RT 1206-1226

Mikhail Bakhtin 1895-1975
Throughout this reading I found a few particular things to be the most interesting about Mikhail's view on speech and discussion. He defines speech and  discussion between a speaker and addressee as an act involving both parties inevitably. He says, "even if a word is not entirely his , constituting, as it were the border zone between herself and his addressee - still it does in part belong to him". This quote implies that a conversation does not belong to one part or the other, it is an extension of the relationship between two speakers and as Mikhail says, it is an "intentional negotiation of meaning and interpretation between author and reader". By having a discussion each party is adjusting the atmosphere of definitions and meanings they bring to the conversation with the words that they speak between them. In this way a conversation, even one that is one sided, takes input from both the author and addressee. This is reminiscent of the dialectic style the greeks used.
Verbal interaction is the basis and fundamental start of dialogue and language, where the interpretations differ based on the individual nuances and changes in individual's perceptions of meaning and intent - "emphasizes polyphony of language seen this way , the heteroglossia of speech and texts that are subject to multiple interpretations". Mikhail discusses how rhetorics changes have led to uses more widely than before, it had become be used for creative writing and personal writing more, as well as the application of sciences (such as psychology) to writing and the rhetorical principles of argument. One last interesting quote talking about peasant type people, who each individually suffering from hunger and poverty, and the way this structuring of oopressionprevented uprising and group collective to fight back, "Such a collective lacks the unitary material frame necessary for united action. Resigned but unashamed and undermining apprehension of one's own hunger will be the rule under such conditions - "everyone bears it, you must bear it, too." Here grounds are furnished for development of the philosophical and religious systems of the non resistor or fatalist type" (p1217).