Bakhtin on Education

From: Eugene Matusov (ematusov@udel.edu)
Date: Fri May 16 2003 - 13:59:35 PDT


Dear colleagues-

In Russia in 1997, they started publishing the Full Collection of Bakhtin's
work in 7 volumes. As far as I know by now, they published two volumes: 5th
and 6th (I got both volumes). The volumes are organized in chronological
order. They published 5the and 6th volume first because probably they
prepared all the work for those years. The commentaries are great.

Anyway, in volume 5, I found an article by Bakhtin written about education.
I was very excited about that but I got even more excited when I read it
(and commentaries). It was not only on education but involved educational
research that Bakhtin did! He developed a new educational dialogic
methodology (based on formative experiment, in my view). There are so many
innovations in the article! The article is titled "Issues of stylistics in
Russian lessons in High School" (translation is mine and quite literal
"Voprosy stilistiki na urokakh russkogo yazyka v srednei shkole").

It appears that the article was written around 1942-5 (but probably in 1944)
during the WWII, when Bakhtin was a schoolteacher of Russian in Tver'
province. It is amazing to see how much Bakhtin educated himself in new
field of Education and provided a lot of relevant references in his article.
He was forced to move into new area during the war being already without one
leg, having pains, and being constantly under threat of being arrested!
Definitely we do not have any excuse...

The article is mainly aimed at teacher but also educational researchers. It
was written in collaboration or at least with help of his high school
students since the several manuscripts were written by different children's
hands (as judged by handwriting and types of grammar errors). The
commentaries for the article are great!

The article seems to be on very boring topic of when to omit conjugation
words like "but, because, and, hence" in complex sentences with several
clauses. I almost wanted to close the book when I started reading the paper.
But I quickly became very excited as I read more. Bakhtin criticized Russian
linguist formalists for misleading students that there are structural formal
decontextualized rules that govern when to use conjugation words and when
not to use them. He also criticized those educators who claimed that there
were not patterns of use at all.

Bakhtin argued that it is dramatic dialogism that governs when the writer
puts conjugation words and when he or she does not. He taught his students
to do dialogic experimentation with phrases coming from Russian classic
prose and poems (from Gogol and Pushkin) to see what dramatic effect will be
on the meaning if the conjugation words are added or omitted. Bakhtin
reported about disputes that he had with his students in his lessons who
often disagreed with him because they represent different language and
social communities that he came from. Thus, stylistic structure was tested
by dialogic dramatic effect it would have on readers with regard to artistic
meaning. As Bakhtin showed with his empirical analysis of students essays
before and after instruction, not only his students developed better mastery
of conjugation words and their omission in their free writing, but they also
developed great interest in language itself as well as in Russian classic
masterpiece.

Unfortunately I can't give Bakhtin's examples because they require great
mastery of translation that I do not have. Moreover, probably, a translator
has to find English literature examples to show dialogic dramatism that
Bakhtin referred to. Readers have to know this literature to fully
appreciate the pedagogical method that Bakhtin used since as Bakhtin argued
the stylistic form of language is shaped by dialogic dramatism embedded in
specific literary work.

At AERA, I talked with Jim Wertsch about speedy translation of this article
and publication in Journal of Eastern European Psychology that he and Mike
Cole publish. Jim seemed to be enthusiastic about translating the article
and publishing it (I can help but I can't commit to translation of it - it
is huge and difficult work and do not have the right skill!). I scanned the
article with all commentaries and necessary info (editors' and commentators'
names) and put the file on my server at

http://ematusov.soe.udel.edu/Bakhtin on education.pdf (3.4Mb)

The file is huge because my Adobe Acrobat does not read Russian.

Let me know if you have specific questions.

So, Jim and Mike, what will be next steps in publishing this article in
English?

Take care,

Eugene
PS Amanda, it seems to me that Bakhtin made an argument very close to
yours...

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Amanda Godley [mailto:agodley+ who-is-at pitt.edu]
> Sent: Tuesday, May 13, 2003 5:13 PM
> To: ematusov@UDel.Edu
> Subject: grammar study
>
> Dear Eugene,
> Ellice Forman gave me your email address and told me about your current
> work translating and analyzing Bakhtin's work on a dialogic theory of
> grammar. Your work sounds very interesting and I'd like to hear more
> about it because it seems to intersect somewhat with mine. I am about to
> begin a research project on an instructional approach to teaching
> grammar in high schools that is based in sociolinguistics and
> sociocultural theories of language and literacy. I'm interested in
> whether "Standard American English" can be taught in a way that
> highlights the social and political use of language rather than what is
> "correct" or not (a notion that linguists would take issue with).
> There's not a lot of current or theoretical research out there on the
> teaching of grammar, so I'd be very interested to hear what you and
> Bakhtin have to say! I look forward to discussing this further with you.
>
> Sincerely.
> Amanda
>
>
> *****
> Amanda J. Godley
> Assistant Professor
> English Education
> University of Pittsburgh
> 412-648-7313
>
>



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