This study proposes an approach to a solution for the problem of the perceived ‚separatedness‛ of language from reality which employs the rhetorical concept of ethos, the doctrinal concept of the Chalcedonian definition of the nature of the incarnated Christ, and Mikhail Bakhtin’s notion of ‚answerability.‛ As an alternative to theories of reading and interpretation based on the arbitrariness of linguistic meaning, radical skepticism, and the death of the author, the approach defined in this study emphasizes affirmation of the centrality of the human person and the necessity of close, loving attention as the grounds of both aesthetic vision and ethical action. Developing three exemplary readings of novelized epics including Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Aurora Leigh, David Jones’s In Parenthesis, and Chenjerai Hove’s Bones, the study demonstrates how loving, careful attention to ethos—the definition of which is expanded to include relationships between language and character in literary works, genres, characters, authors, and teachers—is the prerequisite for answerability in literary relationships. Whether one is primarily interested in authors, characters, genres, canon, readers, or critical reception, attention to ethos illuminates the ways in which responses to literary works are conditioned by and analogous to responses to persons. The complex and irreducible relationships between the ‚word‛ and the ‚person‛ require an individual answerability for which there is no alibi. Ultimately, the ‚word‛ and the ‚world‛ are united in the answerable person, whether that person is an author, a character, a reader, a critic or a teacher.

This study proposes an approach to a solution for the problem of the perceived ‚separatedness‛ of language from reality which employs the rhetorical concept of ethos, the doctrinal concept of the Chalcedonian definition of the nature of the incarnated Christ, and Mikhail Bakhtin’s notion of ‚answerability.‛ As an alternative to theories of reading and interpretation based on the arbitrariness of linguistic meaning, radical skepticism, and the death of the author, the approach defined in this study emphasizes affirmation of the centrality of the human person and the necessity of close, loving attention as the grounds of both aesthetic vision and ethical action. Developing three exemplary readings of novelized epics including Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Aurora Leigh, David Jones’s In Parenthesis, and Chenjerai Hove’s Bones, the study demonstrates how loving, careful attention to ethos—the definition of which is expanded to include relationships between language and character in literary works, genres, characters, authors, and teachers—is the prerequisite for answerability in literary relationships. Whether one is primarily interested in authors, characters, genres, canon, readers, or critical reception, attention to ethos illuminates the ways in which responses to literary works are conditioned by and analogous to responses to persons. The complex and irreducible relationships between the ‚word‛ and the ‚person‛ require an individual answerability for which there is no alibi. Ultimately, the ‚word‛ and the ‚world‛ are united in the answerable person, whether that person is an author, a character, a reader, a critic or a teacher.

This thesis analyzes William Golding&rsquo / s Rites of Passage using a detailed examination of the Bakhtinian concepts of heteroglossia, polyphony and the carnivalesque to investigate the points of mutual illumination and confirmation between Bakhtin&rsquo / s ideas and Golding&rsquo / s novel. Therefore the method of analysis is divided between a close study of Rites of Passage and an equally close examination of Bakhtin&rsquo / s ideas. The Bakhtinian concepts studied in this thesis are central to his idea of language and theory of the novel and their analysis in Rites of Passage reveals that while these concepts shed light on the stylistic, structural and thematic complexities of the novel, the novel also verifies the working of these concepts in practice. Moreover, the results of the analysis indicate two main points in which Golding&rsquo / s novel and Bakhtin&rsquo / s ideas confirm and illuminate each other. The first point is related to Bakhtin&rsquo / s celebration of the novel genre for its capacity to include diverse elements, a celebration that find its counterpart in Golding&rsquo / s novel due to the novel&rsquo / s heteroglot nature, polyphonic structure and inclusion of the carnivalesque. The second point is related to Bakhtin&rsquo / s notion of dialogism which emerges as a relational property common to his mentioned concepts. As this thesis shows, Golding&rsquo / s Rites of Passage is a dialogic novel in this regard, with its foregrounding of dialogic relations between heteroglot languages, characters&rsquo / voices and social classes. This thesis ends with a discussion indicating postmodern aspects of Bakhtin&rsquo / s ideas and Golding&rsquo / s novel, which include intertextuality, the problematization of truth, and the blurring of boundaries between opposites.

<p>Abstract</p><p>The mixed messages provided in The Buddha of Suburbia together with its prevalent use of humour are the focal point for this essay. The aim is to defend my thesis statement that humour provides a justifiable forum for the critique and presentation of society, enabling the facilitation of serious, effective and powerful perspectives. As critical standpoints a mixture of Postcolonial and Marxist theories are applied together with Bakhtin’s theory of carnevalesque. By comparing historic facts with the portrayed environment depicted in the novel, a message is delivered that a change of a different worldview is required. This message is displayed with various uses of humour, wit and satire, which provide an allegorical veil for its seriousness. This analysis shows that there are no seeming changes in the lives of the characters, but it highlights that a need for a change of views is important.</p>

Even if they rely on apparently quite different investigation domains and ideologies, both Freud and Bakhtin participate to that current which in the XXth century would upset the foundation of the positivist thought and would modify profoundly the traditional conception of science, language and the cartesian vision of the conscience and of the human subject. The thought of one as of the other, therefore, surpasses largely the principal reason of their research: If Freud applies the principles of the interpretation of dreams to the study of literary works, Bakhtin expands on the novel theory and questions polyphony and dialogism of all language. In conception of the literary speech of Bakhtin and of the dreams of Freud, the signs, the speeches and the multiple intentions or affects that animate them are constantly in dynamic interaction and obey it seems, to mechanism of similar transformation. The problem of interpretation is at the center of their works. The two authors are at the same time theoreticians and analysts of whom the theory of literature, of speeches, of work and dreams, pass necessarily by an act of interpretation. We are aware of the role played by the novels of Dostoievski on the theoretical work of Bakhtin. For Freud also, the principles of the work on dreams, according to his own affirmation develop with the interpretation process. We have to think that for him as for the Russian researcher, the theory is always in a link of active complicity with the interpretation; that one and the other are constantly mutually reflected and determined. A compared analysis of their texts can put in evidence the proximity of the thought processes of the thinkers, but can reveal also the differences, with their consequences from the point of view of ideology, ontology, even ethics.

Parliamentary talk, despite its central place in politics, has not been the focus of many qualitative studies. The present study investigates how parliamentary talk emerges in a dialogue between different arguments in the parliament. At the same time, this is a study of politics, of how human interaction gives birth to laws that regulate life in two contemporary democracies, Slovakia and Poland. It provides a close-reading of two political debates: on the state language in Slovakia and on gender parity in Poland. This study draws on hermeneutic and semiotic thinkers such as Gadamer, Bakhtin and Lotman to elaborate a dialogical understanding of language that can provide the basis for a method of textual analysis. The dialogical understanding of language emphasises that text and talk must be studied in the context of an interaction. The unit of analysis is a pair of utterances, a question and an answer. Until an utterance has been interpreted, it carries only the potential of meaning; its meaning is materialised by the responses it receives. The study further argues that conversation analysis and its tools can usefully be applied to the study of political debate. The method provides for the analysis of the dynamics between micro-scale interaction in the parliament and the macro-scale dynamics of culture. These dynamics assume two different forms that Lotman termed as “translation” and “explosion”. The study shows that parliamentary debate is characterised by a constantly evolving topic of discussion, namely that the meaning of the bill at the start of the debate and at the end of the debate are really two different bills. This is not because the content of the bill has undergone changes, but because in the course of the debate, the bill has generated new cultural connections. Casting a vote in support of the bill does not approve just the bill itself but a whole set of interconnected political, social and cultural values—what Lotman approached as the semiosphere. This study suggests Lotman’s cultural semiotics can provide for “imperfect hermeneutics” that is sensitive to the dynamic and contested nature of tradition in politics whilst acknowledging the inevitability of culture in mediating political talk.

This dissertation studies meetings from a process perspective. Such an approach, which can be labelled ‘process organisation studies’ is promising in that it directs attention to social processes continuously in the making. The thesis builds on the current development in process organisation studies in two ways. The first centres on an elaboration on key assumptions of approaching organisational life from a process perspective. I here bridge process organisation studies with Bakhtin’s work on dialogue into a dialogical becoming perspective. This perspective calls for a distinct way of understanding processes of becoming which makes it possible to explore meeting practices as situated, emerging and relational world-making activities. The second is a comprehensive processual account based on a collaborative field study with two owner families. Organised meetings held in a family that owns a business (or several) has proved to be of importance for family business longevity in that the family members can help to develop strong family relations and a healthy business. In this setting, where people are dealing with that which is often most important to them in life, such as their identity, work, family relationships and future wealth, a process approach is useful since it helps to understand the emotionally loaded, complex and intertwined issues at stake.What emerges as central in understanding movement and flow is the need to understand the here and now moments in meetings. I refer to these moments as ‘living moments’ as a reminder of the once-occurring, unique and momentary transformation that can take place between people in such encounters. Thus, the living moment is the moment of movement.

Univ., Diss.--Sheffield, 2000.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Baylor University, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 196-210).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 1998. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 188-195). Also available on the Internet.