From dialogue to dialogism

the confessions of a writing researcher

Lars Evensen

pp. 147-164

in: Finn Bostad, Craig Brandist, Lars Evensen, Faber (eds), Bakhtinian perspectives on language and culture, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2004

Abstract

What does dialogism have to offer to the study of writing as "practice"? In this chapter, I shall try to illustrate my navigation in relation to this complex issue from the empirical and epistemological point of view of the applied linguist. More specifically, I work as a writing researcher trying to understand what happens when children and teenagers appropriate a highly literate culture. How can an applied linguist come to view dialogism as a basic prerequisite for understanding and stimulating the development of cultural appropriation? And how does all of this relate to the underlying theme of this book — theory of culture — as applied to a different cultural practice like, for instance, jazz improvization?