theory about our personal relationships and how they ­develop and why we stay in them or why we leave them. And the ­assumption in part is, and it’s focused on this idea that relationships are r­ewarding but they also cost us something. And that when we make ­decisions about our relationships we balance that out. And that we’re

 Heidi L. Muller

15 16 17

18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

32 33

more likely to develop relationships with people in which the costs do not ­outweigh the rewards. If the costs are greater than the rewards in the ­relationship, we’re less likely to develop the relationship. [pause] What are types of rewards or costs in personal relationships. F9: Support I: What else? F2: (inaudible – maybe spouse matching?) I: What contributes to that? F2: Um, almost like a level exchange of costs and rewards. [pause] Or like a perceived level I: What’s kind of um, what that gets at is what am I having to put in to this relationship versus what am I getting from the other person F2: Exactly I: Are we both equal amounts into the relationship. And exchange theory assumes that you want to get as much as you give. That that needs to be ­balanced. There either needs to be equality [sound of marker on board] or equity [marker on board]. Equality means I get exactly what I give, so the other person does exactly the same thing, contributes the exact same thing to the relationship that I do. Equity means it might be not be the same thing but it kind of all balances out. It is equible equitable at some point. F1: Are support and satisfaction are rewards that you can get from a ­relationship, is that what you said?

This excerpt, while unusually lively for this classroom, still shows the typical kinds of talk. In nearly every turn, the instructor “expertises” or rephrases what the students have just said in more expert terms. For example in line 10 she provides the specific formula for social exchange theory, and in lines 26–31 she introduces a range of terminology associated with social exchange theory. Students provide thoughts (lines 2, 6, 9, 22), examples (not seen in this excerpt), and ask questions of clarification (lines 32–33). However, as this day’s discussion continues to unfold, at times the two competing ways can seem to work as a thesis and antithesis from which a synthesis is developed (Hegel 1807), a compromise where they can find a shared way of talking. These synthesis moments usually are either expert ideas that resonate with students or examples and stories to which a variety of participants are able to connect. In this discussion, the social exchange metaphor provides an area of synthesis. I: What are some other rewards 34 35 F14: You can get material rewards too I: Like what? 36 F2: Diamonds 37



Where is dialogue in classroom discussion? 

38 39 40 41

[inaudible comments overlapping, laughter] I: So diamonds, gifts, money are examples of things that you might get from relational partners. So for example if you have a relational partner who’s ­always borrowing money from you and never loaning you money, then that’s not that’s 42 F2: Or paying you back 43 I: Or never paying you back, so it’s never kind of balanced out, then it’s 44 ­rewarding for them but 45 it’s not rewarding for you, then it’s not balanced. 46 M1: Can we use some of our cap support capital to make up for it? 47 I: Well that, [pause] no 48 [laughter] 49 F14: Well kind of though, like if you were like if they made you dinner every once in a while 50 F10: Every day 51 [overlapping comments] 52 F10: If you were pre-med and they every once in a while did nice things for 53 you but still told you they were gonna eventually pay you back, they 54 would work on building capital by doing nice things for you and k­ eeping 55 you chained (?) for the idea that you’re not getting your money back right away 56 I: That’s an example of how the rewards don’t have to necessarily be the 57 same thing always. So okay so I’m putting money into this but I’m g­ etting 58 ­something else from the relationship so in that sense it’s okay. That I’m 59 willing I’d consider that balanced enough that I’m willing to stay in the 60 relationship. That they do nice things for me, um caring or concern, you know there is someone out there who cares about me, that that’s a reward 61 of relationships. And so we kind of make decisions about whether or not 62 that’s balanced enough.

In this exchange, the discussion is somewhat “fun” as the instructor incorporates the somewhat goofy student idea of diamonds and F10 jumps in (line 50) to add “oomph” to F14’s proposal. This high level of engagement continues throughout this discussion, and then in the next excerpt something unique happens. M2: It seems backwards, like I’m doing something to you hoping that I’ll get 173 something back rather than, or depending on what I’ve been given, so if 174 you kick down 20 bucks then 175 I: [class laughter] What does that mean?! 176 M2: Would I like, then I feel like I’m supposed to kick down 20 bucks, instead 177 of, instead of doing it because that’s how I would want you, that’s just 178 ­backwards, do you know what I’m saying? 179 I: But do you, do you think that, okay, so it’s backwards, but do you think 173 that that’s not the way things are? 174

 Heidi L. Muller

175 M2: Not always. 176 I: Think about your relationships, think about some relationships that have

ended.

This is the only time I have seen in this discourse that the instructor asks what the student means. Now whether M2’s response at line 177–178 clarifies things or not is an open question, but in line 180 the instructor, instead of “expertising” and talking in the voice of the theory, rather repeats the student idea “okay so it’s backwards.” In line 183, the instructor returns to her more familiar way of talking, but that there is this moment of different kind of talk seems significant. In the next section there is a similar moment. 237 F14: Yeah, to consider both selfishly and non-selfishly the interaction. 238 I: Well what’s the non-selfish part there? 239 F14: The non-selfish is to continue [inaudible] [laughter] 240 I: Okay 241 M2: You gotta be careful though because last time I took out a loan from the 242 bank of love and my heart got repossessed. 243 I: I thought it was a highway 244 [inaudible overlapping voices] 245 M2: You can’t take a loan from a highway 246 I: That’s true and we are talking about a financial metaphor here.

In line 238, Jana asks the student about her idea of selfish and through just saying “okay” (in line 240) the floor opens up and M2 makes his potential “wisecrack.” However, when the instructor engages the comment and M2 provides somewhat of a connection to the topic, the instructor finds something relevant (line 246) in what has been said. As the instructor notes in line 246, what is being discussed is a banking metaphor and in fact both she and M2 were talking about that metaphor. It is such moments where the talk takes on a character that both novices and experts could perform that synthesis is achieved. In synthesis talk, the participants in the classroom have constructed their own shared way of talking. This way of talking is likely part expert/part novice, and, if discussion really got going, the ­synthesis talk would be a way of talking that all members of the class could perform. In my analysis of this classroom, the reason why discussion was so difficult was that the instructor did not consistently make moves toward synthesis. It is not because she talked as an expert that caused things to be so difficult, but rather it is because she did not act as an expert facilitator and so infrequently achieved moments of synthesis. That it can happen is seen in this particular discussion and if there had been more such moments in this classroom, the discussions may not have felt so permeated by the dialectical tension.



Where is dialogue in classroom discussion? 

6.  Conclusion In looking at these three cases of classroom discussion, the theoretical discourses of dialogue theory seem to provide an informative lens through which to view and analyze instructor facilitated collegiate classroom discussion. In the two classrooms where discussion was experienced as relatively successful, two different approaches to dialogue provide ways of talking about what “worked” in these classrooms. For the third, less successful classroom, the diagnosis of the problem could be that the discussion is not dialogic and the prescription would then be to try to talk more dialogically. However, the dialogue-dialectic differentiation is also part of the theoretical discourse of dialogue and, when looking through this lens, a different diagnosis can be made. In this diagnosis it is not that Jana needs to abandon her skilled ability to “expertise” but rather that she needs to be more attentive to the expert talk-novice talk dialectic and especially those times when she experiences not understanding what students are saying. It is these times of confusion where the expert-novice dilemma is palpable that the potential exists for working toward a synthesized form of classroom talk. Working practically, this investigation of instructor facilitated collegiate classroom discussion seems to point in the direction that dialogue and discussion are not synonymous. However, the theoretical discourse of dialogue can help us theorize the communication practice of IFCCD through identifying productive talk techniques and potentially normative classroom discussion ideals. At this point, it seems that there is not a single model of dialogue that is needed to be invoked in the discourse of the classroom, but rather that thinking about how dialogic one wants one’s classroom to be can be useful in determining what kinds of talking one will try to do in one’s classroom. As we move reflexively back from the practice to the theory, while talking dialogically may be one approach that works, it seems that working to be dialogic is not the only answer for trying to get engaged discussion to happen in one’s classroom. As seen in these first two examples, dialogic discussions seem to work when student comments “drive” the discussion and instructors are consistently dialogic in their talk. Dialogue as a normative ideal is something that comes from outside the classroom and so needs to be maintained by the instructor who is the one who holds this an as ideal. However, the expert-novice talk dialectic is something that comes from within the classroom and if all interactants can work together to construct a synthesized way of talking that is unique to this group of participants in this classroom, one could remove the I’s, F’s and M’s from the transcript and often not be able to tell who was talking at any one turn. There would then no longer be clearly identifiable teacher talk and student talk but rather everyone would be

 Heidi L. Muller

speaking the synthesized talk constructed together by the members of this particular class. Which of these approaches should one choose? Working endemically, one might lean toward a dialectical approach (I can’t avoid being an expert), or as one of these instructors did one might choose dialogue for reasons of empowerment or as another one of these instructors did one might choose dialogue because one finds that it leads to more interesting interactions with students. Practically speaking there are reasons to choose both. As an ending note, this dialogic-dialectical difference seems to indicate that there are two distinct elements to the talk in IFCCD: what is talked about and how it is talked about. In a dialogic classroom discussion, the instructor needs to work with the students to determine what is talked about but the instructor determines how it is talked about. However, in a dialectic discussion, the instructor needs to work with the students to determine how the talk will proceed but can determine what it is that is discussed. This distinction is the emergent finding from this practical examination of IFCCD through the theoretical lens of dialogue. And as such it begins to provide some answers to the question where is dialogue in classroom discussion and maybe more importantly begins to outline a set of criteria to assist in determining, from an instructor’s perspective, where should dialogue be in classroom discussion?

References Anderson, R., K. N. Cissna, and R. C. Arnett, eds. 1994. The reach of dialogue: Confirmation, voice and community. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press. Aschcraft, K. L. 2001. Feminist organizing and the construction of “alternative” community. In G.J. Shepherd & E.W. Rothenbuhler (Eds.), Communication and community (pp. 79–101). Mahwah, N.J. Lawrence Erlbaum. Bakhtin, M. M. 1981. The dialogic imagination: Four essays. Edited by M. Holquist. Austin: ­University of Texas Press. Beach, W. A. 1995. Conversation analysis: ‘Okay’ as a clue for understanding consequentiality. In The consequentiality of communication, ed. S. Sigman, 121–161. Hilldale, NJ: L­awrence Erlbaum. Buber, M. 1948. Between man and man. New York: Macmillan. Buber, M. 1937. I and thou. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. Craig, R. T. 1989. Communication as a practical discipline. In Rethinking communication: Vol. 1 paradigm issues, eds. B. Dervin, L. Grossberg, B.J. O’Keefe and E. Wartella, 97–122. ­Newberry Park, CA: Sage. Craig, R. T. 1996. Practical theory: A Reply to Sandelands. Journal for the Theory of Social ­Behavior 26 (1): 65–79. Craig, R. T. 1999. Communication theory as a field. Communication Theory 9 (2): 119–61.



Where is dialogue in classroom discussion? 

Craig, R. T., and K. Tracy. 1995. Grounded practical theory: The case of intellectual discussion. Communication Theory 5 (3): 248–72. Craig, R. T., and K. Tracy. 2005. “The issue” in argumentation practice and theory. In The ­practice of argumentation, eds. F. H. van. Eemeren and P. Houtlosser, 11–28. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Craig, R. T., and M. P. Zizzi. 2007. Toward a normative pragmatic model of dialogue. Социокультурныепроблемы языка и коммуникации [Sociocultural Problems in Language and Communication] 4: 152–59. Freire, P. 1970. Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Herder and Herder. Gadamer, H. G. 1980. Dialogue and dialectic: Eight hermeneutical studies on Plato. Trans. P.C. Smith. New Yaven, CT: Yale. Hawkins, D. 1974. I, thou, and it. In The informed vision: Essays on learning and human behavior, 51–64. New York: Agathon Press. Hegel, G. 1807/1977. Phenomenology of spirit. Trans. A. V. Miller. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Husserl, E. 1931/1988. Cartesian meditations. Trans. D. Cairns. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Kristeva, J. 1986. Word, dialogue, and the novel. In The Kristeva reader, ed. T. Moi, 35–61. New York: Columbia University Press. Muller, H. L. 2001. Teaching through discussion: Three relationships between argument and discussion. Conference Proceedings – National Communication Association/American Forensic Association (Alta Conference on Argumentation), 1274–1284. Muller, H. L. 2002. Navigating the dilemmas of collegiate classroom discussion. Doctoral Dissertation, University of Colorado-Boulder. Muller, H. L. 2003. Looking for argument in collegiate classroom discussion: Avoidance, ­challenge, focus. Conference Proceedings – National Communication Association/American Forensic Association (Alta Conference on Argumentation), 1518–525. Rogers, C. R. 1994. The necessary and sufficient conditions of therapeutic personality change. In The reach of dialogue: Confirmation, voice and community, eds. R. Anderson, K. N. Cissna and R. C. Arnett, 126–140. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press. Tracy, K. 1995. Action-implicative discourse analysis. Journal of Language and Social Psychology 14 (1–2): 195–215. Tracy, K. 1997. Colloquium: Dilemmas of academic discourse. Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing. Tracy, K., and H. L. Muller. 2001. Diagnosing a school board’s interactional trouble: Theorizing problem formulation. Communication Theory 11 (1): 84–102. Tracy, K., and S. J. Tracy. 1998. Rudeness at 911. Human Communication Research 25 (2): 225–51.

Dialogue entries and exits The discursive space of discussion Dominique Ducard* Starting from pragmatic models of communication inspired by philosophy (K.O. Apel, F. Jacques, P. Ricoeur), I approach the question of dialogue by reference to the theorization of language activity according to the linguistics of enunciative operations (A. Culioli). Expounding a system of metalinguistic representation focused on the key concepts of assertion and commitment led me to present a schematization of the discursive space of discussion, by means of an oriented graph. This topological standpoint meant that exchanges in dialogue, with its entrances and exits, could be simulated. The analysis of a debate between two economists on a subject about which they disagree is used to illustrate the theoretical premise. The ethics of dialogue thus no longer resides in a transcendental instance but in the very exercise of speech, in the listening to oneself and to the other.

1.  Communication: Interaction and co-enunciation In order to define the concept of dialogue from an enunciative point of view, in reference to the linguistic theory of Antoine Culioli (1990, 1999a), I would like to specify what distinguishes this approach from some models of communication, the premises of which differ while presenting common traits. The point here is not to critique these philosophy-inspired models, but to specify what sets them apart from a metalinguistic system of representation supported by empirical observation and formal reasoning. As the linguistic theory in question is defined as a study of language through the diversity of languages, texts and situations, I will start from the dual performative-propositional structure of the human logos according to K.O. Apel (Apel 1994). Seeking to broaden the semantic view of language by building into it the pragmatic dimension of communication, Apel (1994) emphasizes the presuppositional and complementary relationship between the subject-object relation and the

*  University of Paris-Est Créteil – Céditec EA 3119.

 Dominique Ducard

subject-­cosubject relation. In keeping with Habermas (1984), he lists three “validity claims” of discourse in relation to three dimensions of the world. ‘I thereby claim that P' should thus answer a claim to truth with reference to P, a claim to normative correctness in relation to the communicating parties with reference to the claim to truth in its performative construction (a claim explicitly expressed in ‘thereby, I invite you to P', for instance to accept or to reject P), and a claim to sincerity or to truthfulness. If this general approach, which Apel once described as pragmatictranscendental semiotics, has the advantage of placing us within the referential and intersubjective space of representations and interpretations, it adheres to an idealised conception of rationality that is often contradicted by the discursive reality of everyday communication. That being said, we will see that the triple “claim” according to Apel can be reduced to the act of assertion and its implications. Equally pragmatic, or rather logical-pragmatic in its intentions, the dialogic theory developed by Francis Jacques (1991) is closer to our concerns in that he turned to linguistic studies of enunciation, notably those of Emile Benveniste (1966). Putting verbal interaction and the interlocutionary situation at the heart of all communication of a dialogic nature, he confers a founding status upon the intersubjective relation between an I and a you, without granting preeminence to either in instituting the relationship, the one presupposing the other. Otherness and identity are thus conjoined in the communicational use of language, the signs of which are “colloquial” in nature. The same person potentially brings together the speaker, the person to whom the speech is addressed and the person to whom it pertains. A bond of solidarity is thus formed between the dialogic dimension of reference and the referential dimension of dialogue, at the same time as a relationship of subordination is established between the semantic rules, which relate to propositional attitudes according to truth and certainty, and pragmatic rules, which relate to speech acts within the process of interaction, with communication being ensured by a dialectic between the two. F. Jacques has constructed a model of referential dialogue as a model for analysis, which enables one to understand how it is possible to reconcile the play of utterances’ truth conditions in an interlocutionary situation with the play of the conditions of success of the corresponding speech acts, in accordance with structural rules that govern interaction, and with strategic rules that govern the semantic relationships between utterances. The idea is for interlocutors to establish the referent together, through reciprocal presuppositions, conjectures and mutual questioning. And the dialogue has an heuristic goal, progressing by dint of semantic debate and referential confrontation, through competition and cooperation: “In a referential dialogue, the interlocutors are not antagonists, but partners who must compare possible worlds in



Dialogue entries and exits 

order to make an assessment” (Jacques 1979, p. 306, my translation). Referential dialogue thus moves away from the eristic of disputation and controversy and aims to eliminate anomalies, incongruities, incompatibilities and equivocacies, given that the interlocutors, who represent the two instances of enunciation, the I and the you, are governed by the “the ideal search for a consensus, the unison of voices, that concludes the process of communication.” (Jacques 1979, p. 340, my translation). F. Jacques’s philosophical pragmatics does not leave dissent, disagreement and difference of opinion to one side, but subjects the dialogue to a norm that is not the norm of the “ideal communication community” (Apel 1994), but that guides the aspiration to Felicitous speech, which is defined as a Matrix of the human relationship of mutuality. As he writes: We understand that Felicitous speech exchanged between the I and the you is the matrix of a relationship of mutuality. This complex relationship comprises a relationship of reciprocity in accordance with the equality agreed to by the interlocutors. The distribution of roles takes place between partners in a relationship of complementarity. The I and the you are then mutually associated within a communication community. (Jacques 1979, p. 386–387, my translation)

Without rejecting this normative ideal, which belongs to a philosophical tradition inherited from Buber (1935, 1958) and is renewed in a logical-pragmatic perspective, we will set aside its teleological aspect, which should not be identified with the teleonomic dimension of discursive activity. We will emphasize intersubjectivity in the interlocutionary relationship, which becomes a relationship of co-enunciation – the enunciator implying a representation of himself and of the other – and construction in the practice itself of the discourse of reference. We will also argue that though there is indeed a reciprocity between the subjects that jointly determine each other as an enunciator (the speaker as an image) and a co-enunciator (the addressee as an image), their relationship is not in fact symmetrical, but equally dissymmetrical or asymmetrical depending on the movements of coming together, drifting apart or severance. To the agreement and understanding conquered in and through dialogue according to F. Jacques, corresponds the attestation of self and the confidence in the ability to say according to Paul Ricoeur (1990). But whereas in the first case the “dialogical atom” is made up of the interlocutors who meet in each other, which marks the successful conclusion of the exchange, the second case develops a hermeneutics of the self based on an analysis of grammatical persons and speech acts, of which one of the major features is the dialectic of the same and the other, of ipseity and otherness. Interlocution then presents itself as an exchange

 Dominique Ducard

of intentionalities reciprocally targeting each other, and its intrinsic otherness – the other and oneself as an other – is situated on the level of the reflexivity of enunciation. On the basis of this dialectic of ipseity and otherness and drawing inspiration from the phenomenologist of existence Henri Maldiney (2007) and from what he calls “the coexistence of a double otherness” (p. 218), which we experience in every human situation,1 I identify what he calls “the other of I” (alter ego) with the coenunciator (without hyphen) indicated as S’0, and the “other than I” (alius) with the co-enunciator (with hyphen) indicated as S1, it being understood that S’0 and S1 are then constructions whose subjective origin is the enunciator indicated as S0 (ego). The dialogue with the other is thus, on the one hand, a dialogue with oneself through a series of imaginary constructions.2 The interlocutors may just as well come together in a mirror-image, the discourse of the one being confirmed by the discourse of the other, as they may be separated by points of disagreement or divergences of opinion, and sometimes to the extent of one rejecting the other outside any possible sphere of agreement or even listening. The interconnection which I establish between conceptions of dialogue in communication, with a philosophical reference, and categories of linguistic analysis, has two aims in view. On the one hand, by observing practices and situations, it seeks to free us from a certain logicism of representation or idealism which ascribes a pre-arranged happy end to what is presented as a model of dialogue. On the other, it attempts to show the relevance which may be given to certain postulates inherent in these conceptions by an empirical and formal study of discursive activity from the viewpoint of enunciation. The concept of discourse, from the Latin discursus (from discurare): “the action of running to and fro, of spreading oneself in different directions”, has taken on a modern meaning based on the image of the hazardous path of verbal communication, and the meaning of the word discussion can also be clarified by etymology, which refers to shaking, to sustaining a shock, through a verb, (dis-quatare, to shake, to agitate), that once meant “to search through, to unmuddle” before

1.  “We learn ourselves through our response to the other’s call and through the other’s ­response to our addressing him, but not in equal shares. When the other than I, to whom I speak, speaks me in return through their words or their muteness, there is in them something that speaks to me in my own terms, because in them I hear the other of I. Thus our own being is at stake in our being to the other.” (Maldiney, op. cit., p. 218, my translation). 2.  We have touched on this question, illustrated by an analysis of linguistic forms, during a lecture given at the seminar on dialogism: Dialogisme, langue et discours, Université Paul Valéry, Montpellier, 2010. The text of this lecture will be published under the title “Se parler à l’autre” (Ducard 2012).



Dialogue entries and exits 

evolving to mean “to examine” (the cases for and against), the concept of dialogue (διά-λογος) being set aside to signify the in-between (entre-deux) instituted by and through discourse. Taking into account the previous considerations, we will therefore define the discursive space of discussion in dialogue in the terms of the theory of enunciative operations (Culioli), based on the concept of assertion with all that it encompasses.

2.  Assertion and commitment An assertion, whether positive or negative, is to say of something that it is the case. The construction of the existence of a state of affairs is associated with an operation of validation by the ascribing of a referential value: the occurrence is situated in relation to a system of reference (space-time, subjective origin, relationship between subjects). Validation thus establishes a relationship between the (factual or fictional) situation and one of the possible values, the concept of value corresponding both to the meaning value and to the estimative value of the selected forms (what applies to that which is to be said). Any assertion implies an enunciative stance linked to a commitment (commitment, non-commitment, withdrawal of commitment) of the enunciator subject. If one sets aside what distinguishes both approaches to language, this point of view meshes with the definition of the class of assertives by John R. Searle (1979) in his taxonomy of illocutionary acts, when he gives a general presentation of the assertoric as one of the ways of using language depending on the illocutionary goal, by telling someone else the way things are, and that he adds that this goal is to commit, to varying degrees, the locutor’s responsibility as to the existence of a state of affairs or as to the truth of the proposition expressed. Here is what A. Culioli (2001) says of the operation of validation intrinsic to an assertion, putting forward the dimension of subjectivity: This operation of validation (selection of the value considered adequate by a subject) is accompanied by two operations of a subjective nature: (1) commitment of the enunciator who, beyond his activity as a speaker, wishes to say (to make accessible to a third party) what he knows/thinks/believes to be the correct descriptor. Hence either a marker that is null (‘the weather is fine’), or modulation markers such as certainly, surely, without a doubt, naturally, obviously, necessarily, probably, in all likelihood. The subject takes charge of what he says, thanks to this modulated commitment, which will allow for intersubjective adjustment; (2) valuation by the enunciator who ascribes a teleonomic value (advantageous/ disadvantageous, efficient/inefficient, etc.) to what is asserted, in relation to the chain of utterances and the succession of states of affairs. (p. 281, my translation)

 Dominique Ducard

Modalisation, of which strict assertion is only the basic form, is then an evaluation that conjoins validation and valuation (Ducard 2004, pp. 45–57). It implies a distance on the part of the enunciator from the relationships established in the construction of the utterance, a distance that varies according to whether what is involved has been validated, could possibly be validated – that which is taken into consideration or that is imagined – or else has been validated but suspended. This distance can be abolished, but in the ascribing of referential values, any assertion (in its positive or negative form) features, as a representation, its complementary counterpart (‘to be the case’/‘to not be the case’, or ‘to be other than the case’). The commitment of the enunciator, when she presents herself as guarantor of that which she is saying, is linked in part to an assertoric force (Frege’s behauptende Kraft), and secondly to the intensity that is expressed by her emotional investment, to various degrees, from the most indifferent statement to the most vivid of feelings. The implications of the act of assertion are represented in the following metalinguistic formula: i wish to – speak – to say – that i think/believe/know – that p to-be-the-case. i wish to is the symbol of assertoric force, which evolves along a gradient of intensity according to the subjective appreciation of what is said; speak refers to the act of locution, the material externalization of what is expressible and communicable in an oral or written formula (that which is said); to say carries the intention of signifying, by speaking out, that which is to be said: the enunciative goal; think/believe/know are the three archetypical predicates of assertoric modalisation, and are used to distinguish three areas of representation of certainty or quasi-certainty and belief that are characterized by a state of stability for know, by the passage to existence for think and by an intrasubjective state for believe.3 In an assertion modulated by one of these three predicates, or by others that belong to the same categorisation, there is a double centering of the subject, who validates his speech according to internal states of knowledge, thought or belief. p to-be-the-case, where p corresponds to the propositional content or lexis, is the operation of situational reference of the enunciable complex of representation, whose occurrence is situated in a space-time frame. It is the operation of validation that makes p validated or a possible candidate for validation. Thus, assertion, according to these different aspects, is a way of committing oneself, of making a choice between possible paths and coming to a decision. 3.  This semantic categorization, according to the values and uses of the three predicates, is analyzed in Ducard 2010.



Dialogue entries and exits 

The assertoric decision can be simulated by a graph, with directional arrows. This graph shows a fork, the junction of which localizes the whole of the conceptual domain (p, p'), each branch leading to a value (p: inside the domain) or to its complementary value (p': outside the domain, i.e.: not p, other than p, p is empty). When a journalist heads an article by quoting the utterance of a demonstrator on Tahrir square, in Cairo, during the rebellions of 2011: “it’s not the Egyptian revolution, it’s the Arab revolution”,4 he reports the meaning that is thus given to the events through a labelling that, in addition to the designation using the word ‘revolution’, credits the movement with a scope beyond national level, in contrast with this first designation, which in his eyes has become too restrictive and inadequate. A person contesting this assertoric choice could refute either the designator or the label ‘Arab’, or deny the lexia as a whole. When another journalist declares, in an article on “The fractures of the Tunisian revolution”: “the Tunisian revolution is a national revolution, the revolution of an entire nation, but what direction can it take?”,5 he is distinguishing a possible value in relation to others, such as “revolution of the youth demographic.” Discussion, from confirmation (that’s exactly the way it is) to refutation (that’s not the way it is at all) through rectification (that’s not quite the way it is) is a game of values in circulation in a domain that is delimited by an inside (truly P), noted I and corresponding to p, an outside (truly not p), noted E and corresponding to p', and a boundary (not truly p/not truly not p), noted IE and corresponding to 〈p, p'〉. I (p)

E (p′) possible and distinguished values

Junction (suspension, state of indistinction) Severance (observation standpoint) IE

〈p, p′〉

Figure 1.  Domain of validation

The area surrounding the junction corresponds to the assertoric modality, when the enunciator modulates his commitment and his choice, giving herself a margin of subjective estimation (I believe, it seems to me, according to me, I would say…), and to the inter-subject modalities (interrogation, injunction, causation), when the enunciator relies on an other for validation (interrogation, order, prayer,

4.  Libération (daily newspaper), February 24, 2011. 5.  Ibidem.

 Dominique Ducard

suggestion, wish) or refers validation to a subjective (ability, desire, will) or even external causes (coercion, as in a deontic context). When the enunciator adopts a disconnected point of view, positioning herself as an observer of the facts considered or imagined, she finds herself in the area of the modalities of supposition, of the probable, the possible, the necessary and the hypothetical. When we are faced with the forms of the exclamatory modality, in the broad sense, with extreme values (surprise, admiration, rejection, indignation, insult…), we leave the sphere of the assertion of a proposition that is or could be validated. We then obtain a diagram featuring three directional areas, that which comprises assertoric choices, that where assertion is suspended, and an area outside the sphere of validation, with exits and re-entrances. I (p)

E (p′) the one or the other alter uter IE

〈p, p′〉

Suspended uterque

irrelevant nec uter Figure 2.  Assertoric choices

The measure of the distance between representation and situational reference (what is thought in what is said and that which is referred to in saying it), of the distance between the possible values (what is said in relation to what is not said), and of the distance between the enunciator and the co-enunciator (the self and the other, with its variable), takes place within the abstract space that constitutes the validation domain (p/p' et 〈p, p'〉). It is this symbolic gap, which is an essential part of language activity, that we try to fill with variable degrees of success and that makes inter-subject adjustment possible. 3.  Adjustment A. Culioli (1990) gives an excellent explanation of the essential character of this constitutional gap and calls attention to the two theoretical pitfalls of referentialism and representationalism. How clear things would be if reference operations could be reduced to ostensive designation, whether by touching or by pointing to the referent. No more distance between representation and presentation, no more risk of error, since there



Dialogue entries and exits 

would no longer be any distance between the representation and the represented. Identification would be accomplished by an inescapable appropriateness and communication would consist in showing and attracting attention. It is true that there would then be no assertions, since in order to assert one must be in a position to commit oneself, to represent to oneself the possible paths, to decide, to choose. Neither would there be any deferred assertion by which one anticipates a coming event, any fictional assertions as in hypotheticals, there would be no generic assertions since the generic implies working on possibilities beyond actuality. There would be no modality or temporality. Further still, interactions would disappear, in their complexity that blends the transindividual with the intersubjectivity and the interlocution. (pp. 127–128, my translation)

We therefore cannot agree with the schema of interaction suggested by H. Paul Grice (1975), with rules organised around a principle of cooperation, following a logic of conversation where each participant contributes to a process of tuning, as one would with a musical instrument to make possible a tuneful interpretation; rules that take the form of prescriptions6 that the locutors are supposed to have assimilated and that would enable them, in the event of these maxims being flouted, to infer the required implicatures. The term transaction that Grice uses in order to qualify the course of interaction and the analogies that he uses in order to make explicit their cooperative nature (repairing a car and using the suitable tools and spare parts, asking for help or the performance of a service, baking a cake following a recipe) sufficiently show that interlocution is identified with an exchange of friendly services and with the use of the appropriate implements. It is plain that discourses are governed by norms of various kinds, which are more or less strict according to the situation, and that can sometimes go as far as becoming regulations that restrict acts of communication according to genuine protocols, but as far as the interlocutors are concerned, the possibilities of lying and deceiving, of bluffing, dissimulation, misunderstanding, quid pro quo, reserve or silence, indifference, seduction, showing off, attacking and fleeing, not to mention the hesitations and tremors that affect the process of speech, with the failings and accidents of expression that psychoanalysis links to a different source, when the unconscious takes to the paths of verbal expression, should not be omitted.

6.  Let us recall the four maxims, with the rules and sub-rules, which rely on the principle of cooperation: Quantity: 1. “Make your contribution as informative as is required,” 2. “Do not make your contribution more informative than is required”; Quality: 1. “Do not say what you believe to be false,” 2. “Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence”; Relation: “Be relevant”; Modality: “Be clear,” with 1. “Avoid obscurity of expression,” 2. “Avoid ambiguity,” 3. “Be brief,” 4. “Be orderly.”

 Dominique Ducard

For linguistics of operations and representations, and with this idea that ­language is a dynamic and open system, an interplay of forms and meanings, adjustment has a central place. The enunciator constructs utterances in such a way that another subject, who receives them and recognizes them, is led to deconstruct and reconstruct them on the basis of markers of representations that are ordered by ascribing values to them. The meaning of an utterance, in communication, is the result of an “intersubjective accommodation” (Culioli 1999b, p. 48, my translation), or, to keep within a constructivist perspective such as ­Piaget’s (1936), of a sort of assimilation-accommodation, with phases of balance and unbalance, of stabilisation and destabilisation. The subject’s enunciatory activity oscillates between closedness and openness to alteration by another subject, considered, in relation to the person committing himself to what he is saying, as an alter ego or an alius.7 4.  Exchanges By transposing the graph of assertoric decision and of the sphere of validation within the discursive context of inter-subject exchanges, we obtain an equivalent schema, which enables us to represent positions and movements within an abstract system of localisation and orientation, and to topologically define the ­discursive space of discussion in dialogue. Space of dialogue p p′ Exchange and commitment (assertoric force) The play of co-enunciation (face to face) “Offside” (intensity)

exit

intersubjectivity and discursivity: that which can be debatable

suspension, beginning, hesitation reentry

intrasubjectivity

Figure 3.  Discursive space of discussion

By way of illustration, we will take the example of a type of debate that takes the form of a montage, edited by a journalist, of a confrontation between two

7.  We follow the common meaning of the word other, that designates another person or persons, as opposed to the self of the speaker and excluding this self, whereas the alter ego is to be understood as “another myself ”.



Dialogue entries and exits 

economists on a set topic: “to leave or not to leave the euro ?”.8 The journalist’s questions, in what one supposes was a remote interview, dictate the course of the discussion between the two opponents. As the aim is to question ourselves about the monetary future of the euro, the enunciators’ commitment is in great part characterized by uncertainty and is based on an opinion, a belief, combined with a wish or a fear, when the speaker judges the represented state of affairs as being favourable or unfavourable, according to his point of view. A few excerpts only will be commented upon, in their order of succession during the interview, focusing on the assertions exchanged, that is to say, the utterances that answer each other. A.C. – I think, like Daniel Cohen, that we are in a very uncertain situation, that the crisis of the euro is both behind and before us. But you say that this crisis has been adequately absorbed by the euro, yet nobody is saying how it would have been absorbed otherwise, especially where France is concerned. Devaluations never frightened me: the one in 1958 was a success, the one in 1969 also, with no inflation, with the return of a very strong growth of the economy. One cannot keep silent about what might have been. I note that after ten years of the euro, the French economy has experienced its worst decade since 1945: just about nonexistent growth, an external trade deficit that is greater than ever, a considerable public deficit, all accompanied by a level of unemployment that affects nearly 3 million people. You may claim that the situation would have been even worse without the euro, but, as far as I am concerned, I do not accept that argument.

The first utterance, with the assertoric modalisation (“I think that”) posits the existence of a common judgment, which establishes a co-orientation between the interlocutors. The follow-up with “but” marks an addition and a change of area that does not call into question the quoted proposition P: “this crisis has been adequately absorbed by the euro”, but pertains to the fact of saying P in the face of other-than-P or P', which the “yet” introduces: “how would it have been absorbed otherwise and especially where France is concerned”. The proposition P' contradicts P in that it constructs a representation in the past, using the conditional past, imagining an alternative (“otherwise”: without the euro) and specifying the fictional situation (“especially where France is concerned”). Furthermore, this proposition remains unspoken in the face of the spoken proposition of the opposing enunciator, and the empty enunciative instance “nobody is saying”, with which he

8.  Discussion by the economists Daniel Cohen (DC) and Alain Cotta (AC) during an interview granted to the Les Echos and published in issue n0 20869 on Monday 14 February 2011. Taken from the newspaper’s website, Les Echos: http://www.lesechos.fr/economie-politique/ monde/actu/0201135921529-sortir-ou-non-de-l-euro-le-debat.htm.

 Dominique Ducard

is grouped (one could add “yourself included”), implies its complementary proposition, which can be restored in this context: “I am saying”. What follows specifies the subjective evaluation of the enunciator backed up by the lesson of the past, then we have a repetition of the denunciation of what is being left aside by a collective “one” whose referent is vague, including the “you” (you and those that, like you), which takes the form of an injunction, with the deontic value of the verb can: “One cannot keep silent about what might have been.” The objective evaluation of an effective situation: I note that is used as a measure of another possible estimation, of a fictional nature, attributed to the other: ‘You may claim that P', whose claim to validity the predicate disqualifies, and which is immediately refuted in its argumentative value by the enunciator, who puts the emphasis on his own stance: “but, as far as I am concerned, I do not accept that argument”. The discussion on this point is therefore closed. To the journalist’s next question, Daniel Cohen will respond by using a similar form of reasoning, with, in succession, arguments supported by facts, the ascribing of intentionality to the other and a conjecture whose consequences are envisaged in relation to effective reality, according to a rule to be inferred. Journalist – Would it be advantageous to some countries to leave the euro? D. C. – No. The successful devaluations of which Alain Cotta speaks were planned. When they are implemented under the pressure of an international crisis, they are almost always a failure, because the one who is devaluing is usually not the only one to do so. Alain Cotta is dreaming that France would devalue in relation to the mark, but one must imagine that Spain, Italy and others would also devalue in relation to us. Yet France’s negative balance of trade with Germany represents only half of its deficit with the euro zone.

The convergence of theses is sometimes admitted to: “A.C. – There is a point on which we are in agreement: the euro was and remains a political currency (…)”, and the divergences are accentuated by a for me at the beginning of an utterance, a constitutional indication of the origin of the assertion and a marker of the non substitutability and separation of the subjects (me, in that I am who I am): “A.C. – For me, the common currency, or ECU, would rather constitute a happy compromise between the practical necessity of the unification of the continent and the diversity of the economies of which it is made up, and, further on, D.C.- For me, this common currency does not exist.” A.C. enunciates a choice credited with a positive value in relation to other possibilities, with the conditional, a mix of future and imperfect, which places the subject as an observer of the representation he constructs, independently of any referential situation, and a rather that supposes a gradient and a weighting of values.



Dialogue entries and exits 

D.C., who is more categorical, refutes any possible construction of the concept and consequentially rejects, with the anaphoric repetition, in which we detect critical overtones, the proposition put forward by A.C. Moreover, when A.C. projects himself into a future situation, he displays a sense of what is to come in the mode of possibility: “A.C. – The single currency only benefits Germany, and not Europe. Maybe it won’t last! We will see, in ten years’ time (…)”, just as he modulates his declarations, even when he is contesting those of his partner: “A.C. – Daniel Cohen thinks that the existence of a single currency is a necessary constraint for Europe to live in a certain stability. I do not believe this, I think that nations will continue to live and that they pay the price for democracy, which is diversity.” The only mildly sharp protestation in this moderate and rational confrontation is the following: “A.C. – The currency snake worked… D.C. – No ! It was a disaster”. This debate, whose direction was given by a question that set up an alternative, takes us from one stance to another, in the alternation of viewpoints, each of which takes shape by confronting with the other on common questions, each of the actors seeking first and foremost to justify one of the possible choices, with or against the others. Intersubjective adjustment, in the intentions of meaning, is regulated by economic discourses and by the journalistic context of this staging of opinions. We will give a few examples of exiting the space of discussion and of escaping into the in-between (entre-deux) of dialogue with more passionate debates. First, with a confrontation between the philosopher Michel Onfray, who gave rise to a virulent controversy in the French public arena following the publication of his book Le crépuscule d’une idole,9 a damning condemnation of Freudian psychoanalysis, and the psychoanalyst Jacques-Alain Miller, an eminent representative of the Lacanian movement. The scene takes place in the latter’s home, with the journalists of Philosophie Mag, who have organised the meeting and published the transcription of the exchange (Duru & Lacroix 2010). We will pay special attention to the exclamatory forms, whose values are diverse and whose degree of intensity is variable, and which tend, as markers of the enunciator’s emotional investment, to sever the co-enunciatory relationship.

9.  This work was published in 2010 by Grasset as Le crépuscule d’une idole. L’affabulation freudienne. The author denounces Freud’s invention in virulent terms, considering it to be a deception and a forgery.

 Dominique Ducard

M. O. – (…) There, I perceived for the first time the magical power of psychoanalysis. My students saw me as a sort of guru holding the key to their existential torments. But I did not want to become that guru, owing to a refusal to take up the position of the master J.-A. M. – Lacan calls that “the effect of the subject who is supposed to know”, a power of fascination that can be traded in various guises. M. O. – Traded, the word is well chosen!

The sarcasm is perceptible, in the context of the disparagement of psychoanalysis, which is reduced here to an abuse of power both mental and mercantile. The metalinguistic repetition of the word is the focus of a judgment of value, as far as its relation to its topic is concerned: it is the right word to designate that which it refers to. The utterance cannot be a mere assertion; to repeat the words pronounced by one’s interlocutor in order to comment on them adds a secondary value, either through nullification (it is not the right word for what is the case) or by modulation (it is not quite the right word), or by confirming its primary value (I’ll say it is and you are right to express it in this way), or else by deformation, by making another, underlying meaning appear (I’ll say it is, and you could not imagine how well you have expressed what I think, although it is not what you intended to say). What here might seem to be a finer adjustment, recognised by one of the enunciators, is in reality a way of cracking a joke based on a double meaning, with polemical intent. J.-A. M. – I am outraged that a man such as yourself could refer to that abominable rag, Le Livre noir…10 Furthermore, your opposition between history and legend seems to me to be crude. You are a strange creature, a positivist Nietzschean, who venerates so-called “facts”, what Nietzsche called “antiquarian history”. Psychoanalysis teaches us not to give in to this illusion. Raw facts do not exist, everything is a legend from the very beginning. You yourself produce a myth in the telling of your discovery of Freud at the Argentan market. Michel Onfray as told by himself… Of course Freud gave rise to a legend! And so what?

This counter-attack begins with an expression of indignation, which treats an established fact (“refer to that abominable rag…”) as a morally impossible possibility (“that a man such as you could…”), and ends with a pseudo-question. The asserted proposition “Freud gave rise to a legend” is repeated and validated, in its indisputable, undebatable character, with the consolidation of certainty (“of  course”). After this declaration, the addition (“And…”) and the follow-up (“so  what”) do not form an interrogative schema owing to the prosody in the

10.  Reference to the Livre noir de la psychanalyse, a collective work published in France by Arènes in 2005, with the aim of discrediting psychoanalytic theory and to draw attention to the failures of analysis as a form of therapy.



Dialogue entries and exits 

context, but mark the suspension of any inference that could have a counterargumentative value: it would have no effect on the discussion, would be to no avail (“one could have: and what does it change? Nothing”). M. O. – There are no internal contradictions in Leibniz or in Hegel. J.-A. M. – Oh really? And in Michel Onfray? M. O. – I do my best to make sure there aren’t any.

There again the interrogative schema is skewed. Here, the interjection and the tone are indicative not of surprise, but of feigned astonishment in reaction to the preceding assertion aimed at exposing its preposterousness. The expressive movement begun with the Oh is cut short by the really when the expression is one of an observation, with prosodic indications of disillusionment and resignation (Oh really, well if that’s the case then), or of the taking into account of a new fact (Oh really, I didn’t know). Here, the movement is one of false expectation of an answer, reactivated by a mischievous question, which does not expect an answer either, even if the respondent seems to take it seriously. There again, the aim is to empty a proposition of its relevance, but the attempt to catch the other off balance does not produce the desired effect. M. O. – (…) In his letters to Fliess, Freud confides that at times he would fall asleep during a patient’s talking cure! He writes that it is not the ears of the psychoanalyst that listen, but the unconsciouses that communicate! J.-A. M. – You are going to succeed in making me angry! Free-floating attention is a poor translation. The exact meaning of the German term used by Freud is equal attention. Learn to master your Freudian vocabulary! And then, until it is proven otherwise, the talking cure supposes an element of consent on the part of the subject, the submission is not that complete.

The warning marks an aggressive turn taken by the explanatory scene, with the periphrastic future used to signify the threat at hand, in the sense of that which is the predictable and imminent consequence of an act or an event currently taking place. The emotional state that is its result is expressed by the verb to succeed. The injunction that follows disqualifies the co-enunciator, to whom the lesson is being taught. These few types of exclamation show that the two interlocutors – in an unequal power struggle – exit the place where ideas are confronted, by nullifying certain propositions and by disparaging, to the point of disqualifying the person expressing them. The exemplary form of this operation, which is absent from the debate considered, is Whatever you say!, which signals that what is being said by the other is irrelevant, to the point of excluding him from the intersubjective force field of interaction (Ducard 2007). The coup that this turning back on oneself constitutes, what with the elimination, on both sides, of the figure of legitimate enunciator in whom a respondent may be recognized, can lead to the ultimate exit through

 Dominique Ducard

insult. The confrontation then takes on the shape of a quarrel and the dispute is resolved through acts of name-calling that are like as many verbal blows landed on the opponent, who is reduced to the status of mere speaker. A status that is called into question, furthermore, by the clashing of words, virulent interruptions and the uncontrolled words and gestures of the individuals. We give a glimpse of this with the lively exchanges, pertaining to the same question and transcribed during a popular television programme, between the same Michel Onfray and another psychoanalyst, Gérard Miller, closely related to the former by blood and intellectually.11 G.M. – Listen for one second to what I’m going to say to you./G.M. – Wait, let me finish, otherwise I’m going to speak louder than you and we won’t manage to finish./G.M. – I’m going to tell you frankly, I hope the formula will succeed; you really are the hidden son of Nietzsche and Zavatta.12/M.O. – You are not even able to crack a good joke on live television./G.M. – You read Freud for 20 years, and one day you discovered the truth, on day, like Bernadette Soubirous13 discovering the virgin; you understood that Freud was a fraud./M.O. – I do indeed think that in order to put an end to clowns like you, I think that one can invent a new kind of psychoanalysis.

The title given to this altercation: “Polemic on Freud: Michel Onfray Versus Gérard Miller”, with the Versus separating the two names, is echoed by the staging of the verbal joust: lined up in front of the journalists and the public, they tower, sending each other’s arguments back to back, one against the other, in attack and in defence. Thus we have transited from the case of a debate where the enunciators spoke face to face, with each of them playing by the rules of exchange, in agreement or disagreement, making commitments and leaving room for a margin of indecision or contestation through modulated assertions, to cases of locutors set side by side, where the tactic is to disparage the discourse and devalue the enunciator, and then to the case of a face-to-face confrontation between locutors, each of whom seeks, on his own account, to make his opponent lose face through the use of wounding words and offending name-calling.

11.  Canal+, Le grand journal, “Polémique sur Freud : Michel Onfray Versus Gerard Miller”, Published on Thursday 22 April 2010. Taken from the website of the political association Egalité et réconciliation: http://www.egaliteetreconciliation.fr/Polemique-sur-Freud-MichelOnfray-Versus-Gerard-Miller-3119.html. 12.  Translator’s note: Zavatta was a famous French circus clown. 13.  Translator’s note: Bernadette Soubirous of Lourdes was a nineteenth century French mystic who claimed to have had visions of the Virgin Mary. She was canonised in 1933.



Dialogue entries and exits 

5.  To conclude Although enunciative theory may converge with certain propositions of the pragmatics of communicative interaction, with its philosophical dimension, it differs from these in both its starting and finishing points, which concern speech acts as they are conducted in discourse, anchored in a situation of interlocution. Pragmatics is then embedded in linguistics. Theory has to provide itself with a metalinguistic representational system which allows the motivations and driving forces of this activity to be understood. Theoretical concepts, interlinked with one another, form a coherent conceptual framework for explanation and interpretation; while graphs indicate positions and orientations by means of a dynamic elementary topology, schematizing the operations and representations at play within forms. It is on this basis that we can envisage differently Apel’s three validity claims, Jacques’ dialogic principle and Ricoeur’s dialectic of ipseity and otherness. In this way the concepts of assertion and adjustment, with the other theoretical concepts implied (value, situational reference, validation and valuation, commitment, assertoric force and intensity, intersubjective relation and co-enunciation), have allowed us to conceive an abstract space that we have called, going back to the primary meanings of the words discourse, discussion and dialogue: discursive space of discussion in dialogue. This space “plays” a constitutional role in linguistic a­ ctivity, in the practise of speech and discourse that, in communication, is performed about, in order to and for someone. Benveniste would underline that the characteristic of enunciation that is “the accentuation of the discursive relation to the partner, whether the latter is real or imagined, individual or collective”, and that establishes what he called its “figurative framework”, with the two figures of the source and the goal, correspond to the “structure of dialogue” (Benveniste 1974, p. 85). The “play” in question, which is to be understood according to the both meanings of the word play, points, on the one hand, to an action of symbolic exchange between subjects, with a regulatory system that defines successes and failures, depending on the situations of the players present, and on the other hand, to the free space that ensures the functioning of this activity, as one says that a mechanism has play. This requires at least two people, for, to quote Montaigne’s (1595) expression, “Speech is half to he who speaks, half to he who listens” (Book III, Chapter 13, my translation),14 adding that every speaker is at the same time her

14.  “La parole est moitié à celuy qui parle, moitié à celuy qui l’escoute. Cestuy-cy se doibt preparer à la recevoir, selon le branle qu’elle prend. Comme entre ceux qui joüent à la paume, celuy qui soustient, se desmarche et s’appreste, selon qu’il voit remuer celuy qui luy jette le coup, et selon la forme du coup.” (Michel de Montaigne, Essais 1595, Livre III, Chapitre 13).

 Dominique Ducard

own listener. “Montaigne, Jean Starobinski comments, imagines speech like the movement of a ball that players throw to each other. Speech, in his view, is only fully speech when it has crossed the interval that separates the speaker from the listener, and that an answer has been returned. This presupposes shared obedience to rules: rules of language, rules of exchange between partners”. (Starobinski 2009, p. 9, my translation). And if this literary critic says that in his work, he wished not only to “propose a listening, but to awaken the ability to respond” (p. 9, my translation), he recognizes the constant risk of the “illspoken” (malparlé) and of misunderstanding. The ethics of dialogue do not reside in an instance transcendental to the world of language, but in this world itself, in the practice of discourses, with the hazards of a game in which each one is playing her own hand.

References Apel, K.-O. 1994. Le logos propre au langage humain. Paris, France: Editions de l’Éclat. Benveniste, É. 1966. Problèmes de linguistique générale. Paris: Gallimard. Benveniste, E. 1974. Problèmes de linguistique générale II. Paris: Editions Gallimard. Buber, M. 1958. I and thou. Trans. Ronald Gregor Smith. New York: C. Scribner. Culioli, A. 1990. Pour une linguistique de l’énonciation. Opérations et représentations, Tome 1. Paris: Ophrys. Culioli, A. 1999a. Pour une linguistique de l’énonciation. Formalisation et opérations de repérage, Tome 2. Paris: Ophrys. Culioli, A. 1999b. Pour une linguistique de l’énonciation. Domaine notionnel, Tome 3. Paris: Ophrys. Culioli, A. 2001. Heureusement! In Saberes no Tempo. Homenagem a Maria Henriqueta Costa Campos, eds. M. H. M. Mateus and C. N. Correia, 279–284. Lisbon, Portugal: Ediçoes Colibri. Ducard, D. 2004. Entre grammaire et sens. Études sémiologiques et linguistiques. Paris: Ophrys. Ducard, D. 2011. N’importe quoi! Le hors sujet de l’énonciation. In La prise en charge énonciative. Etudes théoriques et empiriques, eds. P. Dendale and D. Coltier, 183–198. Bruxelles: De Boeck-Duculot. Ducard, D. 2012. Se parler à l’autre. Presented at the International Seminar Dialogisme: langue et discours, Université Paul Valéry, Montpellier, France (to be part of an edited volume published by Peter Lang). Duru, M., and A. Lacroix. 2010. Michel Onfray et Jacques Miller – En finir avec Freud. ­Philosophie Mag 36. Retrieved from http://www.philomag.com/article,epoque,en-finir-avec-freud, 1103.php. Grice, H. P. 1975. Logic and conversation. In Syntax and semantics, vol. 3: Speech acts, eds. P. Cole and J. L. Morgan, 41–58. New York: Academic. Grice, H. P. 1979. Logique et conversation. Communication 30: 57–72. Habermas, J. 1984. The theory of communicative action. Reason and the rationalization of society, vol. 1. Trans. T. McCarthy. Boston, MA: Beacon Press. Jacques, F. 1979. Dialogiques, recherches logiques sur le dialogue. Paris: P.U.F.



Dialogue entries and exits 

Jacques, F. 1991. Difference and subjectivity: Dialogue and Personal Identity. New Haven: Yale University Press. Piaget, J. 1936. Origins of intelligence in the child. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Ricoeur, P. 1990. Soi-même comme un autre. Paris: Editions du Seuil. Maldiney, H. 2007. Penser l’homme et la folie. Paris: Editions Millon. Searle, J. R. 1979. Expression and meaning: Studies in the theory of speech acts. Cambridge: ­Cambridge University Press. Searle, J. R. 1982. Sens et expression. Etude de théorie des actes du langage. Paris: Editions de Minuit. Starobinski, J. 2009. La parole est moitié à celuy qui parle… Entretien avec Gérard Macé. Paris: la Dogana/France culture.

Contribution-Representation-Subordination as conversational patterns Manifestations of collective mind during routinized talk at work Bertrand Fauré* & Nicolas Arnaud† Building on Weick and Roberts (1993) initial distinction between three interactional patterns (Contribution, Representation, Subordination), this paper explores how collective minding (Cooren, 2004) could be manifested – and potentially performed or enacted – even during day to day interactions – or routines – in the workplace. Analysing a telephone exchange selected among a voluminous corpus of recorded interactions occurring during the routines of inter-organizational relationships (the delivery process in the French furniture sector), we present a model of conversational patterns likely to be involved in the manifestation of collective minding. We then discuss the implication of this analysis for current controversies in organizational communication theories (Cooren 2006; McPhee, Myers & Trethewey 2006). Keywords:  collective mind(ing); dialogue/conversation/interaction analysis; Inter-firm collaboration; organizational communication

1.  Introduction Talk at work (Drew & Heritage 1992) has occupied a voluminous body of literature among various disciplines (applied and socio-linguistics, psycho-sociology of labor relations, human-machine interactions, ethnography of talk, and so on) since at least the eighties. From ethnomethodological analysis of a unique meeting (Gephart 1978) to discourse analysis of a sample of registered interactions (Boje 1991), a wide range of methodologies and interactive situations (e.g. formal/ informal, hierarchical/functional, internal/external, written/spoken) have been

*  University of Toulouse, France. † 

Audencia Nantes – School of Management, France.

 Bertrand Fauré & Nicolas Arnaud

investigated in organizational sciences, leading to the progressive recognition of the constitutive role of the “business of talk” (Boden 1994) and of the organizing properties of communication under all its interactional forms – including talk, conversation, dialogue, or speech (Cooren 2000; Cooren 2010; McPhee & Zaug 2008; Taylor & Van Every 2000). During the last decades, the increasing specialization/interrelation of inter and intra organizational activities have led to theoretical debates about how organizational groups or networks could deal with this complexity without having necessarily a mutual knowledge or shared representation of their respective activities but rather a capacity to connect – coordinate and co-orientate- distributed forms of cognition (Hutchins 1995). Studying how interactions at work could reveal patterns of collective intelligence – mind or minding-became an important issue. P ­ revious studies on the topics have shown that collective mind is present within highly reliable forms of interactions such as carriers in an airport (Weick & ­Roberts 1993) as well as during more mundane forms of interactions such as monthly board meetings (Cooren 2004). How this phenomenon is achieved during more routinized interactions remains however to be documented. Indeed, routines at work can contribute to the organizational ability to change by creating connections between people and developing mutual understanding between them (Feldman & Rafaeli 2002). This paper aims to contribute to this debate by showing how collective minding could be manifested – and potentially performed or enacted – even during day to day interactions – or routines – in the workplace. Building on Weick and Roberts (1993) initial distinction between three interactional patterns (Contribution, Representation, Subordination), the first section presents a model of conversational patterns likely to be involved in the manifestation of collective minding and exposes the current controversies raised by such frame analysis in organizational communication theories (McPhee, Myers & Trethewey 2006). In the light of the research questions raised by these controversies, the second section analyzed a telephone exchange selected among a voluminous corpus of recorded interactions occurring during the routines of inter-organizational relationships (the delivery process in the French furniture sector). The third section discusses the implications of this analysis for organizational communication theories. 2.  Contribution-Representation-Subordination as conversational patterns The idea that communication is not a linear process of information exchanges between a sender and a receiver that occurs within organizational channels and boundaries has been strongly claimed in the 1980’s (Putnam & Pacanowsky 1983).



Contribution-Representation-Subordination as conversational patterns 

The “conduit metaphor” (Axley 1984; Reddy 1979), despite being still widely assumed by managerial studies about communication, lost its monopoly in organizational science with the emergence of other approaches such as the interpretive movement (Burrell & Morgan 1979) or organizational discourse (Grant, Hardy, Oswick & Putman 2004). In these approaches, communication is a complex and uncertain sensemaking process involving active participation of organizational members (Weick 1986). This process does not occur within organizations ­(conduit metaphor) but is rather the constitutive process by which such organizations can exist and maintain itself (co-production metaphor, Smith 1993). Studies ­showing “how many voices of a collectivity can become the one voice of an organization” (Taylor & Cooren 1997) or how organizational closures can be permanently (re)enacted through routinized conversational patterns such as “speech timing and spacing” (Cooren & Fairhurst 2004) and “presentification of sources of authority” (Benoit-Barné & Cooren 2009) are representative of this approach. Almost forty years later, such a fall of the monopoly of the “conduit metaphor” seems more than ever consumed: these alternative approaches of communication at work constitute now institutionalized scholarships and research agendas. They have led to account for marginalized voices and rationality as well as for the communicational grounding of relationships between organizations and society (Mumby & Stohl 1996). Moreover, they have disseminated their subversive thoughts even within the not-anymore-monolithic managerial voice. Recent research offer good examples of the increasing recognition of the organizing properties of communication, even within the most formalized forms of management (Chaput, B ­ rummans & Cooren 2011; Fauré, Brummans, Giroux, Taylor 2010). Communication as organizing almost becomes a new doxa or credo within organizational studies. Indeed, it is now a lieu commun to say that communication is not a simple process of information transfer and that conversation does not simply rely on -and aim to- ‘mutual representation’ or ‘share knowledge’. However, the idea that it is possible to create and maintain shared representations between organizational members by communicating about what these representations should be still inspires (and obscures) numerous corporate policies. The development of corporate climate or culture, for example, often relies on such assumption as well as most methods of knowledge (or intelligence) management (Iverson & McPhee 2002). The Contribution, Representation Subordination model is one tool among others for dissipating this misleading view. It was initially formulated by Weick for modeling heedful interactions within highly reliable forms of organizing (Weick  & Roberts 1993) and lately reformulated by Cooren (2004) in order to insight the communicative achievement of such collective minding during board meetings. In this model, Representing consists in “envisaging a social system of

 Bertrand Fauré & Nicolas Arnaud

joint action” (Weick & Roberts 1993, p. 363). During conversations, the representations of this joint action can be amended through successive contributions. The model postulates that the intelligence of this process does not reside in the fact that a solution to the problem is adopted but rather in the way contributions are subordinated in order to amend the initial representation of the joint situation. This intelligence is collective when this subordination cannot be realized by a sole individual. Advancing this model as a conceptual framework for conversational analysis, Cooren (2004) pursues two objectives: – Showing that form of collective intelligence can be found in patterns of ­conversational behavior (CRS); – Showing that collective mind is co-extensive with the process of organizing (translocalization). Analyzing an interaction occurring during a monthly board meeting of a drug rehabilitation program in New-York state, Cooren first analyses the presentification of CRS conversational patterns (p. 533) and then shows how they explain ­processes of translocalization (p. 534) and distributed cognition (p. 536). He finally argues: The collective mind that emerges in conversation is the hybrid result of multiple forms of CRS that directly or indirectly mobilize past interactions and absent individuals or departments in the present discussion (effects of translocalization). (…) During interactions a series of textual blocks (…) are constructed, amended and added that ultimately represent the intelligence or heedfulness of the group. (…) It is by studying how collective minding occurs during natural interactions that we can identify the mechanisms by which organizations can become more comprehensive and reliable. (Cooren 2004, p. 540–544)

Such arguments strongly support the relevance of conversational analysis for explaining the organizing properties of communication. Not only are organizations reflected by discourse – or reflects of Discourses –, they are also constituted through it (Alvesson & Karreman 2000; Fairhurst & Putnam 2004). By showing how the CRS are enacted through the different turn takings performed during the conversation, Cooren demonstrates that collective minding can be found as soon as forms of organizing are taking place (Cooren 2006, p. 529). The analysis of Cooren has however received a rude attack from McPhee, Myers and Trethewey (2006). In a special issue of MCQ journal, they strongly criticize the relevance of conversational analysis in general and of CRS patterns in particular for the understanding of collective mind (and organizing). They first argue that conversational CRS patterns are not necessary (“Almost all conversation exhibits CRS, Many cooperative actions do not involve and depend on CRS”)



Contribution-Representation-Subordination as conversational patterns 

neither sufficient (“Conversational coherence is not a reliable signs of the systemic functions of conversation, the conversation analyzed is not a good example of a reflective discussion”) for collective minding. They finally claim that the conversational analysis of Cooren suffers from several methodological limits and such cannot explain organizing: – the reference to past conversation is an evidence of intertextuality not of organizing; – the future enactment of the conversation is not evidenced (translocalization thus remains hypothetical); – the conversation analysis in its own fails to capture how higher level systems of power influence situated interactions. Indeed, these arguments are not completely new in the wider field of the ­theories and applications of conversation analysis (psychotherapy, education, medicine, management, and so on). How language in use interplays with higher ­societal ­levels has long been a classic issue whom answer is generally considered as methodological. If the aim of conversation analysis is to show how the social is accounted (Garfinkel 1967), displayed (Goffman 1981), performed (Austin 1962), enacted (Giddens 1984) or authorized (Bourdieu 1982) through a situated work of talking-listening – or speaking-hearing –, so the conversations analyzed must be carefully recorded from ecological investigations and then socially, temporally and spatially related through an in-depth account of their enunciative context (Sillince 2007). In management studies, the classical study of Boje (1991) is a good example of how stories in conversation (gossips, jokes, …) are articulated to wider narrative Discourses (myths, fictions…) by analyzing the regular patterns of talk underlying an extensive recording of natural interactions. Discourses shape the day-to-day enactment of discourse (talk). But the flow of talk, despite its chaotic appearances, presents low frequency regularities which contribute to constitute and reconstitute the social order reflected by Discourses. In Boje study, conversations are necessary to the ongoing storytelling of organizations. And evidencing recurrent gossips in the flow of conversations is sufficient to attest that a storytelling process is enacted. If one wants to demonstrate that conversations are necessary and sufficient for collective mind, the collection and analysis of data must be more extensive than six attendances to monthly boards meetings – as Cooren did. Unfortunately for McPhee et al.’s (2006) critique, this demonstration was not the concern of Cooren’s analysis. In a “rejoinder” published in the same issue of MCQ journal, Cooren concedes that his data should be enriched by longitudinal study but denies having ever said that CRS was necessary or sufficient for

 Bertrand Fauré & Nicolas Arnaud

collective mind(ing). In the line of Weick’s initial proposition – CRS are manifestations of collective mind not conditions – his objective was rather to show that “interaction reveals patterns of behavior that display a form of collective intelligence” (p. 530). According to this objective, his analysis of the elusive conversational mechanisms according to the CRS framework is convincing. It is true that the phenomenon of translocalization, for example, would deserve to be deeper evidenced. But as far as such “speech spacing and timing” has already been documented (Cooren & Fairhurst 2004), its existence can be presumed. Despite McPhee et al.’s critique, Cooren’s contribution consists of showing that this phenomenon of translocalization is sometimes embedded in the CRS conversational patterns, a form of embeddedness that explains how these patterns coextend with collective minding. This explanation, Cooren argues, does not require any longitudinal study of talk. Even if we do not know if the translocalization of the contributions enunciated in the unique interaction analyzed will be lately successful, we can presume that it sometimes happens. And as far as the subordination locally realized relies on the incarnation of other translocalizable contributions, we can also presume that conversations are a relevant site for studying how collective minding manifests, functions and evolves. Notwithstanding a possible future counter-critique of McPhee et al., our aim in this article is to offer an enriched empirical demonstration of such claim. In the light of the previous arguments, the following research questions can be formulated: – RQ1: Can collective mind be manifested during routinized talk at work? – RQ2: Are CRS conversational patterns relevant for evidencing its presence? – RQ3: Is longitudinal analysis necessary to answer the first two questions? 3.  Manifestations of collective mind during routinized talk at work In order to answer these questions, we chose to focus our analysis on a class of interactions illustrative of current organizational transformations: the development of inter-organizational relationships (Hardy, Lawrence & Grant 2005; Van de Ven & Walker 1984). Such development contributes to increase the proportion of work that is carried out by collectives of loosely related individuals (­ different cultures, educations, objectives, short-lived and superficial relations). In these contexts, it is quite utopist to presume that a “one-way message” could be understood by all in the same way and that such collective performance could rely on the establishment of shared and stable representations. It rather seems more reali­ stic to presume that interactions between members of different organizations give



Contribution-Representation-Subordination as conversational patterns 

rise to incomplete, inconsistent or contradictory interpretations and that collective minding precisely consists in conversationally dealing with this irreducible indetermination – or ambiguity. Such class of interactions is presumably relevant for our analytical purpose. This first section presents the inter-organizational background (two companies in the furniture sector: a manufacturer and a transporter) of the interactions analyzed (see Annex 1) as well as the data collected for this analysis (documents, interviews, recorded interactions). We will then present our two-step analysis of a telephonic exchange between representatives of these companies, selected from our recorded interactions. 3.1  Inter-organizational background The French furniture industry emerged in the 1960s. Modernization of the sector resulted in a concentration and industrialization of furniture manufacture, allowing economies of scale (Bordas 1991, 1992; Harbon 2002). During the second half of the 1980s, these furniture producers experienced considerable problems resulting, in particular, in the initial outsourcing of those manufacturers’ transport operations. While firms transporting new furniture had previously existed, outsourcing, which continues to a lesser extent, has certainly spurred the growth of furniture transport firms. Foreign trade is increasing, and new, more industriali­ zed manufacturers have surfaced. This means that firms that had long followed domestic conventions (Boltanski & Thévenot 2006) must modernize and update their productive facilities. Such transformations necessitate new ways of organizing work that can increasingly personalize logistics services, in order to better meet the requirements of current and future markets. Conformingly to the evolutions of this industry, the two companies studied are bound by a contract stipulating that the transport firm (TransportCo) is to carry the manufacturer company’s (ManufactCo) items of furniture from the factory to the retailer. ManufactCo is one of the transport firm’s regular, very active clients. Their collaboration is heavily on the long-term relationship between the companies’ senior managers. Their collaboration was one of the transport firm’s first one to be set down in a contract that specifies the broad outline of how the partnership would operate. The delivery process implies three types of actors: the manufacturer, the transporter and the retailer. The delivery contract is only signed between the first two companies. This means that when a problem emerges, the manufacturer will first call the transporter and the retailer will call the manufacturer (his supplier). So, transporter and retailer are rarely in touch except to define the time of a delivery (an always basic interaction).

 Bertrand Fauré & Nicolas Arnaud

3.2  Data collection Studying interactions in organizational contexts implies a considerable exploration of the environments in which these interactions occur, along with an understanding of the practices and logic with which the people involved operate. We have consequently used a triangulation methodology to collect information (Jick 1979). Direct observation (Yin 2003): The non-participant observation has been r­ ealized in two periods of five months each between 2004 and 2006. The first period helped us understand the work within the operation room of the transporter. The second period of observation was realized according to the same aims. This is also during this period that we realized our interviews. During the last period of observation, we recorded 15 days of work corresponding to 5 hours of conversation per day (75 hours on record), mainly made of interactions between operation managers, colleagues, clients, drivers, retailers. Ninety per cent of the conversations recorded involved interactions dealing with interorganizational issues. Interviews to provide a reconstruction of the background: For this research, we completed a series of 35 semi-structured interviews, averaging 75 minutes. This provided an opportunity to collect discursive data and thus record features that would make it possible to understand modes of behavior, whether conscious or unconscious. This technique also clarifies organizational realities, as experienced by the people involved (Demers 2003), and makes it possible to appreciate some of the subjective aspects relating to the participants in the conversations we ­analyzed (reflecting their social background and career paths) (Rouleau 2003). More ­generally, interviews were carried out to identify concerns and needs of the ­various people involved in furniture transport and logistics. It was therefore important to talk to all the people involved in the issues (both the client and the service provider) and to obtain the most diverse sample possible, in terms of levels within a hierarchy and potentially different viewpoints (­Eisenhardt & Graebner 2007). Document analysis: Internal documents such as profitability indicators of the delivery process, quality indicator sheets and forms recording malfunction codes were collected as well as press articles covering the sector and the firms s­ tudied. Such documentation enables us to better understand the global issues of the delivery process (Annex 1). At the higher levels of the companies, inter and intra-­ organizational interactions are frequently concerned with performance reports on key indicators of this process. However, at the level of middle management where our observations were conducted, such issues were not explicitly raised. As we will see, interactions were rather concerned with more practical complications.



Contribution-Representation-Subordination as conversational patterns 

3.3  First step analysis: Selection of an illustrative interaction During the immersion periods, 75 hours of interactions were recorded. Two types of interactions can be distinguished: type 1: Inter-organizational interactions (by telephone); type 2: Intra-organizational interactions dealing with inter-­ organizational issues (face-to-face or by telephone). Type-one interactions are concerned with conversations involving operators from the transporter and a manufacturer. From our observations, we were able to identify three kinds of conversations. First of all, the transporter calls their client in order to inform them that a delivery will be delayed or cancelled because of external reasons such as snow, traffic jam, or accidents. Second, they call each other in order to prepare and do the loading (second part of the week, see Annex 3). Finally, with the implementation of the interfirms information system, clients get information about their deliveries in real time. Consequently, most of their interactions deal with problematic situations. Type-two interactions involve operators from the manufacturer or the transporter and deal with inter-organizational issues. In this type of conversation, operator managers (OM) discuss face to face or by telephone with different kinds of colleagues within the company. OM interact with (1) people in charge of the returns (when products are broken), (2) drivers who inform OM that he will be late for any reason, or that he loaded a parcel in his truck that was supposed to go somewhere else, (3) people in the warehouse looking for missing products, (4) the person in charge of organizing all the loading, or (5) others OM to try to mutualize their ­loadings so they can free one vehicle that is then able to go to a specific destination. All these interactions are directly related with the production of the delivery. From this global picture of the interactions recorded, a specific set of frequent type-1 interactions appeared as particularly relevant for our analytical purposes: these interactions involved two identified members (Operator Managers) of each companies (which simplifies the account of their respective responsibilities and limits the problem of “talk overlap”); their duration was short (3 minutes) and interrupted by information search activities (which enables the researcher to ask clarifications about what is at stake); they were dealing with a recurrent class of problems raised by the delivery process. Theoretically, the inter-organizational interactions between the delivery services of the manufacturer and the transporter companies consist in validating, verifying and reporting all the operations realized at each steps of the delivery (ordering, discharging, loading, and delivering). However, unpredictable complications during goods’ transportation (accidents; a delay during a delivery, which causes delays in subsequent deliveries; breakages; shortages discovered while making a delivery,…) or during information proceeding (breakdowns of

 Bertrand Fauré & Nicolas Arnaud

the database, misplaced, incomplete or false data,…) seriously undermine such ideal plan. Several recorded interactions between the persons in charge of these services are concerned by complications related to the transportation of goods and information proceeding – or by a combination of both. The conversation selected for the analysis (see Tables 1 and 2) is representative of this class of interactions. The OM of the delivery service in the manufacturer company (Sylvie) calls his homologue in the transporter company (Jean-Luc) in order to know if an ‘order of loading’ she sent one week ago ‘has been dealt with.’ Despite a succession of more than 10 questions-responses turns (involving numerous consultations of Echo.log’s databases and available contractual documents related to the delivery process), they cannot solve the problem raised by Sylvie and she is committed to “find out from the retailer” what is going on. Whether or not she calls is the topic of our discussion related to RQ3 (Section 3). The conversation lasts three minutes, which is the average length of any conversation we recorded. As explained above, the transporter usually loads the products at their manufacturers between Wednesday and Saturday morning. The situation studied is slightly different. Indeed, because the good the manufacturer is asking about was urgent, Sylvie had to ask the Transporter to load it on “Monday morning.” She declares having the delivery note (“22nd 8.45 am”). The transporter must then possess the duplicate in order to enter the related information on the database. In this case, Jean-Luc does not find it, which apparently means he has not received the good and that the product cannot have been delivered. After looking for information within several tools (computer, notebook, fax, memo), he does not find anything, not even the delivery note from the retailer. All these actions/ contributions make him declare line 32, “No, I haven’t got anything. I haven’t got anything entered.” From this first analysis of our material, such interaction is representative of how inter-organizational issues are conversationally dealt at the middle management level of the companies we studied. 3.4  Second step analysis: Application of the CRS model Our objective in this second step of our analysis is to show that such elusive manifestations of collective minding can be relevantly tracked by using the CRS conversational patterns model. In order to do so, two levels of representations must be distinguished: Representation of the contributions subordinated to the delivery process (commanding, ordering, preparing, picking up, parceling, loading, receiving (see graph, Annexes 1 and 2); Representation of the present and future contributions subordinated to the problem at stake (information search activities such as watching on computer, calling someone, reminding something,…).



Contribution-Representation-Subordination as conversational patterns 

Table 1.  The conversation analyzed: Discussion between an operations manager and a client operator Speaker

Utterance

1

Manufacturer: Sylvie

Good morning. This is Sylvie of FRENCHHOME.

2

Transporter: Jean-Luc

Good morning.

3

Manufacturer: Sylvie

How are things?

4

Transporter: Jean-Luc

Fine. And you?

5

Manufacturer: Sylvie

Very well, thank you. Tell me: I sent you an urgent delivery this week. I sent you a fax (2) and I wanted to know whether you’d dealt with it.

6

Transporter: Jean-Luc

Er (2), I don’t know anything about it (2). In any case, I sent everything out for delivery on the 6th. What was it? Lele stuff?

7

Manufacturer: Sylvie

Yes.

8

Transporter: Jean-Luc

But are you sure we’ve got the goods?

9

Manufacturer: Sylvie

Yes.

10

Transporter: Jean-Luc

When was it sent? (begins searching on his PC)

11

Manufacturer: Sylvie

It was sent on the 22nd, in the morning.

12

Transporter: Jean-Luc

(2) The 22nd!?

13

Manufacturer: Sylvie

Yes.

14

Transporter: Jean-Luc

Monday!?

15

Manufacturer: Sylvie

Yes.

16

Transporter: Jean-Luc

Where was it sent?=

17

Manufacturer: Sylvie

=To Droinath (the transport firm for which Jean-Luc is working)!! ((LAUGHS)) (3) I’ve got an order number. That should help you, shouldn’t it?

18

(6)

19

Transporter: Jean-Luc

But, er – It’s – I don’t understand; it was sent on Monday. But you came to bring it to us on Monday?

20

Manufacturer: Sylvie

Well – Look, I – the delivery note, dated the 22nd, at 08.45. (4) Now – afterwards, I don’t know …

21

Transporter: Jean-Luc

But I haven’t got a delivery note, see? ((after looking for it on his PC)) Because, with us, we never pick up anything from you on a Monday.

22

Manufacturer: Sylvie

Oh! You never pick up from us on a Monday?! ((This seems to be news to her.))

23

Transporter: Jean-Luc

Er, no. And also, this week, we loaded everything on Monday, for delivery before Thursday. So, we weren’t loaded at your place on Monday. Was it for Nice? [For where?]

24

Manufacturer: Sylvie

[Yes, that seems to be right.] (Continued)

 Bertrand Fauré & Nicolas Arnaud

Table 1.  The conversation analyzed: Discussion between an operations manager and a client operator (Continued) Speaker

Utterance

25

Transporter: Jean-Luc

((Consults his PC for Nice)) No, I haven’t got anything for Nice.

26

Manufacturer: Sylvie

Right!! Well, there we are: just the sort of day I like!

27

(1)

28

Transporter: Jean-Luc

Oh, hang on! – (10) But if it’s like that, it was re- – That’s weird: I’m sure it’s still at your place. (2) Can you find out from – ? ((continues looking on his PC))

29

Manufacturer: Sylvie

Well yes – yes – Of course, I’ll ask everyone =

30

Transporter : Jean-Luc

= Because, I haven’t seen it. When did you send the fax: last week? [[Looks at his log, where he has made a note of all the problems in loading]]

31

Manufacturer: Sylvie

Well, yes.

32

Transporter: Jean-Luc

Also, I was on holiday. ((Consults his PC)) (3) No, I haven’t got anything. I haven’t got anything entered.

33

Manufacturer: Sylvie

O.K., fine. Thanks, anyway.

34

Transporter: Jean-Luc

If it’s still at your place, and we can take it this week (2) er, I can deliver it, at a pinch, next Wednesday.

35

Manufacturer: Sylvie

Well yes, that would be fine. (2). Yes, fine.

36

Transporter: Jean-Luc

Keep in touch and let me know if anything happens. Thanks.

37

Manufacturer: Sylvie

Thanks.

In the field study, the first level of representation is already materialized by texts and can thus be considered as part of an extended conversation related to the definition of who must do what (contribution) in order to deliver goods from manufacturer sites to retailer’s ones (joint situation) – a conversation that is strongly related to the process of implementing the tracking software Echolog. The second level of representation focuses on contributions to the problem at stake. With the lens offered by this frame analysis, we will now show that, while related to the delivery process, the problem at stake raises in itself specific forms of contributions – searching information about the problem- and subordination – organizing this information search activities. After usual formulas of politesses, the conversation begins by an imperative question from Sylvie (operator of the manufacturer) to Jean-Luc (operator of the transporter): “Tell me,” “I want to know”. A problem is made present (an urgent delivery) as well as its textual representation (a fax), the future contributions and their subordination. Contributions will consist in searching information about the problem (watching on the computer, calling someone…). And a representation of how these contributions should be subordinated is proposed (Jean-Luc must contribute). From line 5 to 21a, all the conversation is structured by such



Contribution-Representation-Subordination as conversational patterns 

conversational pattern: Jean-Luc asks clarifications about the problem raised by Sylvie (from whom, when, to whom, for what?) and searches related information on his interface with the computer. Note that the fact that he does not find the information required does not mean that he does not contribute to the conversation. Answering to a question by the correct response or by recognizing ignorance are both contributions in the sense that a search of information is realized and its result shared hic et nunc. According to this view, “knowing something” and “not knowing something” are equivalent: something is represented. Sylvie knows she doesn’t know and this ignorance relies on a preliminary knowing: she has a “delivery order” with a date… That is why she calls. Even if incomplete, a representation is at stake in the conversation. In answering the call, Jean Luc learns that Sylvie has a certain knowledge/­representation as well as a relative ignorance of specific facts. When he says, “I don’t know”, he is making present his ignorance, but at the same time he is contributing to the conversation. They both now know their respective ignorance: their representation of the problem has evolved. The conversation takes a new turn on line 21.b when Jean-Luc says, “We never pick up on Monday.” This is a contribution to the extent that Jean-Luc has searched information in his memory and presents a piece of information, which is ignored by Sylvie (“I didn’t know”) and apparently believed by her (“It seems to be right”). A new representation of the problem is then proposed by Jean-Luc (“I’m sure it is at your place”). We do not know if Sylvie agrees or not with this representation of the problem, but this new representation of the problem enables Jean Luc to also proposes a new subordination of their respective contributions (“Can you find out from (Nice, the retailer)?”), a form of (re)subordination which is accepted by Sylvie (“Well yes”). Spectacular reversal of situation: Sylvie, who called Jean-Luc to get information about an important contractual document, is now gently required to manage the problem by herself… and accepts to do so almost enthusiastically (“Thanks”). She could try to insist. However, she does not have much choice. Given that ­Jean-Luc does not have the information she wants (and never proposes to ask what happened directly to his drivers), she has to call by herself the retailer (in the company studied it is not unusual that a transporter calls the retailer). Here, the (re)subordination of this future contribution of Sylvie is the most direct and visible outcome of the conversation. Even if Sylvie and Jean-Luc did not have talked about the future contribution of Sylvie, the fact that she has to do it – whether or not she finally does it – is implicated by the non-response of Jean-Luc. But this conversation is also constitutive of a subtler outcome: another future contribution that could not have been represented if the conversation did not occur is expected from Sylvie. Not only Sylvie has to call the retailer (Nice) but she is also required by Jean-Luc to call him back (“Let me know”)! If she did not have

 Bertrand Fauré & Nicolas Arnaud

called him, such a calling-back would not have been requested. Many scenarios can then be imagined: she finds the piece of information and calls back to gives it; she does not find it and calls back for further investigations from Jean-Luc… We can presume that all these scenarios as well as the potential future contributions of each ones are known by Jean-Luc and Sylvie as far as this interaction is a routinized one between them (see the first step of our analysis). The representation of the initial problem is still very incomplete, but through successive subordinated contributions, it has been amended and now sustains future contributions (re)subordinated according to the responsibilities of each one in the delivery process but also according to the collective dynamic of the conversation. From this analysis, it can be argued that collective mind is manifested even during routinized talk at work (RQ1) and that CRS conversational patterns are relevant means for evidencing this manifestation (RQ2). Of course, in the conversation analyzed, participants make errors. Furthermore, they do not try to analyze the causes of the problems they experience or to improve anything for the future – something apparently far from collective minding. But, why is it presumed that manifestations of collective mind should always take the form of a complete decision making process? Indeed, this interaction is characterized by a heedful attention to the interdependencies created by the joint-situation (Weick and Robert 1993; Cooren 2004). Both Sylvie and Jean-Luc know that the problem might be without matter. But they also know that the routinized treatment of such small failures (Weick & Sutcliffe 2006) is indispensable for managing reliably the delivery process. And they also know that this patient and laborious information proceeding work (validation, control, reporting, etc.) can only be achieved through their close collaboration. They thus spend a great deal of attention to how such problem could be represented by the other person and to how their respective contributions can be subordinated. Whatever representations are, what is at stake is “not necessarily shared meaning but the capacity of these representations to coordinate the contributions and to make them minimally compatible” (Cooren 2004, p. 524). It remains to be shown that longitudinal analysis is not necessary for such demonstration (RQ3). Indeed, it could be argued that further information are required in order to know if the future contributions of Sylvie will be effectively enacted (will she call the retailer? Will she call back Jean-Luc?) and thus if a collective minding is really performed. Such discussion is the topic of the following section. 4.  Contribution to the Cooren – McPhee debate McPhee et al.’s (2006) critique consisted in saying that the achievement of ­collective minding in conversation cannot be demonstrated only by studying a selected ­interaction – as Cooren (2004) did- and must account for past and future



Contribution-Representation-Subordination as conversational patterns 

interactions in which the interaction studied is embedded. According to them, longitudinal analysis of speak/talk is the only means for evidencing the enactment of collective minding (and organizing) through time and space. In order to address this debate, we would like to show how such longitudinal analysis could be misleading in our case. Interestingly for our purpose, we have the material that enables to do it. From our interviews, we know that Sylvie and Jean-Luc already knew each other as colleagues in the same university and that their relationship is one of confidence and open conversation. They were both born and raised in the same geographic area where their companies are based. They both attended the same logistics college in the main local city and were both hired by the companies they are currently working for straight out of college. Such socio-professional background seems to be the basis on which a confident relationship has been produced. As Sylvie points out, With TransportCo, if Jean-Luc has a problem with something that involves me, he will call me and we’ll sort it out together. There’s no point in worrying everybody, when we can avoid other people suffering fallout from the situation. We don’t have a problem with that; we trust each other. Each of us trusts the other. I would say that if, one day, either I or Jean-Luc did something stupid, we’d sort it out. We’ll do everything necessary to sort things out so that nobody else need know about it.

This similarity in terms of background appears to facilitate the construction of the collective minding by relying on similar “habitus” (Bourdieu 1980), i.e. a set of acquired patterns of thought, behavior, and taste resulting from internalization of culture or objective social structures through the experience of an individual or group. We have also recorded the call that Sylvie did half an hour after the call we previously analyzed (see Table 2). In this call, she says to Jean-Luc that Nice have properly received the goods and that “Everything it’s ok.” She then thanks again Jean-Luc for his contribution and reaffirm that she did not know that picking up was not done on Monday. Table 2.  End of the conversation 36

The Manufacturer – Sylvie – rings back 30 minutes later

37

Manufacturer: Sylvie

Yes, Jean-Luc, it’s O.K.: it’s been delivered.

38

Transporter: Jean-Luc

All right. So that one: (1) delivered ((Crosses it off from his “to do” list.))

39

Manufacturer: Sylvie

Sorry, I didn’t know anything about it. Thanks, anyway, for your help.

40

Transporter: Jean-Luc

No problem. Speak to you soon.

41

Manufacturer: Sylvie

Bye.

 Bertrand Fauré & Nicolas Arnaud

Two insights arise from this future interaction. First, the contributions that were agreed on at the end of the previous call are effectively performed: Sylvie called Nice, found the information, and called back Jean-Luc. Second, these contributions still rely on a very incomplete representation. Nothing is known about what really happened: who picked up the goods at the warehouse? How were they parceled? When were they delivered? Jean-Luc still has a total black box in his database (no traces of any operations) and we do not know if he will later try to know why is it so (who did not record the pickup and the reception? And why?). These elements are consistent with Weick and Roberts’ (1993) perspective, according to which collective mind relies on a minimal representation that enables a ­co-orientation of joint contributions rather that a full understanding of the respective tasks involved by their coordination. A pilot does not need to know why the security guard raises a “stop fly” to stop – to have a full representation of the reasons why he should stop – he stops the plane and this is enough for a reliable joint action. This argument could be interpreted as sustaining the claim for longitudinal analysis. Apparently, we can see better collective minding when CRS patterns are followed through time and space. However, this longitudinal analysis does not really add anything to the previous analysis. What is made present in Sylvie and Jean-Luc’s conversation is a problem which is routinely raised by the collaboration of their respective companies to the delivery process. Their conversation ends by representing their future subordinated contributions, not by a shared representation of the origin and nature of the problem. What is important is not the contribution per se but rather the process by which their representations are amended and subordinated in order to sustain a minimal co-orientation. We argue that the analysis of the first exchange is sufficient for evidencing such phenomenon and that we do not need to know whether or not these future contributions will occur. In the light of these arguments, the claim for longitudinal analysis then appears as relying on a quite restrictive view of conversation, according to which conversation is “minded” only when speakers explicitly analyze causes of problems, find solutions and try to construct a durable shared knowledge. But as already noted by Wittgenstein (and others), such aim is impossible and would imply an infinite regression of meta-communication levels: telling what I know, what I know about what I know, what I know about how I know what I know… Indeed, telling what I know – or what I do not know- is, in itself, a manifestation of mind in the sense that it is a basic representation of my contribution to the conversation. One could argue that, according to this view, all conversations are manifestations of collective mind. Again, this is a confusing argument. All conversations are manifestations of mind in the sense that representations, contributions and subordinations are enunciated in a way or another. Our point is to say that they



Contribution-Representation-Subordination as conversational patterns 

are manifestations of collective mind only when these subordinations cannot be realized by a sole individual. In Sylvie and Jean Luc’s conversation, a problem is represented as well as the present and future subordination of their respective contributions (Jean-Luc searches information, Sylvie will search information and call back). Although it is possible that the call end with another future subordination (Jean-Luc continues to search), the current one can only be achieved through conversation. Even if Sylvie could have called directly Nice, her promise to call back is a pure result of the conversation: a manifestation of a collective minding to the problem at stake. 5.  Conclusion This article aimed to show that forms of collective minding (Cooren 2004, following Weick and Roberts 1993) can be achieved even during day to day i­ nteractions – or routines – in the workplace and that manifestations of this achievement can be evidenced through the analysis of three conversational patterns (Contribution, Representation, Subordination). In the light of the controversies raised by the ­relevance of such frame analysis a third research question was raised: is longitudinal analysis necessary for such a demonstration? In order to answer these questions, routinized interactions were recorded during an extensive field study in the furniture delivery sector. During these interactions, manifestations of collective mind were not immediately visible. The apparent superficiality of such conversations could even lead to interpret them as occurrences of unintelligence or incompetence: problems are not really analyzed, solutions are not discussed or expressed, and nothing seems to be learned. Notwithstanding the possible relevance of other frames of analysis, we showed that the CRS model enables to dismiss this misleading appearance. By focusing on how contributions are subordinated and representations amended during conversations rather than focusing on how problems are analyzed and solved, the CRS model reveals the implicit but mindful inflexions in the flow of talk by which a heedful attention to interdependences created by collective action – a collective minding – is interactively enacted. Of course, other interpretations or analysis of what “really” happens in this conversation could be possible. For example, the important role that seem to play textual artefacts (databases, bills, orders, “to do” list) in the organization of the conversation could have been stressed up in order to show that the collective mind enacted in this conversation is distributed between human and non human. This view, which echoes deeply with the actor-network theory (Callon & Latour 1981; Latour 1996), could be the topic of future analysis. Even so, we have however also

 Bertrand Fauré & Nicolas Arnaud

discussed to what extent this analysis should necessary be longitudinal (taking into account past and future interactions). Our argument is that this type of analysis does not add anything and indeed reveals implicit assumptions about what collective intelligence should be (decision making, problem solving, and so on) rather than what it could be. In organizational settings characterized by a higher degree of complexity, temporalities and locales, aiming the development of shared representations through conversation seems quite utopist. Indeed, communication should rather be seen as a means of conciliating symbolic, authoritative, collective, and self-representations characterized by an irreducible variety. In this article we argue that rather than focusing about what they communicate (which representations?), organizations should take a greater attention on how they communicate (is diversity preserved?).

References Alvesson, M., and D. Karreman. 2000. Varieties of discourse: On the study of organizations through discourse analysis. Human Relations 53 (9): 1125–1149. Austin, J.L. 1962. How to to things with words. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Axley, S.R. 1984. Managerial and organizational communication in terms of the conduit ­metaphor. The Academy of Management Review 9 (3): 428–37. Benoit-Barné, C., and F. Cooren. 2009. The accomplishment of authority through presentification. Management Communication Quarterly 23 (1): 5–31. Boden, D. 1994. The business of talk: Organizations in action. Cambridge: Polity Press. Boje, D.M. 1991. The storytelling organization: A study of story performance in an office-supply firm. Administrative Science Quarterly 36 (1): 106–26. Boltanski, L., and L. Thévenot. 2006. On justification: Economies of worth: Princeton University Press. Bordas, I. 1991. De l’artisanat aux réseaux d’entreprises dans l’industrie du meuble : comparaison entre la France et l’Italie. Paris: CERNA. Bordas, I. 1992. Produits, organisation industrielle et concurrence dans l’industrie du meuble en France et en Italie. Paris: Presses des Mines. Bourdieu, P. 1980. Le sens de pratique. Paris: Éditions de Minuit. Bourdieu, P. 1982. Ce que parler veut dire. L’économie des échanges linguistiques. Paris: Fayard. Burrell, G., and Morgan, G. 1979. Sociological paradigms and organisational analysis : elements of the sociology of corporate life. London: Heinemann. Callon, M., and B. Latour. 1981. Unscrewing the big Leviathan: How actors macrostructure ­reality and how sociologists help them to do so. In Advance in social rheory and m ­ ethodology: Toward an integration of micro and macro sociologies, K. Knorr-Cetina and A.V. Cicourel, 277–303. Boston: Routledge & Keagan Paul. Chaput, M., B.H. J.M. Brummans, and F. Cooren. 2011. The role of organizational identification in the communicative constitution of an organization: A study of consubstantialization in a young political party. Management Communication Quarterly 25 (2): 252–82. Cooren, and G.T. Fairhurst. 2004. Speech timing and spacing: The phenomenon of organizational closure. Organization 11 (6): 793–824.



Contribution-Representation-Subordination as conversational patterns 

Cooren, F. 2000. The organizing property of communication. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Cooren, F. 2004. The communication achievement of collective minding: Analysis of board meeting excerpts. Management Communication Quarterly 17 (4): 517–51. Cooren, F. 2006. Arguments for the in-depth study of organizational interactions. A rejoinder to Mc Phee, Myers, and Trethewey. Management Communication Quarterly 19 (3): 327–40. Cooren, F. 2010. Action and agency in dialogue: Passion, incarnation and ventriloquism. ­Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Demers, C. 2003. L’entretien. In Conduire un projet de recherche. Une perspective qualitative, ed. Y. Giordano, 173–210 Paris: Edition EMS. Drew, P., and J. Heritage. 1992. Talk at work: Interaction in institutional settings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Eisenhardt, K.M., and M.E. Graebner. 2007. Theory building from cases: Opportunities and challenges. Academy of Management Journal 50 (1): 25–32. Fairhurst, G.T., and L. Putnam. 2004. Organizations as discursive constructions. Communication Theory 14 (1): 5–26. Fauré, B., B.H. J.M. Brummans, H. Giroux, and J.R. Taylor. 2010. The calculation of business, or the business of calculation? Accounting as organizing through everyday communication. Human Relations 63 (8): 1249–273. Feldman, M.S., and A. Rafaeli. 2002. Organizational routines as sources of connections and understandings. Journal of Management Studies 39 (3): 309–31. Garfinkel, H. 1967. Studies in ethnomethodology. New Jersey: Prentice Hall. Gephart, R.P. 1978. Status degradation and organizational succession: An ethnomethodological approach. Administrative Science Quarterly 23 (4): 553–81. Giddens, A. 1984. The constitution of society. Cambridge: Polity Press. Goffman, E. 1981. Forms of talk. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Grant, D., C. Hardy, C. Oswick, and L. Putman, eds. 2004. The SAGE handbook of organizational discourse. London: Sage. Harbon, C. 2002. Géographie de l’industrie et de la distribution du meuble en France dans la deuxième moitié du XXème siècle. Paris: Université de Paris Sorbonne. Hardy, C., T.B. Lawrence, and D. Grant. 2005. Discourse and collaboration: The role of conversations and collective identity. Academy of Management Review 30 (1): 58–77. Hutchins, E. 1995. Cognition in the wild. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Iverson, J.O., and R.D. McPhee. 2002. Knowledge management in communities of practice: Being true to the communicative character of knowledge. Management Communication Quarterly 16 (2): 259–66. Jick, T.D. 1979. Mixing qualitative and quantitative methods: Triangulation in action. Administrative Science Quarterly 24 (4): 602–11. Latour, B. 1996. On interobjectivity. Mind, Culture, and Activity 3 (4): 228–45. McPhee, R.D., K.K. Myers, and A. Trethewey. 2006. On collective mind and conversational analysis. Response to Cooren. Management Communication Quarterly 19 (3): 311–26. McPhee, R.D., and P. Zaug. 2008. The communicative constitution of organizations. In Building theories of organization: The constitutive role of communication Vol. 10, eds. L.L. Putnam and A.M. Nicotera, 21–49. New York: Taylor & Francis. Mumby, D.K., and C. Stohl. 1996. Disciplining organizational communication studies. Management Communication Quarterly 10 (1): 50–72. Putnam, L.L., and M.E. Pacanowsky. 1983. Communication and organizations. An interpretive approach. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

 Bertrand Fauré & Nicolas Arnaud Reddy, M.J. 1979. The conduit metaphor: A case of frame conflict in our language about ­language. In Metaphor and thought, ed. A. Ortony, 284–324. Cambridge: Cambridge U­niversity Press. Rouleau, L. 2003. La méthode biographique. In Conduire un projet de recherche. Une perspective qualitative, ed. Y. Giordano, 133–172. Paris: Editions EMS. Sillince, J.A. A. 2007. Organizational context and the discursive construction of organizing. Management Communication Quarterly 20 (4): 363–94. Smith, R.C. 1993. Images of organizational communication: Root-metaphors of the organizationcommunication relation. Paper presented at the Communication presentée au colloque de l’International Communication Association. Taylor, J.R., and F. Cooren. 1997. What makes communication “organizational”?: How the many voices of a collectivity become the one voice of an organization. Journal of Pragmatics 27 (4): 409–38. Taylor, J.R., and E.J. Van Every. 2000. The emergent organization. Communication as site and surface. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erblaum Associates. Van de Ven, A.H., and G. Walker. 1984. The dynamics of interorganizational coordination. Administrative science quarterly 29 (4): 598–621. Weick, K. 1986. The concept of loose coupling: An assessment. Organizational Theory Dialogue, American Educational Research Association, December 1986, 8–11. Weick, K.E., and K.H. Roberts. 1993. Collective mind in organizations: Heedful interrelating on flight decks. Administrative Science Quarterly 38: 357–81. Weick, K.E., and K.M. Sutcliffe. 2006. Mindfulness and the quality of organizational attention. Organization Science 17 (4): 514–24. Yin, R.K. 2003. Case study research, design and methods. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Annex 1: Representation of the delivery process After receiving a command from its retailer, the manufacturer sends an order of loading to the transporter. By the end of the week (Wednesday to Saturday morning), the transporter sends a driver with a truck to load the goods. All products are then discharged within the warehouse of the transporter where they are organized according to their destination, so that the transporter can optimize the use each vehicle. This is mass-production in terms of logistics. Drivers leave the transporter on Monday and start delivering from Monday to Wednesday. The remaining days of the week are mainly concerned with re-loading at the clients’ on the way back. Week 1

Week 2 Thursday

Week 3 Friday Weekend Monday

Wednesday Re-picking up

Retailer

Receiving

Commanding

Manufacturer

Transporter

Ordering

Preparing

Picking up

Loading

Discharging Parcelling

Delivery note and duplicate : Command Order Pick Load Reception



Contribution-Representation-Subordination as conversational patterns 

Annex 2: Representation of the contributions subordinated to the delivery process Example of reading the right side: at the command stage, the retailer keep the originate order and the manufacturer the duplicate. At the ordering step, the manufacturer keeps the originate document and the transporter the duplicate. During the loading step, the transporter edit and conserve both the order and the duplicate since the order is used to enter data within the information system and the duplicate is used by the driver in order to give create the receiving note at the retailer’s place. Example of reading the left side: in the analyzed dialogue, at the commanding step, both the retailer and the manufacturer have proof (X) that the work has been done. A the ordering stage, only the manufacturer has got a proof/trace whereas, as shown in the right side, both the manufacturer and the transporter should got one. The transporter hasn’t got any traces/ information (?) for the following steps even though it should have one. Theoretical process of orders and duplicate Contributions Commanding

Retailer Manuf. X

Ordering

Transp.

O

Commanding

X

O

O

X

Preparing Picking Parceling

Retailer

Manuf.

X

X

Ordering

X

Transp. ?

Preparing

?

Picking

?

Parceling

Loading Receiving

Missing traces in the analyzed dialogue

X

X = Order; O = Duplicate; ? = none. Physical move.

XO

Loading

O

Receiving

? X

X

X

On the possibility of rhetoric as a dialogical guide for practical reason(ing) An old challenge in a new era Katia A. Lima* We examine the view of rhetoric as responsible persuasive argumentation, i.e. a conception of it fundamentally based on dialogue which emphasizes the vital circularity (non-vicious but rather constructive) between logos (reasoning), pathos (affectivity) and ethos (character), yet, pointing to the very communicative role and self-reflexivity of human language. We stress that the balance of such a critical cycle is precisely what allows a rational ethos to flourish in argumentation so as to make of us moral beings at all. We thus attempt to contribute for giving plausible answers to old and, yet, increasingly relevant ethical questions such as: What is this we call practical reason(ing)? Can we significantly articulate a conception of its excellence (i.e. practical wisdom) in the dynamic dialogical context of human language? As we try to answer these questions, we come to realize that the moral restriction of rhetoric to reflective and responsible argumentation is richly empowering rather than limiting, given that as an ethical practice it can go where neither reason nor emotions alone are able to reach. Moreover, as rhetoric is the very art of discourse in action, we defend that Discourse Ethics provides us with a new paradigm for also taking it as a dialogical guide for practical reason(ing) itself.

1.  Th  e relevance of Gadamer’s Hermeneutics and of Perelman’s New Rhetoric Being that can be understood is language.  (Gadamer 2000, p. 474). Inspired by Hans-Georg Gadamer (2000), we propose first of all to look at human language as a necessary social medium of continuous dwelling between the safety of the past (i.e. the familiar), the challenges of the present (i.e. the c­ ontextual) 

*  Université de Sherbrooke.

 Katia A. Lima

and the excitement of the future (i.e. the new). In other words, to consider it as a medium that is fundamentally based on our urge to communicate and to interpret ourselves and others continuously, that is: on dialogue. As Gadamer also indicates, what we need to fear or to distrust is not the ­flexible character of language as such a dialogical dwelling, but rather the form of uncompromised (irresponsible) reflection that inspires trains of thought such as, for example, some extreme forms of relativism. For, he argues that we can speak of relativism in those terms only if we presuppose an absolute truth as a counter possibility that owes nothing to history or to language. If we abandon this sort of radicalism about truth in the first place, then charges of relativism will loose their own raison d’être as well (Grondin 2003). Moreover, we are also very sensibly pointed out by him to the very prejudice in philosophy to understand matters that are not on the same logical level as if they were all standing in propositional relationships. Reflective argument is thus unfortunately misplaced. For we may not be dealing with relationships between judgments that have to be kept free from formal contradictions, but rather with life relationships that depend on the very ethical relations among inter-dependent beings as “our verbal experience of the world has the capacity to embrace the most varied relationships of life” (Gadamer 2000, p. 448). Gadamer’s thought has thus directed us towards making greater efforts to analyze rhetoric more constructively as an ethical practice, given that rhetorical meaning (sense) is one to be interpreted dialogically as it must be debated and defended by argument. We thus came to embrace the valuable indications given by Chaïm Perelman’s New Rhetoric (Perelman & Tyteca 1969) which re-illuminates the richness and power of such an art of persuasive argumentation. Also, as Perelman importantly reminds us, the useful technique of dialectic is to be taken as part of rhetoric rather than apart from it: Philosophical, like juridical, argumentation constitutes the application to particular fields of a general theory of argumentation which we understand as a new rhetoric. In identifying this rhetoric with the general theory of persuasive discourse, which seeks to gain both the intellectual and the emotional adherence of any sort of audience, we affirm that every discourse which does not acclaim an impersonal validity belongs to rhetoric. As soon as a communication tries to influence one or more persons, to orient their thinking, to excite or calm their emotions, to guide their actions, it belongs to the realm of rhetoric. Dialectic, the technique of controversy, is included as one part of this larger realm.  (Perelman 1982, pp. 161–162)

Let us reiterate, however, that by calling it an art and placing it in the broader realm of non-formal thinking –which does not deal with formal demonstrations but, rather, with admittedly more vague, ambiguous and questionable



On the possibility of rhetoric as a dialogical guide for practical reasoning 

v­ erisimilitudes – Perelman does not mean to say, nor do we along with him, that rhetoric is therefore to be taken simply as unreasonable or illogical. The crucial point is rather to emphasize that rhetoric, being a dynamic and all inclusive ethical practice cannot therefore be appropriately treated as a formal and rigid practice such as, for example, formal logic.1 Accordingly, we wish to emphasize some points which are, surprisingly enough, very commonly neglected, namely: (i) An ethos constructed upon ­deliberation and rational argument is a very important controlling factor for legitimate persuasion. (ii) Formal arguments per se do not produce trust, so crucial for deciding on ethical issues, precisely because they do not persuade by showing character (ethos). Hence (iii) their very difference from ethical arguments, given that the latter shows the interlocutor’s own responsibility and will to compromise through his/her own commitments in a discussion, that is to say: through her/ his very responsible engagements in a rhetorical mission.2 For, as history amply shows us, without such commitments, eloquence becomes merely empty sophism (i.e. demagogy) and practical reason(ing) gets dangerously truncated to blunt instrumentalism (i.e. manipulative persuasion no matter what; see Breton 2007, 2008,  2011). An abdication of such commitments is thus rather symptomatic of an intemperate (vicious) character that’s not willing to take upon itself the very responsibility to compromise for the sake of her/his own arguments.3 Such a weakness is, therefore, what keeps leading people to fall, on the one hand, into radical

1.  Eugene Garver has also expressed this point very well, thus: “Seeing how reasoning can be the subject of ethical judgment will improve the practice of the ethical criticism of reasoning. As Aristotle himself observed, one can become unethical by being too logical (Rhetoric III: 17.1418a37-b1). To treat a practical problem as a purely technical one can be an ethical error. But it does not necessarily follow that therefore to be ethical is to be illogical. … I make clear my own character and moral purpose in my argumentative choices, but I am not on that account being illogical. Logic relates propositions, while ethos relates assertions of propositions to each other. Ethical necessity replaces logical necessity. In this way, a rhetorical understanding of practical reasoning can be as rigorous as a purely logical understanding without sacrificing the context-sensitivity of ethical analysis.” (Garver 2004: 10, our emphasis). Therefore, as we shall argue in what follows, the restriction of rhetoric to responsible persuasive argumentation turns out to be empowering rather than limiting! 2.  That is: an exercise of continuous approximation between the ideal and the contextual, constituting thus the very rhetorical challenge of adapting one’s argumentation in order to bridge the gap between universal and particular audiences, such as indicated by Chaïm Perelman (1969 & 1982). 3.  We should observe that the very notion of ‘responsibility’ perhaps deserves a whole study just devoted to it, but we shall limit ourselves in the scope of the present work to its sufficiently

 Katia A. Lima

absolutisms such as fanaticism (i.e. a forced compromise which blindly transfers responsibility to a cult or entity); and, on the other, into radical skepticisms such as anarchism (i.e. an uncompromised or disengaged form of relativism that gives up on civil responsibility). In sum, these are rather extreme manifestations of a desperate or simply irresponsible attitude, without which neither absolutism nor skepticism would pose us serious problems any longer. 2.  A  pel’s new paradigm for human language: Empowering rhetoric as responsible argumentation  

Judgment cannot occur if not by the interpretation of conceptual symbols. (Apel 1994a, p. 58)

A new paradigm is however required in order for us to be able to consider human language from the broader perspective only sketched above. That is to say, a paradigm that rather shows itself as a counterpart to the classical propositional paradigm of referential semantics that has overwhelmingly dominated the main tradition of studies of linguistics and philosophy of language since Aristotle. This is the very point that Karl-Otto Apel strongly makes in his volume concerning the logos proper to human language (1994a). He argues therefore for the appropriateness of an enlarged concept of our linguistic logos in order for us to adequately articulate its double propositional-performative structure. That is, a structure that encompasses not only the function of representation, overwhelmingly considered by the classical propositional paradigm, but that can also incorporate the two other functions pertaining to the communicative (i.e. performative) dimension of language, namely: the functions of expression and appeal (1994a, pp. 59–60). Such a double complementary structure thus allows us to look at language in the new required way, that is, from the transcendental-pragmatic perspective that Apel advocates and from which we shall depart here.4 Figure 1 (below)

rich sense of ‘imputability’ (i.e. accountability and the capacity to posit oneself as an agent) such as indicated by Paul Ricoeur (2007). 4.  Such an approach proposes itself as pragmatic by being explicitly inspired by Charles S. Peirce’s pragmatism (see 1992), in the light of John L. Austin’s speech act theory (see 1962), which have both oriented a so-called ‘pragmatic turn’ that took part in a more general ­‘linguistic turn’ which in turn represented a major philosophical development for the German tradition in the last century. (We think especially of the later Wittgenstein, Gadamer, Apel and Habermas.) That is to say, a development through which language came to be ­considered as a central element for the human social condition, with its broader communicative ­function (i.e. a more socially focused and dependent on inter-subjectively shared understanding and ­interpretation) as counterbalancing the more exclusive and restrictive cognitive function



On the possibility of rhetoric as a dialogical guide for practical reasoning 

­ resents the schema proposed by Apel to represent such a complementary strucp ture thus duly encompassing both the propositional (referential-semantic) and the ­communicative (performative) dimensions of the logos proper to human language (1994a, p. 44): Referential-semantic dimension Subject or state of things

(denotative)

Communicative dimension

(expressive and appealing)

Signs (Symbols) = (performative component)

Signs = (propositional component)

Subject

Co-subject Figure 1.   The double propositional-performative structure as a complementary structure

As Apel points out in connection with Figure 1 (1994a, p. 46): (This) enlargement of semantics (going beyond referential semantics) cannot be done but in the paradigm of a transcendental pragmatics of language (and without adopting the presuppositions of an “empirical” or “formal pragmatics” such as those conceived by Morris and Carnap). ¶ That is what one can see most clearly, in my opinion, when one analyses the ambivalence of the concept of a “statement,” which Austin has struggled to deal with. … For it is, on the one hand, the expression of a true or false proposition, while at the same time being the expression of an intention to assert such a proposition, which can then be made explicit at the performative dimension. It is this latter intention of meaning that has a pragmatic potentiality, that is to say, one that refers itself to a speech act, susceptible of being successful or not. What is at stake in the difference between a proposition and its assertion is the fact that only the latter expresses, in a reflective mode, the pretension to validity which a human being as an understanding subject can associate to a proposition. (i.e. one mainly focused on knowledge about an objective world) that had been overwhelmingly emphasized by the analytic tradition. But Apel’s approach is also transcendental by going beyond mere ‘contingency’ to remain faithful to Kant’s conception of the human as a morally committed being, without however getting imprisoned neither by its rigor nor solipsism.

 Katia A. Lima

Accordingly, we can promptly observe that we do share with other animals the simpler referential aspect of language by which we can point to things through emitting sounds and making denotative signs. This may already be called ­‘communication’ to a limited extent, though not in the broader sense of the term that we humans are more fully capable of. For what makes of human language and communication not only richer, more powerful and pretty unique (though unfortunately more problematic as well) is precisely the additional important ­ability we have to also share our very reasoning with each other by expressing our ­“pretensions of ­inter-subjective validity” (i.e. our validity claims) through interpretation and conceptual symbolisms. This is precisely the point we believe Apel’s transcendental-pragmatic perspective sensibly attempts to emphasize by also ­taking into consideration the expansive and much more dynamic communicative aspect of human language (1994a, 1994b). Once having provided us with such a new paradigm, Apel accordingly put forward elsewhere an insightful “History-related Ethics of (Co)Responsibility” that thus proposes itself to also transcend Kantianism by considering this very communicative dimension of real practical discourses, rather than just relating to solitary subjects of morality where the problems of real discourse of the affected persons, or their advocates, are not explicitly considered nor reflected upon (Apel 1994b, 2001, 2007). Along with his close colleague Jürgen Habermas (1992, 2001), Apel has thus engaged into a Discourse Ethics that attempts to reconstruct the implicit normative orientations guiding individuals in their process of communicating to each other through rational argument. Discourse Ethics thus attempts to address both ideal and real discourse communities whose very approximation constitutes t­herefore the principal rhetorical mission of legitimate argumentation to accomplish.5 Such a mission departs therefore from the very presuppositions of constructive ­argumentation, which one cannot contest without committing a pragmatic ­self-contradiction, namely: justice (i.e. respect for the equality, integrity and d ­ ignity among interlocutors), solidarity (i.e. willingness to listen and to ­understand one another), and (co)responsibility (i.e. mutual responsible ­ engagement or ­commitment in the discussion) (Apel 1994b: 42–50). These ­constitute therefore the very ­‘pragmatic norms’ inescapably recognized by any agent of a c­ ommunicational

5.  That is to say: An exercise of continuous approximation between such communities through the very rhetorical challenge of responsibly adapting one’s argumentation, in order to bridge the gap between universal and particular audiences, such as had been indicated by Perelman’s Treatise (1969).



On the possibility of rhetoric as a dialogical guide for practical reasoning 

community6 if we are to have cooperative and constructive argumentation in the first place. It is also interesting to mention however that both philosophers make such a crucial point while, at the same time, each remaining consistent with their own particular approaches that seem, as well, to set them apart in some respects. But their disagreements appear to be neither in substance nor in method but rather in emphasis (Mendieta 2002).7 That is: On the one hand, Habermas (1992, 2001) keeps up with his very posture of eternal critic by stressing the point that argumentation looses its very raison d’être if deprived from a continuous engagement in criticism so as to open alternative doors and keep the debate alive. He thus also wishes to avoid charges of excessive transcendentalism, such as one tends to throw at Apel’s approach, even though it has been linguistically (i.e. pragmatically) transformed so as to refer to the crucial hermeneutical question that concerns the very communicative orientation of interpreting (and self-interpreting) agents and speakers in the confrontation between self-alienation and liberation. On the other hand, although agreeing with Habermas that argumentation does require criticism and self-reflection, Apel (1994b, 2001) still prefers to emphasize the point that it also looses its very constructive practical function if it does not aim at eventual agreement, even if just as a focal point towards which diverging paths can somewhat converge and so that people can at least come to share some common ground in order to develop any fruitful communication at all.8 So, whether putting more emphasis on the ideal of eventual agreement (Apel) or on the importance of continuous criticism (Habermas), notwithstanding, ­Discourse Ethics importantly reminds us that anyone who generally engages oneself in argumentation is already, by her/his very doing so, taking part in a normative praxis. For, as also stressed by Habermas on what he and Apel strongly agree (Habermas 1992: 165–166): One departs from a false premise if one thinks that questions such as “Why be moral?” or “Why be logical” or “Why be reasonable?” would find an answer either coming from a deductive foundation or from an irrational decision.

6.  A community thus abstracted to a fuller degree (i.e. ideal) in theory and to a less‑than‑ideal (yet, sufficiently appropriate) degree in the very practice of real discourse. 7.  For more on their agreements and disagreements, as well as on Habermas’ open ­appreciation and recognition of Apel’s decisive instruction to his own thinking, which has unfortunately been omitted from English translations of Habermas’ works, one can refer to Mendieta 2002 (especially Chapter 4). 8.  Perelman has made a similar point and elaborated considerably upon it in the Treatise (Perelman & Tyteca 1969: Part II, Chapter 1, § 15–27).

 Katia A. Lima

In fact, such a presupposed problematic situation does not even exist in the first place, i.e.: a situation where we would place ourselves yet before a decision of being rational, or being logical, or being moral, and still from where we would be able to argue – at least to be in a position to pose the question of why!… The one who seriously poses this sort of “why” questions has already touched the soil of discursive argumentation, that means to say: (s)he can only convince her/himself, by reflecting about the meaning of her/his actions, from the very fact that (s)he has already necessarily recognized the rules of cooperative argumentation and, hence, also the ethical rules of a communicational community.

We thus take Discourse Ethics to have called upon itself the very responsibility of bridging the gap between theoretical and applied ethics by plausibly responding to the urgent call for a global ethics of (co)responsibility given our tricky situation as homo faber. Moreover, as rhetoric is the very art of discourse in action, we claim that Discourse Ethics provides us with a new paradigm for also taking rhetoric as a dialogical guide for practical reason(ing) itself. After all, one is always, even when thinking to oneself in an effective solitude, a member of an argumentation community. It requires, however, further support from a robust theory of argumentation that’s been formulated neither by Apel nor by Habermas, but that we claim to have found in the works of Chaïm Perelman (1969, 1982) as seen earlier. Thus combined, such theories have oriented us a bit further towards responding to an old but increasingly relevant ethical question: How can we appropriately articulate the notion of practical reason(ing) and its conception of excellence (i.e. practical ­wisdom) in the very dynamic contexts of human communication? 3.  Expressiveness and rational ethos: Key concepts for a hermeneutics of reason(ing) so as to counter manipulation and self-alienation  

Democratic faith is trust in rhetorical argument. (Garver 2004: 122)

The dominant aspect being emphasized here is, therefore, one of legitimate communication: i.e. the challenge to find an expression that can appropriately indicate a shared (inter-subjective) impression that marks us, instead of being just a mere vehicle of one’s own subjective experiences. The example of translation can doubtless be taken as paradigmatic in this respect, given that it explicitly illustrates in its practical context the very mediation of interpretation involved, as a matter of fact, in all understanding through language (Gadamer 1975: Part 3). The Cartesian cogito may therefore be nicely complemented thus: “I interpret and express, therefore I think” (Gadamer) and “I argue, therefore I am” (Apel). For, when it comes



On the possibility of rhetoric as a dialogical guide for practical reasoning 

to decide about ethical issues and so that one can legitimately share and live in a social world by communicating in a meaningful and convincing way, Cartesian clarity per se does run short: One’s message has gotten to be more fully expressive!. We thus turn to the very need of re-habilitating the very concept of ‘expression’ itself. For this is a notion that, as Gadamer has also pointed out, has been so warn out due to an unfortunate overstress on subjectivity, to the point of coming to acquire such a great distance from its original meaning. A critique of a psychologisation of expression 9 has thus become the very focus of the whole of Gadamer’s enquiry as he attempted to restore it as a rhetorical term that refers to the intimate relation of language to thought (Grondin 2003: 60, and Notes 10–14). Such a re-habilitated concept which we shall term ‘expressiveness’ thus deserves at least as much attention in studies of language as the traditionally o ­ ver-emphasized notion of ‘clarity’ per se. After all, given its authentic nature, expressiveness inspires the trust and respect that are so crucial in ethical relations towards shared interpretation and communicative competence in language use, insofar as one is indeed concerned with legitimate communication in a genuine sense of shared understanding. At this point one may wonder, perhaps unavoidably, about the very possibility for us to indeed apprehend (and live in) the world in an authentic or legitimate way at all. Gadamer’s masterpiece can again be illuminating here through his notion of ‘belongingness’. For we may be capable, after all, of authentically capturing and sharing the world once we pay more attention to what first captures and challenges ourselves at every moment, namely: dialogue. One can therewith realize that the world one manages to share dialogically is indeed authentically relevant to one’s own self as those two coexist, that is, as world and self belong together (Gadamer 2000: 456–ff.). Moreover, perhaps as much as trust and respect are not simply a given, but rather are reciprocally conquered through constructive dialogue, also, expressiveness is not a fixed given condition that language trivially meets. It rather is a c­ ommunicative potential that the human linguistic (reasoning) capacity is able to fulfill so nicely when sufficiently instigated and well nourished. A potential, that is, only to be achieved performatively towards reaching an appropriate (i.e. sufficiently balanced) combination of authenticity and clarity through the very ­rhetorical practice of dialogue.

9.  One may also recall here John Dewey’s valuable criticism against a similar sort of extreme psychologisation with respect to ‘valuation’ itself (Dewey 1939). For those who see the wide breadth of Dewey’s argument and who wish to keep up with his heavier pragmatic approach, it may be interesting at this point to try extending his argument against such subjectivisms, now, applying it to the notion of ‘expression’ as well.

 Katia A. Lima

Authenticity, that is, as taken in a sense of flexibility of expression (spontaneity) that allows for invention and improvisation, but which is nonetheless limited by relevance to the discussion and by the interlocutor’s acceptance as well. (Perelman 1969, 1982)10 And clarity, that is, in the very dialectical sense of bringing to light as many nuances and perspectives as possible with respect to one’s own argumentative reasoning (van Eemeren & Grootendorst 2004).11

10.  As we shall see below (note 10), Perelman indicates that we have to rely on both the relevance to the discussion and the audience’s acceptance, if we want to present a strong argument. The reason is clear enough: relying solely on the audience as the measure for argumentation force will end up corrupting the audience in its own turn by giving it too much power without appealing to principles that can limit its will. A similar point, among other interesting ones related to the force of rhetorical argument, has also been stressed by Eugene Garver (2004: Chapter 2). Garver thus also emphasizes the importance of choosing the appropriate arguments, given that an ethos constructed upon rational, reflective argument can be a very controlling factor for persuasion especially in democratic contexts. 11.  As far as we can see, however, pragma-dialecticians (van Eemeren & Grotendoorst 2004) had not considered the previous point concerning Perelman & Tyteca’s (1969) endeavor which thus presents itself as being an approach both descriptive and prescriptive. One may recall, e.g. Perelman & Tyteca’s remarks about the interaction and force of arguments (1969, Chapter V, and stressed again in Perelman 1982, Chapter XII) where the authors explicitly take into account the crucial importance of a reflective exchange of views as well as consider the evaluative ­criteria for argumentation force to consist not only of the degree of an audience’s adherence but also of the relevance to the discussion in progress. The latter (i.e. ­relevance) had been the one more strongly emphasized by pragma-dialecticians, though of course, ­important questions about the criteria for assessing relevance remain a big ­challenge for any ­argumentation theory. But the bottom line governing the pragma-dialectical model back then seemed to come out to a supposed “difference of rationale” with respect to Perelman & ­Tyteca’s approach, by the former major focus on the instrumentality of discussion stages towards ­“resolving a difference of opinion” (van Eemeren & Grootendorst 2004: 59, 60). Such a difference, it seems to me, has been considerably overcome more recently in the pragma-dialectical model by efforts to bridge the very gap between rhetoric and dialectic through the concept of ­“strategic m ­ aneuvering” (2010: Chapter 3). That is, they now give more emphasis also to the very o­ penness required by both the speaker and audience to change their own minds, analogous to what may usually happen in the particular case of self-deliberation. A point that brings up therefore what Philippe Breton has called the “paradox of argumentation”, i.e.: while one tries to convince the other of a standpoint, one takes oneself the risk of being convinced otherwise (Breton 2007: 31–32). Such an openness for changing one’s own mind, whether as a speaker or audience, also depends in great part of course on each one’s own rational character. But we can perhaps best deal with it by recurring to one’s r­ esponsibility with respect to his/her ­commitments in a discussion. This is the path that the pragma-­dialecticians seem to take after all, which is of course well in line with Perelman’s own insights about ­“responsible ­engagements” that we are emphasizing here, i.e.: the acts that engage one r­esponsible in ­argumentation (cf. page 5 above). Perelman & Tyteca have considered moreover the very



On the possibility of rhetoric as a dialogical guide for practical reasoning 

Accordingly, we present the following schema (Figure 2) to indicate, in a more succinct and hopefully explicit way, the very conceptions involved in the dialogical exercise for accomplishing such a balanced combination, thus: Intelligibility (verisimilitude): The human capacity for interpreting (reasoning and understanding)

D I

Authenticity (spontaneity): Flexibility of expression allowing for invention and improvisation, though limited by relevance and acceptance in a discussion.

A L O

Expressiveness (authenticity + clarity): The human potential for sharing one’s reasoning with one’s interlocutor through legitimate communication.

G U E

Competence (practical wisdom): expressiveness + rational ethos Figure 2.  The dialogue schema towards shared understanding

Expressiveness as conceived above thus plays a very important role in overcoming sophism, manipulation, and even self-alienation. After all, in order for linguistic competence (i.e. eloquence) to be also taken as moral excellence (i.e. practical wisdom), the accomplishment of the stressed peculiar balance becomes essential by the nourishment and development of our very potential to communicate (express) ourselves through sharing and exposing our authentic reasoning with each other. Succeeding in this sharing is precisely what allows for a rational ethos to flourish in argumentation so as to inspire reciprocal trust and respect among the concerned dialogical individuals. Without it, as history can amply show us, eloquence becomes just empty sophism (i.e. demagogy) and practical reason(ing) gets truncated to blunt instrumentalism (i.e. manipulative persuasion). For, only by limiting one’s will to argument can one overcome self-alienation and accomplish to build ethical relations with one another, as the only rationally enduring form of ethos possible seems to be precisely the one created through

l­imitations of argumentation due, for example, to fanaticism and skepticism as they attempt precisely not to get compromised by such responsible engagements. (1969: §14).

 Katia A. Lima

responsible argument. In other words, by persuading one’s interlocutor(s) through committing oneself to responsible engagements in a discussion, one can thus build up a rational ethos that represents the very constructive circularity between logos (reasoning), pathos (emotions) and ethos (character) which is vital for making of argumentation a constructive ethical accomplishment at all, and such as it is so valuable for democracy (Breton 2007, 2008). Seen from such a dialogical responsible perspective, therefore, rhetoric is the art of finding appropriate arguments for persuasion: it is not a practice of ­persuading at all costs! For the speaker’s job is to present compelling arguments, not just compelling the audience by whatever means, which comes to say that persuasion is thus not to be automatically equated to manipulation. The example of how authority is created can be paradigmatic here. For authority arises as a rational decision, i.e. from the audience’s own allowing itself to be compelled by accepting that those arguments are indeed compelling. Similarly, we can perhaps also claim that as far as the legitimacy of persuasion can go: “Rhetorical argument can only persuade someone of something that the audience is able and willing to hear.” (Garver 2004: 200). Otherwise, one is not dealing with legitimate authority but rather with ­coercion, as the audience is not given a choice but rather an imposition. Rational ethos can therefore be a crucial controlling factor in persuasion as it represents the very case of converging the descriptive with the prescriptive, such as already noted above with respect to Perelman’s theory (cf. Note 11). Hence, we come to realize that the power of a sophistic rhetoric is self-defeating in a long run, as the best it can offer is a short-sighted instrumentality, due to a lack of respect for the ­audience as rational beings. In other words (Garver 2004: 63, 64): I can want to be persuaded. I cannot want to be manipulated. I can recognize that you are trying to persuade me because you want to sell me something or get me to vote your way. I find nothing objectionable in that. Persuasion depends on my understanding and my emotions being permeable and open to influence from outside. I can recognize that I should be open in that way. I am not insulted or harmed if I know that you regard me as an object of persuasion. But I am insulted and harmed by being regarded as manipulated. In persuasion, you need my cooperation to persuade me. In acting ethically, I must treat you as an ethical agent. I certainly prefer to be treated as one. The rhetorician shows that treating others as ethical agents is ethically and rhetorically superior.

We should reiterate, however, that by limiting rhetoric to responsible argumentation, such as indicated above, one does not have to exclude all appeals to our affectivity. For emotions definitely play an important role in persuasion, while the latter can nevertheless also remain rational by keeping us focused on the most appropriate emotions. This is the very point that we have attempted to emphasize



On the possibility of rhetoric as a dialogical guide for practical reasoning 

through our very conception of expressiveness which, while being centralized on argumentative reasoning, yet, attempts to duly illuminate the very roles of human authenticity and creativity as well. After all, generally speaking, there is nothing intrinsically wrong in appealing to our emotions, although the way we do it, to what purposes and how it may come to affect others do definitely make a difference concerning its moral status. Unfortunately, history can amply show us that both rationality and affectivity can be used in abusive ways and both for good and bad causes. But, of course, we all need to be allowed to dream and to be inspired by them. Why not? Let us consider, for example, presentations of magic or other very e­ ntertaining features and productions such as cinema, theater, music and sports. While they are in a majority of cases explicitly offered us as relying very strongly on our emotions and even on appeals to illusion and shocking tragedy, there is probably nothing to condemn about them inasmuch as they are overtly presented to the public precisely as such. That is, so that the public is simply invited by them (while remaining free) to choose for engaging or not in such emotional ­adventures. H ­ owever, it is doubtless ethically wrong to mask their persuasive ­purposes, i.e.: to present those in a rather deceptive way so as to exploit the p ­ ublic’s ­emotionality to the extreme of blocking any self-reflection, or to misguide the public’s very r­ ationality by betraying its trust and leaving the purposed persuasion well ­concealed behind. Now, if persuasion can indeed be taken as superior to brutal force, it has to be possible for us to persuade and be persuaded while keeping our integrity. ­Persuading is thus to be taken as an epistemically and ethically respectable a­ ctivity as it needs not corrupt our reasoning and conduct! (Garver 2004) Rational rhetoric can therefore be superior (as contrasted to its more truncated version of sophistic rhetoric) inasmuch it is a fuller art of combining rationality and affectivity without abusing any one of them, and so that we can exercise through it the expansion of our very best diplomatic abilities through respecting and trusting each other as equal rational beings.

4.  F  urther challenges for a new “global” digital world focused on autonomy, expertise and information Like it or not, we are all increasingly cosmopolitans, citizens of the world, not simply citizens of a given nation. (Charles Ess 2009)

Now, after considering all the above, we seem to be faced with tricky sorts of ­paradox once we also come to consider, for example, the strong emphasis on

 Katia A. Lima

autonomy, expertise and information that is so commonplace in our contemporary democratic societies. For, on the one hand, while democracy requires as a moral condition that we work towards building ethical relations which respect the equality of people as rational beings, no matter if speaker or audience, rich or poor; on the other hand, the very conception of ‘expertise’, for example, seems to make such relations overtly impossible (or at least quite redundant) due to the overwhelming incontestable authority exerted by the experts themselves. We must recall, however, the very importance of limiting people’s wills and postures to responsible argument in order to prevent their corruption as much as possible (cf. Note 9). For we should remind ourselves that everyone, even experts and politicians for that matter, must be required to make themselves understood by anyone, through giving plausible and responsibly adapted arguments to support their own views and positions, and so as to claim themselves as legitimate authorities rather than authoritarians. Hence, the vital importance of diplomacy and of our continuing efforts to build and maintain democratic institutions and organizations that can well regulate technical and political powers against unethical (ab)uses. After all, expertise and technical sagacity are not to be taken as substitutes, but rather as grounds for promoting respect and trust among individuals and nations. For, without these, abuse of power and paranoia inevitably result, being both extremely harmful and counter-productive to dialogue and, thus, rather fatal for democratic principles and endeavors. After all, the credibility on the civility of democratic societies lies precisely on the very conditions of respect for the dignity of its citizens and, consequently, of trust on their responsible commitments which are thus to be assured by their reliable and effective institutions. Otherwise, we will just continue to take serious risks of falling into tyrannies and imperialisms, now perhaps in the new form of technical or scientific absolutisms. These can be equally disastrous for democracy as we can never be sure about the noble intentions of experts nor can they ­guarantee us, with absolute certainty, where their power and vision can eventually lead us. Therefore, it is paramount that we keep alive a constructive dialogue not only among experts themselves, but also between those experts and the very ­societies they serve more broadly. Now, although the outcome is never certain, we can nonetheless aim at ­effectiveness and at morality altogether by relying on the force of our arguments and principles to limit our pitfalls by keeping our will in an adequate balance (i.e. an equilibrium in the Aristotelian sense, if one wishes). Here is perhaps where practical reason(ing) comes into play in its full force. For, with more opportunities to choose, there also comes the responsibility to ponder (i.e. moderation), as the ­liberty to decide inevitably brings us greater risks for making mistakes as well. That



On the possibility of rhetoric as a dialogical guide for practical reasoning 

is to say, the relation between autonomy and vulnerability is indeed ­paradoxical.12 And the primordial advantage for living in society may rest precisely on it ­allowing us to share the burden with our fellow human beings (i.e. co-responsibility), as this burden can many times become just too heavy for single individuals to carry it alone. So, it does make sense to count on one another in society. And we must thus be very careful when we claim ourselves to be autonomous beings so as not to press it too hard by confusing it with being automata!13 It may be illuminating at this point to make an analogy, for example, to ­modern computers and robots. For, when referring to them, we usually talk in terms of ‘technical problems’ (caused by hardware malfunctioning or input data deficiency) instead of attributing ‘mistakes’ and ‘accountability’ to them as we do to our fellow human beings. And although we definitely want to keep i­mproving machines as very powerful tools to help us with tedious and difficult tasks, in order to concede us more leisure and commodities, we do not however wish to improve such ‘creatures’ to the point of making them ‘autonomous’ themselves (if this is even possible at all outside science fiction). For, as such, they would very probably become too dangerous rather than helpful to us, as we would be making them smart and powerful enough to end up mercilessly controlling us instead of our controlling them.14 Such remarks may help us consider more soberly the extraordinary situation with which we are faced nowadays, especially when taken as autonomous and informed individuals. That is to say: our new situation in the face of conditions allowing for apparently much further interaction and communication, but also to an overwhelming and confusing amount of information which technological advances are increasingly placing at our disposal as never before. Such an unprecedented human situation as inforgs (i.e. as informational organisms) has been nicely emphasized, for example, in a recent book about information by Luciano Floridi (2010), a specialist on Information and Computer Ethics who’s thus very concerned about the use and spreading of ICTs (Information and Communicational Technologies) worldwide.

12.  For very interesting points on the paradoxical relation between autonomy and vulnerability, as well as on the paradox of authority, refer to Paul Ricoeur 2007 (Part 1: 3rd and 4th studies). 13.  Otherwise, we may just remain imprisoned by the dualistic (either/or) paradigm, now in a ‘binary’ (0/1) modern version, towards increasingly loosing our very empathy and solidarity as social human beings. 14.  Such as sensibly suggested, for example, by Stanley Kubrick’s superb movie “2001, A Space Odyssey” (1968).

 Katia A. Lima

Floridi offers us in his precious little volume an interesting (and indeed very informative) overall view of the many senses that information can assume nowadays, as well as bringing up very important ethical considerations in those respects. What we find utterly interesting about his rather holistic approach is that, instead of just diving unilaterally and unreflectively into specific technicalities of those senses, as there seems to be the overall tendency in each field, he manages to skillfully perform an important double task, namely: to present the relevant technical issues in a careful but accessible way, while at the same time raising in a reflective and critical way some essential concerns related to them. For one, he indicates the important ethical implications resulting from the crucial role of ­communication in the very informational medium which is being re-engineered by our ­contemporary societies and which, if not soon diverted to a less random and more responsible path, will just continue to perpetuate exclusion as it prepares the grounds for tomorrow’s digital slums (2010: 18). Floridi thus also throws the urgent call for us to pay more serious attention to the path that we are tracing as such inforgs that are perhaps evolving too fast as a result of the information revolution brought about by Alan Turing’s computers. That is to say, to the very fact that we have become ‘interactively’ immersed in a new conception of the world (which includes an staggeringly-fast-developing ­digital world) that came to constitute altogether what Floridi calls an infosphere, i.e.: a ‘global’ digital environment which thus represents the whole informational environment constituted by informational processes, services, and entities, thus, also including informational agents as well as their properties, interactions and mutual relations (2010: 9). We are thus also urged by him to start taking much more ­seriously the challenges of working really hard on the ecology of such an infosphere, as we must become much more aware of the fact that we are all ­responsible for caring and preserving this new environment that will be inherited by future generations. In such a context, let us bring up some additional interesting points that c­onsequently press themselves as we reflect upon Floridi’s own considerations about information in our digital era, namely: (i) The mere fact that an i­ncreasing (not to say, overwhelming) amount of data is being made available to people ­cannot, by itself, guarantee good choices from their part in terms of gathering, using and sharing indeed relevant and adequate information among them, that is to say: In cyberspace accessibility does not necessarily mean reliability! Therefore, (ii) the education of users towards not only well selecting and interpreting those data, but also towards appropriately handling the very information that thus becomes available to them, is perhaps just as fundamental as the data themselves, at least if we want to be able to manage such an infosphere responsibly. In other words, as it may apply to technology in general, digital power can indeed be



On the possibility of rhetoric as a dialogical guide for practical reasoning 

c­ onstructively ‘empowering’ for humanity only if accompanied, in parallel, by a good education of its users towards using such resources responsibly and so as to promote those users’ intellectual and deliberative power as well. 5.  Conclusive remarks We seem to be back to what John Dewey had already emphasized at his own time, namely: the outstanding importance of more sensible and adequate educational systems that can keep up with so many environmental changes around us and so that it can form not merely enough informed agents, but also responsibly informed ones (Dewey 1916). And this seems to have become even more urgent today in order for us to be able to bring about healthier and more sustainable societies in our digital age. Now, the question remains: How are we to accomplish all that? For this is the ultimate challenge that keeps pressing us very hard still today, as we now seem to have even less reasons, than Dewey had, to believe that science alone can indeed provide a model for democracy. Dewey does however indicate that the scientific method may well serve us as a self-regulatory tool with respect to its own practices, and even to valuation more generally, by teaching us how to reason about ends. As he has nicely pointed out: It all comes back to our ability for making intelligent choices (Dewey 1939). Now, thinking more socially, we must add: It also comes back to our readiness (commitments) in taking responsibility for those choices! For, we must remind ourselves that the very practice of science is already immersed in our broader argumentative practice as rational communicative beings. After all, despite all scientific and technological progress made so far, the very facts keep showing us that it may rather be also indispensable for us to manage finding democratic, yet, more ethically grounded guidance towards constructive alternatives to the violence of dictatorship, religious fundamentalism, as well as to the savage instrumentalism which the union of science & technology with ­capitalism can make us easy preys. Therefore, we come to ponder: Aren’t more basic ethical premises called for to better guide our choices and practices (including those of science) and, even more so, in the midst of such an unstable and mixed world in which we seem now to find ourselves at a great loss about ­instructive and ethical references? More briefly: What kind of ethics can we rely upon in such a complex and confused context as the one we have nowadays? To sum up, our investigation seems to show us that we should indeed be paying much more attention to the nourishment and normative premises that ­regulate our very communicative practice of argumentation, insofar as engaged rational dialogical beings are concerned, and if we are to hope for more s­ ustainable

 Katia A. Lima

and desirable societies in a long run. For, as technologies pass and upgrade, they are nevertheless supposed to be kept at our service (as the very tools that they are) towards bettering our societies, instead of rather being taken as substitutes to our precious (inter)actions as social beings. But this can only obtain inasmuch as our basic dialogical and ethical relations can indeed remain, hopefully, better nourished by them than otherwise, and as we attempt to keep ourselves not in isolation, but rather inserted in “the meta-institution of a primordial global discourse of humanity” (Apel 2007: 54): Now, at this point, I can also agree to Habermas’ postulate of a supplementary constitution of positive law (and, that is, of the constitutional state of law) along with the purely discursive constitution of moral norms. But again, I would insist that the normative constitution of positive law systematically presupposes the prior constitution of ideal moral norms; for only ideal moral norms can be grounded through “domination-free discourses,” whereas the norms of positive law, which are not only based on moral but also on pragmatic reasons, must be grounded by the authority of a state that can enforce them. Here again, I am making a discourse-ethical argument that there is a normative priority to the discursive foundation of morality as it applies to the law. This foundation makes it clear that positive law must not contradict morality as long as it is an institution of justice.

After all, as Edda Weigand stresses in a recent article (2011, p. 241): “Power represents a very important force which operates everywhere in dialogic interaction. Even if we do not want to set moral benchmarks, one benchmark remains: the one of human action. We can expect civilized behavior when influence or power is used on our fellow beings. In this sense, even a descriptive model includes norms. As human beings we should reflect on what norms we would like to acknowledge in limiting the use of power in dialogic interaction. For the basis of civilized behavior and values of humanity should never be dismissed.”

References Apel, K.-O. 1994a. Le logos propre au langage humain. Trans. M. Charrière and J.-P. Cometti. Paris: L’éclat. Apel, K.-O. 1994b. Éthique de la discussion. Trans. Mark Hunyadi. Paris: Cerf. Apel, K.-O. 2001. The response of discourse ethics to the moral challenge of the human situation as such and especially today (Mercier Lectures, Louvain-la-Neuve, March 1999). Leuven: Peeters. Apel, K.-O. 2007. Discourse ethics, democracy, and international law (Toward a Globalization of Practical Reason). American Journal of Ecocomics and Sociology 66 (1): 49-70. Austin, J.L. 1962. How to do things with words. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.



On the possibility of rhetoric as a dialogical guide for practical reasoning 

Breton, P. 2007. L’argumentation dans la communication. Paris: La Découverte. Breton, P. 2008. Convaincre sans manipuler (apprendre à argumenter). Paris: La Découverte. Breton, P. 2011. Histoire des théories de l’argumentation. Paris: La Découverte. Dewey, J. 1916/2005. Democracy & education. Digireads.com. Dewey, J. 1939/2008. Theory of valuation. In The later works of John Dewey (Vol. 13), ed. J. A. Boydston. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press. Ess, Charles. 2009. Digital media ethics. London: Polity. Floridi, L. 2010. Information (A Very Short Introduction). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gadamer, H.-G. 1975/2000. Truth and method. 2nd revised ed. London: Continuum. Garver, E. 2004. For the sake of argument (practical reasoning, character, and the ethics of belief). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Grondin, J. 2003. The philosophy of Gadamer. Trans. Kathryn Plant. Montréal: McGill-Queen’s. Habermas, J. 1992. De l’éthique de la discussion. Paris: Cerf. Habermas, J. 2001. On the pragmatics of social interaction: Preliminary studies in the theory of communicative Action. Cambridge, MA: MIT. Mendieta, E. 2002. The adventures of transcendental philosophy. Karl-Otto Apel’s Semiotics and Discourse Ethics. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Peirce, C. S. 1992. The essential Peirce: selected philosophical writings. Edited by Nathan Houser and Christian J. W. Kloesel. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Perelman, C., and L. Olbrechts-Tyteca. 1969. The new rhetoric: A treatise on argumentation. Trans. J. Wilkinson and P. Weaver. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press. Perelman, C., and L. Olbrechts-Tyteca. 1982. The realm of rhetoric. Trans. W. Kluback. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press. Ricoeur, P. 2007. Reflections on the just. Trans. David Pellauer. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. van Eemeren, F. H., and R. H. Grootendorst. 2004. A systematic theory of argumentation. The pragma-dialectical approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. van Eemeren, F. H. 2010. Strategic maneuvering in argumentative discourse. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Weigand, E. 2011.“Power in dialogic interaction”. Language and Dialogue Series (Vol. 1, Number 2). John Benjamins Publishing Company.

The role of the moving image in the representation of a sensible dialogue between users and space Anne Faure* Contemporary Western architecture occasionally seeks help from the visual arts. This relationship, which at times can be very intense, allows for hybrids that transform our perception of architecture. The encounter between the academic disciplines in this regard becomes a tool of perception that creates a dialogue between the observer and the built environment. We use the moving image and more specifically, digital video in order to create this dialogue. The juxtaposition of images through collages and montages acts as a “trigger” of ideas that enable us to create interpretations that remain sensitive to space. Keywords:  perception; moving image; representation; collage; dialogue

1.  Perception: An instrument of dialogue Nowadays architecture and the city are at the center of various analyses and ­critical works. Yet the abundance and diversity of these studies reveal their c­ omplexity. Indeed, beyond the visible and practically unchanging elements, such as the form, the material, and organization, that is, the material elements, architecture and the city constitute the encounter between a set of elements related to the new space‑time that are equally difficult to capture. Today, of course, time still belongs to the car or the pedestrian or put more simply, it belongs to the eye. Yet, virtual worlds are developing simultaneously.1

* Grenoble School of Architecture, France. member of the “Les métiers de l’Histoire de l’Architecture. Édifices, Villes, Territoires” Laboratory. 1.  The telephone and the television, the most common forms of mass media, were introduced in the first half of the 20th century. The marketing of the Sony Walkman in the late 1970s and then the arrival of the cell phone at the beginning of the 1990s, tends to increasingly isolate the individual, either alone or by two, and tends to change behaviors such as making phone calls, listening to music and watching films, to places where they did not occur until now.

 Anne Faure

As for the relation between space and these virtual worlds, time no longer follows a determined path. An abstract world has built itself around telecommunications parallel to a measurable and quantifiable world. These remote communication systems, which were introduced at the end of the nineteenth century, have enabled immaterial space-times that completely modify our perception and our interpretation of architecture and the city. As writers often argue, we are both

Figure 1.  Engraving of the The Primitive Hut by Marc-Antoine Laugier. In Laugier Marc-Antoine, Essai sur l’architecture. Genève: Minkoff, Reprint, 1972. Reprint of the o ­ riginal  edition, Paris, 1755. 316 p.



The moving image 

“here and there,” between the real and the virtual worlds. But, their pervasiveness, which has been made possible by contemporary media, changes our perception and physical relationship with the built environment. The increasingly virtual nature of the media transforms our relationship with space on a day-to-day basis. The advent of communication technologies, envisaged as new uses and ­behaviors, induces new relationships between the individual and the space. These tools do not allow a direct physical contact, but rather a remote dialogue. That said, the public urban space is no longer regarded as a place for encounter or exchange. Public urban space is more a place of transition or an ordinary means of movement. This view is not shared by the people who cross the city and only occasionally see these public spaces as privileged places for the functioning of our society. These spaces become active and only take on meaning during particular events such as markets, concerts, festivals and demonstrations. The relation to the ­quality of the living space is equally as abstract. We remain connected to the ­virtual world by television and computers to our heart’s desire. Our living space no longer seems to be of much interest since today, everything or nearly everything occurs elsewhere. Public urban space offers a new form of communication because of the proliferation of virtual networks. Thus, we experience the city, and occupy its spaces from a distance without the individual and the space actually encountering each other. The abundance and the different speeds of transport networks in the city such as the car, bus, tramway and bicycle add to the abstract dimension of space. This in turn accentuates the fact that we are no longer conscious actors in these places. However, after thirty years or so, certain Western architects have been marrying physical qualities, which are similar to artistic techniques and theories, to notions of space. By invisibly penetrating the architectural project as a whole, these physical qualities, which nurture our visual senses tangibly, change our relation to the place. Indeed, the architect’s artistic background, an influence in architectural design, enhances the sensual world in which the observer/user is submerged. The use of visual arts somehow brings us closer to space, whether it affirms itself in an intense manner in the built environment or not. The use of visual arts thus encourages us reclaim to the site, making a physical, critical and active partner out of the observer. 2.  Creating and representing a dialogue Since the 15th century, the rules set by the perspectiva artificialis have created a representation built around a single visual point. This mathematical construction requires the observer to view the works from one point, the point d’oeil. The eye’s

 Anne Faure

involvement, an essential element of the creation of the representation, has made architecture a visual object. The role of the observer, who became an actor in the work of art during the Renaissance – had it not been for his participation, the construction system would not have taken place – may be compared to what unfolded at the beginning of the twentieth-century. Following the appearance of the cinematograph and more particularly, the  moving image, interest in the evocative power of images at the end of the nineteenth century drastically changed art techniques. Pictorial art, already on a quest for new forms of expression, was permeated by cinema. Cinema’s influence on paintings naturally prompted artists to become interested in movement. This interest is further linked to the early twentieth century’s context during which the increase of different speeds in our daily life had a profound impact on our habits and outlook. Cubist paintings, with their new notions of space, invite the observer to ­discover paintings across time, the time it takes the eye to read the image across the fragments composing the painting, thus in a dynamic reading at the surface of the plane where the perspective requires a linear reading at the center of the image. Pablo Picasso’s 1907 symbolic representation of this new concept in Les Demoiselles d’Avignon is an approach to the movement of our eye, which, as a structure of the work, sees more than a representation of movement. The depiction of all the perspectives of an object, which was experimented by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque in painting since 1906, makes the surface of the canvass a medium of space and time. In Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, the representation of five characters in a closed space is built around a relationship of fragments, which impose a vision in motion (Moholy-Nagy 1956). Yet, the dynamic expected from the collage of aspects originating from one moving observation, compared to an object that is to be represented and to the movement of the body around the object in a spatial dimension, developed afterwards by artists remains little operational. Indeed, the density of the colors, the material and the forms, fixes the representation. This heaviness will become more pronounced with the systematic use of the fragmentation principal and the elimination of lively colors to the benefit of grays, ochres and browns. The assembled work or collée, which comes from the French coller which means to glue, executed by the avant-garde artists during the same period, in response to the movement started by the cinematograph, enables the elaboration of a two-dimensional representation built from an ensemble of fragments. This new construction rule based on different mediums frees the artist’s outlook as much it frees the public’s outlook. Avant-garde collages, particularly from the Russian constructivists to László Moholy-Nagy’s or Hans Richter’s moving collages, create dynamic



The moving image 

t­ hree‑dimensional spatial experiences based on two-dimensional fixed or moving images. The a­ ccumulation and sliding of these images or fragments of images c­ reate the image in a virtual third dimension. This “volume” construction p ­ ermits the spectator’s eye to go beyond the flat surface of the screen and to enter into the depth of the images. In his 1932 film, Lightplay: Black-White-Grey, László ­Moholy-Nagy creates the image plane as an architectural space. The play on light and the reflections in continuous movement structure the shot. This composition is no longer perceived as a projected image, it is perceived as coming to life in space. The superposed layers, which intersect and penetrate into each other through light transmission and sliding, are tools that give depth to the shot and in this way symbolize its development in space. However, the successful spatial construction effect found in each shot of the film is partially due to montage work since the shots are taken from a kinetic sculpture. László Moholy-Nagy transposes the work’s real movement onto the images. He carefully films the effects of the light on the materials of the sculpture and only accentuates these effects in the montage, by dividing an image in two and then sliding one on top of the other. However, as we become increasingly absorbed in the film, the montage creates a distance between us and the real object at the beginning of the film. László Moholy-Nagy dematerializes the object through the montage. It becomes nothing more than a play of light and shadow. The elimination of the focal point in favor of a series of scattered points on the shot increases the interaction between the image and the individual. However, the purpose of the focal point suppression is to create an interaction between the body and the eyes facing a painting/screen, and the moving shapes in the shot. This representation cannot be appreciated as contemplative system characteristic of other forms of representation such as photography or painting from this period. The image no longer requires a thoughtful observation to depict the objects, an observation that leads to reverie and which produces new shapes and a new world (Wills 1974). The image is composed of assorted elements, some of which are revealed during the assembling of a collage or the montage. The image is an ongoing form of expression and visual communication. This representation simultaneously leads to a new exterior outlook and to new ways of thinking about designs among artists. In this way, the construction of the objet image and the meaning it takes on is carried out in a practical way. The construction is built in an experimental way. This process may be compared to a great number of productions of experimental films in the early 1920s. In Hans Richter’s first films, Rhythmus 21 (first named Film is Rhythm; Le film est rythme)2 in 1921

2.  Hans Richter, Rhythmus 21 (Film is Rhythm), Germany. 1921, 3 min.

 Anne Faure

and Rhythmus 23 in 1923,3 the screen is animated by geometrical shapes changing from white to dark gray shades, and moving on a background of an opposite color. For Richter, forms had to divide, subdivide, and orchestrate the screen’s rectangle. “Mes rectangles et mes carrés de papier, je les fis alors s’agrandir et disparaître, se mouvoir par saccades ou par glissements, non sans calculer les temps avec soin, et selon des rythmes déterminés” (Sayag & Blanchon 1976, p. 53). (“My paper rectangles and squares, I made them grow, disappear and move by jerking them or by sliding them, but not without calculating the time with care and to certain rhythms”). The abstract shapes and spatial constructions make these images similar to Kasimir Malevitch or Piet Mondrian’s work. Indeed they are a vivid reminder of the pictorial compositions of both artists. Their creations were based on the ­canvass’ shape, square or rectangular as well on its horizontal and vertical ­features. The surface of the canvass moved according to the overall distribution of the shapes and the colors on the shot. Hans Richter writes, “Je suis encore aujourd’hui persuadé que le rythme, c’est-à-dire l’articulation d’unités de temps, constitue la sensation par excellence que peut procurer toute expression du mouvement dans l’art du cinéma” (Sayag & Blanchon 1976, p. 53). (“To this day, I am convinced that rhythm, the articulation of the units of time, constitutes the sensation par excellence that any expression of movement can bring to the art of cinema”). This notion that the composition essentially lies on rhythm as a series of units of time, on a rhythm built on the abstract shapes’ movement has its limits as Richter rapidly integrates real references such as character objects into his films. These new constructions express how rhythm on its own is not enough. Richter’s formal vocabulary experiments with all the possible movements that cinema can offer. The movement of the squares and rectangles, from left to right, from top to bottom, diagonal, backwards and forwards, and forwards and backwards occupies the entire shot. Through the superimposition and the sliding of the dark and light colored shapes, Richter creates rhythm with the images and gives us the illusion that a series of shots are approaching the observer or sinking into the depths of the image. The visible texture of paper or carton, the shape’s material, reminds us of the paper collage technique. These first experiences transpose from the frozen collage to the moving collage. Interest in real movement in painting and sculpture in the early twentieth century and more extensively in twentieth century art will manifest itself more strongly and in a more diversified manner than ever before. This interest will lead to works that are genuine moving objects. This change will occur as a result of the influence of the new art techniques.

3.  Hans Richter, Rhythmus 23 (Fragment), 1921, 3 min.



The moving image 

As for the influence of cinema and more specifically, the influence of representation in movement on architecture, they began to manifest themselves by means of new theoretical questioning since the end of the nineteenth century. Since 1921, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe put forward the accumulation of images or their fragments, as a representational instrument of architectural space, and involved the observer with an active reading: a reading in the time of the images, which is ­created by the ensemble of the fragments as well as a reading of the space as both a space of images and as a construction space created by the images. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe elaborates a dynamic thought about the project through his collages and photomontages, which is a tremendous tool to understand the represented space. However, while they are adapted to architectural and urban space, which require the permanent movement of the body and the eye, and thus a grasp of the space from several points of view, both the moving image and film production only integrate architecture design and analysis at the end of the twentieth c­ entury (Latek 2008). This late interest, still little regarded by architecture, was largely developed in the visual arts in the late 1960s. Yet, while photography captures space with fixed images, video captures it with the continuity of the eye ­performing the scan. The photographic image is an isolated moment in space-time, which does not allow us to capture the entire depth of the object. The photographer’s professional eye is trained to capture the moments that depict the object in a different way. The framing, the light and the angles give us information about the object that transcends reality. This is what Walter Benjamin calls the optical conscious (Benjamin 1999).4 Whether it is about the use of the camera or the video recorder, the purpose of their use is to depict the object in a different perspective. The movement of the camera, the eye and the images which are moving within themselves bring us closer to the moment when the eyes are perceiving, that is, when they are scanning the building. The camera can capture the movement of the light in time and the shift from one angle to another by performing a scan. It can capture, as Benjamin writes, “[…] la petite étincelle de hasard […] grâce à laquelle le réel a pour ainsi dire

4.  “For it is another nature which speaks to the camera rather than to the eye: ‘other’ above all in the sense that a space informed by human consciousness gives way to a space informed by the unconscious. Whereas it is a commonplace that, for example, we have some idea what is involved in the act of walking (if only in general terms), we have no idea at all what happens during the fraction of a second when a person actually takes a step. Photography, with its devices of slow motion and enlargement, reveals the secret. It is through photography that we first discover the existence of this optical unconscious, just as we discover the instinctual unconscious through psychoanalysis” (pp. 510–512).

 Anne Faure

brûlé un trou dans l’image” (Benjamin 2000, p. 300). (“[…] the tiny spark of contingency […] with which reality has (so to speak) seared the subject […]”). Film transcends conventional representational instruments such as the scale model and photography during these transitions when the fixed image cannot be captured or the scale model cannot depict a space. Incidentally, this is why many artists from the 1920s such as László ­Moholy-Nagy developed seriality (Moholy-Nagy 1993). The possibility of mechani­ cally reproducing a work enables them to increase the number of angles and in this way, allows them to be closer to the photographed subject within a short period of time (Benjamin 2005). The impression of not being able to see everything with photography is the basis of the research conducted by ­Étienne-Jules Marey and Eadweard Muybridge, who developed the representation of the decay of movement with a scientific interest in mind. Seriality, inspired by cinema, and which displays the moving image influences artists to create experimental works based on the moving image from the beginning of the twentieth century. Nowadays, Western culture is invaded by both fixed and moving images. The proliferation and the straightforwardness of the construction instruments of these images make the video an everyday means of expression and communication. The use of the digital video has critical and conceptual ends for the same reasons as older instruments such as drawing, the scale model and photography enable us to elaborate and transmit critical thought on architecture. But the use of the video essentially enables us to integrate the additional moving space-time dimension and the diversity of angles to the representation. Indeed, the video’s feature is allowing us to enter a world that takes on value through multiplicity and movement among other things. The video takes us beyond what is perceived by the eye and what conventional instruments of representation are capable of doing; it essentially enables us to portray movement and variations in real time. For example, it shows us different angles, changes from light to dark and variations in light hues to dark hues. Montage and collage techniques build moving spaces that put the observer in a conscious relation to reality. The video then integrates the traditional mediums of architectural representation into its production process, the three-dimensional aspect of the scale model, the framing issue related to photography and the careful and precise observation of the Real which is critical to design and sketch. Yet the use of the digital video enables us to open the field of architectural representation to the direct capture of the Real, from some of its components, most notably time, movement and observation. Architectural representation, based on the continuous Real, enables us to develop our own interpretations about the place by capturing a complex site on camera as well as encounters between the observer and architecture.



The moving image 

And to state that video builds itself on the unfolding act, on the object I see while I am filming, is also stating that the video is a means for the observer to enter a powerful relationship with both the reality surrounding him and the present moment. To paint, to film, to take a picture and to draw leads to a time interval between I see and I do, between the act and the representation (Dubois 1995). In this case, I see has ended and only the representation of the past act remains. In regards to the taken image, it is not the exact image that the eye saw or thought to capture because it eliminates all the moving elements. The captured image, not the video camcorder, represents the eye’s action as well as the action, or actions of the place. 3.  Crossing, cutting, gluing: Representing the invisible (Faure 2011) Considering the numerous changes in long distance information transmission since the end of the nineteenth century, the Internet is likely to be the most destabilizing media when it comes to our relationship with the world by the real information it transmits: in time, from distances and from virtual and imperceptible places. The video, which enables us to capture the real or material elements, also enables us to construct the immaterial by working with montage and collage. The use of contemporary communication instruments, such as the digital camera, enables us to manipulate real space and return some of its value or at least, make an interpretation out of it. This instrument does not display real space as a distant place but it gives us a view of it, which triggers emotions such as p ­ leasure or unhappiness. We reappropriate the place through the use of this instrument. This technique, which seems to increasingly isolate us from the living world and from real experience, enables us to recreate sensibility, which is a primary value for man. Film attempts to reestablish connections between the city’s actor and the place with the help of perception. Films compel both the person who is fi ­ lming and the person who is watching to look into space during the shooting and d ­ uring its projection. The observation time is just as important because a film cannot capture space in its entirety. In the film, which occurs at a time interval from the observation, the space plays with the senses and creates a powerful moment between the observer and the object. The digital camera captures the real in architectural and urban space in their everyday life. In this way, the camera enables us to create, on a digital medium, a layout of their changes, moments of intensity, calm, as well as accidents, meetings, functions and malfunctions, which are carried out through its external eye. It is external because it is linked to a device but internal because it is at the heart of the action that is taking place. By capturing the moment or the detail, the camera

 Anne Faure

is the means of getting a hold of the place in its ensemble, its reality and in all of its complexities. As Hubert Damisch (2003) once wrote, “[…] décrire un tableau revient à rien de moins qu’à le mettre en mots, le traiter à la moulinette du langage, le convertir en un objet de discours qui offre matière à interprétation, voire qui l’appelle” (p. 215). (“[…] describing a painting comes to nothing less than putting it into words, passing it through a language sieve, turning it into a discourse topic which offers substance to interpret and even calls out to the painting”). In this way, we pass the architectural object through a sieve to elicit a vision. The work process we implement makes use of the moving image to provoke thought. The hybrid of architecture images and artistic references, works of art or/and artistic theories, the video montage enables us to both define architecture as art5 and to address perception, which is inherent to art but not to architecture.6 In this way, the filmed object opens itself to an ensemble of iconographic and theoretical references, which structure the construction of the films. We consider this dialogue, by way of montage, of moving images in the same architectural space, among themselves or with reference images as a “trigger” process of representations and critical reaction through a technique similar to the “iconology of the interval,” elaborated by Aby Warburg in 1905 and carried out between 1924 and 1929 in the creation of Mnemosyne Atlas. For Aby Warburg, the manual montage and collage of fixed images among themselves on the same plane creates other spaces, spaces which become places for thought for the same reasons as ­colored surfaces laid out on the canvass enable us by their association to “see” a work of art or the sliding of an image to another by overlapping, light transmission, blending, and cutting updates a space for creation where an idea is constructed and revealed. Aby Warburg’s collages, which coordinate small paper images on a black plane medium, without obvious regard to scales and represented subjects, become spaces for questioning where it is possible to create a relationship between the images with thought. This process thus enables us to have various approaches and interpretations in regards to the work of art (Didi-Hubermann 2002).

5.  In our researches, we distinguish Architecture, which we believe belongs to Arts, from Visual Arts. 6.  Indeed, while the Visual Arts are the realm of perception, Architecture used to be envisaged as a model of functionality. Perception was never considered as a essential element of the architectural project. But since the late 1980s, we notice a growing interest for Visual Arts in Architecture. Especially in Western countries, Architecure is nowadays often regarded as a close cooperation between artists and architects. This results in a more sensitive conception of Architecture, as an invisible ornement of contemporary space.



The moving image 

As we already wrote, today’s communication media are inducing new relationships between the individual and the space. Thanks to the numerous possibilities of digital media, video now allows to materialize the sensitive dialogue between an individual and its spatial environment. Video necessitates a stare on space, both from the creator at the time of shooting and editing, and from the viewer, at the time of projection. 4.  Conclusion Our videos do not imitate the real. On the contrary, the video makes use of the real in order to reveal something else. Video documents the real. The images composing it are “passages” that open the observer to the place through the imaginary or through the senses that it awakens (Didi-Huberman 2006). Video is a language because it defines space. It connects space with the observer. It depicts spaces with a succession of images, which support a more global thought of the built environment. In this way, the moving images of the real captured on film become the subject matter of reflection on the place. The space between both images, that is, all that is not revealed in theory, but will appear with the collages or the montages, is a space for expression where discourse is created. These spaces may be called “Espacesautres” (“other spaces”) according to Michel Foucault (1967). According to Foucault, the “other spaces,” also known as heterotopias (from Greek topos, “place”, hetero, “other”), are applied to concrete spaces that host the imaginary. Film, by basing itself on the complexity of our century, an epoch Foucault incidentally describes as an epoch “[…] du simultané, […] de la juxtaposition, […] du proche et du lointain, du côte à côte, du dispersé. », et qui “[…] s’éprouve, […], moins comme une grande vie qui se développerait à travers le temps que comme un réseau qui relie des points et qui entrecroise son écheveau.” (“[…] of simultaneity…of juxtaposition…of the near and the far, of the side-to-side, of the dispersed.” and where “our experience of the world is less that of a long life developing through time than that of a network that connects points and intersects with its own skein.”). The images of the real, with the help of devices such as the camcorder and the computer, are used to construct “other spaces” and thus enable us to see otherwise. Manufactured images – in an etymological sense of the word “the making or producing of anything” – in this case, to make a work of art through digital collage and montage which enable us to make a hybrid of the real object, iconographic references, written work, and perception of the site are the foundation of the creation of the videos (see Figure 2).

 Anne Faure

Our hybrid films, which are completely independent of the material that ­constitutes them, are only a part of the material result of this process. Indeed, this work on the image, which enables the creation of objects between art and architecture, is the foundation of the theoretical thinking on visual perception in contemporary Western architecture.

Figure 2.  Fragment of video, Sur grand écran-Pièce 2. [Angles and production: Anne Faure – Color, 3 min 20. Original score: Philippe Martin – 2007–2009]

Architectural representation created by film techniques is no longer the place captured on video. It is a “[…] un lieu d’interprétation (représentation) des sens qui s’y croisent” (Latek 2008). (“space of interpretation (representation) of the senses that meet each other”) This interpretation process, that is, translation, or illustration of sensations rendered by the architectural object is no longer a means to manage to display or materialize the notions of space and so to document the real. The film instrument employed here to analyze the city’s architecture is also used as an instrument for design. Videos, far from being of traditional design of an architectural or urban project, are objects that raise questions and assessments on both architecture and the city nowadays and they make propositions.

References Agamben, G. 1998. Image et mémoire. Paris: Hoëbeke. Benjamin, W. 2000. Petite histoire de la photographie. In Œuvres II. Paris: Gallimard. Benjamin, W. 1999. Little history of photography. In Selected writings, volume 2, 1927–1934, eds. M. W. Jennings, H. Eiland, and G. Smith. 507–530. Cambridge, MA and London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.



The moving image 

Benjamin, W. 1935/2005. L’œuvre d’art à l’époque de sa reproductibilité technique. Paris: Allia. Cohn, D. 2003. Y voir mieux, y regarder de plus près. Autour d’Hubert Damisch. Paris: Rue d’Ulm – Presses de l’École normale supérieure. Didi-Huberman, G. 2002. L’image survivante. Histoire de l’art et temps des fantômes selon Aby Warburg. Paris: Minuit. Didi-Huberman, G. 2006. L’image brûle. In Penser par les images. Autour des travaux de Georges Didi-Huberman, ed. L. Zimmermann. Nantes: Cécile Defaut. Dubois, P. 1995. Vidéo et écriture électronique. La question esthétique. In Esthétique des arts médiatiques (Vol. 1–2), ed. L. Poissant. Sainte-Foy: Presses de l’Université du Québec. Faure, A. 2010. La représentation-action: un territoire esthétique possible de l’architecture ­contemporaine. Paper presented at Doctorales, Nantes. Faure, A. 2011. Croiser, couper, coller : fabriquer des espaces autres. Paper presented at La ­Perception, entre cognition et esthétique, University of Paris Est, Créteil. Foucault, M. 1984. Des espaces autres. Hétérotopies. (Lecture at the Cercle d'études architecturales, March 14, 1967). Architecture, Mouvement, Continuité 5: 46–49. Latek, I. 2008. Collage mouvant ou “Image-temps” dans l’exploration instrumentale de n ­ ouveaux modes d’analyse et de conception d’espace urbain. Paper presented at European Association for Architectural Education/Architecture Research Centers Consortium, Copenhagen. Latek, I. 2008. Passages, déplacements et flâneries autour du Mémorial Walter Benjamin. In   L’Architecture inquiétée par l’œuvre d’art. Mémorial Walter Benjamin, Dani ­Karavan. Research program Art, architecture et paysages, France: Ministry of Culture and Communication. Les demoiselles d'avignon is a 1907 painting by Picasso Michaud, P.A. 1998. Aby Warburg et l’image en mouvement. Paris: Macula. Michaud, P.A. 2006. Sketches Histoire de l’art et cinéma. Paris: Kargo & l’Éclat. Moholy-Nagy, L. 1956. Vision in motion. Chicago: ID Book, Paul Theolbald and Company. Moholy-Nagy, L. 1925/1993. Peinture, photographie, film et autres écrits sur la photographie. Paris: Gallimard. Sayag, A., and C. Blanchon. 1976. Cinéma dadaïste et surréaliste. Paris: Centre national d’art et de culture Georges Pompidou. Wills, L. M. 1974. Le regard contemplatif chez Valéry et Mallarmé. Amsterdam: Rodopi.

Dialogue as a possibility for knowledge in organizations Marlene R. Marchiori*, Miguel L. Contani†, Patrice M. Buzzanell‡ Taking dialogue to be a social practice within organizations, we reflect and ask ourselves: Under what circumstances does dialogue work as a process that can promote or hinder knowledge development in organizations? In response, we extend organizational perspectives by situating knowledge construction through interactions, especially dialogue and conversation. The key issue is that humans communicatively constitute knowledge by way of interaction and social practices that vary according to their social-historic contexts (see Ashcraft, Kuhn & Cooren 2009; Putnam & Nicotera 2009). We present the case of a Brazilian Innovation unit charged by the government to incorporate knowledge‑dialogue dynamics in organizational change processes. Through this case, we illuminate ways in which communication constructs and upgrades knowledge within organizational environments.

1.  Introduction Through interaction and the establishment of relationships, organizations are actively built, making them dynamic and fluid, non-stable and unitary (Cheney, Christensen, Zorn & Ganesh 2011). Observing organizations in their subjective side or dimensions means considering their behavioral, spiritual, and emotional features (see Davel & Colbari 2003). It also means understanding their relevance beyond their utility as management processes and structures. The subjective ­perspective foregrounds the notion that what is supposed to constitute a given reality especially exists through the way it is experienced and given signification

*  School of Management - Programa de Pós-Graduação em Administração – PPGA, Departamento de Comunicação, Universidade Estadual de Londrina, Rodovia Celso Garcia Cid, PR 445, CEP 86051-990, Londrina – PR – Brazil. Email: [email protected]. † 

School of Communication – Programa de Pós-Graduação em Comunicação, Universidade Estadual de Londrina. Email: [email protected]. ‡ 

Department of Communication, Bryan Lamb School of Communication, Purdue University. Email: [email protected].

 Marchiori et al.

(Hatch 2006). Moreover, subjectivity situates human construction of reality as primary: “What we perceive is a process in which we are active participants, not ­neutral receivers or passive observers” (McAuley, Duberley & Johnson 2007, p. 39). Political matters, problematic situations, differences in prioritizing, miscommunication, and ambiguities, contradictions, and inconsistencies in understanding the same task, are all elements that require deeper involvement and insight  – with interaction as the process that can assist in this sensemaking (see Sias 2009; Weick 1979, 1995, 2006) and with dialogue as the process that can ­fundamentally ­transform our worlds. In this essay, our goal is to integrate and distinguish different processes of knowledge production, interaction, and dialogue by delving into the theoretical contributions of each author and by presenting the case of a governmental agency in Brazil that incorporated dialogic processes in their change management procedures with resulting transformations of individuals, work processes and outcomes, and organization as a whole. To accomplish our goal, we begin by (a) discussing some rudimentary distinctions and interconnections among ­dialogue, ­interaction, and knowledge. We next delve into (b) dialogue in the ­process of interaction before addressing (c) the ways in which dialogue is part of the ­construction of ­knowledge and self-awareness. We bring these ideas together in the fourth section, (d) ­implications, where we present the case of a B ­ razilian governmental agency that undergoes organizational change through dialogic techniques and processes. We offer (e) a conclusion that provides closure on our thoughts in this article but that also encourages reflection on the possibilities within dialogue for transformation. 2.  A starting point: Dialogue, interaction, and knowledge production Dialogue is seen as a means by which knowledge is achieved in organizations, and the reason is simple: social practice takes place when individuals construct their relations and these relations produce meanings. The old idea that there is one group in the organization that is the thinker, innovator, or designer, and another group that is the doer, implementor, or producer no longer works. This division of labor happened mainly because expertise was considered to be c­ ompartmentalized with different skills required for different tasks (Hartelius 2008). However, such divisions do not recognize that there is no productive process that can start and end around a single person’s ownership of expertise: there must be interaction. So dialogue is focused as a process of interaction that can influence f­undamentally the course of events (Shotter 2006, apud Brundin, Melin & Nordqvist 2008), and as action occurs, knowledge production becomes a consequence: those who know



Dialogue issues 

less learn with those who know more, those who know about different areas with those whose credibility lies in specialized knowledge. These positions ­continuously change and “knowledge [becomes] as an inherent aspect of action” (Deng & Poole 2011, p. 210). It all starts when people talk and share their ideas, converse, and dialogue. These spaces for interaction enable growth, evolution, and the change of ideas and of the involved participants. Interaction promotes upgrades in knowledge when individuals and the organization as a collective grow with the expanded background information they acquire through sharing. Knowledge is drawn right from the literal meaning of the word: awareness, ability to perceive a phenomenon more sharply. Knowledge is built and rebuilt in daily practices (Deng & Poole 2011). Gorz (2005) proposes the creation of forms of knowing – not replaceable and not formalizable – but reconstructed in, or reconstituted through, diversified discourses that permeate organizational spaces. As such, these different kinds of knowledge and knowledge creation as a whole are living processes: “The knowledge from experience, insights, capacity for coordination, self-organization and communication /…/ forms of a living knowledge acquired in the traffic of the quotidian” (Gorz 2005, p. 9). Communication theory comprises the practical dimension, or the act that is put into effect, and the relationship that takes shape by means of the significant gestures, all steered by language (França 2008, p. 86, our translation). Varey (2006, p.  194) perceives communication as interaction acts and not as objects and ­artifacts. Interaction cannot be understood as a process of information but should instead be seen as a process of “construction and negotiation of ­meanings (a  ­process of communication).” Communication is an interaction marked by reflexivity with which one part acts over the other – past and future are activated by the action in the present. Thus, “communication is connected to movement” (França 2008, p. 90). 3.  Dialogue in the process of interaction Interaction qualifies distinctively the idea of action by emphasizing its shared aspects (França 2008, our translation). All that is involved in the social act is ­interaction. Interactive processes are a sequence of interconnected phases whose complexities make it impossible to understand when analyzing a single phase. Thus, the practice of dialogue in contemporary organizations leads to the ­“producing and sharing of sense by and between interlocutors” (Maia & França 2003, p. 188, our translation). It is a relation marked by the interactive situation and by the social-historical context. It is exactly in and through this connection

 Marchiori et al.

that the power to change the self and be open to be changed by others takes place. It is through words and acts that we are placed in the human world and the human world becomes situated in us (Arendt 2008, p. 189), the meaning of the words ­perceived “according to its contextual representation” (Martino 2007, p. 61, our translation). Words have no meaning by themselves; meaning only takes place upon the interaction of people and within the space where an activity occurs (Shotter 2004). The reciprocal nature of these interactions and questioning leads to a ­community that can develop knowledge: True community does not come into being because people have feelings for each other (though that is required, too), but rather on two accounts: all of them have to stand in a living, reciprocal relationship to a single living center, and they have to stand in a living, reciprocal relationship to one another.  (Kaufman 1970, p. 94)

As noted by Kaufman, the core of community and knowledge is the reciprocal relationship between living, interacting human beings. The interactive component is essential to community. Moreover, “enactive approaches emphasize the use of representations in practice, and the consequent communicative constitution of such knowing” (Tsoukas 2011, p. xvii). The resulting theoretical approach is that of a dialogue seen as a form of social practice. The effects of the dialogue are constituent as individuals construct or create social realities by participating in it. Likewise, in organizations, individuals engage in social practices by negotiating meanings and constructing the world at the same time as they, the individuals, are constructed by those meanings and that world. The “order of interaction” (Goffman 1983, 1987) is where representations are promulgated. For Tsoukas (2011) “representations and meanings are instantiated through the pragmatics of human actions” (p. xiv). Organizational knowledge is achieved by means of processes of representation, meaning, and ­improvising (Tsoukas 2011). “The organization agents, guided by the discourses, change part of their referential and roles, model their practices and perform their tasks” ­(Waiandt & Davel 2008, p. 387). According to Arendt (2008), as human beings acts, they are able to “­ accomplish the endlessly improbable.” (p. 191). As she points out: Without discourse, action would not be action because there would be no actor; and the actor, the agent of the action, only exists if it is, at the same time, the author of the words… No other human activity but action requires so much from the discourse. It is through action and discourse that men [sic] can show who they really are, they can reveal their personal and unique identities and thus, present themselves to the human world. (pp. 191–192)



Dialogue issues 

This agency and presentation to the world happens through discourse. Discourse is revealed through human living and sharing. Organizations are discursive constructions insofar as discourse – as talk in interaction with its political, material, embodied, and contextual nature – is the real foundation on which organizational life and change are built (Ashcraft et al. 2009; Fairhurst & Putnam 2010). ­Taylor (2004) suggests that attitude in communication takes place as a discursive phenomenon; therefore, it is essential not to overlook the properties of language found in such a communication game. Three fundamental factors reside in this process: context, interaction, and the ability of people that include verbal interaction for the performance of people in organizational environments. This performance of actions involving the creation and sharing of m ­ eanings is dialogue. Westwood and Clegg (2003) consider that the essence of social ­construction is a concern with the experience and the production of meaning that people have developed in their living contexts. The words have particular ­meanings within the relationships that develop and take shape according to ­various negotiation processes that occur naturally in an organizational reality. Gergen and ­Warhus (2001) also see the process of constructing meanings as a social activity: “The meaning, therefore, has no origin in and is not stored within the mind for future use, but is created through action and regenerated (or not) by a subsequent process of coordination” (p. 111). The degree to which the ­interacting parts are familiar with a certain word (in the case of an organization, a certain task) and with the context in which interaction is operating enhances the ­possibilities of dialogue. The main implication is to clarify how sense and sensemaking takes place by means of dialogue under an approach that is not linear or persuasive (Wolf 2001) but is relational, and recognizes that this process operates in the moment in which knowledge is created. Knowledge is constituted and recreated in daily social practices that are present in the moment individuals interact and make meanings in relation to their experiences. As such, language, meanings, thoughts, and actions do not occur in abstract but within conversations. Conversation is the most common type of language in activity and it has three characteristics: interactive, locally managed, and universal (see Nofsinger 1999) that distinguish conversation from speech. When individuals engage in interaction, awareness of conversation goes beyond self-consciousness to address how my attitudes affect others. According to Bakhtin (1990, in Pearce & Pearce 2004), dialogue is ­“undetermined and an emerging process” (p. 117), a human opportunity to ­“discuss or create truth and strengthen actions” (Hammond et al. 2003, in Hawes 2004, p. 175). Dialogue, even when considered in processes of negotiation, is a ­creative form of communication that treats relationships respectfully and produces shared

 Marchiori et al.

solutions (Kellett 2007; see also Deetz & Simpson 2004). When conceptualizing dialogue as a “politically responsive constructionist theory of communication” (Deetz & Simpson 2004, p. 145), we come to decisions that strengthen creativity and commitment and that generate opportunities for the organizational members to productively contribute to mutual problem resolutions. The dialogue is referred to as a formal property of “spontaneous speech” and, by means of it, a process whereby people get themselves organized ­(Taylor  & ­Robichaud 2004, p. 399). França (2005) notes that “to understand discursive ­practices as ‘communicative interactions’ is the same as to emphasize the presence of interlocutors and see discursive interfaces as moments of negotiation” (p. 95) for the creation of knowledge. Dialogue provides for the legitimate experience of each individual in connection with others to determine what really counts as knowledge (Marchiori 2008, p. 200). Finally, it is understood that the essence of the dialogue lies in the search for the truth, in the cultivation of what “I know that I do not know” and in getting to know from the experience of relationships (Leahy 2001). As Buzzanell (2011) notes, dialogue encapsulates communicative processes that transcend the here and now to create understandings in new ways and in content that we don’t yet know. … it is … a process permanently etched into our interactions with others. It upends our convictions and forces us to question our values. It requires that we engage in sensemaking … at some elemental level whereby we engage in our mutual right to and need to connect. (p. 1)

Dialogue, then, is an essential human action, with dialogical and monological movements (see Buber 1977). These movements reflect the need to consider the presence of the other, expressing in external gestures what the soul wants to show. Beyond moving towards the other, one must turn inwards and watch oneself and be aware that knowledge occurs to the extent that the individual appraises it through the lenses of his/her own feelings, values, spiritual mood, and emotions (i.e. it is not enough to only share it with other people). Dialogue, therefore, with its many forward and backward movements, pushes and sometimes pulls back in the development of human knowledge. Knowledge construction processes may be hurt when what is heard is not really what was meant, and what is lived is not really what one has accepted and desired in life.

4.  Dialogue: Construction of knowledge and self-awareness Socrates put significant emphasis on dialogue in search for knowledge by understanding that truth is born amid humans, in the process of dialogic ­



Dialogue issues 

c­ ommunication. Clarity comes out when dialogue is in progress and when dialogue comprises statements from all involved parts. Deetz and Simpson (2007) suggest that organizations are able to “emphasize the importance of shared meaning and finding common ground at the expense of encountering difference and mutually constructing understanding” (p. 150), so as to demonstrate that each of these ways redefines our understanding of dialogic transformation. Dialogue changes the quality of thought beneath interactions (Pearce & Pearce 2004), since the more interlocutors interact in a conscious and desired way, the more they tend to abandon their individualist thinking habits. ­Accepting that knowledge is not fixed or predetermined means to consider knowledge as an ongoing negotiation and with control over knowledge produced socially (Murphy & Eisenberg 2010). Knowledge is produced when people access their interpersonal networks to develop interpretations of how to deal with ambiguous situations. By considering this context, the circle between dialogue and knowledge comes to a close. To Murphy and Eisenberg (2011), knowledge occurs in the relational dimension of communication as people manage ambiguities, relationships, and knowledge. Such knowledge comes from the experiences drawn from interpersonal ­relationships, of conversation, from the collaborative routines built by ­individuals in the organizational context in which they are involved, and according to the ­situations that need to be reviewed in relation to the dynamics of such organizational environments. Actions and interactions are thus examined, as are the ­artifacts and the language utilized in social interactions (Deng & Poole 2011), which by means of dialogue build knowledge in the organizations. According to Flanagin and Bator (2011) that is why knowledge is fundamentally communicative, that is, constituted in and through communication: defining knowledge as a situated practice, problem-solving, and thinking, suggests its fundamentally communicative nature. Because it is necessarily situated in practice and a specific context, knowledge requires communication among individuals in order to make sense of it, to exchange it, and therefore to derive benefit from it. These processes are all rooted in human communication, and require an understanding of communicative processes. (p. 177)

Such processes allow for an organization to build its own knowledge and help individuals to interpret, make decisions, and act in a wide range of situations. It is fundamental that organizations, by means of dialogue, foster the creation of knowledge, and understand that the knowledge each individual possesses within an organization is what distinguishes it from others. In an article on the place of strategy in dialogic theory, White (2008) points out that whereas the idea of strategy is connected to notions of goal-oriented ­success,

 Marchiori et al.

instrumental effectiveness, and self-conscious calculation, dialogue emphasizes “an accommodation of otherness, a commitment to ethical processes, and the potential of a spontaneous and unreserved authenticity to produce profound personal and social transformations” (p. 5). Although these sets of conditions and distinctive characteristics would make strategy and dialogue seem incompatible, White (2008) offers some points of connection and apparent enthusiasm in their application to human interaction: (…) imagine two interlocutors who each are faced with a choice of engaging with the other communicatively (i.e. dialogically) or strategically. If they both choose strategy, then neither is particularly advantaged nor disadvantaged: they make their trade or conclude their negotiations and, one imagines, each gives as good as he or she gets. If they both choose dialogue, however, then the transformative potential of dialogue is brought to bear and the fruits of collaboration and true cooperation are reaped by both: The fictitious falls away and every word – every word! is an actuality, tongued perhaps with fire. (p. 12)

An organization is movement, and knowledge is also movement in relation to the innovation the interlocutors bring to the organization when dialoguing. This movement is implicit in Hayes and Walsham’s (2003) statement that “Knowledge is ‘socially embedded and inseparable from practice’ (p. 73), and contrasts with information that serves as an input that is contextualized and understood through complex and situated processes of knowledge creation” (Flanagin & Bator 2011, p. 176).

5.  Implications Perspectives inspired in dialogue-knowledge relationship “argue that ­knowledge is relative, specific to a particular context, and reflects esoteric viewpoints that may or may not be understood beyond the specific locations in which they are ­embedded. From the relational perspective, the focus is on the processes by which knowledge is gained and shared” (Flanagin & Bator 2011, p. 176). The case described below was selected to illustrate what we mean by dialogue and ­knowledge in this context. A project designed by the codename of Innovation was conducted by a ­Brazilian government agency as part of a nationwide effort to implement a far reaching philosophy aimed at spreading, throughout the country’s administrative units, the idea that organizational change is present in today’s world, and that it is mandatory that public and private entities engage in organizational change ­processes to search for more productive managerial systems. The key issue is that



Dialogue issues 

such systems should be capable of sustaining not only the output but also the development of people. The implication here is that this is one of the situations where knowledge needs to be generated, grown, and utilized. For instance, each unit involved with this Innovation project had the primary task of understanding the nature of the government’s challenge and the part their members played in facing up to it. A pilot run of the Innovation was conducted at a Federal Administrative Office in Belém, the capital of the northern state of Pará, that volunteered to participate. The involved consultants numbered 12 from Belém and 10 from other parts of the country, and worked in close partnership with three external consultants. They built the strategy and set up a list that contained dialogue-inspired presuppositions that they would then be put to and into work. These presuppositions would allow for the reading of the implications on the entire project in its ability to i­ntroduce change in personnel management. One clear statement was that acquiring ­knowledge was a preponderant aspect for successful accomplishments and that meant acquiring skills to achieve that knowledge. The organization had to accept the fact that it had to involve people and that change would only be effected with dialogue. This Innovation unit reported results that they said were gained through dialogue and through a process whereby they identified points affecting the interactions of the local staff in daily activities. Although containing some findings similar to those found in classic research studies, these lists, in our opinion, can be viewed from the lens of dialogue and knowledge construction. We provide these lists because they display how circumstances act as exigencies toward and justify thinking of dialogue as a generator of knowledge. Specifically, the lists as they were expressed by the participants cover a range of topics that represent (a) one level of knowledge known (or suspected) and levels to be acquired, (b) problems to be solved, and (c) obstacles to be removed. With regard to the level of knowledge known (or suspected) and levels to be acquired, the Innovation group’s list included: –– Tasks were being performed without prior definition of goals individually and in groups, and no outcome could be foreseen. –– No tool was available for follow up, and no personal evaluation was possible. –– There was poor communication among leaders and subordinates, causing lack of constructive criticism and difficulties in working processes, results, and competences. –– Programming and scheduling were inadequate for proper training, drill, and human resources development, with no needs analysis being shared with crew members.

 Marchiori et al.

–– Career growth followed traditional procedures of automatic promotion (i.e. length of service) so poor involvement, commitment, satisfaction, and ­performance was expected. Evaluation output originated exclusively through the boss’s judgment with no trustworthy and reliable criteria being involved. The Innovation group needed to become conscious and to “own” the fact that no solution for these listed problems could be attained “outside” them. They, and the consultants brought in to assist them with change processes, recognized that ­internal communication, especially top down and seemingly straight­ forward communication from upper levels was working poorly. The group needed to dialog and, at a deeper level, become better able to anticipate, be responsive to, and incorporate paradigmatic changes in the current b ­ usiness world. The agency also needed to enhance awareness of the requirements and demands of sound management for better results, productivity, sustainable growth, ­corporate social responsibility, and skills development – that is, upgraded knowledge. As a first step, agency members sought, and were guided in their, learning about the content of their own communication as the site in which preliminary knowledge could be achieved. Building deeper levels of knowledge then grew from the same source: the work environment with dialogue functioning as one of the tools as well as the fundamental process in organizational change. The engagement of dialogue and knowledge (re)creation produced consequences in skills and in management – that is, in the work itself and what employees brought to this work as well as in the design and administration of processes and products (for overviews of dialogic consulting and change management, see Bushe & Marshak 2009; Marshak & Grant 2008; Schwarz & Huber 2008; Seo, Putnam & Bartunek 2004). The participants were encouraged to recognize the importance of d ­ eveloping effective and productive systems in order to sustain not only expected ­organizational results but also to promote the development of the people who worked in the o ­ rganization. To meet this goal, “learning from each other” was a key f­actor. New personnel were welcomed into the organization in large part because of the technical and managerial competences that they would bring to desirable outcomes, particularly their contributions to permanent growth. They and other workers worked toward immediate demands in the change effort, namely, full p ­ articipation, understanding the working system, and rethinking the managerial role. These processes and outcomes were sometimes paradoxical and ironic insofar as employees sought to socialize newcomers into the current system while also hiring with anticipation that new workers would bring different ideas and demands.



Dialogue issues 

The second list consisted of problems to be solved. This list rested on the idea of another kind of knowledge that was essential to the change processes. This knowledge was the understanding of the group’s own administrative model and how much people were willing to invest to improve their interactions and, as a consequence, improve overall performance. The following presuppositions were implied and such norms and decision premises were made conscious through interaction. These presuppositions were phrased as problems to be solved, but they could alternatively be called codes of conduct and opportunities for commitment: –– Participation of all involved will be required, with no exception; commitment will be drawn from this sense of belonging. –– Dialogue will bring knowledge of how individual and group treatment are perceived by the entire group. This treatment should involve fair management of compensation for the efforts put in the tasks. –– Permanent discussion of individual roles and group participation will be implemented. –– Understanding the ways to insure that this office becomes effective for outside stakeholders, included the community, will be considered essential. This second list, in our case study participants’ own words, established the ground rules, assumptions, and values of the organization without which dialogue and knowledge building could not even be considered. Third, throughout the change processes, there were obstacles. These obstacles often consisted of material difficulties and points of resistance in terms of workers’ perceptions, emotions, and ties to past ways of working individually and collectively. Therefore, another knowledge base or list consisted of the following anticipated obstacles to organizational change that were phrased in terms of propositions and causal (if-them) statements: –– High volume of work and the urge to correct flaws from others affects motivation. –– Dissatisfaction with prevailing compensation policies tends to interfere with commitment. –– Skepticism over the actual goals of the organizational system may be a ­consequence of low autonomy in the office to implement decisions. –– Fear of the consequences of admitting poor performance (i.e. fear of being fired) would cause people to not admit difficulties and mistakes. –– Difficulties in establishing individual and group goals in quantifiable metrics resulted from the absence of strategic planning and lack of clarity regarding expected outcomes from staff members and the organization as a whole.

 Marchiori et al.

–– Low ability to provide feedback in spite of apparent good relationships among staff members meant that staff members experienced difficulties in speaking frankly about different shortcomings. This third list was based on the thoughts, feelings, behaviors common to ­individuals and organizations undergoing fundamental change. However, they also expressed how the workers in our Brazilian agency understood and articulated their own change processes and the aspects that they would need to modify to meet their objectives. After introducing these three sets of lists and developing, in organization ­members, the capacities to deal with the gaps in knowledge known (or ­suspected) and to be acquired, problems to be solved, and obstacles to be removed, the ­Innovation group set upon an integrative task. To pursue greater productivity, deepen knowledge, and promote dialogue to affect change, members of the government agenda had to develop confidence in the utility and effectiveness of dialogue. They needed to have this confidence so that they could face up to their situations. ­Participants sometimes feared to express their deficiencies and criticisms. The system in which they work required them to understand the competences they needed in order to deal with internal and external publics, and the profiles wanted by the values and strategic goals of the organization. But building confidence, making mistakes, learning how to assess and further develop their own and others’ competencies was difficult. Ways to develop confidence tended to work best when several conditions were achieved. First, there needed to be high impact changes and accountability in ­personnel management, with mechanisms for feedback receptivity and responsiveness (see Redding 1972) being implemented. These mechanisms included following up on action plans, maintaining a results orientation, and doing ­evaluation as encouraged and guided by dialogic processes. The agency employees also needed greater and broader motivations for self-awareness and understandings of their own roles in the organization. Moreover, hidden conflicts had to be unmasked and discussed for solutions – with the process of uncovering these hidden conflicts continuing over time as the workers became more comfortable with the process. They began to better accept each other’s responsibility and the sharing of expectations and obligations (i.e. roles). They gained greater ability to engage in self-­analysis and reflection about each other’s capabilities and development needs. Actions also were redirected to skills development. Organizational members developed a new awareness of their need for and the means by which they could request tailored training and seminars. The knowledge that developed within the Brazilian Innovation unit also included dialogue on less developed competences and what to do to enrich them.



Dialogue issues 

The result of these identified needs, assumptions, and processes for change yielded greater group and individual performance impacts. The workers also perceived that they acquired greater capacities to establish and negotiate goals and also greater consciousness of the need to be responsive to such planning. Dialogue and negotiation implications were recognized and rewarded as new factors and processes introduced into the everyday interactions of organization members, and the knowledge obtained through such processes, was considered innovative. 6.  Discussion The starting point was the challenge to enhance group performance and find what knowledge would best ensure the needed bases for the learning involved – and explain the nature of this learning. In the Innovation environment, this process worked towards finding the impacts in terms of (a) managing people and (b) ­managing results. In managing people, numerous mechanisms of feedback were implemented among employees and management so a higher level of dialogue was experienced. Furthermore, there was a recognition – throughout all organizational units – of the strong need both to improve performance and to be accountable. Being accounted for performance meant that internal and external evaluation were involved. In addition, understanding their own roles within the organization along with acceptance of their own and others’ share of responsibility created a design for transformation and dialogue whereby employees felt encouraged and committed to voice their opinions, feelings, assumptions, and suggestions. Without commitment to greater performance, accountability, understanding of roles and responsibilities, the organizational members would not have ­developed the ability to raise and explain hidden conflicts. In developing these abilities, they then could promote discussion and resolution. Furthermore, to move from discussion and resolution to dialogue, they also engaged consistently in ­self-analysis and reflection on diverse perspectives for their own development, including personal searches for formal and informal training on their less developed skills. In managing results, employees maintained awareness that the outcomes expected from, and achieved by, this government office were largely a consequence of an improved ability to establish holistic or systemic thinking with an eye toward desirable goals. All were encouraged and encouraged others to focus on the goals to be met. They sought and embodied: more task oriented involvement; higher commitment to overall group performance; more advance planning and use of evaluation output to improve practices; and greater contributions to strategic management.

 Marchiori et al.

7.  Contributions Through our case analysis, we displayed how dialogue and knowledge building have been integrated seamlessly in one particular Brazilian organization with long-term consequences and continual reflection to promote ongoing transformation. The efforts to create a dialogic knowledge-intensive organization were not easy, nor are the efforts to sustain dialogue and reduce the fears that accompany such honesty about selves, others, and work on behalf of collective interests. Dialogue is a complex concept, applicable to all social environments and with the potential to create knowledge at any time. The broad impact of this relationship is at the group and organizational levels. In an organization, all starts with planning. Sustainable, inclusionary, and innovative planning must be collective and dialogic. In this level, people have to think about what they are suggesting and must know what they are talking about. Otherwise, dialogue cannot produce knowledge without an evolving design and continuous support geared toward knowledge production. In our case, the goals of the organization included the search for a participative management and people development, results evaluation as a negotiated targeting, effective evaluation of how the deal was accomplished; people should also be prepared for career growth and promotion. Questions had to be raised that meant that broad and deep knowledge of philosophical stances on dialogue needed to be developed and modified. Otherwise, how does one do this kind of organizational planning in a dialogic framework? How do organizational members encourage each other to reflect upon their actions, accountability, responsibilities, and needed new knowledge? How does one develop an environment in which members can admit when they do not know what they are trying to talk about? How do organizational members move from dialogue to knowledge and vice versa? In the case of the Brazilian organization, all the efforts involved acquiring a deeper comprehension of what promoting dialogue meant in terms of changing a paradigm of interaction. Dialogue had to be understood not as someone simply becoming available to talk and listen. Rather, dialogue had to be understood within interactions of respect, organizational relationships, and commitments. Specifically, in this organization, changing the paradigm of interaction meant that there were relationships to be promoted among persons evaluated for their work, the evaluating superior (internal), and relevant publics (external). There were collective goals (in quality and quantity) to be achieved in a timely fashion. Goals needed to be seen from a different perspective from which workers had viewed goals previously. That is, goals were assessed from the vantage point of not only if



Dialogue issues 

but also how they were achieved. Also evaluated were the attitudes, competences, and profiles – in interactions, within the organization as a whole, and within the relevant environment, that is, the broader industry and global economy. Thus ­dialogue and knowledge building had to be integrated at micro, meso, and macro levels. Similarly, knowledge can be generated only in an environment that is non manipulative. There should be mutual openness, recognition of uniqueness, and mutual confirmation. Thomlison (1982) juxtaposes communication that is coercive and dishonest with interpersonal interactions that can enhance honesty and dialogue. Yet, a more apt metaphor is concentric circles. This image not only depicts visually the intersections between knowledge and dialogue but also implies ways of doing or embodying such intersectionalities in practice. Specifically, the knowledge-dialogue intersectionalities are like the concentric circles that form when a stone is thrown in water: each time a message goes from one interlocutor to the other, the straight line between sender and receiver enlarges a circle around it – the more understood one message becomes, the more knowledge it generates. The more the dialogue-knowledge intersectionalities continue, the more participants can engage in praxis. For instance, when in performance evaluation session, the one who evaluated work was responsible for building a trusting and supportive climate for the person being evaluated so that the worker could frankly express the difficulties, or limitations in resources and knowledge, found to be hindering his/her work.

8.  Conclusion The purpose of this study was to correlate dialogue and knowledge construction through the following problem question: Under what circumstances does dialogue work as a process that can promote or hinder knowledge development in organizations? Our discussion showed that dialogue is a valuable part of group interaction and that its complexity deserves permanent reflection. Specifically, through the illustration of a case study, the following conclusions were drawn: –– Knowledge is upgraded when dialogue improves interaction. Since the latter are both part of the dynamics of organizations, they are capable of ensuring the learning environment required by the former. –– In another level, communication relies on a dialogic process. Mastering this process enables one to deal with such complex questions as lack of eagerness to accomplish a task, skepticism, poor planning, low feedback, and inability to incorporate change.

 Marchiori et al.

Through the case of a governmental agency in Brazil, we showed how dialogic processes were built into in their change management procedures with resulting transformations of individuals in relation to others, work processes and outcomes, external commitments, and organizing as a whole. Doing so was not easy and still requires much effort. It also involves ambiguity, paradox, irony, and surprises. Thus, it is through a praxis of imagination, courage, and conscience that there can be real possibilities in dialogue: “It is in these accidental moments of dialogue that we may find new opportunities for transcendence. And thus, we may (e)merge in dialogue and begin dancing in the light of new meaning” (Poulos 2008, p. 117). The members of our Innovation group have taken steps to dance in the light of new meaning but continued reflection and scholarship on dialogue and knowledge building can assist them and others hoping for fundamental institutional and global transformation.

References Anderson, R., and K. N. Cissna. 2008. Fresh perspectives in dialogue theory. Communication Theory 18 (1): 1–4. Arendt, H. 2008. A condição humana. 10th ed. Rio de Janeiro, RJ: Forense Universitária. Ashcraft, K., T. Kuhn, and F. Cooren. 2009. Constitutional amendments: “Materializing” organizational communication. The Academy of Management Annals 3: 1–64. Bakhtin, M. M. 1990. Art and Answerability. Ed. Michael Holquist and Vadim Liapunov. Trans. Vadim Liapunov and Kenneth Brostrom. Austin: University of Texas Press. Baxter, L.A. 2004. Dialogues of relating. In Dialogue: Theorizing difference in communication studies, eds. R. Anderson, L. Baxter, L., and K. Cissna, K. N., 107–124. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Brundin, E., L. Melin, and M. Nordqvist. 2008. Strategic dialogue as an important practice of strategizing. Paper presented to the 24th EGOS Colloquium, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Buber, M. 1977. Eu e tu. São Paulo, SP, Brazil: Editora Moraes. Bushe, G. R., and R. J. Marshak. 2009. Revisioning organization development: Diagnostic and dialogic premises and patterns of practice. Journal of Applied Behavioral Science 45 (3): 348–68. Buzzanell, P. M. 2011. Interrogating culture. Intercultural Communication Studies 20 (1): 1–16. Cheney, G., L. T. Christensen, Jr., T. Zorn, and S. Ganesh. 2011. Organizational communication in an age of globalization: Issues, reflections, practices. 2nd ed. Long Grove, IL: Waveland. Davel, E., and A. Colbari. 2003. Pesquisas sobre organizações familiares: instigações e contribuições. In Anais do Colóquio Internacional – Análise de Organizações: Perspectiva Latinas. Salvador, BA, Brasil. Deetz, S., and J. Simpson. 2004. Critical organizational dialogueue. In Dialogue: Theorizing difference in communication studies, eds. R. Anderson, L. Baxter, K. N. Cissna, 141–158. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Deng, L., and M. S. Poole. 2011. Knowledge utilization in electronic networks of practice. In  Communication and organizational knowledge: Contemporary issues for theory and ­practice, eds. H. Canary and R. D. McPhee, 209–220 New York: Routledge. Fairhurst, G., and L. Putnam. 2010. Organizações como construções discursivas. In Comunicação e organização: reflexões, processos e práticas, ed. M. Marchiori, 103–148. São Caetano, SP: Difusão.



Dialogue issues 

Flanagin, A. J., and M. Bator. 2011. The utility of information and communication technologies in organizational knowledge management. In Communication and organizational knowledge: Contemporary issues for theory and practice, eds. H. Canary and R. McPhee, 173–190. New York: Routledge. França, V. R. V. 2005. Problemas metodológicos e conceituais na análise de programas populares de TV. In A comunicação revisitada, eds. S. Capparelli, M. Sodré and S. Squirra, 85–118. Porto Alegre, RS: Editora Sulina. França, V. V. 2008. Interações comunicativas: a matriz conceitual de G. H. Mead. In Comunicação e interações, eds. A. Primo, A. Oliveira, G. Nascimento and V. Ronsini, 71–91. Porto Alegre, RS: Editora Sulina. Gergen, K. J., and L. Warhus. 2001. Therapy as social construction. In Social constructions in context, ed. K. J. Gergen, 96–114. London, UK: Sage. Goffman, E. 1983/1997. The interaction order. In the Goffman reader, eds. C. Lemert and A. Branaman, 233–261. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Hammond, S. C., Anderson, R., and Cissna, K. N. 2003. The problematics of dialogue and power. In P. Kalbfleisch (ed.), Communication yearbook (Vol. 27, pp. 125-157). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Gorz, A. 2005. O imaterial: conhecimento, valor e capital. São Paulo, SP: Annablume. Hartelius, E. 2008. The rhetoric of expertise. Unpublished dissertation. Austin, TX: The University of Texas at Austin. Hawes, L. 2004. Double binds as structures in dominance and of feelings: Problematics of ­dialogue. In Dialogue: Theorizing difference in communication studies, eds. R. Anderson, L. Baxter and K. N. Cissna, 175–190. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Hatch, M. J., and A. Cunliffe. 2006. Organization theory: Modern, symbolic, and postmodern perspectives. 2nd ed. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Hayes, N. and Walsham, G. 2003 “Knowledge sharing and ICTs: a relational perspective.” In Easterby-Smith, M. and Lyles, M.A. (eds.):  The Blackwell handbook of organizational learning and knowledge management. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell Publishing, pp. 54–77. Kaufman, W. 1970. I and thou. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. Kellett, P. M. 2007. Conflict dialogue: Working with layers of meaning for productive relationships. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Leahy, M. J. 2001. The heart of dialogue. The Fielding Institute. Dissertation: Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company. UMI Number 3022121. McAuley, J., J. Duberley, and P. Johnson. 2007. Organization theory: Challenges and perspectives. Harlow, England: Pearson Education. Maia, R. C., and V. França. 2003. A comunidade e a conformação de uma abordagem comunicacional dos fenômenos. In Epistemologia da comunicação, ed. M. I. V. Lopes, 187–203. São Paulo, SP: Loyola. Marchiori, M. 2008. Cultura e comunicação organizacional: um olhar estratégico sobre a organização. 2nd ed. São Caetano do Sul, SP: Difusão. Marshak, R. J., and D. Grant. 2008. Organizational discourse and new organization development practices. British Journal of Management 19: S7-S19. Martino, L. M. S. 2007. Estética da comunicação: Da consciência comunicativa ao “eu” digital. Petrópolis, RJ: Vozes. Murphy, A. G., and E. M. Eisenberg. 2011. Coaching to the craft: Understanding knowledge in health care organizations. In Communication and organizational knowledge: C ­ ontemporary issues for theory and practice, eds. H. Canary and R. D. McPhee, 264–284. New York: Routledge. Nofsinger, R. E. 1999. Everyday conversation. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland.

 Marchiori et al. Pearce, W. B., and K. A. Pearce. 2004. Taking a communication perspective on dialogue. In  ­Dialogue: Theorizing difference in communication studies, eds. R. Anderson, L. Baxter and K.N. Cissna, 39–56. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Putnam, L. L., and A. M. Nicotera, eds. 2009. Building theories of organization: The constitutive role of communication. New York: Routledge. Poulos, C. N. 2008. Accidental dialogue. Communication Theory 18 (1): 117–38. Redding, W. C. 1972. Communication within the organization: An interpretive review of theory and research. New York: Industrial Communication Council, Inc. Schwarz, G. M., and G. P. Huber. 2008. Challenging organizational change research. British Journal of Management 19: S1-S6. Seo, M., L. L. Putnam, and J. M. Bartunek. 2004. Dualities and tensions of planned organizational change. In Handbook of organizational change and innovation, eds. M. S. Poole and A. H. Van de Ven, 73–107. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Shotter, J. 2004. On the edge of social constructionism: withness-thinking versus aboutness-­ thinking. London: KCC Foundation. Shotter, J. 2006. Organizing multi-voiced organizations: action guiding anticipations and the continuous creation of novelty. Paper presented at the Polyphony and Dialogim as Ways of Organizing Conference, University of Essex, April 29-30. Sias, P. 2009. Organizing relationships: Traditional and emerging perspectives on workplace relationships. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Taylor, J. R. 2004. Dialogue as the search for sustainable organizational co-orientation. In ­Dialogue: Theorizing difference in communication studies, eds. R. Anderson, L. Baxter and K.N. Cissna, 125–140. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Taylor, J. R., and D. Robichaud. 2004. Finding the organization in the communication: D ­ iscourse as action and sensemaking. Organization 11 (3): 395–413. Thomlison, T. D. 1982. Toward interpersonal dialogue. New York: Longman. Tsoukas, H. 2011. Foreword: representation, signification, improvisation – A three-­dimensional view of organizational knowledge. In Communication and organizational knowledge: ­Contemporary issues for theory and practice, eds. H. Canary and R. D. McPhee, x–xix. New York: Routledge. Varey, R. J. 2006. Accounts in interactions: implications of accounting practices for managing. In Communication as organizing: Empirical and theoretical explorations in the dynamic of text and conversation, eds. F. Cooren, J. R. Taylor and E. J. V. Every, 181–196. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Waiandt, C., and E. Davel. 2008. Organizações, representações e sincretismo: A experiência de uma empresa familiar que enfrente mudanças e sucessões de gestão. Revista de Administração Contemporânea 12: 369–94. Weick, K. 1979. The social psychology of organizing. 2nd ed. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. Weick, K. 1995. Sensemaking in organizations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Weick, K. 2006. Faith, evidence, and action: Better guesses in an unknowable world. Organization Studies 27 (11): 1723–736. Westwood, R., and S. Clegg. 2003. Debating organization: point-counterpoint in organization studies. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. White, W. 2008. The interlocutor’s dilemma: The place of strategy in dialogic theory. Communication Theory 18 (1): 5–26. Wolf, M. 2001. Teorias da comunicação. 6th ed. Lisboa: Presença.

Socrates as character, Socrates as narrator Dialogue and representation in Plato María J. Ortega Máñez* In this paper we tackle Plato’s Dialogues from a theatrical and philosophical point of view. We question in this manner the relationship between dialogue – as writing form- and representation – as notion meaning, in a literary work, “to make present”. Starting from the contradiction between theory and use of mimesis in Plato, we analyze the different situations of enunciation of each dialogue, and the different roles played in within by Socrates, in particular as character and as narrator. We end up in a link between both terms that points out the common presence in dialogue and representation of intermediary elements, through which the reader reaches the work. Keywords:  dialoguel; representation; Plato; Socrates; character; narrator; mimesis  To my father. In my mind’s eye. Shakespeare, Hamlet, act I, scene 2, v. 186.  “Who then is to answer my questions ?” Plato, Parmenides 137b.1

1.  Introduction Plato, as is well known, wrote dialogues in which Socrates represents the paradigm of philosophy. But how are these two concepts, dialogue and representation, related? Is it the dialogue of Plato that produces the representation of Socrates? Or is it rather the representation of Platonic philosophy, as staged by Socrates, that requires a dialogic form? Reading Plato’s Dialogues, we cannot help but notice the complex relationship between the formation of the dialogue and the

*  Université Paris-Sorbonne (Paris IV). 1.  I thank Sandrine Dubel for her remarks following my presentation of this paper at the 13th IADA Conference, Dialogue and representation, held in Montréal, April 27, 2011.

 María J. Ortega Máñez

mutable presence of the character Socrates. Given on one hand the particular literary structure of the Dialogues, and on the other hand the fact that the two terms in question belong to the technical vocabularies of theatre and philosophy, we approach the study of Platonic dialogue from this double theatrical and philosophic perspective. First we will trace the origins of Plato’s Dialogues in parallel with the development of this form of dramatic writing to understand the contradictory presence of the theatrical in Plato; then we will present an analysis of the situation of enunciation of the Dialogues and of Socrates’ different roles, in order to finally offer our own hypothesis on the manner in which the connection between dialogue and representation can be thought. 2.  Plato as author, or where do the Dialogues come from? It has been pointed out many times that Plato was neither the first nor the only writer to use the dialogic form. Among his predecessors can be mentioned Herodotus and Thucydides, and even Homer;2 and Diogenes Laërtius (III, 48, p. 426) attributes the writing of the first dialogues to Zeno of Elea. Other disciples of Socrates such as Aristippus of Cyrene, Antisthenes and Aeschines of Sphettus, Euclides of Megara, Phaedo of Elis and Xenophon are authors of dialogues “in the manner of Socrates” (a genre already known in Antiquity under the name sôkratikoi logoi), that is to say, writings following the question-answer method that Plato himself traces back to Parmenides (Sophist, 217c). The Socratic dialogues, we might say, proceed naturally from the oral teaching by “examination” (elenchos) practiced by Socrates, from which they derived. In this sense they would have been written by imitation (mimesis) or recollection of conversations with the master. In fact, in his Poetics Aristotle considers the Socratic dialogues as imitations, or representations (according to the translation of mimesis), and therefore includes them among the compositions that are the object of the poetic art. He writes (1, 1447b9–12):

2.  “Le dialogue apparaît dès les premières épopées (l’Iliade),” writes Etienne Souriau (1990, p. 573). Curiously, when Plato establishes the difference between mimesis and diegesis, Socrates, to make himself clear, recalls in indirect style a passage from the beginning of the Iliad where Homer, using mimesis, puts his verses in the mouth of the priest Cryses. (Republic, III, ­393a–394b).



Dialogue and representation in Plato 

The art which employs words either in bare prose or in metres […], happens up to the present day to have no name. For we can find no common term to apply to the mimes of Sophron and Xenarchus and to the Socratic dialogues: nor again supposing the poet were to make his representation in iambics or elegiacs or any other such metre. (1980, p. 7).

However, as Stefania Nonvel Pieri recognizes, there is a qualitative difference between the dialogues of Plato and those of the other Socratics based on two major reasons: On the one hand, only in Plato is the dialogue given as a necessary form (leading to understanding), that is to say as a form which correlates with a philosophy understood as philosophical questioning […; on the other hand] we grant without difficulty Paul Friedländer’s assertions that ‘even if the reflections of the Socratic dialogue had, before him, taken on a literary character,’ Plato was the only one to create a philosophical dialogue as ‘a work of art equal with tragedy and comedy’. (2001, p. 25, our translation).

In this sense we could even consider that the Platonic dialogue realizes that ­conclusion towards which Socrates seems to point, at the end of the Symposium, when he persuades Agathon and Aristophanes that “the same man could have the knowledge required for writing comedy and tragedy – that the fully skilled ­tragedian could be a comedian as well” (223d). Going in this direction, certain interpreters have read the famous passage of the Laws (VII, 817a–d) where the Athenian Stranger qualifies the constitution he is trying to institute as “the truest tragedy, the most beautiful and the best”, as the characterization by Plato himself (identifiable, according to certain commentators, with the character of the Athenian Stranger) of his work as ultimate theatre. This being so, and discounting the belief that Plato was the author of tragedies before meeting Socrates, who turned him aside from his original vocation to consecrate himself to philosophy,3 the theatrical nature of Platonic dialogues is evident, and is with reason the subject of many studies, which generally associate the Platonic texts with the tragedy and comedy of their period. That said, the theatrical influence in Plato has been rarely put in a perspective that makes the connection between theatre and this philosophy in the way in which they create dialogue, going back to their origins. Put another way, the apogee of the dialogue as a philosophical genre in Antiquity has not, to our know­ ledge, been sufficiently connected with the birth of dialogue as a properly dra-

3.  Diogenes Laërtius (III, 5–6: 395–396).

 María J. Ortega Máñez

matic form,4 which must be situated in the invention by Aeschylus of the second actor. Aristotle, while tracing in the Poetics the History of tragedy since its origins, situates the introduction of the dialogue between two actors and its development in Aeschylus as the moment when tragedy, in its evolution from the dithyramb, arrives at the configuration that comes to define it. At any rate it originated in improvisation – both tragedy itself and comedy. The one came from the prelude to the dithyramb and the other from the prelude to the phallic songs which still survive as institutions in many cities. Tragedy then gradually evolved as men developed each element that came to light and after going through many changes, it stopped when it had found its own natural form. Thus it was Aeschylus who first raised the number of the actors from one to two. He also curtailed the chorus and gave the dialogue (logos) the leading part.  (4, 1449a9–17. 1980, p. 19, our italics).

So that dialogue, and even the character of Socrates – of whom Aristophanes gave the first representation in his comedy The Clouds (423 B.C.) – who found in Plato the universality and the degree of artistic perfection that we know, had previously been used in theatre. Here we limit ourselves to observing the passage, therefore, of dialogue as writing form (Aeschylus), as well as the character of Socrates ­(Aristophanes), from theatre to philosophy, at least as far as Platonic philosophy is concerned. Once the Dialogues of Plato are placed in line with these predecessors, it becomes necessary to explain how, in these works of philosophical art, the accents of theatre resonate. First, the characters on stage. These characters show two clear dimensions: one scenic, the other dramatic. 1. Scenically, these characters are placed in a situation. Plato takes great care to place his characters in a determined context, in precise circumstances. The prologue usually situates the scene in a topological manner. “Dear Phaedrus, whither away, and where do you come from?” (Phaedrus);5 “What strange thing has happened, Socrates, that you have left your accustomed haunts in the Lyceum and are now haunting the portico where the king archon sits?” (­Euthyphro). 4.  The consideration of dialogue as a specifically dramatic form is shared by a number of theatre theorists. For exemple, Michel Corvin (2008), Patrice Pavis (1996) and Etienne Souriau (1990). This would hold until what Peter Szondi called the “crisis of drama”, due to the introduction of epic elements in the heart of dramatic form: “the whole world of the drama is dialectical in origin. […] the dialogue carries the drama. The drama is possible only when dialogue is possible.” (2006, p. 18, our translation). 5.  Except where noted otherwise, the translation used is that of the Loeb Classical Library (Plato 1930).



Dialogue and representation in Plato 

Information is given on the period, the participants, their intentions, the reasons that bring them together, the subject of the discussion... in sum, on all of the elements responsible for the dialogue taking place. We should not forget, as Leo Strauss insisted, that “the discussion taking place in the dialogue is made necessary primarily not because of the subject matter, but because of the setting in which the dialogue takes place”. (1989, p. 155, our italics). 2. Dramatically, the characters are in action. This point could be contested since, with the exception of a few dialogues notable for their action,6 it seems at first sight that in the Dialogues the characters do nothing but speak. But though in theatre every word is active, in the Dialogues this is even more the case; for here words constitute action par excellence, inasmuch as it is through words that philosophical activity proceeds. And if the dialogue itself is linked to ­spoken action, this action is in fact doubled because it carries, beyond the ­interpersonal relations, the very practice of philosophy; philosophy u ­ nderstood as the ­endless quest for truth regarding human life: “all the same we must examine it more carefully. For it is no ordinary matter that we are discussing, but the right conduct of life.” (Republic I, 352d). By putting this method into dramatic action,7 Plato makes philosophy active. And therefore, strictly speaking, his characters do philosophy. We understand in this sense the relevance of the dialogues called ‘aporetic’: the absence of a response to the question initially asked does not invalidate the argument, but on the contrary this unexpected and puzzling end forces one to look further, freed for once of false ideas,8 which is the same for the reader as pursuing the reflection himself. Even in these dialogues, despite the apparent absence of a thesis, philosophy is put into practice, acted, through words. From which comes dialogos, etymologically: word, discourse, even science (logos), across (dia); form through which Plato put into writing his entire body of philosophical work – except the ­surviving letters, in which the dialogical dimension is latent – which therefore constitutes an organic whole where the content demands the form, and vice versa: philosophy 6.  In the sense in which events follow each other and have consequences on the behaviour of the characters. We think for example of the Symposium or of Protagoras. 7.  Gilles Deleuze when writing about Plato spoke of the “méthode de dramatisation” (1968, p. 82–89). 8.  “Then does our art of midwifery declare to us that all the offspring that have been born are mere wind-eggs and not worth rearing? […] If after this you ever undertake to conceive other thoughts, Theaetetus, and do conceive, you will be pregnant with better thoughts than these by reason of the present search, and if you remain barren, you will be less harsh and gentler to your associates, for you will have the wisdom not to think you know that which you do not know.” (Theaetetus, 210 b–c).

 María J. Ortega Máñez

as dialogue, philosophy in dialogue. The Platonic definition of thought only plays off of this coherence: “Thought (dianoia) and speech (logos) are the same; only the former, which is a silent inner dialogue of the soul with itself, has been given the special name of thought.” (The Sophist, 263e, our italics). Nevertheless these comments must be nuanced, since the theatrical structure of the Dialogues contrasts with the Platonic critique of mimesis, aesthetic and ontological foundation for the arts of representation, including theater. In Book III of the Republic, discussing the education of the guardians of the city “in words” he is founding in his investigation of justice, Socrates examines with Adeimantus “what must be said and how it must be said” (392c). He establishes three possible ways: imitation (mimesis) used in tragedy and comedy; the narration used by the poet himself (diegesis) as is the case of dithyramb; and a third mode which combines the two and is found in epic poetry. Mimesis comes down to “likening one’s self to another” (393c), which gives rise to a process by which the poet hides himself, since he makes it appear as if he is not himself but the character who speaks.9 Mimetic poetry is based on this lie. Moreover, imitations are transformed into ways of being, that is to say, one becomes what one imitates. But in the city “every man does one thing” (397e), for which reason imitations are to be avoided. Later Socrates returns to the subject to harden his judgment: mimetic poetry must be banned from the city (X, 607b). Plato’s critique is therefore based on the disturbance of reality occurring when the poet gives a voice to his character. But the Dialogues of Plato are entirely ­constructed in the modes that he denounces, notably the pure mimetic and the mixed. For this reason, he remains silent on his adherence to the opinions declared by his characters, since the assimilation of his thought to the response of one or another character, due to the dramatic device, can only be a conjecture.10 Why then dialogues in the philosopher who knocked down mimesis? This paradox requires a closer study of the form in which the Dialogues are constructed. In what follows we present our analysis of the situation of enunciation in each dialogue.

9.  As pointed out by François Cooren, this Platonic definition of mimesis can constitute an interesting case of ventriloquism, as it has been studied by David Goldblatt (2006) and ­François Cooren (2010), in the sense that “[Ventriloquism] is a language-game in which talking to oneself and talking through intermediaries has an important place […] And, like art, ventriloquism is meaning through a medium” (Golblatt 2006, p. XI). We will see afterwards the inherence of intermediation in the act of representing in Plato. 10.  Cf. the analyses of Mikhail Bakhtin (1970, p. 87–124), who finds this effect, derived from the discovery of a new polyphonic principle within the novelistic prose of Dostoyevsky, also valid for the esthetic thought in general.



Dialogue and representation in Plato 

3.  How are the Dialogues of Plato constructed? If we apply the distinction made by Socrates between the different forms of poetic fiction evoked above (Rep. III, 394c) to the writings of Plato, we observe with ­surprise that the latter cultivated in his dialogues all three forms ­(mimesis, diegesis and a mix of the two), in all possible combinations. That is to say, although he uses the dialogue form throughout his work, it is constantly modified. Therefore if we pay attention to the situation of enunciation, that is to say the frame of the ­enunciated act that is each dialogue, we find dialogues that are directly engaged as such by their characters (Lesser Hippias, Greater Hippias, Ion, Apology of Socrates,11 Crito, ­Alcibiades, Laches, Euthyphro, Gorgias, Menexenus, Meno, Cratylus, ­Phaedrus, the ­Sophist, the Statesman, Timaeus, Critias, Philebus, Laws), dialogues that are reported by a narrator who may or may not participate in the dialogue as a ­character (Charmides, Lysis, Republic, Parmenides) and dialogues  that, ­combining these modes, take place within a second dialogue, ­containing two or even more levels of enunciation (Protagoras, Euthydemus, Symposium, ­Theaetetus, Phaedo). In parallel with the mimetic versatility of Plato, we observed that Socrates – who, in different modalities, is present in most of the Dialogues except the Laws – also plays several different roles that deserve to be examined separately. 3.1  Socrates as character Generally speaking, Socrates guides each dialogue as its principal character, that is to say he puts into action an interrogation which goal is the definition of a concept. The dynamic of the interrogation immediately creates a game while fixing the roles: Socrates poses the questions, his interlocutor responds.12 But this division of roles is necessary to the trait that characterizes the character13 of Socrates in Plato, his irony. The irony of Socrates consists in a display of ignorance. He is therefore

11.  Though the text contains several small reported dialogues (20a–d) and the interrogation of Meletus (24d–28a), its main body is made up of mainly of Socrates’ plea. However, it is remarkable that Socrates addresses the judges and the people of Athens; which renders the interlocutor implicit. For this reason Leo Strauss considers that “The Apology of Socrates is even a Platonic dialogue, the dialogue of Socrates with the people of Athens.” (1989, p. 150). 12.  Though this is not always the case: cf. Euthydemus. 13.  Note in passing the semantic proximity between the notion of “character” as person portrayed in an artistic piece (French “personnage”) and of the term “character” (which translates the Greek ethos, from which “ethic”), that the English language expresses best, with a unique word: character.

 María J. Ortega Máñez

ironic regarding his wisdom.14 But this is only meaningful in confrontation with others, that is to say dialectically. It is when Hippias brags about possessing wisdom that Socrates, acting as if he had none and under the pretext of wanting to learn, proceeds to put him to the test. Socratic irony is always unleashed against an arrogant wisdom (usually represented by a sophist) and in these contexts becomes a powerful motor for dramatic action. Of course action used in this way is of a comic nature, the result of an impressive dramaturgical work by Plato.15 In consequence, irony functions dramatically on two levels here. First, it defines the identity of the character of Socrates – it constitutes in this way the main element of representation or, in this case, of misrepresentation – which results in the second function: it provokes the action, in that it opens the space for ­questioning, a relational modality fundamental in the Dialogues. From now on we can no l­onger be sure for whom Socrates really stands,16 since, as Leo Strauss affirms: Irony means primarily dissimulation. It comes to mean noble dissimulation. The superior man who is aware of his superiority is “ironical in his relations to the many”, says Aristotle. That is to say, he does not let his inferiors feel their inferiority, or his superiority. He conceals his superiority. […] Irony comes to mean to answer general questions differently when speaking to different kinds of people, as well as never answering, but always raising, questions.  (1989, p. 152, our italics).

Irony is thence the mask that distinguishes the character of Socrates; a character who sometimes plays himself explicitly. At the beginning of the Charmides Socrates has just returned to Athens from the Battle of Potidaea. Cherephon, seeing him, invites the philosopher to sit with him and Critias to discuss news of the army. Socrates presents himself first of all as a soldier. Then Charmides comes into the scene for Socrates to verify whether, besides a beautiful appearance, he also has a beautiful soul. Given that the young man suffers from a headache, Critias presents Socrates to Charmides as a doctor who possesses a remedy for his ailment. Impressed by the beauty of Charmides, Socrates willingly plays the role of doctor. In the Phaedrus we see Socrates forced to remake in his own way the discourse of Lysis which he has just criticized, in a rather particular way: “I’m going to keep my head wrapped up while I talk, that I may get through my discourse as quickly as

14.  Very rarely Socrates does evoke the Oracle which named him the wisest man (Apology of Socrates, 20d–21a). 15.  Cf. notably Protagoras, Symposium, Gorgias. 16.  “And then, Socrates, do you understand what Socrates says?” (Politics, 258a).



Dialogue and representation in Plato 

possible and that I may not look at you and become embarrassed” (237a). Despite this mask, the discourse will not come to a conclusion, because it will be interrupted by the inspiration of the nymphs on two occasions: “Did you not notice, my friend, that I am already speaking in hexameters, not mere dithyrambics, even though I am finding fault with the lover?” (241e). His demon has manifested itself to warn him that he is committing an act of impiety against the god of Love. Plato however knew to give Socrates a sufficiently authentic and tenacious character that would make him the philosopher par excellence. Socrates is the founder of political philosophy, the one who brought the philosophy of heaven (subject of the pre-Socratic philosophy) down to earth, the domain of “human things”, that is, moral and political problems (Strauss, p. 1966). This is how Plato staged him in the Dialogues, as opposed to the Socrates of Aristophanes’ Clouds, where the traits of a philosopher of nature and of a sophist can be found, without a trace of irony. The philosophy of Plato’s Socrates is first of all a moral ­philosophy. Besides his biting irony, we retain his ethic greatness and his fidelity to himself, which brings him in extremis to accepting an exemplary death.17 This radical orientation towards a concern for the human condition that philosophy acquires from Plato is expressed though the character of Socrates, who represents true philosophy,18 philosophy understood as a specific activity that corresponds to the highest ideal to which a human life can give itself. “An unexamined life is not worth living”, Socrates declares in the Apology (38a), a concise definition of ­existence in philosophy and of its value. It is from the traits with which Plato characterizes Socrates in the Dialogues (making him a character) that the representation of the philosopher who wrote nothing was fixed, and, from Voltaire to Banville, has fascinated dramatic authors of all time. It would be therefore impossible to disassociate the Platonic ­conception of philosophy from the act of creation of the character of Socrates. 3.2  Socrates as spectator Starting from the Sophist, Socrates begins to abandon his place as conductor of the dialogue and becomes a spectator. From now on Socrates will initiate the subject, lay down the rules of the exchange and observe in silence. This is the case with the Statesman (where the dialogue is held between the Eliatic Stranger and young Socrates), Timeus, and Critias. In these two last dialogues, a dialogue introduces

17.  Cf. Apology, Crito, Phaedo. 18.  Since we must take into account the state of competition between philosophical schools of the period in which Plato writes. (Canto 1987, p. 14).

 María J. Ortega Máñez

the accounts given by the respective eponymous characters, which is the occasion for Socrates to define his passive role, assimilated to that of a guest at a banquet: “you, after consulting together among yourselves, agreed to pay me back today with a feast of words; so here I am, ready for that feast in festal garb, and eager above all men to begin.” (Timeus, 20b–c); or to that of a spectator at the theatre: “I forewarn you, however, my dear Critias, of the mind of your audience – how that the former poet won marvellous applause from it, so that you will require an extraordinary measure of indulgence if you are to prove capable of following in his steps.” (Critias 108b). So, to sum up: in the mature Platonic dialogues Socrates leaves the stage (where his role as character can be compared to that of the protagonist in the theatre of Aeschylus’ time, since the elenchos always occurs in tête-à-tête) to go sit in the stands. 3.3  Socrates as narrator Finally, Socrates is the narrator in many of the reported dialogues (Protagoras, Charmides, Lysis, Euthydemus and Republic), with the exception of the Symposium (narrative of Apollodorus who is at the same time transmitting the narrative of Aristodemus), Parmenides (where Cephalus is the narrator) and of course P ­ haedo (which retells the death of Socrates, narrated by Phaedo). In these dialogues, the structure of enunciation is therefore the narrative of a dialogue. Nevertheless, the dialogue is there, embedded in the narrative, which serves as its frame. We can recognize these dialogues stylistically by the “he said,” which marks the direct style.19 Other dialogues present a literary structure that, doubling the ­combinations of mimesis and diegesis, contain several levels of enunciation. A form that is ­common in Plato is the following: a dialogue between two characters introduces the n ­ arrative of the dialogue by one of these characters (Protagoras, Euthydemus, Phaedo). In this context the Symposium and Theaetetus deserve special attention, given the complexity of the narrative apparatus put into play. In the Symposium Apollodorus recounts to his friend Glaucon what had been in turn recounted to him by Aristodemus, present during the meeting that took place at Agathon’s home. The story or mythos, to speak like Aristotle, reaches the hearer – in this case, Glaucon and us, the readers – by means of two intermediaries: ­Aristodemus and Apollodorus. The apparatus of the Theaetetus is even more convoluted: a d ­ ialogue between Euclides and Terpsion introduces the dialogue between Socrates, 19.  The production of the Symposium by Denis Guénoun (La Nuit des Buveurs, Conservatoire National Supérieur d’Art Dramatique, Paris, 2008) had the originality of conserving these marks of the complex Platonic mimesis.



Dialogue and representation in Plato 

­ eodorus and Th Th ­ eaetetus, which is a reading made by a slave of the conversation that Euclides put into writing based on the narrative of Socrates.20 The dialogue becomes a distant event, and therefore the object of a long-awaited narrative that takes on the allure of an epic act of thought.21 The dialogues where Socrates is the narrator have this in particular, that he is at the same time one of the characters. This fact explains from a literary point of view the coexistence of the diegetic and the mimetic mode: sometimes Socrates retells, sometimes, inside this narrative, he takes the floor. The result is therefore a text where the character speaks in his own name (Socrates calls into question the definition of justice offered by Thrasymachus), at the same time that the narrator intervenes (Socrates tells us he had turned red from the heat of the day), which implicitly announces a return to the situation of enunciation of the beginning (the narrative of Socrates). These constant changes in the enunciated modality creates in the reader an unsettling effect which leads us to pose the problem of representation. 4.  Does the dialogue represent? Since to represent means “to make present”, someone or something must “bring to the present”, “make current” an absent reality, knowingly kept at a distance by the author – this is the case of the epic dialogues, where the narrative took

20.  “I made notes at the time as soon as I reached home, then afterwards at my leisure, as I recalled things, I wrote them down, and whenever I went to Athens I used to ask Socrates about what I could not remember, and then I came here and made corrections; so that I have pretty much the whole talk written down. […] Here is the book, Terpsion. Now this is the way I wrote the conversation: I did not represent Socrates relating it to me, as he did, but conversing with those with whom he told me he conversed. And he told me they were the ­geometrician Theodorus and Theaetetus. Now in order that the explanatory words between the speeches might not be annoying in the written account, such as ‘and I said’ or ‘and I ­remarked,’ whenever Socrates spoke, or ‘he agreed’ or ‘he did not agree,’ in the case of interlocutor, I omitted all that sort of thing and represented Socrates himself as talking with them” (Theaetetus 143 a–c hour). The care with which Euclides specifies his stylistic choice shows the concern for the truth brought to this encounter with mimesis that Plato shows as well in his famous critique ­(Republic, III 394c–396a, X 603c–606d). 21.  Epic was also the adjective given by Bertolt Brecht to his theatre, where the narrative mode was the foundation of the actors’ work in order to break identifications and keep the awareness of the spectator and his critical sense awake; as if Brechtian theatre responded positively to the possibility of a Platonic theatre, that is to say, anti-mimetic.

 María J. Ortega Máñez

place years after the date of the event evoked.22 He who “makes present” is the narrator, by the very fact of recounting. His role is therefore to mediate between the dialogue itself and its hearer, who is as much the character who listens to the narrative as it is us, the readers. On the other hand, in the mimetic mode, the characters express themselves ‘on their own’, i.e. with no narrative mediation, they seem to be ­present. The dialogues recounted by Socrates throw into relief these different degrees of intensity of presentation within representation, since the pull and tug between mimesis and diegesis initiated by the double condition of Socrates as narrator and character has as consequence a permanent oscillation between the two modes. Put another way, that which renders representation visible in the reported dialogues is the mediating role of the narrator. Thus, we arrive through the narrative at an understanding of the action, or rather the speech, which is in question. But this connotation inherent in representation (the through, as a constituent of the mediation) can also be found in the word “dialogue”, notably in the Greek prefix dia-. Such a coincidence therefore justifies the question: to what extent does the dialogue represent? The response that emerges from the preceding observations is: the dialogue represents inasmuch as it interposes a filter that limits the direct presentation of the characters. In the reported dialogues, this filter is clearly the figure of the narrator. From there we could conclude that what produces the representation is exclusively the narration, the dialogue being par excellence the stage of pure and direct presentation. However two objections can be immediately raised, forcing us to admit that there is no uncontaminated, pure form of presentation: first, in Plato, we are always dealing with dialogues. Reported, but still dialogues. This means that at a moment in the narration, the character breaks the rule of representation with his reply. The second objection concerns the dramatic key of the character of Socrates: his irony. Vlastos described Socratic irony as “a complex irony” through which “that which is said corresponds and does not correspond to what is said” (1991, p. 31). This essentially negating condition of Socrates’ words invalidates all immediacy in his presentation and, in our opinion, can be considered a barrier that the reader must cross in his hermeneutic path of understanding the dialogue. In other words, we consider the irony of Socrates, the mask behind which the philosopher hides himself, as a tool of representation in the direct dialogues, inasmuch as

22.  “You have had anything but a clear account from your informant, if you suppose the  party you are asking about to have been such a recent affair that I could be included.” (Symposium, 172b–c).



Dialogue and representation in Plato 

they prevent all immediate understanding of the dialogue. Consequently, it constitutes, ­hermeneutically, the net that the words must cross, if we take literally the ­etymological meaning of dialogue. 5.  Conclusion In this way we connect in Plato the two key terms of this paper: dialogue and ­representation. If our concept of representation can be traced back to the Greek term mimesis of which it is often the translation, and if the latter is in Plato – ­contrary to the conceptualization found in Aristotle – the mode in which the author “delivers a speech as if he were someone else” (Republic III 393c), that is to say, the direct style, then would not mimesis be fundamentally dialogic? If only for the unique way in which they are used in Plato, mimesis and dialogos seem in this sense to mutually imply each other. That said, representation is a polyvalent and profound notion that, throughout the History of thought, has known many definitions. Though it can translate mimesis, we can already see for example the gap between Plato and Aristotle regarding this concept.23 For what concerns us here, we have not taken this term in a particular aesthetic meaning, but in its principal signification in the Latin ­languages: “to make present”. In this sense we asked ourselves at the beginning of this paper if it was the dialogue that produced the representation or vice versa. Now we can see the mutual implication of these two terms in the sense that Plato gives them. But this sense of representation was not, at the beginning, that which we had adopted. The choice of the first sense of representation affects the very emergence of our questioning. In fact, what pushed us to rise the question of representation was, by reading the Dialogues, the stunning fusion of the two modes (mimetic and diegetic) in the double figure of Socrates (character and narrator). It is from w ­ riting that we came to the concept. In Plato, in effect, not only is the philosophical problem of representation posed – by means of mimesis – but moreover we have the opportunity to observe how philosophy represents itself, which happens in this case through the dialogue between the characters. The dramatic dimension of the work demands, from this point of view, to be investigated. Since while the dramatic act creates the figure,

23.  Aristotelian mimesis, conceived in the Poetics as representation, extends beyond the field of works in dialogue to also include what Plato calls diegesis, which for Aristotle is a form of mimesis and not its opposite.

 María J. Ortega Máñez

the dialogic form of Platonic thought, for its part, forcefully poses the question of representation. From these considerations we arrive at a conclusion in the form of a double observation: on the one hand, the difficulty for philosophy to define representation, and on the other hand, the inherent necessity of philosophy to represent itself. This necessity acquires surprising turns in Plato. We have tried to sketch out several of the procedures through which, sometimes his character, sometimes himself as author, exposes and hides himself at the same time through the ­writing of dialogue. It could not have been otherwise, since we are dealing with the philosopher who even conceived the term “philosophy”, drawing in this way the boundaries that would define it. Perhaps in the same act he also posed one of the most f­ ascinating philosophical questions: that of the idea’s irrepressible urge to ­represent itself.

References Aristote. 1980. Poétique. Trans. In fact, in the Poetics Aristotle considers the Socratic dialogues as imitations, or representations. R. Dupont-Roc and J. Lallot. Paris: Seuil. Bakthin, M. 1970. La Poétique de Dostoïevski. Trans. Isabelle Kolitcheff. Paris: Seuil. Canto, M. 1987. L’Intrigue philosophique. Essai sur l’Euthydème de Platon. Paris: Les Belles Lettres. Cooren, F. 2010. Action and agency in dialogue: Passion, incarnartion and ventriloquism. ­Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Corvin, M. 2008. Dictionnaire Encyclopédique du Théâtre. 4th ed. Paris: Bordas. Deleuze, G. 1968. Différence et Répétition. Paris: PUF. Diogène Laërtil. 1999. Vies et doctrines des philosophes illustres. Diogenes Laërtius (III, 48, p. 426) attributes Trans. M. O. Goulet-Cazé. Paris: Livre de Poche. Goldblatt, D. 2006. Art and ventriloquism. New York: Routledge. Nonvel Pieri, S. 2001. Le Dialogue platonicien comme Forme de Pensée ironique. In La Forme Dialogue chez Platon. Evolution et réceptions, eds. F. Cossutta and M. Narcy, 21–48. ­Grenoble: Jérôme Millon. Pavis, P. 1996. Dictionnaire du Théâtre. 3rd ed. Paris: Dunod. Plato. 1930. Works in twelve volumes. London: Harvard University Press. Souriau, E. 1990. Vocabulaire d’esthétique. Paris: PUF. Strauss, L. 1966. Socrates and Aristophanes. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Strauss, L. 1989. The Rebirth of Classical Political Rationalism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Szondi, P. 2006. Théorie du drame moderne. Trans. Sibylle Muller. Belval: Circé. Vlastos, G. 1991. Socrates, Ironist and Moral Philosopher. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Evidential information represented in dialogue Lori Czerwionka* This article presents an analysis of the representation of evidential information in Spanish dialogues. Evidential information is defined as the source of the information communicated. Specifically, the representation of implicit and explicit sources of information is investigated in 28 dialogues that were produced in open-ended role-plays. A qualitative approach to dialogue analysis, supported by quantitative data, indicates that patterns of coherence and fragmentation align with implicit and explicit evidential information. Findings reveal that evidential information is represented in Spanish dialogues through the dialogic process. Degrees of coherence and fragmentation not only describe how dialogues are organized but, also, serve to represent the speaker’s cognitive details, as in this case of evidential information.

1.  Introduction The goal of this article is to delve into the issue of dialogue representation, a concept that is grounded in studies of philosophy, communication studies, linguistics, and cognitive science. A particular issue related to dialogue representation that has not been investigated prior to this current research is the representation of evidential information in dialogue. Evidential information is defined as the source of the information communicated (Aikhenvald 2006). For example, if someone infers that a car was stolen based on implicit clues and then communicates to another interlocutor that the car was stolen, the source of the speaker’s information in this dialogue context is inferred or implicit information. If that same person sees or hears factual or explicit information that the car was stolen and then communicates that the car was stolen, the source of the information in this context is direct or explicit information. Many languages have grammatical requirements to mark evidential information, called evidentials (Aikhenvald 2004; Aikhenvald 2006; Boas 1947;

*  Purdue University.

 Lori Czerwionka

Chafe  & Nichols 1986; Johanson & Utas 2000; McLendon 2003; Valenzuela 2003). This requirement indicates that evidential information is important in linguistic interactions. Furthermore, languages like Spanish use phrases and lexical items, called evidential strategies, to optionally mark evidential information (Chafe 1986; ­Cornillie 2007; Travis 2006). Yet no study has addressed the possibility of evidential information being marked or represented through dialogue. While prior literature draws attention to the need for the current investigation, the proposal for this article emerged from observation of data that was collected during a prior investigation of the influence of the independent factors of information type (i.e. implicit and explicit) and imposition (i.e. high and low) on markers of mitigation (Czerwionka 2010). The dialogues from the open-ended role-plays provided a data set that, upon observation, lent themselves to investigation vis a vis evidential information. With respect to dialogue representation, this article focuses on the representation of one’s conception of the world in dialogue. Regarding evidential information, it should be noted that evidential information can be related to concepts of epistemic modality and subjectivity (Dendale & Tasmowski 2001; Ifantidou 2001; Nuyts 2001; Squartini 2004). Yet, this article follows ­Aikhenvald’s (2003) argument that evidential information should not be confounded with these other issues. Therefore, the scope of this article is limited to evidential information. The literature review introduces the following concepts as they relate to L ­ inell’s (1998) discussion of coherence and fragmentation: topicality, contextualization, projection, interlocutor involvement, and preferred turn-taking structures. Then, the methodology is outlined, the analysis and results are shared, and a discussion of the findings is presented. The following hypotheses are set forth to guide this investigation. The general hypothesis is that Spanish marks evidential information in ways besides lexical and phrasal options. Supporting this hypothesis are the two operational hypotheses of this study: 1. Degrees of coherence and fragmentation represent implicit and explicit evidential information. 2. Evidential information is represented through dialogue. With verification of the representation of evidential information through dialogue, this investigation would be the first to my knowledge to: (1) move beyond the lexical and phrasal levels of language in the search of evidential strategies in Spanish and (2) analyze the degree of coherence or fragmentation as representational, serving as an evidential strategy.



Evidential information represented in dialogue 

2.  Theoretical frame: Dialogue and evidential information Dialogue and “everything ideological possesses meaning: it represents, depicts, or stands for something lying outside itself ” (Volosinov 1929, p. 50). The notion of dialogue as representing, meaning that it makes present other interlocutors, social institutions, thoughts, etc. is common to a variety of dialogue theories (Bakhtin 1984; Cooren 2010; Goffman 1981). Bakhtin’s notion of dialogism has been translated as ‘intertextuality’ (Todorov 1984, p. 61) indicating that in one text or dialogue, other texts or dialogues are made present. Focusing on the representation of one dialogue in another necessarily draws attention to the social aspect of interactions and the presence of individuals. One view that is mentioned in various frameworks is that the voice of one is never singular. Bakhtin (1984) and Goffman (1981) have both discussed the polyphony of an individual voice, and Linell (1998) refers to “reflections and reconstructions of other specific individuals’ or groups’ ‘voices’” (p. 108). ­Similarly, Cooren (2010) speaks to this theme with his insight into ‘ventriloquism’ in dialogue. Beyond representation of voices in dialogue, interlocutors attempt to view the thoughts of others through the “information processing [that] takes place in a complex interaction between the individual and his or her social (and physical) environment” (Linell 1998, p. 96). Bakhtin (1963, p. 246) argues that “every utterance has an author, whom we hear in the very utterance as its creator.” In other words, with an utterance, we hear the author’s “manifestation of a ­conception of the world” (Todorov 1984, p. 61). This current investigation relies on these notions of representation to investigate if and how dialogue represents evidential information and, thereby, the speaker’s information processing experience. 2.1  Evidential information in dialogue When information is shared in dialogue, the degree to which it is reliable information is critical. The reliability of information can be communicated by making the evidential information obvious (Matsui & Fitneva 2009). Again, evidential information, or the source of the information, indicates how the interlocutor gained the information that he is communicating (e.g. hearsay, inference, direct observation) (Aikhenvald 2006). In some languages (e.g. South American indigenous, Finno-Ugric, and Turkic languages), evidential information is required to be marked, often in the form of morphemes (Aikhenvald 2004; Aikhenvald 2006; ­Aikhenvald & Dixon 2003; Johanson & Utas 2000; Chafe & Nichols 1986; Boas 1947) (Example 1).

 Lori Czerwionka

Example (1): Tariana example (Aikhenvald 2006, p. 320) Juse irida di-manika-nihka José football 3person.masculine.singular-play-recent.past.inferred ‘José played football (we inferred it from visual evidence)’

Many other languages, including English and Spanish, do not have this grammatical requirement and optionally indicate evidential information with lexical items and phrases, called evidential strategies (Chafe 1986). For example, ‘I heard that…’ may indicate direct auditory knowledge or second-hand knowledge. Besides these types of phrases, verbs in Spanish such as parecer ‘to seem’ and resultar ‘to turn out’ have been shown to reflect evidential information (Cornillie 2007). Also, the lexical item dizque in Colombian Spanish indicates reported speech and hearsay (Travis 2006). Marking evidential information with grammatical resources is frequent in those languages that require it, yet in languages lacking the grammatical requirement, like Spanish, evidential strategies “are relatively rare” (Matsui & Fitneva 2009, p. 5). Considering the importance of the reliability of information and the infrequent use of evidential strategies in languages like Spanish compared to languages that require grammatical marking, we are left to question whether lexical and phrasal expressions are the only indication of evidential information. It is hypothesized that languages like Spanish mark evidential information in other ways besides the lexical and phrasal options, despite the lack of grammatical form to do so. Furthermore, from this brief review of the research on evidential information, it is clear that evidential information is represented through morphemic obligations and, also, lexical and phrasal selections. A more specific question is whether and how evidential information may be represented at the dialogic level of ­language, considering dialogue to be a set of utterances used for c­ ommunication, co-constructed by interlocutors, and involved with the relationships between the interlocutor and the social and physical world. 2.2  Patterns in dialogue: Coherence and fragmentation The patterns of dialogue related to the creation of coherence and fragmentation analyzed in this chapter were selected through an initial qualitative analysis of the data. Linell (1998) draws attention to patterns of “coherence and fragmentation” (p. 183) and suggests that “we have to study how the interactional flow is structured in terms of junctures (boundaries or boundary-like phenomena), as contrasted to more coherent or seamless stretches” (p. 181). The following concepts are addressed as they contribute to coherence or fragmentation in dialogue: topicality, contextualization, projection, interlocutor involvement, and preferred turn-taking structures.



Evidential information represented in dialogue 

Topics in dialogue do not exist independently of the dialogue, but are created and modified within them (Fairclough 1992). Topics have subtopics or episodes that focus on a specific problem or issue (Linell 1998, p. 183), and the organization of episodes can contribute coherence or fragmentation. The talk prior to the main issue addressed in dialogue is called the pre-sequence, and the utterance that addresses the main issue is called the head-act, according to Blum-Kulka and Olshtain (1984). Within the pre-sequence and head-act, interlocutors may contribute coherence by providing contextualization of the topic through deictic description of the temporal or spatial details (Segal 1995). For example, a speaker may narrate chronologically or mention details about the space and location. This type of deictic contextualization has been said to be a steerer, which is any utterance that advances the discourse toward the goal by providing guiding information (House & Kasper 1981). With steerers, speakers also add coherence by alluding to or projecting possible future trajectories of a dialogue (Levinson 1983; Sacks, S­ chegloff & Jefferson 1974; Schegloff 1984). Another specific type of projection, besides steerers, is the use of preparators, which indicate the goal of the discourse without addressing the topic overtly (House & Kasper 1981). Preparators are similar to story prefaces (Sacks 1974) or pre-announcements (Terasaki 1976). For example, the preparator Tengo que decirte algo ‘I have to tell you something’ indicates the goal of asserting something in the upcoming interaction. Contextualization with deictic markers, steerers, and preparators can increase coherence in dialogue. Conversely, the absence of deictic markers and projection can produce fragmentation in dialogue. Further provoking fragmentation, steerers may be used to advance the discourse toward an episode that is not the main goal of an interaction. These steerers are coined false steerers, since they erroneously guide interlocutors toward an alternate episode. Preparators may function similarly to reduce coherence when a projected action is not completed. The minimized coherence is explained as discordance between the projected action and the dialogic reality. The degree of coherence and flow of episodes are also determined by the roles and contributions of the interlocutors. Considering that cooperation and co-construction partially define dialogue, the involvement of the other is considered to be preferred and, therefore, an element of coherence in dialogue, rather than fragmentation. To involve another interlocutor in dialogue, speakers may ask questions, thereby requesting a response. Furthermore, tag questions like ¿no?, ¿verdad?, and ¿sí?, which may be understood as ‘don’t/can’t/won’t you?’, ‘really?’, or ‘right?’ depending on the prior proposition (Félix-Brasdefer 2004), establish agreement and often invite the listener to participate (Ballesteros Martín 2001). Discourse markers may also show the relationship between speakers and the

 Lori Czerwionka

discourse environment, which includes listeners (Schiffrin 1987). For example, vocatives like oye ‘hey’ serve to draw the attention of and involve the addressee. Questions and the use of specific discourse markers are two ways in which one interlocutor involves another. In addition to involvement of the other interlocutor, certain turn-taking structures also contribute coherence or fragmentation. For example, questions are typically followed by answers. The question-answer pair is considered an adjacency pair, because it is a common and preferred sequence in interaction (Sacks et al. 1974). If a listener fails to provide an answer following a question, the response is considered to be dispreferred. Pomerantz (1984) indicates that when assessing something within conversation, preferred assessments agree with the assessment of the other interlocutor. For example, if I say ‘that’s horrible news’, a preferred second assessment by the listener would be ‘It really is horrible’, showing agreement. On the other hand, when disagreement by the listener occurs, some type of delay such as initiation of repair, request for repetition, or even the absence of talk is often present (Pomerantz 1984). The absence of talk or other delay mechanisms can be considered dispreferred when they come as a second assessment or as completion of a question-answer adjacency pair. Similarly, additional turns between the question and answer, called an expanded adjacency pair, may also be considered dispreferred since they do not follow the typical presentation of content in question-answer pairs in conversation. With an expanded adjacency pair, the adjacency pair is present in the dialogue, but the question and answer are separated. Generally, dispreferred responses introduce elements of fragmentation. In summary, the specific components in dialogue analyzed for purposes of this study are contextualization through deixis, projection, interlocutor involvement, and preference structures. The degree to which these components are ­integrated into a dialogue demonstrates coherence or fragmentation.

3.  Methodology The methodology focuses on the observation of natural dialogues that emerged from an experimental role-play design. Post-hoc observation of the produced ­dialogues led the researcher to the hypotheses regarding the representation of ­evidential information in Spanish. 3.1  Experimental design The open-ended role-play was a 2 × 2 design with the independent factors of information type (i.e. implicit and explicit) and imposition (i.e. high and



Evidential information represented in dialogue 

low). This methodology allows for systematic data collection and language production that approximates naturally occurring discourse (Cohen 2004; Félix-Brasdefer 2003; Gumperz & Cook-Gumperz 1982). Specifically related to dialogue, controlled experiments provide information about factors that affect and change dialogue, but are impossible to isolate or capture in spontaneous interactions (Czerwionka 2010; Koike 2010). A total of 56 didactic dialogues were produced, yet for current purposes, the 28 dialogues that pertain to the high imposition context are addressed (14 based on implicit and 14 based on explicit information). The low imposition contexts are not analyzed because of a minimal quantity of dialogue in those contexts, as calculated by the count of turns per dialogue. The two participants in each dialogue are referred to in this section as ­participant A and participant B. In the high imposition context, participant B’s car, which had been borrowed by participant A, was stolen. In each dialogue, participant A informed participant B of the stolen car. The role as participant A or B was ­randomly assigned. The implicit or explicit information, which is the independent variable that relates to evidential information, was communicated to participant As through written prompts (Table 1). The implicit information, given to participant As in 14 groups, provided inferential clues about the stolen car situation. The explicit information, given to the participant As in the other 14 groups, provided factual information about the stolen car situation. All participant Bs of the 28 groups received a prompt that contained minimal background information specifying that participant B had lent a car to participant A. Neither participant knew the content of the other participant’s prompt. The goal of the experiment was for two participants to share the knowledge that each gained from the prompts provided. Table 1.  Participant A written prompts and information Implicit information

A friend lent you his/her car to take a trip. The news reported that recently many cars have been stolen. You parked your friend’s car, and then you couldn’t find it. Your friend is coming for the car. What do you say to him/her?

Explicit information

A friend lent you his/her car to take a trip. The news reported that recently many cars have been stolen. On the trip, the car was stolen. Your friend is coming to get the car. What do you say to him/her?

3.2  Participants The 56 participants who created the 28 dialogues were university students at the Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León, located in Monterrey, Mexico. All partici­pants were native Spanish speakers from Monterrey, whose average age

 Lori Czerwionka

was 22. Of the participants, 29 were female and 27 were male. There was no controlled pairing of participants. In most groups, the partners were familiar with each other because they had seen each other at the university or had been in classes together. The degree of familiarity was equal when comparing the groups with implicit information and those with explicit information, based on the results of questionnaire data. 3.3  Procedure Groups of two participants entered a classroom at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Nuevo Leon. One randomly selected participant received a participant A prompt with implicit or explicit information. The other participant received the participant B prompt with minimal background information. After giving instructions to the participants, the investigator went to another part of the room to read a book, as to minimize her presence during the dialogues. The participants read the prompts silently, put the written prompts facedown, and interacted as if they were actually in the stolen car situation, which is not uncommon in the city of Monterrey. The dialogues that emerged were audio and video recorded. 3.4  Observational approach Observation of the dialogues led the researcher to: (1) notice distinct patterns within the dialogues; and (2) make hypotheses about evidential information and dialogue. The general hypothesis is that Spanish marks evidential information in ways besides lexical and phrasal options previously identified (Chafe 1986; Cornillie 2007; Travis 2006). Supporting this hypothesis are the two operational hypotheses of this study, which are that the degrees of coherence and fragmentation represent implicit and explicit evidential information and that evidential information is represented through dialogue. The most salient patterns in the dialogues during the initial observation were investigated further using both qualitative and quantitative means. The beginning of each dialogue through the mention of the stolen car in the head-act was analyzed in each of the 28 interactions. The following patterns were analyzed: contextualization with deictic references, projection with preparators and steerers, speaker-initiated interlocutor involvement, and turn-taking preference structures. The interrelations of these patterns are exemplified, and one-way ANOVAs are presented to aid understanding of how evidential information is represented in Spanish dialogues. Through the analysis, distinct dialogue structures with diverse degrees of coherence and fragmentation are identified as representing evidential information in Spanish dialogues.



Evidential information represented in dialogue 

4.  Analysis and results The qualitative analysis of the dialogues that were in response to implicit information and then those in response to explicit information are presented, along with examples from the data. Then, pertinent quantitative calculations are provided to contribute to the overall understanding of the results. In the examples below, participant A is referred to as the speaker (S), and participant B is referred to as the listener (L), in order to facilitate identification of the two participants. 4.1  Qualitative analysis: Implicit information The dialogues that were based on implicit information rely on temporal and local contextualization, involvement of the listener, and projection in the form of steerers and preparators. These characteristics contribute coherence to the dialogue structure. Example (2) temporally contextualizes the event of the stolen car beginning in line 01 by mentioning el viernes ‘Friday’, locationally contextualizes in lines 03 and 04 with en el barrio ‘in the neighborhood’ and por mi casa ‘around my house’, and continues the temporal contextualization in line 05 with el sábado en la mañana ‘Saturday in the morning’. This contextualization sequentially guides interlocutors through the events related to the stolen car. Example (2): Implicit, Group 12 (01) S: Oye sabes qué? e:l (.) viernes, te acuerdas que me prestaste tu carro? (.) (02) L: Sí. (03) S: Bueno, oye sabes qué? eh en las noticias estaban diciendo que pues en el (04) barrio en e- ahí por mi casa están: están robando muchos carros, y pues el (05)  sábado en la mañana me di cuenta que no estaba tu carro (.) y pues que lo que (06) me lo robaron (.) (01) S: Hey you know what? o:n (.) Friday, you remember that you lent me your car? (.) (02) L: Yes. (03)  S: Well, hey you know what? eh on the news they were saying that well in the (04)  neighborhood in e- there by my house: they’re stealing a lot of cars, and well (05)  Saturday in the morning I realized that your car wasn’t there (.) and well that it (06) it’s that they stole it from me (.)

In addition to the deictic markers used to contextualize and project throughout the pre-sequence, the speaker in Example (2) uses multiple markers in lines 01 and 03, including oye ‘hey’ and sabes ‘you know’ within questions directed to the

 Lori Czerwionka

listener. Moreover, the speaker’s question in line 01, asking if the listener remembered that the speaker had borrowed the car, evokes the listener’s affirmative signal in line 02, creating co-orientation to a specific situation that is made present by both interlocutors. In summary, this example demonstrates the temporal and local description and also the involvement of the listener. The interaction in Example (3) is a prime example of contextualization over multiple turns. In line 03, the speaker relates that she borrowed the car, and she locates the scene near her house. In lines 04 and 06, she mentions the lack of security in the neighborhood, which serves to project, before stating again that she left the car outside and near to her house in line 08 and indicating the bad news in line 09. Example (3): Implicit, Group 17 (01) S: Oye este tengo algo que decirte. (02) L: Qué pasó? (03) S: Sé que me prestaste tu coche (.) pero ay es que tú lo sabes por mi casa hay (04) muchísima inseguridad, no crees? (05) L: Qué pasó? (06) S: No es que muchísima inseguridad no crees? (07) L: Qué pasó? (08) S: Lo que pasa es que te lo juro lo dejé fuera de mi casa, y lo dejé ahí, te lo (09) juro, te lo juro, pero es que no lo encuentro. No (.) te lo juro que (.)(.) Tienes seguro (10) verdad? (01) S: Hey um I have something to tell you. (02) L: What happened? (03) S: I know that you lent me your car but oh it’s that you know around my house there’s (04) a lack of security, don’t you think? (05) L: What happened? (06) S: No it’s that a great lack of security don’t you think? (07) L: What happened? (08) S: What happened is that I swear to you I left it outside of my house, and I left it there, I (09) swear. I swear to you, but it’s that I can’t find it. No (.) I swear (.)(.) You have insurance (10) right?

The speaker in Example (3) also utters tengo algo que decirte ‘I have something to tell you’, which is a preparator that forewarns the listener of an upcoming episode. In the dialogues based on implicit information, elements that project the upcoming content are usually followed by contextualization by the speaker. The listener



Evidential information represented in dialogue 

is prompted by this preparator in line 01 not only to look forward to upcoming information, but also to participate in its construction. The listener’s participation begins with the follow-up question Qué pasó? ‘What happened’ in line 02. Following the listener’s question, the speaker contextualizes the event by uttering Sé que me prestaste tu coche ‘I know that you lent me your car’ to indicate previous shared knowledge of the past event of borrowing of the car and por mi casa ‘around my house’. In addition to this contextualization, Example (3) depends on second person references like tú lo sabes ‘you know’ and no crees? ‘don’t you think?’ that involve the listener by prompting listener turns in lines 05 and 07 that co-construct the dialogue trajectory. Example (3) demonstrates projection, speaker-initiated listener participation, and sequentially organized contextualization following projection and continuing throughout the dialogue. As a summary of the dialogues that emerged from the contexts with implicit information about the stolen car, contextualization through temporal and local references and listener involvement evidenced by questions and references to the listener were found. In addition, projection followed by contextualization was common. These patterns contribute coherence to a dialogue, as indicated in the outline of the theoretical frame. Considering that 10 of the 14 dialogues that resulted from implicit information contained similar patterns, it is concluded that implicit information encourages coherence in dialogues. 4.2  Qualitative analysis: Explicit information The dialogues that emerged in contexts with explicit information exhibited a ­limited use of contextualization and speaker-initiated listener involvement, contrasting with the dialogues based on implicit information. The limited nature of these characteristics makes the use of expanded adjacency pairs, projection followed by limited contextualization, and false steerers more salient. These salient patterns contribute fragmentation to the dialogues, as exemplified below. In Example (4), the listener asked Quépasó ‘What happened’ in line 02, yet in line 03 the speaker did not respond to this question. This sequence is an expanded adjacency pair that begins with quépasó ‘what happened’ in line 02 and does not end until line 06 when the response to the initial question is provided, me lo robaron ‘it was stolen from me’. This expanded adjacency pair is created by the insertion of turns that do not bear additional information or contextualization about the car context. Instead of providing an answer in line 03, which would be the preferred response (Sacks et al. 1974), the speaker poses another question in line 03. Furthermore, the speaker in Example (4) uses a variety of preparators throughout the interaction, including no quiero que te vayas a preocupar ‘I don’t want you to worry’ and te voy a ayudar ‘I am going to help you’ in line 05. The

 Lori Czerwionka

speaker also uses the preparators, tengo que decirte ‘I have to tell you’ and no sé como lo vayas a tomar ‘I don’t know how you’re going to take it’ in line 01. These utterances serve to project and, also, inform the listener that the upcoming information is likely bad news; news that may be difficult to take, cause worry, or necessitate the help of someone else. Different from the dialogues based on implicit information, these elements of projection are not followed by contextualization, thereby giving the impression of increased vagueness of information and fragmentation. Example (4) provides evidence of some common characteristics in dialogues based on explicit information: expanded adjacency pairs and projection that draws attention to the possible end results of the interaction (e.g. telling something, future moment of worry, receiving help), but with limited reliance on contextualization. Example (4): Explicit, Group 08 (01) S: Fíjate que tengo que decirte algo pero no sé cómo lo vayas a tomar. (02) L: Qué pasó? (03) S: Eh te acuerdas del carro que me prestaste? (04) L: Ah sí. (05) S: Bueno, por favor no quiero que te vayas a preocupar. Yo (.) te voy a ­ayudar y (06) todo pero lo que pasa es que me lo robaron cuando estaba de viaje. (01) S: Hey look I have to tell you something but I don’t know how you’re going to take it. (02) L: What happened? (03) S: Eh do you remember the car you lent me? (04) L: Ah yes. (05) S: Well, please I don’t want you to worry. I (.) am going to help you and (06) everything but what happens is that it was stolen from me when I was on the trip.

Similarly, Example (5) demonstrates an expanded adjacency pair beginning with the listener’s question in line 01 Tienes las llaves? ‘Do you have the keys?’ Instead of providing an answer in line 02, the speaker responded with a pause or delay and then a follow-up question asking if the listener was referring to the keys to the car. Considering that the only shared information between the speaker and listener prior to this interaction was the knowledge that a car had been borrowed, there is no relevant reason for the speaker to clarify that the keys referred to were those belonging to the car. This question served to prompt one more response by the listener in line 03 and, in doing so, additionally expanded the adjacency pair. This example is another instance of an expanded adjacency pair created by the insertion of turns, similar to the expanded adjacency pair in Example (4).



Evidential information represented in dialogue 

Example (5): Explicit, Group 07 (01) L: Tienes las llaves? (02) S: Ah (.) de tu carro (.) (03) L: Sí. (04) S: Sí bueno resulta (.) que (.)(.) ah (.) tu carro pues estaba en el hotel (.) se lo se (05) lo robaron. (01) L: Do you have the keys? (02) S: Ah (.) to your car (.) (03) L: Yes. (04) S: Yes well it turns out (.) that (.)(.) ah (.) your car well I was at the hotel (.) it was it (05) was stolen.

In dialogues based on explicit information, contextualization is mostly limited to the position immediately surrounding head-act (i.e. expression of the stolen car). In Example (5), the speaker provided contextualization with the phrase estaba en el hotel ‘I was in the hotel’ in line 04, immediately preceding the news that the car was stolen. Similarly, Example (4) shows the contextualization cuando estaba de viaje ‘when I was on the trip’ in line 06, occurring immediately after stating that the car was stolen. Contextualization occurs within the headact when dialogues are based on explicit information, unlike dialogues based on implicit information in which contextualization throughout the interaction is the norm. Although contextualization is generally limited, speakers mention other episodes that are considered false steerers. An example of a false steerer is in line 03 of Example (6) when the speaker mentions that the car died; an episode that is related to the car but is not true. This information represents a second possible trajectory. The speaker then continued or corrected herself by broadening the scope from a specific problem to a general problem, stating hubo un problema ‘there was a problem’, which serves as a preparator. This interaction maintained the two episodes that are false steerers (i.e. the dead car and a problem) simultaneously. The false steerers cause listeners to entertain additional possible trajectories, limiting their ability to project or foresee the actual trajectory, evidenced by the listener’s incorrect guess of the bad news in line (05). Therefore, false steerers contribute a sense of fragmentation to the dialogue. Finally, the speaker’s false steerer in line 02 is in response to the listener’s question in line 01, a question that is never answered directly in the dialogue. While the adjacency pair was not completed, the inability to address the question leads to the conversational implicature that a positive and preferred response, like ‘The car is fine’, would be impossible. This example demonstrates fragmentation through the use of

 Lori Czerwionka

expanded adjacency pairs, false steerers, and allusions of bad news with limited accurate contextualization. Example (6): Explicit, Group 10 (01) L: Qué onda (nombre), qué onda con el carro, así me lo dejaste bien ­verda-? (.) (02) hahaha (03) S: (.) Mmm (.) bueno (.) para ser sincero (.) pues se murió:, bue[no hubo ] un (04) problema. (05) L: [el correo] (06) L: Qué problema haha (07) S: Pues lo que pasa es que como se oye pues lo robaron. (01) L: What’s up (name), what’s up with the car, you left it ok for me right? (.) (02) hahaha (03) S: (.) Mmm (.) well (.) to be sincere (.) well it die:d, we[ll there was] a (04) problem. (05) L: [the belt ] (06) L: What problem haha (07) S: Well what happens is that like it seems well they stole it.

As a final note about Examples (5) and (6), the speakers did not make reference to the listeners. While listeners participated in the dialogues, speakers did not prompt the participation, as they did in the dialogues based on implicit information. These Examples (4) to (6) have demonstrated the following characteristics in dialogues based on explicit information: limited contextualization and limited reference to the listener by the speaker, which call attention to the use of expanded adjacency pairs, projection without contextualization, and false steerers. These patterns do not contribute a sense of coherence, rather, they add fragmentation to the dialogue sequences. These patterns were identified in 10 of the 14 dialogues that resulted from explicit information, indicating that explicit information encourages fragmentation in dialogue. 4.3  Qualitative analyses summary The qualitative analyses reveal that when implicit information is provided to ­speakers, dialogues contain speaker-initiated listener involvement and contextualization of the event using temporal and local descriptions. When explicit information is provided to speakers, the dialogues are limited in their listener involvement by the speaker and contextualization, which draws attention to expanded adjacency pairs, preparators without contextualization, and false ­ steerers. The ­dialogues based on implicit information are more coherent, and the dialogues based on explicit information are more fragmented.



Evidential information represented in dialogue 

4.4  Quantitative analyses Quantitative findings of speaker-initiated listener involvement and contextualization with deictic reference support the qualitative analyses related to coherence and fragmentation. These listener involvement and contextualization patterns, which identify degrees of coherence in dialogue, were quantified by measuring the ­density per speaker turn in the pre-sequence and head-act of each dialogue (Density = Linguistic pattern count/Speaker turn count from the beginning of the dialogue to the news of the car) (Craig & Washington 2006; Yates 1996). A density of 1 would indicate that on average the specific pattern was used one time per turn. To measure the listener involvement provoked by the speaker, second ­person references uttered by the speaker, including questions and tag questions, were counted in each dialogue and then divided by the number of speaker turns. To measure overall contextualization, the references to temporal or local information were counted and divided by the speaker’s number of turns. Considering that the qualitative analysis revealed that dialogues based on implicit information used contextualization throughout the dialogue, while those based on explicit information used contextualization most often within the head-act, the densities of the contextualization throughout the pre-sequences and the densities in the head-acts were also calculated separately. One-way ANOVAs were conducted to compare the densities of these patterns in dialogues based on implicit as opposed to explicit information. The one-way ANOVAs indicated that the densities of speaker-initiated listener involvement, overall contextualization, and contextualization in pre-sequences were significantly different in dialogues based on implicit and explicit information (Table 2). Contextualization in head-acts was not significantly different. Table 2.  Summary of quantitative findings Densities in Dialogues based Densities in Dialogues based on Implicit Information on Explicit Information Patterns

Mean

SD

Mean

SD

Listener involvementa***

1.85

1.09

0.26

0.37

Contextualizationb*

1.39

1.5

0.37

0.45

Pre-sequence contextualizationc**

2.00

2.11

0.29

1.07

Head-act contextualizationd

0.36

0.74

0.50

0.65

*p < .05, **p ≤ .01, ***p < .001. aListener Involvement, F(1,26) = 26.65, p < .001. bContextualization, F(1,26) = 5.75, p = 0.02. cPre-sequence Contextualization, F(1,26) = 7.34, p = 0.01. dHead-act Contextualization, F(1,26) = 0.29, p = 0.59.

 Lori Czerwionka

These results suggest that dialogues resulting from implicit information reflect significantly more speaker-initiated listener involvement and contextualization than those based on explicit information. These findings support the qualitative analysis that dialogues based on implicit information are more coherent than dialogues based on explicit information. In addition, the quantitative findings suggest that while both sets of dialogues use contextualization similarly within head-acts, dialogues based on implicit information incorporate additional contextualization throughout the dialogue that is not present in dialogues based on explicit information. This finding supports the qualitative finding that there is an absence of contextualization in the dialogues based on explicit information that, as found in the qualitative analysis, draws attention to fragmentary patterns (i.e. expanded adjacency pairs, preparators without contextualization, and false steerers). 4.4  Summary of findings The results of both the qualitative and quantitative analyses support the hypotheses of this study. Supporting the hypothesis that the degrees of coherence and fragmentation represent evidential information are the qualitative findings that 10 of the 14 dialogues based on implicit information reflect coherence and 10 of the 14 dialogues based on explicit information reflect fragmentation. These observations were further supported by quantitative findings of significant differences related to coherence and fragmentation. Supporting the second hypothesis that evidential information is represented through dialogue is the fact that coherence and fragmentation, which emerge only in the process of dialogue, represent evidential information. The findings related to these first two hypotheses together support the final general hypothesis that Spanish marks evidential information in ways besides lexical and phrasal options. 5.  Discussion The current results lead to consideration of the notions of coherence and fragmentation, representation in dialogue, and representation of evidential information. In addition, the results indicate directions for future research related to evidential information represented in dialogue. 5.1  Coherence and fragmentation When speakers had implicit information to share through dialogue, their dialogues flowed in coherent ways. When speakers had explicit and more factual



Evidential information represented in dialogue 

information to share, their dialogues were fragmentary with an inconsistent organizational flow. These results reveal that the coherent dialogue structure represents implicit evidential information, and that the fragmented dialogue structure represents explicit evidential information. Therefore, while scholars have previously described notions of coherence and fragmentation (e.g. Linell 1998), this investigation demonstrates that the degree of coherence or fragmentation can be representational. The degree to which a dialogue is coherent or fragmented ­provides a description of the organization of dialogue and, also, it can represent evidential information. This discussion of the representational power of coherence and fragmentation aligns with Greimas’ understanding that meaning is relayed “in the course of its trajectory, by narrative structures and it is these that produce meaningful discourse articulated in utterances” (1987, p. 64–65). 5.2  Dialogue represents information sources Returning to the overarching theme of dialogue representation, we revisit the definition of dialogue in order to analyze what it means to be represented at the dialogic level. Dialogue is considered to be a set of utterances used for communication, co-constructed by interlocutors, and involved with the relationships between the interlocutor and the social and physical world. The coherent and fragmented dialogue structures identified as related to information type were created in an effort to communicate, and they were distinct in their speaker-initiated listener involvement and turn-taking sequences constructed by speakers and listeners. Therefore, the process of dialogue makes present evidential information. The results of this first investigation about dialogue organizational patterns as evidential strategies demonstrate that dialogue not only represents prior dialogues, people, and social institutions (e.g. Bakhtin 1984; Goffman 1981) but, also, evidential information. A potential explanation as to why implicit information is represented through coherence and explicit information represented through fragmentation relies on details about how people typically relay bad news. Bad news, as studied in physician-patient interactions, is often relayed by presenting evidence first that leads up to the bad news (Maynard 2004), even to the point of encouraging the listener to accurately guess the bad news, allowing the speaker to confirm the bad news but not state it overtly (Schegloff 1988). This strategy of providing evidence before stating the news is most salient in the dialogues from the current data set that represent implicit information. The features that produce coherence encourage joint seeing (Maynard 2004) of the event, giving the listener evidence upon which to project the upcoming news and understand the situation. Similarly, the fragmented dialogues present information before arriving at the news, yet distinctly, the information presented does not lend itself to accurate projection by

 Lori Czerwionka

the l­istener since it is fragmented. It seems that the speakers of the fragmented dialogues feign the appropriate bad news protocol in that they present additional talk that superficially seems like evidence, yet the evidence does not allow for the listener’s accurate projection of the news. The question remains as to why false steerers and other characteristics of fragmentation are used when feigning the appropriate bad news protocol, instead of simply providing contextualization that leads to joint seeing of the event and accurate projection. As a response to this question, explicit information may prevent speakers from producing social interaction that follows common norms in bad news situations. Whereas with implicit information, there is a possibility that something else had happened to the car, and perhaps through joint seeing and co-construction with the listener, together the interlocutors could arrive at an alternative conclusion. The explicit information may not lend itself to alternate conclusions, placing additional responsibility for the bad news on the speaker. If one’s responsibility for a bad news event is heightened, perhaps the lack of cohesive evidence, and thereby prevention of joint seeing and co-construction, is a coping mechanism and an attempt to avoid the moment of taking responsibility. As suggested by Bakhtin (1963), in one’s voice we hear the “manifestation of a conception of the world” (Todorov 1984, p. 61). The finding that dialogue represents evidential information clarifies that not only the broad view of one’s conception of the world, but also cognitive details (such as evidential information), and perhaps the social consequences of the cognitive details, are made visible in dialogue. 5.3  Representation of evidential information The three hypotheses set forth were successive in that support of the second operational hypothesis was dependent on verification of the first, and support of the general hypothesis that evidential information in Spanish is represented in ways beyond lexical and phrasal options was dependent on verification of the first and second hypotheses. If there were to be a more general, overarching hypothesis, it might be that evidential information is represented across all linguistic interactions. Previous research indicates that all languages optionally use evidential strategies (Aikhenvald 2006). Furthermore, previous research demonstrates the tendency to incorporate evidential markings into a language when that language is in contact with another that requires grammatical evidential markings (Spanish – Zavala 2001; Balkans – Friedman 2003; Amazonia – Aikhenvald 2003). The fact that evidential strategies are available in all languages and that evidentiality is



Evidential information represented in dialogue 

e­ asily borrowed between languages are indicators that the representation of evidential information is a common concept for speakers of any language. Linell (1998) suggests that “we experience the world in particular ways, under specific perspectives, because we talk, and hence think, about it in certain ways in discourse and interaction” (p. 271). Distinct from Linell’s (1998) perspective that ‘talk’ influences ‘thought’, the evidence in this investigation demonstrates that whether a language prompts metalinguistic talk about evidential information or not, depending on the grammatical requirements, the human mind perceives evidential information and represents it in linguistic interactions. Again, this indicates that evidential information is a concept that is grasped by speakers, even when there is no grammatical requirement, and represented in interaction. The findings also suggest that ‘thought’ can influence ‘talk’. This potential overarching hypothesis would mean that evidential information would not only be conceptually based across languages, but an essential part of spoken language as well. Its expression is grammatical, lexical, phrasal or, as discussed in this current study, embedded in the process of dialogue. To explore this possible far reaching hypothesis would call for further studies of Spanish dialogue in varying contexts to seek out other possibly embedded cues that represent evidential information. It would require research on a sampling of other languages, particularly those that do not use grammatical markers for signaling and representing evidential information. It may be that evidential information is not only universal conceptually, but also in expressed language. 5.4  Future investigations As alluded to in the prior discussion, future investigations should continue to study the representational power of coherence and fragmentation, representation of cognitive details besides evidential information, and representation of evidential information in diverse contexts and languages. Besides these, future investigations of dialogue representation and evidential information should also consider additional aspects of information processing in dialogue. For example, the results of this investigation could be addressed by considering the relationship to politeness, mitigation, or epistemics (e.g. Brown & Levinson 1987; Caffi 2007; Dendale & Tasmowski 2001, respectively) to include a distinct view of the social and cognitive information relevant in dialogue. These paths could be especially fruitful in delving deeper into why implicit information was represented with coherence and explicit information with fragmentation. These future investigations would provide additional insight, yet their absence does not detract from the current findings related to evidential information represented in dialogue.

 Lori Czerwionka

6.  Conclusion This investigation of the representation of evidential information in dialogue finds that Spanish speakers in Monterrey use two dialogue structures to represent implicit and explicit information sources. With implicit information, a coherent dialogue structure incorporates listener involvement, projection, and contextualization with deictic markers. With explicit information, listener involvement and contextualization are less frequent, drawing attention to fragmentary patterns. The results reveal that: (1) degrees of coherence and fragmentation serve more than descriptive purposes; they represent evidential information; (2) evidential information, and thereby the speaker’s processing of that information, is represented through the dialogic process; and (3) Spanish marks evidential information in ways besides lexical and phrasal options. This investigation demonstrates that Spanish, a language with no grammatical evidential requirement, uses dialogue structures distinguished by the degree of coherence or fragmentation as evidential strategies, and the findings thereby verify the representation of evidential information in dialogue.

References Aikhenvald, A.Y. 2003. Evidentiality in typological perspective. In Studies in evidentiality, eds. A. Aikhenvald and R. Dixon, 1–31. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Aikhenvald, A.Y. 2004. Evidentiality. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Aikhenvald, A.Y. 2006. Evidentiality in grammar. In Encyclopedia of language and linguistics, ed. K. Brown (5th ed., Vol. 4), 320–5. Oxford: Elsevier. Aikhenvald A.Y., and R.M.W. Dixon, eds. 2003. Studies in evidentiality. Amsterdam: John ­Benjamins. Bakhtin, M. 1963. Problemy poetiki Dostoevskigo [Problems of Dostoevsky poetics] 2nd ed. ­Moscow. Bakhtin, M. 1984 Problems of Dostoevsky’s poetics. Trans. C. Emerson. Minneapolis, MN: ­University of Minnesota Press. Ballesteros Martín, F.J. 2001. La cortesía española frente a la cortesía inglesa: Estudio pragmalingüístico de las exhortaciones impositivas. Estudios ingleses de la Universidad Complutense 9: 191–207. Blum-Kulka, S., and E. Olshtain. 1984. Requests and apologies: A cross-cultural study of speech act realization patterns (CCSARP). Applied Linguist 5 (3): 196–214. Brown, P., and S.C. Levinson. 1987. Politeness usage: Some universals in language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Boas, F. 1947. Kwakiutl grammar, with a glossary of the suffixes. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 37: 201–377. Caffi, C. 2007. Mitigation. New York: Elsevier. Chafe, W. 1986. Evidentiality in English conversation and academic writing. In Evidentiality: The linguistic coding of epistemology, eds. W. Chafe and J. Nichols, 261–273. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.



Evidential information represented in dialogue 

Chafe, W., and J. Nichols, eds. 1986. Evidentiality: The linguistic coding of epistemology. ­Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Cohen, A.D. 2004. Assessing speech acts in a second language. In Studying speaking to inform second language learning, eds. D. Boxer and A. Cohen, 302–327. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Cooren, F. 2010. Action and agency in dialogue. Philadlephia, PA: John Benjamins. Cornillie, B. 2007. Evidentiality and epistemic modality in Spanish (semi-)auxiliaries: A cognitivefunctional approach. New York, NY: Mouton de Gruyter. Craig, H.K., and J.A. Washington. 2006. Recent research on the language and literacy skills of African American students in the early years. In Handbook of early literacy research. 2 Vol, eds. D. Dickinson and S. Neuman, 198–210. New York, NY: Guilford. Czerwionka, L. 2010. Mitigation in Spanish Discourse: Social and Cognitive Motivations, ­Linguistic Analyses, and Effects on Interaction and Interlocutors. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Texas, Austin. Dendale, P., and L. Tasmowski. 2001. Introduction: Evidentiality and related notions. Journal of Pragmatics 33: 339–48. Fairclough, N. 1992. Discourse and social change. Cambridge: Polity Press. Félix-Brasdefer, J.C. 2003. Validity in data collection methods in pragmatics research: Theory, practice, and acquisition. In P. Kempchinsky & C.E. Piñeros (Eds.), Papers from the 6th Hispanic Linguistic Symposium and the 5th Conference on the Acquisition of Spanish and Portuguese (pp. 239–257). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press. Félix-Brasdefer, J.C. 2004. La mitigación en el discurso oral de mexicanos y aprendices de español como lengua extranjera. In Pragmática sociocultural. Estudios sobre el discurso en cortesía en español, eds. D. Bravo and A. Briz Gómez, 285–299. Barcelona: Ariel. Friedman, V. 2003. Evidentiality in the Balkans with special attention to Macedonian and Albanian. In Studies in evidentiality, A. Aikhenvald and R. Dixon, 189–218. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Goffman, E. 1981. Forms of talk. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. Greimas, A.J. 1987. On meaning: Selected writings in semiotic theory. London: Frances Pinter. Gumperz, J., and J. Cook-Gumperz. 1982. Introduction: Language and the communication of social identity. In Language and social identity, eds. J.J. Gumperz and J. Cook-Gumperz, 1–21. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. House, J., and G. Kasper. 1981. Politeness markers in English and German. In Conversational routine, ed. F. Coulmas, 157–185. New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Ifantidou, E. 2001. Evidentials and relevance. Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins. Koike, D.A. 2010. Beyond L2 pragmatics: The role of emerging expectations. In Dialogue in Spanish: Studies in functions and contexts,. eds. D.A. Koike and L. Rodríguez-Alfano. ­Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins Publishing. Johanson, L., and B. Utas, eds. 2000. Evidentials: Turkic, Iranian, and neighboring languages. Berlin: de Gruyter. Levinson, S.C. 1983. Pragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Linell, P. 1998. Approaching dialogue: Talk, interaction and contexts in dialogical perspectives. Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins. Matsui, T., and S.A. Fitneva. 2009. Knowing how we know: Evidentiality and cognitive development. In Evidentiality: A window into language and cognitive development. New directions for child and adolescent development (No 125), eds. T. Fitneva and S. Matsui, 1–12. San Francisco, CA: Siley Periodicals.

 Lori Czerwionka Maynard, D. 2004. On predicting a diagnosis as an attribute of a person. Discourse Studies 6 (1): 53–76. McLendon, S. 2003. Evidentials in Eastern Pomo with a comparative survey of the category in other Pomoan languages. In Studies in evidentiality, eds. A.Y. Aikhenvald and R.M.W. Dixon, 101–129. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Nuyts, J. 2001. Subjectivity as an evidential dimension. Journal of Pragmatics 33: 383–400. Pomerantz, A. 1984. Agreeing and disagreeing with assessments: some features of preferred/ dispreferred turn shapes. In Structures of social action, eds. J.M. Atkinson and J. Heritage, 57–101. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sacks, H. 1974. An analysis of the course of a joke’s telling in conversation. In Explorations in the ethnography of speaking, eds. R. Bauman and J. Sherzer, 337–353. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sacks, H., E. Schegloff, and G. Jefferson. 1974. A simplest systematics for the organization of turn-taking in conversation. Language 50: 696–735. Segal, E.M. 1995 Narrative comprehension and the role of deictic shift theory. In Deixis in ­narrative: A cognitive science perspective, eds. J. Duchan, G. Bruder and L. Hewitt, 3–18. New Jersey, NJ: Lawrence Earlbaum Associates. Schegloff, E.A. 1984. On some gestures’ relation to talk. In Structures of social action, eds. J. Atkinson and J. Heritage, 266–295. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Schegloff, E.A. 1988. On an actual virtual servo-mechanism for guessing bad news: A single case conjecture. Social Problems 35 (4):442–57. Schiffrin, D. 1987. Discourse markers. New York, NY: The Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge. Squartini, M. 2004. Disentangling evidentiality and epistemic modality in Romance. Lingua 114: 873–95. Terasaki, A. 1976. Pre-announcement sequences in conversation. In Social Sciences Working Paper, 99. Irvine, CA: University of California. Todorov, T. 1984. Mikhail Bakhtin: The dialogical principle. Trans. W. Godzich. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Travis, C. 2006. Dizque: a Colombian evidentiality strategy. Linguistics 44 (6): 1269–297. Valenzuela, P. 2003. Evidentiality in Shipibo-konibo, with a comparative overview of the ­category in Panoan. In Studies in evidentiality, eds. A. Aikhenvald and R. Dixon, 33–62. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Voloshinov/Bakhtin, V.N. 1926. Slovo v zhizni I slovo v poezii. Zveda, 6, 244–67. (W. Godzich, Trans) [Discourse in life and discourse in poetry] to appear in Writings by the circle of Bakhtin. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Volosinov, V.N. 1929. Marxism and the philosophy of language. In (1994). The Bakhtin Reader: Selected Writings of Bakhtin, Medvedev, Vloshinov, ed. P. Morris, 50–62. London: Edward Arnold. (Reprinted from Marxism and Philosophy of Language, 1986. (Matejka & R. Titunik, Trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Yates, S.J. 1996. Oral and linguistic aspects of computer conferencing: a corpus based study. In Computer-mediated communication: Linguistic, social, and cross-cultural perspectives, ed. S.C. Herring, 28–46. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Zavala, V. 2001. Borrowing evidential functions from Quechua: The role of pues as a discourse marker in Andean Spanish. Journal of Pragmatics 33: 999–1023.

Dialogues between two pupils during the process of writing a fictional story Verbal erasures and their forms of representation Eduardo Calil* This study pertains to the field of studies on Textual Genetics and Enunciation Linguistics and is aimed at analyzing the forms of representation of verbal erasures occurring during the writing process of a story made up by two Brazilian pupils (7 years old). Having assumed “haphazardness” and “dialogism” as the central phenomena of this process, I relate verbal erasure to the points of tension that emerge during the dialogal text established by the pupils as they discuss and write the story. The haphazardness and dialogism typical of the enunciative action are related to the writers’ returns over what was said, and the verbal erasure is testimony of the subjective positions that singularize both the writing process and their school text. Keywords:  school; dialogue; writing; narrative; haphazardness; dialogism; erasure

1.  Introduction The creative dimension of a text1 undergoes the interference of multiple ­factors (socio-historical, pragmatic, communicational, technological, interactional,

*  Federal University of Alagoas, Center of Education. Eduardo Calil is now Coordinator, School Writing Laboratory (L’ÂME)  and Associate Researcher, Institute of Texts and Modern Manuscripts (ITEM). Send correspondence to rua Presciliano Sarmento, Residencial Oceanis, quadra B, lote 3, 57044130, Maceió, Alagoas, Brazil. Email: [email protected]. This research was supported by a grant from the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq). Chapter translated from Portuguese by Beatrice Allain. 1.  Every “manuscript” is a “text,” but not every “text” is a “manuscript,” as can be observed in the reading you are doing: you, the reader, read this text, not its manuscript. Because my interest lies in “text” in the process of creation, I have chosen to maintain the meaning of “manuscript,” which is closer to the elected object of investigation, by using the word “text.”

 Eduardo Calil

l­inguistic, cognitive, discursive, textual, graphic…) that render it a c­omplex multimodal semiotic system in which alterity and haphazardness are key ­ ­elements. On the one hand, alterity underpins and marks creation in the legacy of what it precedes.2 On the other, haphazardness is the impossibility of anticipating what makes it emerge. Recursivity – a phenomenon known by both the early cognitive models of textual processing (Flower & Hayes 1980; Hayes & Flower 1980) and the studies on genesis and creation initiated by Genetic Criticism in the early 1970s – can, in turn, be considered responsible for the attempt to contain these two initial conditions, and its most palpable and visible form of manifestation is erasure. Erasure,3 according to Grésillon (2008), is “a visible expunction, a legible trace” (p. 84, my translation) that allows one to retrace the forward and backward paths of literary creation through the analysis of genetic dossiers. Invisible in the published work, its identification occurs a posteriori: only after its inscription on the page can the erasure be “seen” and “read.” Grésillon’s comment, however, summarizes the paradoxical statute of the inalienable phenomenon of recursivity in the functioning of writing on the “graphic space.” Its importance lies precisely in this ambivalence. “It is everything at the same time, loss and gain, lack and excess, emptiness and plenitude, forgettance and remembrance” (Grésillon 2008, p. 88), whose functions of suppressing, replacing and inserting are widely described in the specialized literature. Despite its functions (and multiple forms), this dual nature of erasure has its raison d’être. Regardless of whether the erasure indicates a creation, a lapse or a correction, its recursivity reflects points of tension that emerge in the writing ­process and maintain relationships with the two aforementioned conditions. Starting from these two conditions, alterity and haphazardness, this paper proposes to discuss some forms of return in a process of creation established by two pupils when they conceive and write a story. These forms of return ­occurring in

2.  I understand the notion of “alterity” as proposed by Dufour (2005). Stated simply, it can be summarized in the following formula: “When one is one, one is two, but when one is two, one is immediately three,” (Dufour 2005, p. 124, my translation). In other words, the three terms, ‘I’, ‘you’ and ‘he’ are immediately formed in the symbolic, personal and social space of the speaker. This space of the symbolization of the ‘I-you/he’ relationship is necessarily constituted through the figure of the Other, i.e. the Other is the ‘he’ who is absent from the ‘I-you’ relationship, or, stated another way, ‘I’ and ‘you’ only find a place of existence upon the instantiation of an absence “outside their field,” (Dufour 1990, p. 97). 3.  The concern about defining and establishing the limits of this notion has been present since the early works of Genetic Criticism. However, I refer, above all, to the works of Grésillon (1994, p. 66–71; 2008, Chapter 5) and the article by Debiasi (1996).



Dialogues between two pupils during the process of writing 

the flow of co-writing the current text, called “verbal erasures,” echo from ­certain points of tension in the writing process, reflecting the possibilities of ­configuration of the final text. 2.  Theoretical outlines of erasure I propose to conceive of the point of tension in the writing process – and the erasure that gives it visibility – as being based on the dimension of interlocutory dialogism and of interdiscursive dialogism.4 This link between dialogism and erasure is justified by the simple fact that each regression over a text in the process of being written points to a “difference” in the narrative flow between what was stated and what is going to be stated. In this sense, erasure carries within it, implicitly or not, another form of stating that influences a “previously expressed” statement. This observation is fundamental to the explicitation of the nature of the “verbal erasure”.5 Starting from the theory of dissipative structures of Prigogine and Stengers (1986), Pétroff (2004) proposes a consistent rereading of the notion established by Saussure, discussing the manifestation of “haphazardness” in the transformation of semiotic systems: All semiological systems, in their transmission, are victims of haphazard events and those that transmit them, upon recomposing them with the elements they inherit, create new versions that differ from the original (system), which is effectively ignored, forgotten.  (p. 109, my italics and translation)

The haphazard events highlighted in the above quotation are not part of the ­system, but no semiological system operates outside the human sphere. Hence, no functioning, regardless of the semiotic system, can dispense with the action of the speaker. It is through his action (linguistic, psychic, motor, cognitive…) that ­haphazard events occur upon emerging and repeating themselves over time, ­causing transformations and reorganizations of the system itself. These brief considerations seem to me sufficient to propose the incorporation of haphazardness into the interpretation of the act of writing. A text is a semiotic system. The configuration of a text is not free of haphazard events, 4.  In this chapter, I will not discuss the dimension of “self-dialogism” (Authier-Revuz 1995, p. 148–160) or of “intra-dialogism” (Bres 2005, p. 53), since the object of study is defined from the dialogical text, as explained later herein. 5.  An initial discussion is given in Calil (2012), in which I present an analysis of “verbal erasures” in poems created and written by students of a Brazilian public school.

 Eduardo Calil

which, repeated by the mass of writers, alters its properties, creating irreversible ­transformations that will be rearranged, modifying the current system. The ­haphazard and u ­ npredictable condition of an event is represented in erasure: one cannot ­predict, foresee, plan, design, monitor, intend, control, announce… at what instant, or at what point of the current writing, the erasure will emerge.6 If time is the c­ omponent inherent to the flow of the writing process, erasure, by its very nature, is a recursive phenomenon that marks the movement of the writer in the time itself of the p ­ rocess. This returning movement is triggered by the haphazardness of an utterance, of an association established by the writer in relation to what was already there and to what could be there. As I will discuss, this impossibility inherent to every process of writing and creation, whether literary or school-related, is deeply linked to the two conditions addressed here. Dialogism and haphazardness, inserted constitutively into this process, underpin the ambivalent nature of erasure and will interfere in the configuration of the text. In short, the process of writing and its product – the text – make up a multimodal semiotic system governed by a multiplicity of factors, and erasure is the mark of the tension points occurring during the writing flow, of a visible return that would reveal the dialogic relationships, given the haphazardness of their manifestations. 3.  Methodological considerations To answer the aforementioned theoretical questions, I will discuss some important methodological aspects related to the school context, the participating students, and the conditions of production that characterize the teacher’s didactic proposal. 3.1  Paired writing in the classroom: The dialogal as the thread of the text The corpus I will analyze is methodologically similar to a representative body of investigations dedicated to analyzing the process of paired writing, which the researchers of the Research Group on Communicative Interactions (Gaulmyn 1994) call “conversational writing.” Collected in the books organized by Gaulmyn,

6.  This may be one of the limitations of studies about text (manuscript), because its analysis inevitably focuses on erasure as a product and not on the instant of its accomplishment. Even if one were to scrutinize a writer’s genetic dossier composed of annotations, notebooks, letters… and could observe the erasure in its dual condition of eradication and irradiation (Grésillon 2008, p. 84 and ss.), one would always find as the object the effected erasure, never the erasure to be effected or the erasure that is being effected.



Dialogues between two pupils during the process of writing 

Bouchard and Rabatel (2001) and Bouchard and Mondada (2005), based on an interdisciplinary approach involving the theoretical fields of linguistics, p ­ sychology, conversational analysis and didactics of written language, the studies p ­ resented in these works7 are dedicated to analyzing the dialogue, audio recorded and of a semi-experimental nature, between two foreign university students ­during the writing of an argumentative text. We have been developing this collaborative writing technique since 1989 (Calil 1994), but with the difference that the interaction between dyads is established within a natural didactic context, an essential condition to preserve the real social conditions of text production in the school situation. This methodological choice is similar to ethnolinguistic studies, enabling one to grasp the complexity and richness of the crossover of the didactic, pragmatic, linguistic, psychological and anthropological factors involved in effective situations of text production in the classroom. In addition, the methodological procedure has two other important characteristics: (a) the subjects are six- to eight-year-old pupils who have only recently learned to read and write, i.e. pupils who are writing their first texts; and (b) the collected data covering the entire development of the classroom activity is recorded with a camcorder (Handycam). This resource allows for access to the natural context that an audio ­recording does not provide. By filming the scene in which the practice of textualization8 is established, one gains access to the time and space of its occurrence. This form of registration ensures the documentation not only of the classroom’s physical space (walls with posters, notices, drawings, alphabets on the blackboard, the ­arrangement of the work tables, etc.) but also of its social aspect constituted by the actors involved (the forms of teacher-student and student-student interaction, presentation of the assignment, organization and distribution of the students in the classroom, etc.). Through the adjustment of the dyad during the creation and writing process one also obtains a real record of the dialogue and everything that characterizes the face-to-face interaction in these school conditions: from facial

7.  I point out that in Gaulmyn, Bouchard & Rabatel (2001), these studies are collected in the first part of the book titled “La rédaction conversationnelle, variations sur un même corpus” (Conversational writing, variations on the same corpus). 8.  The “practice of textualization” is understood as the moment of development of a p ­ roposal of textual production in the classroom. In other words, the “practice of textualization” involves everything that takes place in the classroom during the instantiation of the proposal presented by the teacher. In short, the “practice of textualization” is delimited between the moment when the teacher organizes the group of pupils and presents the assignment… up to the moment when the pupils hand in the text and the teacher ends the class.

 Eduardo Calil

expressions, gestures, looks, position of the pen upon the paper to the interaction with the teacher or with nearby classmates. The dialogue, or, as expressed more appropriately by Bres and Nowakowska (2006, p. 35, 36), the dialogal, is thus characterized starting from two essential points: (i) the alternation of groups in praesentia (which evidently assumes an entire visual, auditory, gestural and interactional apparatus pertaining to a classroom) in which previous dialogues are succeeded by and linked to subsequent dialogues; and (ii) The temporal flow of the instance of utterance (management of transactional places, pauses, phatic and regulatory realizations, completives, etc.) shared by the speakers. In view of this methodological design and the enunciative perspective adopted, I propose an expansion of the understanding of the phenomenon of ­erasure. It would no longer be limited to the marks left upon a sheet of paper, when one considers the fact that writing is done in pairs. If the erasure reflects a return to a point of tension of the ongoing text, the returns of the co-writers over these points may be considered a form of erasure, a form of “verbal erasure.” These points are characterized co-enunciatively and materialize, via the ­dialogal text, the play of meanings that is established in the time and space of the (re)flux of shared stating. Haphazardness accompanies the emergence of these points, with verbal erasures occurring either through the direct substitution of elements that have already been stated or through returns marked by comments and annotations concerning diverse elements (graphic visual, orthographic, pragmatic, syntactical, lexical, semantic, textual), which may (or may not) be part of the final configuration of the text. From these points the verbal erasures irradiate, echo, reflect: unpredictable returns over the flow of co-enunciative statement, revealing in the process of creation the directions towards other discourses and, at the same time, what enabled the establishment of the finished text itself. 3.2  The corpus: Specific characteristics This corpus comprised the practices of textualization established in a class of six‑year-olds (learning to read and write), who were students of a private school9 in the city of São Paulo, Brazil, in 1991. This school applied the theoretical didactic socio-constructivist concept founded upon the ideas of Vygotsky and Piaget. For

9.  It should be noted that this school was attended by children of upper middle class parents, i.e. university professors, lawyers, architects, engineers, medical doctors, psychologists, psychiatrists, and politicians with significant purchasing power, high educational level, and access to the consumer goods of Brazilian (and São Paulo) society at the time.



Dialogues between two pupils during the process of writing 

this reason, the teaching approach greatly valued the pupils’ social interaction and work in groups. The text production proposals were commonly made to the pupils organized in pairs, who had already worked in small groups in previous years. The pupils Isabel and Nara, who at the beginning of the school year were, respectively, 6 years and 5 months old and 5 years and 9 months old, were ­chosen to be monitored during the teacher’s proposal for text production. This dyad was selected because the girls were extroverted, talkative, and above all because they were friends and had been attending school together since the age of three. M ­ oreover, their parents consented to having their daughters recorded on film. During this year, the teacher made eight proposals for text production to her pupils. All the writing processes in which Isabel and Nara participated were filmed, and their texts were collected. The assignment the teacher gave was simple. She arranged the group into pairs, who first talked together and made up a story. After coming up with the story, the teacher gave each dyad a sheet of paper, usually unlined, and a black pen, and told the pair which of them would dictate and which one write. After writing their story, the pupils handed over their text to the teacher, who usually asked them to read it to her. During the writing process of the Isabel and Nara dyad, the video camera was placed on a tripod and focused on the sheet of paper, the two girls, and their ­classmates around them. The researcher stayed at the back of the classroom, ­outside the pupils’ field of vision, while the teacher moved among the pairs, offering help when requested. The text “Stepmother and the two sisters,” the product of the s­ econd writing process recorded on 25 April 1991, was written in 27 m ­ inutes and 18 seconds. The Eudico Linguistic Annotator (ELAN) program served as ­support to transcribe the recorded film.

4.  Points of tension and manifestations of verbal erasures I will now highlight points of this writing process, naming and characterizing some forms of manifestation of verbal erasure. 4.2  For the title, two erasures: Textual and pragmatic One of the points of tension that are part of the process of creating and ­writing the text “Stepmother and the two sisters” emerges precisely at the moment when ­Isabel and Nara make up and write the title of their fictional story. The first ­reference to it generates the unpredictable competition of different possibilities of stating and manifestations of verbal erasures.

 Eduardo Calil

Dialogal text 1.  00:15:27 – 00:15:5310 of the writing process of “Stepmother and the two sisters” CT1

00:15:27–00:15:31

rubric

nara writes her name. isabel stands beside nara, watching her writing and telling her they need to write the ‘name of the story’. when nara finishes writing her name, isabel takes the pen from her hand, begins pulling the sheet of paper towards herself and sits down on her chair.

isabel says

…we can do it… with the name of the story.

CT2

00:15:31–00:15:37

rubric

isabel finishes pulling the paper onto her work table. nara bends towards her and, looking into her eyes, starts to propose a title in response to isabel’s previous statement.

nara says

iiiit’s the maiden and the,.. no… queen…

CT3

00:15:37–00:15:42

rubric

isabel repeats ‘queen’, then rejects it and proposes as the title ‘the two sisters’, which she immediately justifies. nara gazes at her intently.

isabel says

queen… no. The two sisters. One is because it’s a queen and one because it’s a sister.

CT4

00:15:42–00:15:44

rubric

nara rejects it and begins to propose another title.

nara says

No. The step… moth… er…

CT5

00:15:44–00:15:50

rubric

isabel draws a rectangle on the paper, inside which she will write the title as it appears in the text. she interrupts nara and begins to propose the title, but is again interrupted by nara. nara speaks loudly, looking straight at isabel and pointing her index finger at her.

isabel says

No way. We’ll do it like this…The…the…

nara says

I’m the one dictating, remember? (Continued)

10.  In the transcription tables, each track (“rubric”, “nara says” and “isabel says”) should be read starting from the numbered CT (chronometric time: hour:minute:second) that accompanies it. The CT allows one to accurately establish the t­emporal nature of the speech exchanges and to describe the most important visual information captured by the video camera.



Dialogues between two pupils during the process of writing 

Dialogal text 1.  (Continued) CT6

00:15:50–00:15:53

rubric

nara proposes another title. isabel repeats it in a questioning voice, while nara, her voice low, finishes speaking at the same time.

nara says

The stepmother…

isabel says

The stepmother?…

nara says

…the sister.

The following characters compete paradigmatically as possibilities to form the title of this text: –– “maiden” and “queen”, proposed by Nara at CT2; –– “two sisters”, as Isabel stated at CT3; –– “stepmother” at CT4 and “sister” at CT6, both proposed by Nara. Before discussing the relationships between these names and the emergence of verbal erasures, it should be noted that the following dialogal text was established just minutes earlier. Dialogal text 2.  00:12:13 – 00:12:38 of the writing process of “Stepmother and the two sisters” CT1

00:12:13–00:12:21

rubric

nara proposing the beginning of the story. isabel gazing at her.

nara says

It was two… two girls… one went to fetch firewood… the other to comb her hair…

CT2

00:12:22–00:12:38

rubric

isabel watching and interrupting nara. isabel is proposing another beginning for the story. nara watches isabel intently.

isabel says

No. I already know that, Nara. There were two girls… and then… the mother said… there was one she didn’t like… there was another she liked. The one she didn’t like was called A… dri… an… na… And the one she liked was called Patricia… right?

The names “mother,” “Patricia” and “Adriana” indicated in dialogal text 2, which are related to the names of friends of these pupils, do not return at this point of the writing process represented by dialogal text 1. What is particularly interesting at this point is precisely the emergence of the names “maiden,” “queen,”

 Eduardo Calil

and “stepmother” proffered by Nara, which appear for the first time in this process. These namings not only compete with each other but also preserve the interdiscursive relationships of this invented story with the discursive universe of wellknown fairy tales. In the pupils’ comments, reacting to what is spoken in the temporal flow of each preceding speech exchange, I identified two forms of representation of verbal erasures. In CT3 there is a “textual” verbal erasure when Isabel repeats and rejects the name “queen” and justifies her proposal of “the two sisters”, s­ aying “queen… no. The two sisters. One is because it’s a queen and one because it’s a sister.” In the structure “X is because it’s a Y and a Z”, “X” refers to the title, but the elements that compose it (“Y” and “Z”) are somewhat opaque, i.e. the justification “because it’s a queen and a sister” does not correspond semantically to the possible title “The two sisters.” Despite a slight semantic discordance, Isabel’s speech in opposing the title proposed by Nara contains a comment whose argument infers the maintenance of the unit of the story: one should not give [the text] a title that fails to mention the characters in the story that will be written. A verbal erasure related to the pragmatic nature of this writing process in the classroom emerges in CT5. As mentioned earlier, in describing the methodological procedures, the teacher decided, at each new filming, who would be responsible for dictating and who for writing the fictional story. Nara refers to this instruction by the teacher to make her point about the title, stating authoritatively: “I’m the one dictating, remember?” By stating it in this way, she reminds I­ sabel about what was agreed, but the most interesting aspect is the ironic tone she imparts to the word “remember” by giving her enunciation an upward and interrogative intonation. Nara’s irony refers to the reproving tone commonly identified in the speech of parents and teachers when reprimanding their children and pupils. This statement works as a form of argument by Nara to maintain what she stated at CT4, when she had suggested the name “Stepmother.” Although it lacks a linguistic reflection with regard to the current text, its statement, as I have shown, is effective. Although Isabel’s response (“the stepmother?…”) denotes uneasiness upon questioning this name, she complies and, between 00:15:55 and 00:16:26, writes down the title beside Nara’s name inside the rectangle she had drawn, as shown below.

Figure 1.  Title of the text “Stepmother and the two sisters”



Dialogues between two pupils during the process of writing 

The interdiscursive dialogic dimension of this title is not only of a semantic order, as can be recognized both in “stepmother” and in the terms “queen” and “maiden.” It is also indicated syntagmatically, insofar as the articulation between its nominal syntagmas repeat the known structure of the titles of traditional fairy tales read to these pupils:11 –– –– –– –– ––

Hansel and Gretel Snow White and the seven dwarfs The princess and the pea Beauty and the Beast …

4.3  Th  e noise of magic or word of enchantment: A autonymic modalization in verbal erasure There are several other points of tension that produce different forms of verbal erasures during the course of this writing process. These forms include those that present comments involving not pragmatic or textual factors but precise linguistic and discursive elements. One of the most interesting forms, albeit less frequent in this writing process, is the manifestation of verbal erasures accompanied by m ­ eta-enunciative comments characterized by the unpredictable return to the immediately preceding speech exchange, accompanied by commentaries about the updated elements in the co-writer’s statement. Verbal erasures irradiate at these points of tension, identified as commentaries, whose enunciative forms resemble certain autonymic modalizations described by Authier-Revuz (1995). An instance of this type of erasure occurred at the moment when they were about to write the “magic” performed by the fairy godmother. Isabel’s question (CT1) and the reference to the “noise” of the magic spell indicate a direction for the answer, i.e. she seems to want to represent graphically the onomatopoetic “sound” of the spell. However, Nara’s reply, “Zumbacalabumba!!” indicates a reply in another direction. The intonation, syntax and miming that accompany her enunciation evoke a “magical word” or “enchanted word” to be uttered by the fairy, and not exactly the “sound” of the spell. This set of elements that recovers Nara’s enunciation responds not only to Isabel’s question but also, and equally, to the interdiscursive dimension of the dialogism, and may have been

11.  More in-depth analyses of the titles of invented stories in school texts are given in Calil (2008, 2010).

 Eduardo Calil

Dialogal text 3.  00:30:11 – 00:30:36 of the writing process of “Stepmother and the two sisters” CT1

00:30:11–00:30:14

rubric

isabel, after writing ‘on her mother and her sister’, looks at nara, taps her arm lightly and asks.

isabel says

So… what was… what was the sound of the magic spell?…

CT2

00:30:15–00:30:17

rubric

nara looks at isabel, pantomiming with her hands as though casting a spell on her and altering her tone of voice.

nara says

Zumbacalabumba!!

CT3

00:30:17–00:30:24

rubric

isabel glances at the sheet of paper, then turns to nara, questioning the ‘sound’ of the magic spell proposed by nara.

isabel says

It’s like this, look! Let’s make a nicer one, OK!? Zabumbacalabumba… for a fairy?

CT4

00:30:24–00:30:26

rubric

isabel and nara look at each other in silence.

CT5

00:30:26–00:30:36

rubric

isabel looks at nara and also pantomimes casting a spell on someone. her voice changes when she utters the speech of the character.

isabel says

Zuuumbaaaaaazuuuuum… it’s like this… zuuumbaalaazum… the magic spell will make the mother of a child feel pity!

the triggering point of the verbal erasure that emerges in the continuation of the temporal flow at CT3 of dialogal text 3. At this instant, precisely between 30 minutes, 17 seconds and 30 minutes, 24 seconds, Isabel reacts unpredictably to the preceding exchange. The verbal erasure falls upon the word “Zumbacalabumba!!” uttered by Nara and, unlike the “textual” and “pragmatic” verbal erasures analyzed previously, involves a particular enunciative structuring: 1. Suspension of the flow of speech characterized by the tone of correction of the utterance “It’s like this, look!” which responds negatively to what was proposed by her friend.



Dialogues between two pupils during the process of writing 

2. Immediately following this interruption comes the comment (“Let’s make  a  nicer one, OK!?), in which the determinant “a” makes a cotextual ­deictic  ­reference  to the “magic spell” cast by the fairy and the adnominal adjunct  “nicer” implies  a  negative quality ascribed to the term “Zumbacalabumba!!” 3. The critical comment appears precisely at the moment when Isabel tries to justify what she said before: she repeats the term proposed by Nara (“Zabumbacalabumba…”), developing it through a questioning comment (“for a fairy?”). This latter part of her speech exchange presents an autonymic modalization represented by a noncoincidence between the word “Zabumbacalabumba” and its referent “Fairy.” The explanation for the appearance of this verbal erasure does not seem to reside in the fact the sound of the magic spell proposed by Nara is “ugly” or “pretty.” This erasure has to do with how Isabel received and responded to Nara’s utterance. Isabel’s unexpected association establishes another relationship between a “sound” and the characteristics of the character, and its utterance by her, by the fairy, is therefore plausible. In short, this verbal erasure indicates a discourse that supports Isabel’s statement. She seeks a more adequate term, one that is more suitable for describing this type of character. A “fairy” could not utter this magic word, or the word “Zabumbacalabumba” would not be appropriate to represent a fairy’s “magic.” What irradiates from this point of tension triggered the manifestation of a “noncoincidence of stating between the word and the object.” I would advance ­further into this analysis by explaining why I have highlighted the term “triggered” in italics. The emergence of this type of autonymic modalization responds simultaneously to the meaning constituted imaginatively by Isabel and to Nara’s preceding statement, in other words, the other form of noncoincidence of the speech: the interlocutory noncoincidence. However, potentially, Isabel’s statement embodies another statement, something like: “I don’t agree with the word you said.” Finally, at CT5, Isabel proposes, also by resorting to pantomime as if she were the “fairy” character casting a spell, two new terms, “Zuuumbaaaaaazuuuuum” and “Zuuumbaalaazum.” Her rhythmic intonation and the alliteration of these significant forms resemble the formulas of enchantment typical of the discursive universe of magic and spells, such as the well-known word “abracadabra” uttered by characters in children’s comic books, cartoons or ­movies shown in audiovisual media that are part of these children’s quotidian, such as cinema and television.

 Eduardo Calil

Note the words of Nimbus, one of the characters of the comics of Monica’s Gang (Turma da Mônica in Portuguese) that is widely read by these pupils:

Figure 2.  Excerpt from the comic strip “Nimbus and Do Contra in: the assistant” (Souza 2008, p. 56). Translation: (1) Nimbus: “Sinsinsalabim… Abracadabra!! One, two three!!” (2) Nimbus: “Assistant, you may remove the wrap!” Assistant: “Removing the wrap!”

In addition to this interdiscursive dialogic relationship, one can recognize in these significant forms – and their insertion into the fairy’s “speech” – strong similarities with other manifestations occurring in these children’s comics. A good example of this imbrication between onomatopoeia and the enchanted word, i.e. the fact that the “sound of the magic” produced by a character is the very word employed to cast the spell upon the other character, appears clearly in the comic strip below:

Figure 3.  Excerpt from “Cascão in: gênio pidão” (Souza 2009. p. 50). Translation: Genie of the lamp: “Beware of my ZAAAP! Look out for the shower!” Cascão: “IRRRC!!!”

The “ZAAAP” uttered by the Genie of the Lamp is syntactically similar to the form “Zuuumbaalaazum”, and phonetically preserves the elongated intonation of the vowels. Still from the syntactic point of view, both the Genie’s speech and the Fairy’s direct discourse make a self-reference to the spell that is being cast: “zuuumbaalaazum… the magic spell will make the mother of a child feel pity!”. In addition to the identification of these intricate dialogic relationships, which are revealed in the image recorded at 30 minutes, 36 seconds, when she says the



Dialogues between two pupils during the process of writing 

lines of the fairy, there is also a surprising similarity between her gesture and the gestures of the comic strip characters.

Figure 4.  Isabel, miming the fairy’s “magic,” casts a spell on Adriana’s mother

The outstretched arms, open hands and eyes fixed on the hands, combined with her enunciation evoking the speech of the fairy, is an indication that interdiscursive dialogism can also be seen from the gestural point of view rather than solely from the linguistic and intonational. Evidently, this aspect can only be taken into consideration through an audiovisual record of this creative and writing process. 5.  Conclusions The ambivalent nature of the “written” erasure synthesized by the oppositions between “loss–gain,” “lack–excess,” “emptiness–plenitude,” and “forgettance– remembrance” suggested by Grésillon (2008) can be extended to the process of creation among six-year-old pupils and the “verbal” erasure that emerges in this process. As I have attempted to demonstrate through my analyses, the conditions that appear to determine the paroxysm of this phenomenon are related to ­“haphazardness” and “dialogism.” The filmed record of the dialogal text established by the pupils Nara and ­Isabel revealed some important elements for understanding how these conditions work. They gained greater visibility from the recursivity evidenced by the verbal ­erasures that emerge from the points of tension in this ongoing writing process. The ­configuration of the text “Stepmother and the two sisters” is the result of this process, but its graphic materiality reveals only part of the creative dimension that supported its creation. If haphazardness precludes any anticipation about what will emerge as the point of tension for these pupils, the dual dialogism (interlocutory and interdiscursive) amplifies the guidelines of this process towards other discourses. These guidelines, identified in the analyses presented here, are related to the m ­ ultiplicity of factors that make up the process of creating and writing in a ­complex ­multimodal

 Eduardo Calil

s­emiotic system. The verbal erasures identified here (pragmatic, ­ textual, of ­autonymic modalization) reflect the interference of these factors, but at the same time indicate the subjectivity of the writer. In other words, haphazardness and dialogism are the communicational, technological, interactional, l­ inguistic, cognitive, discursive, textual, and graphic conditions inherent to the workings of the system, but the subjective structuring inscribed in the alterity device of the language underpins its possibilities. In this sense, Isabel and Nara, interdependently, but at the same time, each in her own way, singularize the creative dimension of this process, whose co‑enunciative, and hence, co-authorial nature renders it a unique piece. Interlocutory dialogism – marked in each speech exchange by a response to what precedes it –, and interlocutory dialogism – evoked in some forms of manifestation of oral erasure, such as those that fell upon the names of the characters, the sound of magic or the pantomime of Isabel and Nara –, indicate the essential role of memory and of associative relationships in the creative process of these young pupils writing their first fictional narratives. This memory is composed of the discursive universe in which these pupils are immersed and their experiences as lettered subjects, although the way in which it is actualized depends on the associative relationships forged by the one who writes. This fact theoretically justifies the didactic decision of reading a significant number of fairy stories and comics to pupils in this age group. Moreover, paired work potentiates this dual dialogic dimension, favoring not only the emergence of points of return over the writing process but also confrontation in the constitution of subjectivities.

References Authier-Revuz, J. 1995. Ces mots qui ne vont pas de soi. Boucles réflexives et non coïncidences du dire. Tome 1. Paris: Larousse. Bouchard, R., and L. Mondada, eds. 2005. Les processus de la rédaction collaborative. Paris: L’Harmattan. Bres, J. 2005. Savoir de quoi on parle: dialogue, dialogal, dialogique; dialogisme, polyphonie. In Dialogisme, Polyphonie: Approches linguistiques, eds. J. Bres, P. P. Haillet, S. Mellet, H. Nolke and L. Rosier, 47–61. Bruxelles: De Boeck. Bres, J., and A. Nowakowska. 2006. Dialogisme: du principe à la matérialité discursive. Recherches Linguistiques 28: 21–48. Calil, E. 1994. The construction of the zone of proximal development in a pedagogical context. In Explorations in socio-cultural studios: Teaching, learning and interaction, vol. 3, eds. N. Mercer and C. Coll, 49–66. Madrid: Fundación Infancia y Aprendizaje. Calil, E. 2008. Cadernos de histórias: o que se repete em manuscritos de uma criança de 6 anos? In Mis Primeros Pasos. Alfabetización, Escuela y Usos Cotidianos de la Escritura (siglos XIX y XX), eds. A. C. Gomez and V. S. Blas, 55–70. Gijón: TREA.



Dialogues between two pupils during the process of writing 

Calil, E. 2010. A menina dos títulos: repetição e paralelismo em manuscritos de Isabel. ALFA 54 (2): 533–64. Calil, E. 2012. La rature orale en processus d’écriture en acte: lieu de tension et production du sens. Oralia 6: 215–230. Debiasi, M.-P. 1996. Qu'est-ce qu'une rature? In Ratures et Repentirs, ed. B. Rougé, 17–47. Pau: Université de Pau. Dufour, D.-R. 2005. On achève bien les hommes: de quelques conséquences actuelles et futures de la mort de Dieu. Paris: Éditions Denoël. Dufour, D.-R. 1990. Les mystères de la trinité. Paris: Gallimard. Flower, L., and J.R. Hayes. 1980. The dynamic of composing: making plans and juggling constraints. In Cognitive processes in writing, eds. L. W. Gregg and E. R. Steinberg, 31–50. ­Hillsdale, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Gaulmyn, de, M.-M. 1994. La rédaction conversationnelle: parler pour écrire. Le Français Aujourd'hui 108: 73–81. Gaulmyn, M.-M, R. Bouchard, and A. Rabatel, eds. 2001. Le processus rédactionnel: écrire à ­plusieurs voix. Paris: L’Harmattan. Grésillon, A. 1994. Eléments de Critique Génétique: lire les manuscrits modernes. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Grésillon, A. 2008. La mise en oeuvre: itinéraires génétiques. Paris: CNRS Editions. Hayes, J.R., and L. Flower. 1980. Identifying the organization of the writing processes. In Cognitive processes in writing, eds. L. W. Gregg and E. R. Steinberg, 3–30 Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Pétroff, A.-J. 2004. Saussure: la langue, l’ordre et le désordre. Paris: L’Harmattan. Prigogne, I., and I. Stengers. 1986. La Nouvelle Alliance (métamorphose de la science). Paris: Gallimard. Souza, M. de. 2008. Revista Cascão 18: 56. Souza, M. de. 2009. Revista Almanaque do Cascão 16: 47–51.

Author index

A Aikhenvald  303–306, 320 Apel  240–244, 254 Althusser  105 Ashcraft  179 Austin  240–241 B Bahktin  126, 156–157, 185, 305, 319–320 Benjamin, Walter  263–264 Bock  147, 157 Breton  239, 246, 248 Buber  157, 163, 173, 177–178, 182 C Catherine of Siena  161 Certeau  162, 167 Chafe  304–306, 310 Chomsky  144 Cooren  127–129, 152, 157, 174, 215–220, 228, 231, 305 Couldry  126, 131 Craig  37, 45, 177–178 Czerwionka  304, 309 D Dakroury  113 de Saussure  144–145 Dewey  245, 253 Didi-Huberman  266–267 E Ess  249 F Fleck  150 Floridi  251–252 Fraser  103–104 G Gadamer  177, 185, 237–238, 240, 244–245 Gamson  111–112 Garver  239, 244, 246, 248 Gaskins  44, 54

Gibson  150 Gilbert & Mulkay  51, 55 Goffman  126, 129 Grondin  238, 245 Grootendorst  246

N Newcomb  157

H Habermas  99, 102–110, 112, 117, 119, 130, 141, 240, 242–244, 254 Heelan  108 Hegel  178, 188 Heidegger  157 Holquist  156

P Peirce  145, 149, 240 Perelman  237–239, 242–244, 246, 248 Poerksen  153 Pomerantz  46, 48

I Iacoboni  3 Isaacs  17–26, 28, 33 J Jacques  164 K Kapoor  102, 104 Kellner  112 Kok  100, 119 Korzybski  145 Kristeva  178, 182 L Latour  167 Lawrence  112 Legault  17–20, 22–28, 33 Linell  144, 304–307, 319, 321 M Marr  104, 114–116 Martinet  1, 7 Maturana  157 Maynard  319 McPhee  215–220, 228 Mendieta  243 Merkel  106 Mouffe  103–104 Muller  177–179

O Olbrechts-Tyteca  255

R Ricoeur  240, 251 Rogers  177, 180, 182 Rorty  155, 157 Russell  145 S Schiappi  48 Schlegoff  307, 319 Shotter  157 Stewart  145 T Tanner  109 Teubert  106 Tracy  177–179 Turnbull  148 V Van Eemeren  246 Volosinov  144 W Walton  99 Warburg, Aby  266 Weick  215–218, 220, 228, 230–231 Weigand  163, 254 Wheeler  144 Whitehead  145 Wittgenstein  157 Wood  149

Subject index

“others have misguided motives”  51–53 “the law demands”  49–51 “what’s right will prevail”  49, 54 (mis)representation  289–292, 294, 296–297, 299–302 (mis)understanding  143, 153–154, 156–157 (mis)understanding as conversational move  152 A aboutness  144 absence (absent figure)  163–164 abstract-objectivist conception of language  144–145, 154 accountability  152 action  293, 295–296, 300 action principle  7 adjustment  199, 202, 204, 207–208, 211 adressing strategies  59–65, 71, 74, 76–78, 80 affordance  150 agency  125–126, 130 agreement  243, 307–308 alterity  326, 340 anarchism  101 Anderson v. King County  42–45 appellate court practice  39–45 Arab Spring  99, 104, 121 architecture  257–258, 260, 273–264, 266, 268 argument(ation)  17–18, 20, 23–25, 29, 30, 33, 125–134, 138–139, 141 Aristophanes  291, 292, 297 Aristotle  290, 292, 296, 298, 301–302 assertion  195–196, 199–200, 202, 203 (quote), 206, 208–211

assertoric force  200, 211 autonomy  249–251 B bad news  312, 314–316, 319–320 Barain  100 blog(s)  99, 102, 112–116, 119–120 blogg(er)(ing)  112–115, 120 blogsphere  112 body  169 Brazil  271–272, 278, 282, 284, 286 Britain  102, 104, 111, 118, 121 burden of proof shifting  53–54 C change process  271, 278, 280–282 character  289–302 citizen  99–101, 103–105, 107–116, 119 civil society  99–106, 109–110, 119, 122 classroom discussion  177–179, 186, 191–192 co-enunciation  195, 197, 211 co-enunciator  197–198, 202, 207, 209 collective mind(ing)  215–221, 224, 228–231 commenter  113–120 commitment(S)  195, 199, 200–201, 205, 210–211, 239, 246, 250, 253 common good  100, 103–109, 112, 114–115, 119–121 communication  17–23, 27–33, 162, 165, 195–198, 203–204, 211, 238, 242–245, 247, 251–252 communication practice  177–178, 191

communicative  237, 240–243, 245, 253 communicative role  237 competence  17–18, 20, 26, 29–32 competence-inperformance  1, 4–7 complexity  9, 14 computer  149–150, 156 computer icon  149–150 conscilience  2, 5 context  147–148 contextualization  304, 306–308, 310–318, 320, 322 conversation  143, 145, 147, 151, 153–157 conversation among representatives  152 conversation analysis  219 conversation as coordination of understanding  143 conversation as dialogue  155, 157 conversational moves  152 conversations among representatives  152 critical circularity  237, 248 criticism  239, 243, 245 cross-cultural  59, 62 D Daily Herald  111 Daily Mail  116 Daily Telegraph  11, 117, 121 decontextualiz(es) (ed)(ation)  147 default norms of address  65–67, 73, 76 defining terms  48–49 deictic markers  307, 311, 322 deliberative democracy  99, 102–105, 107, 109–100, 112, 116–117, 119, 122

 Subject index dialectic(al)  177, 185–187, 190–192 dialog (dialogue) (dialogues)  1–13, 17–36, 125–129, 131–132, 140–141, 195–199, 204, 207, 211–212, 237–238, 245, 247, 250, 271, 286, 289–302 dialogic action games  9 dialogic discussion  177, 179, 182, 185, 191 dialogic interaction  254 dialogic principle  7, 10 dialogism  325, 327–328, 335, 339–340 dialogue coherence (see dialogue organization)  303–304, 306–308, 310–311, 313, 316–319, 321–322 dialogue fragmentation (see dialogue organization)  303–304, 306–308, 310, 313–322 dialogue organization  319 dialogue representation  303–304, 319, 321 dialogue structure  310–311, 319, 322 diegesis  290, 294–295, 298, 300–301 disciplines  2, 5 discourse  143–145, 150, 152–154, 196–199, 203, 207, 210–212 discourse dynamics  153 discourse ethics  237, 242–244 discourse of biology  154 discourse of linguistics  144, 154 discourse of physics  144 discursive space  195, 199, 204, 211 discussion  195, 198–199, 291, 204–207, 209, 211 dramatic(ally)  290, 292–294, 296–297, 300–301 E economy  102, 104–105, 107–109, 112 Egypt  100–102 elected representatives  152

electronic media  112 emotional investment  200, 207 England  101, 116 enunciation  195–198, 206, 211, 289–290, 294–295, 298–299 enunciator  195, 198–202, 204–210 erasure  325–328, 330, 333–337, 339–340 ethical  237–239, 244–245, 247–250, 252–254 ethics  17–18, 20, 22, 26–27, 29, 31 ethos (character)  237, 239, 244, 246–248 everyday discourse  144–145 evidential information/ strategy  303–306, 308–310, 318–322 excellence (practical wisdom)  237, 244, 247 exchanges  195, 204, 210 expectancy  11 experienced dilemmas  177, 179 expert-novice  177, 185, 191 explicit information  303, 309–311, 313–322 expressiveness  244–245, 247, 249 extreme case formulations  46–47 F facilitation  180–182 factual information (see explicit information)  309 false steerers (see steerers)  307, 313, 315–316, 318, 320 focusing attention  12–13 G gender  59, 61–64, 67–74, 76, 78–80 gender roles  59, 61, 63–64, 70, 79 Germany  104 goal-directed observation  2, 14 God  166 God’s eye perspective/ view  148, 153–154

grounded practical theory  45 Guardian  101, 11, 115–116, 120 H habits of our life  11 haphazardness  325–328, 330, 339–340 hermeneutical question  243 holism  1, 14 holistic  1, 14 humanized linguistics  15 I icon  145, 149–150, 154, 156 identity  125, 130–133, 141 IFCCD  177–178, 191–192 illustration  143, 147 imitation  290, 294 implicit information  303, 309–322 inclusive approach  17 Independent  110–112, 114, 116 index  145, 147 index(ical)(ity)  145–146 information  249–252 information source  319, 322 innovation  271, 278–280, 282–283, 286 intelligibility  247 intensity  200, 204, 207, 211 interaction  195–196, 203, 209, 211 interdiscursive dialogism  327, 339 interlocution  163, 196–197, 203, 211 interlocutory dialogism  327, 340 internal dialogue  168 internet  99, 101, 112–113, 119–120 internet discourse  125, 141 interorganizational relationships  215–215, 220 interpretant  145 intersubjectivity  197, 203 (quote) irony  295–297, 300 J Jasmine Revolution  100 joint seeing  319–320 justification  1

K knowledge  271–286 L landmark(s)  148 language  2–3, 5–8, 11, 13–14, 143–145, 147, 153–155 language as a system of representation  145 legal dialogic strategies  45–55 legitim(acy)(ize)(ation)  125–126, 128–132, 134–135, 138, 140–141 legitimate argumentation  242 lens  177–178, 184, 191–192 Libya  10, 118, 121 listening  157 logos  237, 240–241, 248 London riots  118, 121 M Magna Carta  101 maps  143, 147–149, 153–154 markets  102, 106–109, 120 master suppression techniques  59, 67–68, 70, 72, 74, 78–80 media  99, 102, 104–114, 116, 118–121 medical discourse  145, 150–151, 154 medical symptoms  150, 154 metadiscourse  125, 128–129, 131, 141 methodology  1, 7–8, 12, 14 milestone(s)  148 mimesis  289–290, 294–295, 298–301 mind  1, 3–4, 6, 8, 11–13, 15 mini-blog  114–116, 118–119 mixed game  5, 7, 9, 12, 15 mixed game model  15 moral  17–18, 20–22, 25–27, 29 moral beings  237, 239, 241–244, 247, 249–250, 254 movement  259–264 mystical communication  162, 165, 173 N narrator  289, 295, 298–301 negotiation  17–18, 20, 23–25, 29, 33–34 neuroscience  1, 3

Subject index  new science  14 News of the World  111 normative ideal  177, 191, 197 Nottingham Two  101 O object  1–8, 10–14 ofcom  111 open-ended role-play (see role-play)  303–304, 308 organization(s)  271–275, 277, 282, 285 organizing  286 orison  168 P paradox  145, 151 parliamentary addressing strategies  64, 71, 74, 76 parliamentary dialogue  59–60, 64, 70–71, 79 participation framework  125–126, 129 pathos (affectivity)  237, 248–249 persuasive  15 persuasive argumentation  237–239 philosophy  289–294, 297, 301–302 photograph(s)(y)  146–147, 155–156 sports photographs  146 family photographs  155–156 photographs in the context of narrative  143, 147, 150, 152–153 Plato(nic)  289–302 politics  171 power  59–60, 63, 65, 70–71, 75–76, 79 power (and dialogue)  168 practical reason(ing)  239 praxis  243 preparators  307, 310–311, 313, 314, 136, 318 presentation  143, 146, 300 principle of coherence  8 principles of probability  1 probability  1, 7–8, 11, 12 projection  304, 306–308, 310–311, 313–314, 316, 319, 320, 322

public sphere  99, 102–105, 108–110, 112–114, 119, 121 R rational ethos  237, 244, 247–248 rationality  99, 103–104, 109, 113, 116 reasoning  239, 242, 245–249 recontectualiz(es)(ed) (ation)  147 referring strategies  60, 64–65, 70–71, 79 reflective argument  238, 246 religion  163 reported speech  47 representation  143–148, 150–157 re-presentation  143, 146 representation and power  149–150, 152, 156 representation of absent others  151–154, 156 representation of abstractions  152 representation of experiences  146–147, 154–155 representation of objects  145–146, 149, 153 representative(s)  151–154, 156 responsibility  320 responsibility  239–240, 242, 244, 246, 250–251, 253, 320 responsible engagements  239, 246–248 rhetoric(al)  15, 24–25, 27–30, 32, 33, 237–240, 242, 244–246, 248–249 role(s)  289–290, 295–296, 298, 300 role-play  303–304, 308 Rubert Murdoch  110, 116 S salvation  172 same-sex marriage  39–40 scientific discourse  143–145, 153–154 scientific interest  2, 5–6, 14 self-appointed representatives  152 self-reflexivity of language  237 semiology  144

 Subject index semiotics  144–145, 150, 154 sign  145, 149–150, 154, 156–157 skepticism markers  47–48 Socrates  289–292, 294–301 space and time  260 Spanish  303–304, 306, 308–310, 318, 320–322 speaking  153, 155, 157 speaking about things  143–144, 157 speaking as joint action  151, 155 speaking for absent others  152–153 speaking in the name of others  152 steerers  307, 310–311, 313, 315–316, 318, 320 stereotypes  59, 64 stigmata  169 strategic uses of forms of address  60, 65 Sun  111, 114 Swedish Riksdag  59–61, 63, 65–67, 70, 74–76, 79 Switzerland  105 symbol(s)  145, 149, 156 symptoms  143, 150–151, 154, 156 syphilis  150

T territories  148–149 theatre  290–293, 301–302 theoretical discourse  177–178, 191 theoriz(e)(ing)  1, 6–7, 14, 177, 191 theory  1, 7, 9, 14–15 theory of logical types  145, 151 theory of representation  145 thought  290, 293–294, 299, 301–302 through  289, 292–294, 296, 300–302 Times  111 topicality  304, 306 Tottenham  117, 121 transcription  167 Tunisia  100, 102, 121 U UK parliament  59–60, 63, 65, 70–71, 75–76, 79 V valence  125, 129 validation  199–202, 204, 211 validity claims  130, 141

valuation  200, 211 ventriloquism  127, 141, 152, 157, 173–174 video  257, 263–268 vision  170 visual arts  257, 259, 263, 266 vocabularies  154–155, 157 vocabularies and revolutionary changes  155 voices  125–141, 143, 151, 154, 156–157 voices channeled from one conversation to another  147 voices of others  143, 156 W web-based dialogue  99 world  172 world knowledge  11 writing  325–331, 334, 339–340 writing process  325–336, 339–340 Y Yemen  100