Page 60 - Gabrijela Kišiček and Igor Ž. Žagar (eds.), What do we know about the world? Rhetorical and argumentative perspectives, Digital Library, Educational Research Institute, Ljubljana 2013
P. 60
What Do We Know about the World?
not universal), it just means that from a certain point (yet) another topos
(or even several topoi) may start to apply
T6 The more it is warm, the less pleasant it is to go for a walk.
or
T7 The less it is warm, the more pleasant it is to go for a walk.
Which, again, doesn’t (necessarily) mean that T5 doesn’t apply any
more (at all), it just means that from a certain point it stops to be gen-
erally and commonly shared by a certain community, and another topos
takes its place.
7. Polyphony
The other crucial concept for Ducrot’s strong version of argumenta-
tion in language is polyphony, a concept he borrowed from Bakhtin, and
generalised to the language-system as a whole.
As you already know, Bakhtin distinguishes between dialogism and
polyphony. “Polyphony”, he says, in his Marxism and the Philosophy of
Language6 (1973: 116), “is distinctly and fundamentally different from
dialogue. In dialogue, the lines of the individual participants are gram-
matically disconnected: they are not integrated into one context.” Dia-
logues, therefore, are produced by two or more speakers, while polyphony
is a monological structure. He found examples of polyphonic structures
(utterances) mostly in novels, and in his book on Dostoevsky (1984: 304)
he gives this (now famous) definition of the polyphonic phenomenon:
“An author may utilize the speech of another in pursuit of his own aims and
in such a way as to impose a new intention on the utterance, which neverthe-
less retains his own proper referential intention. Under these circumstances
and in keeping with the author’s purpose, such an utterance must be recog-
nised as originating from another addresser. Thus, within a single utterance,
there may occur two intentions, two voices”.
So, for Bakhtin, a polyphonic construction belongs to a single speak-
er, but actually contains (mixed within it) “two utterances, two speech
manners, two styles, two languages, two semantic and axiological belief
systems” (1984: 304).
Bakhtin’s study of polyphony was mostly confined to novels, while
Ducrot generalised the phenomenon as far as language as a system. How
does Ducrot define polyphony?
6 It is still disputed whether Marxism and Philosophy of Language was in fact writen by Bakhtin and only
attributed to Voloshinov, or whether it was Voloshinov‘s original work.
not universal), it just means that from a certain point (yet) another topos
(or even several topoi) may start to apply
T6 The more it is warm, the less pleasant it is to go for a walk.
or
T7 The less it is warm, the more pleasant it is to go for a walk.
Which, again, doesn’t (necessarily) mean that T5 doesn’t apply any
more (at all), it just means that from a certain point it stops to be gen-
erally and commonly shared by a certain community, and another topos
takes its place.
7. Polyphony
The other crucial concept for Ducrot’s strong version of argumenta-
tion in language is polyphony, a concept he borrowed from Bakhtin, and
generalised to the language-system as a whole.
As you already know, Bakhtin distinguishes between dialogism and
polyphony. “Polyphony”, he says, in his Marxism and the Philosophy of
Language6 (1973: 116), “is distinctly and fundamentally different from
dialogue. In dialogue, the lines of the individual participants are gram-
matically disconnected: they are not integrated into one context.” Dia-
logues, therefore, are produced by two or more speakers, while polyphony
is a monological structure. He found examples of polyphonic structures
(utterances) mostly in novels, and in his book on Dostoevsky (1984: 304)
he gives this (now famous) definition of the polyphonic phenomenon:
“An author may utilize the speech of another in pursuit of his own aims and
in such a way as to impose a new intention on the utterance, which neverthe-
less retains his own proper referential intention. Under these circumstances
and in keeping with the author’s purpose, such an utterance must be recog-
nised as originating from another addresser. Thus, within a single utterance,
there may occur two intentions, two voices”.
So, for Bakhtin, a polyphonic construction belongs to a single speak-
er, but actually contains (mixed within it) “two utterances, two speech
manners, two styles, two languages, two semantic and axiological belief
systems” (1984: 304).
Bakhtin’s study of polyphony was mostly confined to novels, while
Ducrot generalised the phenomenon as far as language as a system. How
does Ducrot define polyphony?
6 It is still disputed whether Marxism and Philosophy of Language was in fact writen by Bakhtin and only
attributed to Voloshinov, or whether it was Voloshinov‘s original work.
