The Dialogic and the Semiotic: Bakhtin, Volosinov, Peirce, and Sociolinguistics

Abstract

This paper addresses the correspondences between two current approaches in sociolinguistics and discourse analysis: Peircian semiotics and Bakhtin/ Volosinov's dialogism. Peirce's contribution to sociolinguistics has been the insight that language, though arbitrary, relies upon indexicality and iconicity to be meaningful. In their critiques of abstract objectivism, Bakhtin and Volosinov similarly argued that language is tied to the social contexts in which it is spoken (or written). Both approaches share three concerns. First, language is both arbitrary and socially and contextually grounded. A second issue is the relationship between social diversity and linguistic differentiation. Third, the role of language in the construction and transmission of ideology will be discussed.