Dialogical analysis
Encyclopedia
Dialogical analysis, or more precisely Dialogical Interaction Analysis, refers to a way of analyzing human communication which is based on the theory of dialogism. The approach has been developed based on the theoretical work of George Herbert Mead
and Bakhtin.
Dialogical analysis is an interpretative methodology which closely analyzes spoken or written utterances or actions for their embedded communicative significance. Questions typically asked during a dialogical analysis include: What does each interactant think about themselves, the other and what the other thinks of them? What do the given utterances and actions imply about the given activity or participants? Why was a given communicative act performed - why did it need to be said? what was the alternative that the utterance was trying to dispel? People are often borrowing words, phrases and ideas from other people, and accordingly, dialogical analysis often asks: who is doing the talking? Specifically, which voices and echoes are evident in the given utterance?
Although dialogical analysis tends to focus upon discourse, it is distinct from discourse analysis
and conversation analysis
because its focus goes beyond the question of how people speak and what they achieve by speaking. Dialogical analysis uses dialogue as a metaphor for understanding phenomena beyond communication itself, such as the self (see dialogical self
), internal dialogues, self-talk, misunderstandings, trust and distrust, the production of knowledge, and relations between groups in society.
George Herbert Mead
George Herbert Mead was an American philosopher, sociologist and psychologist, primarily affiliated with the University of Chicago, where he was one of several distinguished pragmatists. He is regarded as one of the founders of social psychology and the American sociological tradition in general.-...
and Bakhtin.
Overview
Dialogism makes several assumptions It assumes that human communication entails the interaction of diverse perspectives, is embedded in a socio-historical context, that the meaning of a communication can be different to the various participants, that it is important to examine the consequences of a communication, that each participant in a communication is, to some degree, orienting to the orientation of the other.Dialogical analysis is an interpretative methodology which closely analyzes spoken or written utterances or actions for their embedded communicative significance. Questions typically asked during a dialogical analysis include: What does each interactant think about themselves, the other and what the other thinks of them? What do the given utterances and actions imply about the given activity or participants? Why was a given communicative act performed - why did it need to be said? what was the alternative that the utterance was trying to dispel? People are often borrowing words, phrases and ideas from other people, and accordingly, dialogical analysis often asks: who is doing the talking? Specifically, which voices and echoes are evident in the given utterance?
Although dialogical analysis tends to focus upon discourse, it is distinct from discourse analysis
Discourse analysis
Discourse analysis , or discourse studies, is a general term for a number of approaches to analyzing written, spoken, signed language use or any significant semiotic event....
and conversation analysis
Conversation analysis
Conversation analysis is the study of talk in interaction . CA generally attempts to describe the orderliness, structure and sequential patterns of interaction, whether institutional or in casual conversation.Inspired by ethnomethodology Conversation analysis (commonly abbreviated as CA) is the...
because its focus goes beyond the question of how people speak and what they achieve by speaking. Dialogical analysis uses dialogue as a metaphor for understanding phenomena beyond communication itself, such as the self (see dialogical self
Dialogical self
The dialogical self is a psychological concept which describes the mind's ability to imagine the different positions of participants in an internal dialogue, in close connection with external dialogue...
), internal dialogues, self-talk, misunderstandings, trust and distrust, the production of knowledge, and relations between groups in society.
Further reading
- Linell, P. (2009). Rethinking language, mind, and world dialogically. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.
- Markova, I. (2003). Dialogicality and social representations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Wertsch, J. (1993). Voices of the mind. Harvard: Harvard University Press.