Abstract
This article argues that the Bakhtin Circle presents a more realistic theory of concrete dialogue than the theory of discourse elaborated by Habermas. The Bakhtin Circle places speech within the “concrete whole utterance” and by this phrase they mean that the study of everyday language should be analyzed through the mediations of historical social systems such as capitalism. These mediations are also characterized by a determinate set of contradictions—the capital-labor contradiction in capitalism, for example—that are reproduced in unique ways in more concrete forms of life (the state, education, religion, culture, and so on). Utterances always dialectically refract these processes and as such are internal concrete moments, or concrete social forms, of them. Moreover, new and unrepeatable dialogic events arise in these concrete social forms in order to overcome and understand the constant dialectical flux of social life. But this theory of dialogue is different from that expounded by Habermas, who tends to explore speech acts by reproducing a dualism between repeatable and universal “abstract” discursive processes (commonly known as the ideal speech situation) and empirical uses of discourse. These critical points against Habermas are developed by focusing on six main areas: sentences and utterances; the lifeworld and background language; active versus passive understandings of language; validity claims; obligation and relevance in language; and dialectical universalism.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Illocutionary speech can be broken down into three further speech acts that correspond to these three validity claims. Constative speech acts refer to assertions, descriptions, classifications, predictions, objections, and so on, through which we make claims of “truth of corresponding propositions…” (Habermas 1979, p. 63). Constative speech acts thus “contain the offer to recur if necessary to the experiential source from which the speaker draws the certainty that his statement is true” (Habermas 1979, 63-4, italics in the original). Regulative speech acts refer to requests, orders, promises, excuses, admonitions, and so on, through which we make claims about “the rightness of norms or to the ability of the subject to assume responsibility” (Habermas 1979, p. 63). Therefore, “regulative speech acts contain only the offer to indicate, if necessary, the normative context that gives the speaker the conviction that his utterance is right” (Habermas 1979, p. 64, italics in the original). Expressive speech acts refer to beliefs, hopes, fears, desires, and so on, through which we aim to, e.g., reveal ourselves truthfully to another or to deceive. “(I)n the expressive use of language the speaker also enters into a speech-act-immanent obligation … to prove trustworthy … to show in the consequences of his action that he has expressed just that intention which actually guides his behaviour” (Habermas 1979, p. 64; italics in the original; see also Habermas 1984, p. 309).
Indeed, by resorting to “intuition” there is a danger that Habermas will end up defending the ideal speech situation through a psychological, rather than social, explanation.
For a brilliant expose of the privatization of the UK’s National Health Service, see Leys and Player (2011).
References
Adler, P. S. (2006). From labor process to activity theory. In P. H. Sawchuk, N. Duarte, & M. Elhammoumi (Eds.), Critical perspectives on activity: Explorations across education, work, and everyday life (pp. 160–192). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bakhtin, M.M. (1981). The dialogic imagination. Edited by M. Holquist, translated by C. Emerson and M. Holquist. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Bakhtin, M.M. (1984). The problems of Dostoevsky’s poetics. Edited and translated by C. Emerson. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Bakhtin, M.M. (1986). Speech genres and other late essays. Translated by V. W. McGee, edited by C.Emerson and M. Holquist. Austin: University of Texas.
Bakhtin, M.M. (1990). Art and answerability. Translated by V. Liapunov. Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press.
Bakhtin, M.M. (1993). Toward a philosophy of the act. Edited by V. Liapunov and M. Holquist, translated by V. Liapunov. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Bakhtin, M.M., & Medvedev, P.N. (1978). The formal method in literary scholarship. Translated by A.J. Wehrle. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press.
Benhabib, S. (1986). Critique, norm, utopia. New York: Columbia University Press.
Benhabib, S. (1992). Situating the self. London: Routledge.
Cooke, M. (1994). Language and reason. Cambridge: The MIT Press.
Cooren, F. (2000). Toward another ideal speech situation: A critique of Habermas’ reinterpretation of speech act theory. The Quarterly Journal of Speech, 86(3), 295–317.
Côté, J.-F. (2000). Bakhtin’s dialogism reconsidered through Hegel’s “monologism”: The dialectical foundation of aesthetics and ideology in contemporary human sciences. In C. Brandist & G. Tihanov (Eds.), Materializing Bakhtin: The Bakhtin Circle and social theory (pp. 20–42). London: Palgrave.
Dalhberg, L. (2005). The Habermasian public Sphere: Taking difference seriously? Theory and Society, 34(2), 111–136.
Dop, E. (2000). A dialogic epistemology: Bakhtin on truth and meaning. Dialogism, 4, 7–33.
Engeström, Y. (1987). Learning by expanding: An activity-theoretical approach to developmental research. http://lchc.ucsd.edu/mca/Paper/Engestrom/expanding/toc.htm(accessed July 10, 2011).
Foot, K., & Groleau, C. (2011). Contradictions, transitions, and materiality in organizing processes: An activity theory perspective. First Monday, 16(6), 1–25.
Forester, J. (1992). Critical ethnography: On fieldwork in a Habermasian way’. In M. Alvesson & H. Willmott (Eds.), Critical Management Studies (pp. 46–65). London: Sage.
Fraser, N. (1992). Rethinking the public sphere: A contribution to the critique of actually existing democracy. In C. Calhoun (Ed.), Habermas and the public sphere (pp. 109–142). Cambridge: The MIT Press.
Gardiner, M. E. (2004). Wild publics and grotesque symposiums: Habermas and Bakhtin on dialogue, everyday life and the public sphere. In N. Crossley & J. M. Roberts (Eds.), After Habermas: New perspectives on the public sphere (pp. 28–48). Oxford: Blackwell.
Garvey, T. G. (2000). The value of opacity: A Bakhtinian analysis of Habermas’s discourse ethics. Philosophy and Rhetoric, 33(4), 370–390.
Gough, J. (2003). Work, locality and the rhythms of capital. London and New York: Continuum.
Habermas, J. (1976). Some distinctions in universal pragmatics. Theory and Society, 3(2), 155–167.
Habermas, J. (1979). Communication and the evolution of society. Translated by T. McCarthy. Boston: Beacon Press.
Habermas, J. (1984). A Theory of communicative action. Volume 1 Reason and rationalization of society. Translated by Th. McCarthy. Cambridge: Polity.
Habermas, J. (1987). A theory of communicative action: Volume 2 Lifeworld and system: A critique of functionalist reason. Translated by Th. McCarthy. Cambridge: Polity.
Habermas, J. (1990). Moral consciousness and communicative action. Translated by C. Lenhardt and S. W. Nicholsen. Cambridge: Polity.
Habermas, J. (1993). Justification and application. Translated by C. Cronin. Cambridge: Polity.
Habermas, J. (1998). In C. Cronin & P. De Greiff (Eds.), The inclusion of the other. Cambridge: Polity.
Habermas, J. (2003). Truth and justification. Translated by B. Fultner. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press.
Hirschkop, K. (1999). Mikhail Bakhtin: An aesthetic for democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Jones, P. E. (2009). Breaking away from Capital? Theorising activity in shadow of Marx. Outlines, 1, 45–58.
Kent, T. (1993). Paralogic rhetoric. London and Toronto: Associated University Presses.
Koczanowicz, L. (2011). Beyond dialogue and antagonism: A Bakhtinian perspective on the controversy in political theory. Theory and Society, online first edition 19 June, 1-14.
Lecercle, J.-J. (2009). A Marxist philosophy of language. Chicago: Haymarket Books.
Leys, C., & Player, S. (2011). The plot against the NHS. London: Merlin Press.
Livingstone, D. W., & Sawchuk, P. H. (2004). Hidden knowledge: Organized labor in the information age. Toronto: Garamond Press.
Marx, K. (1966). Capital: Vol. 3. Moscow: Progress Publishers.
McCarthy, T. (1978). The critical theory of Jürgen Habermas. London: Hutchinson.
McNay, L. (2008). Against recognition. Cambridge: Polity.
Moon, J. D. (1995). Practical discourse and communicative ethics. In S. K. White (Ed.), The Cambridge companion to Habermas (pp. 143–164). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Moro, Y. (1999). The expanded dialogic sphere: Writing activity and authoring of self in Japanese classrooms. In Y. Engeström, R. Miettinen, & R.-L. Punamäki (Eds.), Perspectives on activity theory (pp. 165–182). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Morris, M. (2001). Rethinking the communicative turn. New York: SUNY.
Morson, G. S., & Emerson, C. (1990). Mikhail Bakhtin: Creation of a prosaic. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Nielsen, G. (1995). Bakhtin and Habermas: Toward a transcultural ethics. Theory and Society, 24(6), 803–835.
Nielsen, G. (2002). The norms of answerability: Social theory between Bakhtin and Habermas. New York: SUNY.
Nikulin, D. (2006). On dialogue. Oxford: Lexington Books.
Roberts, J. M. (2004a). The stylistics of competent speaking: A Bakhtinian exploration of some Habermasian themes. Theory, Culture and Society, 21(6), 91–114.
Roberts, J. M. (2004b). Will the materialists in the Bakhtin Circle please stand up? In J. Joseph & J. M. Roberts (Eds.), Realism, Discourse and Deconstruction (pp. 89–110). London: Routledge.
Roberts, J. M. (2009). The competent public sphere: Global political economy, dialogue and the contemporary workplace. London: Palgrave.
Steinberg, M. (1998). Tilting the frame: Considerations on collective action framing from a discursive turn. Theory and Society, 27(6), 845–872.
Thompson, J. B. (1982). Universal Pragmatics. In J. B. Thompson & D. Held (Eds.), Habermas: Critical Debates (pp. 116–133). London: Macmillan.
Voloshinov, V. N. (1973) Marxism and the philosophy of language. Translated by L. Matejka and I.R. Titunik. London: Seminar Press.
Walker, B. (1995). John Rawls, Mikhail Bakhtin, and the praxis of toleration. Political Theory, 23(1), 101–127.
White, S. K. (1988). The recent work of Jürgen Habermas. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Young, I. M. (1987). Justice and the politics of difference. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Acknowledgments
I am very grateful to the comments of the Theory and Society external reviewers and Editors. All errors remain my own.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Roberts, J.M. Discourse or Dialogue? Habermas, the Bakhtin Circle, and the question of concrete utterances. Theor Soc 41, 395–419 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11186-012-9172-x
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11186-012-9172-x