The vicissitude of the text in the dialogic weaving

Abstract

In this paper, a theoretical-conceptual discussion is undertaken with two interrelated aims: (1) to place the concept of “text” in the theoretical-methodological framework of dialogism and (2) to promote terminological precision in dialogical studies in relation to the field of Linguistics, especially, Dialogic Discourse Analysis (DDA). The discussion is based on three premises: (i) the text is a semiotic phenomenon, (ii) the text configures an intermediation artifact, (iii) the text implies a relational process. From there, it develops rhetorically along two main argumentative axes. In the first, the conceptual definition of “text” and its reformulations in Bakhtin’s work are recovered for comparison with the theoretical framework emerging from the work of the Bakhtin-Medvedev-Vološinov Circle. In the second axis, the concepts of “text” and “concrete utterance” are differentiated and the relevance of terminological precision for research in DDA is verified. To this end, the motto is the reiteration of the famous historical saying “Diga ao povo que fico” in different enunciative conditions. The following are considered: the formal registration in the term of council of the Rio de Janeiro Chamber of January 9, 1822; the samba-enredo of Cabana, from 1962, entitled “‘Dia do fico’; the journalistic column by Maxwell Rodrigues entitled “Diga ao povo que fico!”, published on September 27, 2023, in the digital newspaper A Tribuna. The discussion demonstrates that conceptually amalgamating text and concrete utterance would imply suppressing the starting point of dialogic interpretation, which is the highlighting of utterances from the discursive communicative chain and its subsequent transposition to the status of text component of a corpus of analysis. This suppression would have the impact of blurring the ethical position of the “speaking personality” and the aesthetic position of the researcher.