Learning as a Prosaic Act

Abstract

The role of discourse as a social semiotic mediator of knowledge construction has in recent years become an important topic in the fields of psychology and education. Along with the writings of L.S. Vygotsky on relations between thinking and speech, the work of Mikhail Bakhtin has become critical to current theorizing about the mediational role of social discourses. Bakhtin's writings on the discourse of the novel have become particularly important, in that they provide a framework for understanding how social discourses are constitutive of individual consciousness. In this paper, although I acknowledge the importance of Bakhtin' s writings on novelistic discourse for studies of social semiotic knowledge construction, I suggest that Bakhtin' s work has even wider implications for studies of learning. Drawing in particular from Bakhtin's early writings on the conscious self, I argue that 'dotted lines' drawn from his writings to contemporary studies of learning would entail a theoretical focus on acting/thinking/feeling persons in relationship, engaged in prosaic acts reflective of distinctions of value. I suggest that it is through considering Bakhtin' s work in its breadth that educators and psychologists can gain the unique view of human consciousness entailed by his theories of discourse and the self. My theoretical arguments are illustrated through reference to my current research on relations between children's classroom learning and their development as biographical persons.