A Freewrite: Heteroglossia: Working the Theory that is Working Me
Mikhail Bahktin
"[C]onsciousness of heteroglossia is a prerequisite for choosing one's own languge orientation. Thus, imgaination in a heteroglot world is always dialogical, always aware of multiple, conflicting meanings for the same things. A significant problem for practicing relativized consciousness is that these languages of heteroglossia are often authoritative and antidialogical: they prohibit questioning and interanimation."
Judith Goleman, Working Theory: Critical Composition Studies for Students and Teachers, p. 45
The term heteroglossia is coined by the prominent Russian thinker Mikhail Bakhtin who argues that our language -- the language you and me are using as medium for our conversations, debates, etc. -- is never free from the language being uttered by others. Or simply put, our language is never ours; it's always someone else's. And because of this, Bakhtin attempts to raise our awareness of this very fact in the hope that once conscious of it, we will be able to find our own language among them. Note that his wish is not to encourage us to wrest ourselves free from others' languages; such attempt, he argues, will always prove futile: social in nature, human beings cannot be free from the influences of others.
But to find own language among the melange of languages is not easy because, as Goleman suggests, most languages are "authoritative and antidiological," meaning that they "prohibit questioning [don't ask, just do it!] and interanimation [this is absolute truth; there's nothing else]."
I didn't understand much about all of these until today when I sat down to reread my Statement of Purpose, and the moment of epiphany thrust on me. As I was asking myself these questions -- What's else to be learned in composition studies? What questions should I pursue in the course of studies? -- I began to realize that these questions were a result of the fact that I was not conscious of the heteroglossia: I was not aware of other worlds and I let the world I knew, to borrow Goleman's words, "work me." Not aware of such influence, I confined myself in the world I was familiar, rendering heteroglossia "homoglossia."
This is an important lesson for me, both as a person and writer. As a person, I must start identify the working theory that is working me; as a writer, I must not kowtow to any ideas being passed on to me. I must "question" and "animate" all languages; I must engage in critical dialogues.
Photo credit: //www.s9.com/images/portraits/1662_Bakhtin-Mikhail-Mikhailovich.jpg
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