Journal für Psychologie (Jun 2011)
The ideological and the dialogical
Abstract
In this paper we follow researchers on ideology in that one way of dealing with this problem is by conceiving language as a common ground between the social and the psychological, and then we focus on Bakhtin's theory of discourse to show how language practices can be regarded as the locus of ideology. We will approach the Bakhtinian concepts of discourse and utterance, showing the ideological nature of language practices in three steps. First, because language practices consist of position-taking movements in a social field. Second, because these acts of discourse are evaluations, that is, value-laden positioning effort. And finally because any utterance involves a social background that roots the evaluative positioning movement in a history of language practices common among speaking subjects. Then we explore this third aspect in terms of the common social life that is discursively assumed in communication and thinking activity.
