Dialogues and Interconnections: Language, Culture and Identity
p. 13-24
Résumés
The paper argues against the essentialist and nationalist views of language, culture and identity. Instead, using the Bakhtinian, dialogical thinking as a starting point and taking examples of recent discussions in the Finnish context, it is argued that heteroglossia – multiplicity, diversity and alteration – characterise language use, cultural practices and personal identity. While languages are seen as closely connected with their social and cultural milieu, it is also observed that there are constant on-going dialogues between different languages and cultures – a view that admits that any particular language is essentially “multilingual”. Finally, connecting cultural practices and language use to people’s experienced, “inner” worlds, it is argued that identity can also be understood as polyphonic, or multi-voiced.
Cet article prend position contre les opinions essentialistes et nationalistes sur la langue, la culture et l’identité. À l’inverse, l’auteur utilise la réflexion dialogique bakhtinienne comme point de départ et donne des exemples de discussions récentes dans le contexte finlandais pour affirmer que l’hétéroglossie – la multiplicité, la diversité et l’altération – caractérise l’utilisation de la langue, les pratiques culturelles et l’identité personnelle. Les langues sont vues comme étroitement liées à leur milieu socioculturel, mais l’auteur observe également qu’il existe des dialogues permanents entre les différentes langues et cultures – une opinion qui considère que toute langue est essentiellement « multilingue ». Enfin, en reliant les pratiques culturelles et l’utilisation de la langue aux mondes « intérieurs » perçus par les gens, l’auteur avance que l’identité peut également être comprise comme polyphonique ou à plusieurs voix.
Texte intégral
Introduction
1In this paper, I discuss two different perspectives on language, culture and identity, taking my examples from the context of Finland, Finnish culture and the Finnish language. The first perspective relies on an essentialist view that supposes an alleged unity and uniformity, which can also be called monological interpretation. The second, the non-essentialist interpretation, observes the diversity and variation that is inherently present in all human culture and language; this approach is here called dialogical. My main inspiration comes from the Bakhtin Circle dialogism1 but I will also briefly refer to the discussion of language within applied linguistics2 and include some examples of recent public discussion of language and culture in contemporary media.
Essentialist perspectives: how Finland was imagined
2The essentialist perspective to language and culture that highlights their common core and homogeneity is closely tied with the nation state and national language ideologies. It connects cultures and languages to a space and puts emphasis on the “oneness” of a nation and its language3. At the same time, it conceptualises languages and cultures as internally unified entities with imaginary borders to separate them from their neighbours. The argument goes on to assume that the individual members of the nation share one particular national identity, in our case, a Finnish one.
3But as Benedict Anderson says, nations are “imagined communities”4. Nations, and also nationally based ideologies of language and culture, are constructed ideas and refer to perceived commonalities, rather than to empirical fact. Even a brief look at the history of Finland and the Finnish people shows that as an independent nation state Finland is young. Formerly a part of the kingdom of Sweden (c. 1100/1300-1808) and Czarist Russia (1809-1917), Finland gained its independence as a nation in 1917 only. Although Finnish has been spoken in the present area for a long time5, the location of Finland at the geopolitical, cultural and linguistic crossroads has resulted in a number of contacts but also conflicts.
4Perhaps the most common narrative that is told of the Finnish language and culture, however, highlights the process of becoming a unified nation that has one common language, one unique culture and one particular identity. The history of this narrative can be traced back to the 18th century – to the Fennophiles, “friends of the Finnish”, who were a small group of scholars, eager to investigate the (often imagined) glorious past of the people and the language. To take an example, Daniel Juslenius (1676-1752), a scholar and a patriot, assumed that the Finnish people had inhabited the area since the times of the Biblical Flood. He also proposed that the Finnish language was genetically related to Greek and Hebrew, two most prestigious languages of the time. As we know now, his assumptions were wrong and his examples not only random but also faulty.
5A more scientific study of the Finnish language was initiated in the late 18th century by Henrik Gabriel Porthan (1739-1804) who wrote an analysis of the traditional oral poetry and also dismissed the far-fetched claims of his Fennophile predecessors as non-scientific. Further, the turn of the 19th century marked the last days of Finland as a province of Sweden. Under the Swedish rule that had started around 1300 ACE, the position of the Finnish language had been more or less that of a vernacular language of the peasant class. Swedish was used mostly in administration and also by the nobility, clergymen and educated people in their everyday life. However, the Finnish language had been used regularly in the church since the Lutheran Protestant Reformation. Mikael Agricola (c. 1510-1557) had translated the New Testament into Finnish and had also written the first ABC book. The whole Bible was published in Finnish in 1642.
6In the beginning of the 19th century, new ideas and philosophies were spreading throughout Europe: Romanticism and national movements had their influence also among the Finns. These movements coincided with the new political reality: in 1809, the area of Finland became attached to Russia, as a Grand Duchy. Nevertheless, the early 19th century marked a period of national awakening. An enormous boost to the national spirit was given when Elias Lönnrot (1802-1884) published the oral folk poetry he had collected, now known as Kalevala, the national epic. By and by, the Finns started to realise the scope and quality of their past linguistic and cultural heritage and also value it.
7The situation by mid-19th century was that while the country was a part of imperial Russia most educated people still spoke Swedish as their home language. Russian never became genuinely widespread. The large majority of the population – mostly non-educated people living in rural areas – spoke Finnish. Nevertheless, despite the presence of Russian rulers and the long-standing Swedish heritage, the Finnish language strengthened its position very rapidly. Eino Leino, one of the most appreciated Finnish poets, later observed that the Finnish-speaking culture needed to navigate between the Scylla of Swedish and the Charybdis of Russian to find its true course.
8As late as 1890 Encyclopedia Britannica predicted that the Finnish language was to become extinct6. Despite this belated prophecy of doom, the Finnish-speaking culture actually bloomed during the last couple decades of the 19th century. There was an upsurge in promoting the use of the language in all fields of life: in education, media, literature, theatre and societal practices. Novels and poetry were written in Finnish, drama was staged in the new Finnish theatre and newspapers started to appear on a regular basis. The first school to give instructions in Finnish was established in 1858 and the first teacher-training seminar started its work a bit later on. The years from 1850 to 1900 bore witness to the rise of the Finnish-speaking culture.
9In elite culture, the use of the Finnish language expanded very rapidly. But all along the 19th century also the pressure towards gaining national independence grew. In this, Finland’s vernacular language was seen as an important element. Johan Wilhelm Snellman (1806-1881), a notable philosopher, journalist and statesman, echoed the saying “Gentem lingua facit” – “ït is the language that makes the nation” – in his philosophy of state. At the same time, the Fennoman movement arose: this was a circle of people advancing the Finnish cause. While some Fennomans just strived towards national independence, some positioned themselves directly against the Swedish-minded, the Svecomans. Importantly, however, many Swedish speakers identified themselves nationally as Finns: hence, a remarkable number of Swedish-speaking families gave up Swedish and started to use Finnish as their home language.
10The language policy exerted by the Czars during the 19th century was highly volatile. In 1850 a language act was given that banned the publishing of literature other than religious or “enlightening” in nature; but already in 1863 the decree given by Alexander II made some readjustments and improved the position of Finnish. By the early 20th century, Finnish had been granted a position of an official language in administration but at the same time the country was going through a severe period of Russification.
11By 1917, the use of Finnish in institutional culture had been in the making for several decades. The national independence in 1917 and the position of Finnish as an official language of the new state provided a seeming closure to the narrative of “how Finland was imagined”, but also paved the way for its later representations. It is also obvious that this narrative is – to a high degree – monocultural and monolingual. Identifying language and culture with a nation and its particular territory, the narrative emphasises internal unity and raises barriers against “other” languages and cultures. It also imagines a national identity, a mentality typical to all Finns7. These arguments make swiping generalisations about “typical” Finns (e.g. “The myth of The Silent Finn”) and characteristic features of the language (e.g. “Finnish is a difficult language”).
12At the same time, the monolingual and monocultural arguments are often opposed to change. Accordingly, demands are expressed that both language and culture need to be kept intact: “pure” and free of novel introductions or foreign elements. These views cultivate images where certain forms of the Finnish language, culture and identity are seen as “authentic” and “genuine”. To summarise, these arguments are reflections of monological views8 that aim at freezing the life-world phenomena of language use and cultural practices: at their worse, they aim at turning culture into fossils, language into a dictate and identity into a mold.
Dialogical overtones: encounters in language, culture and identity
13The essentialist views of language and culture aim at representing them as static collections of rules. Alternatively, it can be suggested that languages, cultures – and also identities – are characterised by dynamicity and diversity. However, although the dialogical thinking foregrounds forces that produce diversity and dynamicity – that is, centrifugal forces – it also embraces forces that aim at convergence and create conformity – that is, centripetal ones9. The center-seeking forces push us towards homogeneous linguistic and cultural practices. The center-fleeing forces attract us to divergence: to distinguish us from others, to develop new customs, and new ways of using language. Thus language use and cultural customs involve both variation and continuity.
14To begin with the dialogical conceptualisation of language, Bakhtin says that language use in communities is characterised by heteroglossia, the co-existence of different usages that are tied to socio-ideological contexts, past and present10. In this, dialogism is opposed to the essentialist view on language. When we aim at analysing Finnish history at the grassroots level, underneath the conventional narrative of national language and culture, what we find is a multitude of encounters and influences and also a number of controversies and struggles. Underneath the assumed unity and homogeneity, there are layers of diversity and a process of ongoing change.
15As we saw above, the area of Finland has always been a contested one, and for a long time, it was just a borderline province between the powers of Russia and Sweden. This position at a cultural crossroads has left deep traces in the Finnish culture. Being positioned between the “West” (Europe) and the “East” (Asia), cultural influences – food, clothing, art, everyday customs – from both directions were assumed. Similarly, religious influences entered Finland both from the East and from the West: the Western Churches (Roman Catholic and Lutheran Protestant) and the Eastern Greek Orthodox Church both had their impact. Thus the culture we now think of as “Finnish” is a product of a layer of influences from the very beginning.
16Further, having been located between two Indo-European language communities – Germanic and Slavic – the original Uralic language now known as Finnish has received continuous influences from both. The language was borrowed along the cultural influences: food, tools, agriculture, beliefs – a flow of influences that has never stopped. Duly, what we generally perceive as “Finnish” is – and has always been – a hybrid. As Korhonen puts it, the Finnish language has its “roots in the East, leaves in the West”11. While the monological ideology emphasises the autonomy of languages, the history speaks for a continuous interaction between language communities.
17To simplify the history of the Finnish language, one can say that its grammar is indeed essentially “Uralic”. However, the high number of loan words – a result of various language contacts – make the language a mixture. Early influences come from Indo-European (nimi, “name”), Baltic (olut, “beer”, “ale”), Germanic (sukka, “sock”) and Slavic languages (lusikka, “spoon”)12. To illustrate the continuity of influences, we can have a look at the loans that Finnish has assumed from the French language. There are many old loans that are well-established: ateljee (“atelier”), barrikadi (“barricade”), klišee (“cliché”), muoti (“mode”) or tanssia (“danser”)13. But the process of borrowing words continues even today: reading a contemporary Finnish food magazine, one finds a high number of French-origin words. All French readers would recognise those words that have kept their original or near-original spelling, such as croissant, galette, bouillabaisse, vinaigrette, creme fraiche, entrecote, brie, pinot noir, sommelier and bistro14. In addition, many words have been further modified towards Finnish spelling, phonology or morphology, such as terriini (“terrine”) or pyree (“purée”). These examples tell a story of how both now and in former times, cultural and linguistic influences reach across time and place.
18In addition to words, Finnish has also borrowed conventions in other areas of language. For example, almost all written language conventions are of foreign origin: the alphabet, the orthography, the genres and text types, but also many grammatical and pragmatic conventions show an influence of European norms of literacy. Also several pragmatic features, such as different forms for formal and informal address (e.g. difference between vous and tu) have entered Finnish as an influence coming from other language communities. Even the level of pronunciation has undergone a rather dramatic change: the sound system of the Finnish language in which there were only voiceless stop consonants – /ptk/ – went through a change as a result of loan words from European languages that involved also such consonants as /bdg/. To summarise, we can say that multilinguality is a feature of language itself15.
19When the Finnish language is observed “internally” we find similar variation: in fact one can say that there is not only one Finnish but several Finnishes. Language use varies from one area to another: there are different dialects. Language use also varies according to the age and gender of the speakers. Different groups and subcultures develop their own vocabularies and ways of speaking: football fans, metalheads and golf enthusiasts have each their specific parlance. Language is heteroglossic: Finnish, just as any other language, is a collection of usages that vary across contexts and develop over time. To see languages – or cultures – as static is simply a myopic view.
20The above examples of cultural influences show that many changes result from contacts. But these interactions can also easily lead to conflict. The development towards national independence and the rising status of the Finnish language and culture was never without its detractors. In terms of language, there were battles concerning the common standard language: in the 19th century there raged a heated debate whether it was to be the eastern or the western dialects that were to be chosen as the basis of the new standard language. There were other dilemmas: the ideologies that spoke for the unity of the emerging Finnish language also promoted the tradition of purism. All foreign influence was fought against, particularly that of Swedish: the words and expressions of Swedish origin were doomed as Sveticisms. The puristic tradition grew and strengthened by the era of national independence and flourished well into the 1960s and 1970s.
21There were also battles between languages, such as the “language wars” between the Finnish camp and the Swedish camp. Now both official, “domestic” languages, the contemporary Finland is more multilingual that just Finnish- and Swedish-speaking. There are indigenous languages, namely the three Sámi languages, and minority languages, such as Finnish Sign Language and Romani. In addition, there are “newer” language communities with around 80 languages having over 100 speakers. Global foreign languages are studied at schools and different educational institutions and most people end up with knowing at least two other languages in addition of their mother tongue. Further, media and literature are available in many local and immigrant languages. Importantly, English occupies a central position as the most frequently studied foreign language at school and as a language highly visible in business, media and popular culture. It is not without reason that English is sometimes called “the third domestic language” of Finland16.
22The language situation makes many languages available for people in their everyday life but it is also a source for heated debates: there are multiple perspectives and competing discourses regarding multilingualism. To take some examples: while language proficiency is something that is most usually highly valued, some people see the position of Swedish as a school subject as something forced upon the Finnish speakers: pakkoruotsi, “forced Swedish”. Further, although it is generally regarded as beneficial that children learn foreign languages as efficiently as possible, bilingual education programs and immersion are also sometimes seen as a threat to the children’s mother tongue skills. To continue, while English is a highly popular school subject, its use in the society – e.g. in advertisements – is seen also as a threat to the use of Finnish, and loan words from English, Anglicisms, are seen as corruptions of the Finnish language17. In these debates, different languages are frequently seen as competitors that undermine each other’s position – either in the society at large or in the individuals’ language proficiency.
23Above, I aimed at showing that language should be understood more broadly than in its usual sense of a national language: when considered dialogically, language actually consists of a number of different and varying practices. Similarly, dialogism sees culture as a network of practices and ways of thinking that both regenerates and renews itself internally and assumes influences from other cultures18. Contrary to dialogical views, the monological perspective sees the Finnish culture as fixed and frozen. Frequently, the fixed view of culture embeds an idea that there was a period when the culture was genuine, pure or authentic. Thus one might imagine that there was a Golden Age of the Finnish culture (or art, or mentality) and that changes are a mark of deterioration or corruption. Below, there are two examples of how the Finnish culture may be seen. The examples come from two Facebook pages, accessed in autumn 2011, called “My Finland is…”. The pages were written in English. The grammar and spelling are given in their original form.
My Finland is international
Why? We believe in an international and open-minded Finland. How? We use our passion and act together to make Finland a better place. What? We inspire, enlighten, educate, advocate, acknowledge, build networks, seek partners, source crowds and campaign to change Finland for the better.
My Finland is Finnish
We are not rasists or hate immigrated people. We want our culture be as it is Finnish!
If i go middle east and say: hey don’t yell quran at minarets!!! I want to sleep now… I would be dead. Or don’t read quran at school it’s no’t good for my children.
24As the first example shows, a culture may be seen as open to both assuming and giving new influences. However, it also can be seen as a closed and petrified institution, as in the second example where cultures are referred to as juxtaposed competitors in the spirit of “When in Rome, do as the Romans do”. The latter view leans on “Finnishness” as something that needs to be retained “as it is” and disallows influences from other cultures.
25Finally, let us consider identity. Similar to language and culture, one common way of conceptualising identity is to see it in terms of national identity. Accordingly, one can speak about a Finnish identity or mentality, talk about the characteristics of Finns and refer to typical Finnish ways of communication. Often, however, these are just crude generalisations. As many modern theories of identity have emphasised, identity is more complex than that – and constructed from more varied materials than national membership: language, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, religion and many other things play a role.
26One way to analyse identity is to approach it through the concept of voice. The Bakhtinian concept of voice can be characterised as a “speaking personality, the speaking consciousness”19. The dialogical reading highlights the joint influences of societal and personal aspect in the construction of identity. On the one hand, identity is pinned down to one’s personal experiences, that one gathers during his or her lifespan. Even then, identity is a result of dialogical encounters in which one receives its elements through the words of others20, either in various types of face-to-face interactions but also as mediated by texts and representations in media, literature, movies, textbooks, etc. Some of the encounters may be more memorable than others, some sources more authoritative and some people more important.
27While the dialogical argument recognises the personally experienced aspects of identity, it also says that the origin of each person’s identity is social. As our views are – mostly – mediated through language and as language always embeds a societal, ideologically laden perspective21, our identities are both personal and social in nature. But here the dialogical argument also points out that identity is necessarily multivoiced, heteroglossia being the typifying feature of language use22.
28The dialogical view on identity argues for the presence – and indeed for the possibility – of the dialogue in the construction of identity, seeing it as a project rather than a product. Similarly to human physical voice that does not consist of a single tone but embeds acoustically different harmonics, the Bakhtinian, metaphorical voice is multivoiced, consisting of more elements than one. Thus identity is a conglomeration of perspectives rather than a monotone.
29Is there then one typical Finnish identity? A famous saying, attributed to Adolf Iwar Arwidsson (1791-1858), summarises the desire for autonomy and wish to distinguish oneself from others as follows: “Swedes we no longer are, Russians we do not want to become, let us be Finns”. If we frame identity like this, many questions remain. For example, who are the Finns? Everybody living in Finland? Those who speak Finnish? Those who are now expatriates, but of Finnish origin? Those who have recently moved into the country? Those having the citizenship? Further: what are the Finns like? Is there a characteristic that would in some way define every Finn? To continue: in what way are Finns different from other nationalities? Is there a genuine Finnish experience that would be essentially different from those of Russians or Swedes? It is to be assumed that the more we ask questions like these, the more obvious it comes that we need to think identity in terms of multiplicity and dynamicity.
Conclusion
30To conclude, there is arguably a need to discuss and deconstruct the conceptualisations of language, culture and identity, the more so because the issues are not theoretical only but highly societal and political. Today, the essentialist and monological arguments are being presented on the contemporary political scene as well as in the debates on language policy and language education. The perspective of applied linguistics makes it necessary to relate the theoretical arguments to societal issues, as, e.g. Pennycook has pointed out23. In other words, the conceptualisations of language – or culture, or identity – do matter as they will be used in the argumentation for or against societal and pedagogical practices, such as language policy, language education, minority issues and others still. The current discussions within applied linguistics bring forth new conceptualisations that resemble dialogism in redefining language as practices, as action, or as doing, and they also readily recognise the inherent “interculturality” or “transculturality” in language24.
31One example of current debates is associated with the views of the right-wing populist political party that has named itself as True Finns. In their political programme, the True Finns echo the essentialist views, for example in their definition of “genuinely Finnish art”: “Government resources should be used to strengthen the Finnish identity. The expenses of pseudoartistic experiments should be left on the responsibility of private persons or at the mercy of market forces”25. Thus this political programme that also includes a reference to the period of “Golden Age of Finnish painting” is an example of essentialist views on Finnishness and at the same time, views that resist cultural change.
32It is typical of monological thinking to see language, culture and identity as singular and homogeneous essences. Assuming a position of authority, monologism often gives dictates: “monologue pretends to be the ultimate word. It closes down the represented world and represented persons”26.
33The alternative view, dialogism, emphasises the potential in open-ended dialogue and it aims at showing how what we perceive as autonomous languages, separate cultures and monolithic identities emerge and develop as a result of both crossings and continuity. The continuity is manifest both in the biography of individuals, in the history of communities and in the evolution of the shared culture of mankind. At the same time, there is also an ever-present chance for novelty, creativity and development through encounters and dialogues with others. To live means to participate in a dialogue, or, as Bakhtin beautifully puts it, leave one’s own discourse “into the dialogic fabric of human life, into the world symposium”27.
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Notes de bas de page
1M. M. Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays by M. M. Bakhtin, M. Holquist (ed.), C. Emerson (trans.), Austin, University of Texas Press, 1981; M. M. Bakhtin, Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics, Minneapolis, University of Minneapolis Press, 1984.
2E.g. Disinventing and Reconstituting Languages, S. Makoni, A. Pennycook (eds.), Clevedon, Multilingual Matters, 2007.
3See E. J. Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2004.
4B. Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, London – New York, Verso, 1991.
5The prehistory of language use is notoriously difficult to date but according to present estimates the population who spoke Finnish (or an early variant of Finnish) came to the country between 500 and 1200 AD; see, e.g. J. Kaaro, “Suomalaisten uudet juuret”, Tiede, December 13, 2009 (http://www.tiede.fi/artikkeli/1299/suomalaisten_uudet_juuret [désormais inaccessible]).
6See A. Halmesvirta, “Angloamerikkalaisen antropologian, etnologian ja kielitieteen näkemyksiä suomalaisesta rodusta ja sen kulttuuritasosta evolutionistisen kulttuurikäsityksen valossa”, in Mongoleja vai germaaneja? Rotuteorioiden suomalaiset, A. Kemiläinen (ed.), Helsinki, Suomen Historiallinen Seura, 1985, p. 209-247.
7The survey is a summary based on different sources on Finnish history. See also H. Dufva, P. Hurme, M. O’Dell, “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Cross-Cultural Aesthetics and Ethics of Spoken Language”, in Papers from the Eleventh Scandinavian Conference of Linguistics, vol. 2, J. Niemi (ed.), Joensuu, University of Joensuu, 1989, p. 530-544; H. Dufva, “Dialogia suomalaisuudesta”, in Moniääninen Suomi: Kieli, kulttuuri ja identiteetti, S. Laihiala-Kankainen, S. Pietikäinen, H. Dufva (eds.), Jyväskylä, Centre for Applied Language Studies, 2002, p. 21-38.
8See M. M. Bakhtin, Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics; P. Linell, Rethinking Language, Mind, and World Dialogically, Charlotte, Information Age Press, 2009.
9See M. M. Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination…, p. 272.
10Ibid., p. 291.
11M. Korhonen, “Lehvät lännessä, juuret idässä”, in Kielestä kiinni, S. Aalto et al. (eds.), Helsinki, Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura, 1989, p. 37-46.
12L. Hakulinen, Suomen kielen rakenne ja kehitys, Helsinki, Otava, 1979.
13Ibid.
14Words were picked from recent issues of Glorian Ruoka ja Viini, in the form and spelling they were given in the magazine.
15See H. Dufva, “Happily ever äfterkö? Suomen ja englannin yhteinen tulevaisuus”, in Acquisition of Language – Acquisition of Culture (AFinLA Yearbook 1992), H. Nyyssönen, L. Kuure (eds.), Jyväskylä, AFinLA, 1992, p. 79-96.
16Kolmas kotimainen: lähikuvia englannin käytöstä Suomessa, S. Leppänen, T. Nikula, L. Kääntä (eds.), Helsinki, Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura, 2008.
17See H. Dufva, “Happily ever äfterkö?…”.
18For a closer discussion, see H. Dufva, “Dialogia suomalaisuudesta”; H. Dufva, “Culture, Language and Thinking: Whorf, Bakhtin, Merleau-Ponty and Situated Embodiment”, in Bakhtinian Perspectives on Language and Culture: Meaning in Language, Art and New Media, F. Bostad, C. Brandist, L. S. Evensen, H. C. Faber (eds.), Houndmills – New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2004, p. 133-146.
19M. Holquist, “Glossary”, in M. M. Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination…, p. 434.
20See M. M. Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination…, 292-293.
21Ibid., p. 293.
22See H. Dufva, “Beliefs in Dialogue: Bakhtinian View”, in New Approaches to Research on Beliefs about SLA, A. M. F. Barcelos, P. Kalaja (eds.), Dordrecht, Kluwer Publishers, 2003, p. 131-152; M. Aro, Speakers and Doers: Polyphony and Agency in Children’s Beliefs about Language Learning, Jyväskylä, University of Jyväskylä (Jyväskylä Studies in Humanities; 116), 2009 (http://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-951-39-3532-0).
23A. Pennycook, Critical Applied Linguistics, Mahwah, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2001.
24See, e.g. Disinventing and reconstituting languages.
25The translation from Finnish is the present author’s. Italics by the author of the programme.
26M. M. Bakhtin, Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics, p. 292-293 (italics in original).
27Ibid., p. 293.
Auteur
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Hannele Dufva
University of Jyväskylä (Finland)
Hannele Dufva est professeur d’apprentissage des langues et d’éducation linguistique au département des langues de l’université de Jyväskylä (Finlande). Elle est l’auteur de nombreux articles sur la philosophie dialogique de la langue et sa contribution potentielle à la linguistique appliquée contemporaine, en particulier à la théorie de l’apprentissage et du développement des langues. Elle a publié, seule ou en collaboration, de nombreux livres et matériaux pédagogiques. Ses recherches actuelles visent à relier le courant de la cognition distribuée à la pensée dialogique.

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