While social constructionist understandings of the self have stressed the importance of the self—other relation, placing emphasis on what happens in dialogues and relations with others rather than psychological processes “in the head,” I suggest here that we can build on this tradition to reintroduce notions of a dialogue with the self, or micro-dialogue, as an important part of an understanding of persons. I use the term “microdialogue,” rather than the more familiar notion of “internal conversation” or “society of mind,” to refer to a silent and invisible series of dialogues we hold for ourselves with the images and voices of others, which can emerge in surprising and unwilled ways. I suggest that this micro-dialogue is important in understanding the dialogical interactions between persons, as not all aspects of the self will enter into dialogue with others, leading to miscommunication, misunderstanding, and misrecognition. It is also possible for people to fail to articulate all the latent voices or vocal tones in their own micro-dialogue, leading to an understanding of how voices and selves can become divided and allowing us to take a different perspective on a dialogical unconscious.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:BRADFORD/oai:bradscholars.brad.ac.uk:10454/5900 |
| Date | January 2010 |
| Creators | Burkitt, Ian |
| Source Sets | Bradford Scholars |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Article |
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