1. HiST The foundation for a dialogic grammar Ivar Tormod Berg Ørstavik

2. HiST Starting point XII Bakhtin Conference: “Towards a dialogical linguistics” (Linell 2005) Warning: “This article is intended as a contribution to the theorising of linguistic praxis in communication and cognition, rather than to Bakhtinology, in the sense of studies of the life and work of Bakhtin and his circle. However, it will make consistent use of concepts that are dialogical in nature, and at least partially resonant with the ideas from that circle. At the same time, it is a contribution to present-day ‘dialogical linguistics’”(ibid.)

3. HiST Search engines as a metaphor for grammars Google’s PageRank: –analyses text –who references whom on the web –explicit html-links –references from much referenced sites count more Discourse on the web listens to PageRank’s ’voice and intentions’ and incorporates it.

4. HiST From discourse to grammar The living web ’real’ dialogues PageRank A systematic description of some patterns in the text representation MonologicDialogic Web texts A flattened, text representation of some aspects in these dialogues

5. HiST From discourse to grammar Language and discourse ’real’ dialogues Grammar A systematic description of some patterns in the text representation Language data base (Givon 1979) A flattened, text representation of some aspects in these dialogues

6. HiST Mainstream linguistics Language and discourse ”humans’ intrinsic, mental structures that generate and interpret language” (Chomsky 1965) Grammar ”A system of rules that in some explicit and well-defined way assign structural descriptions to sentences” (Chomsky 1965) Language data base An infinite set of ’ideal sentences’

7. HiST Conversation analysis Language and discourse Talk-in-interaction and verbal conversations Grammar ”to characterize, in its simplest systematic form, the organisation of turn- taking for conversation” (Schlegoff 1974) Language data base An infinite set of individual conversations

8. HiST Dialogism Language and discourse (Bakhtin 1981:276): Words merge, recoil, intersect with each other across a thousand of living dialogical threads Grammar to systematically describe words merging, recoiling, intersecting with each other across a thousand of living dialogical threads Language data base ?

9. HiST Dialogism Language and discourse The ’double dialogue’ Grammar ’Dialogical grammar’ or a ’here-and-now dialogue grammar’? Language data base Transcribed conversations + ?

10. HiST Dialogism Language and discourse The diatope: Utterances are in dialogue internally with other utterances in the here-and-now dialogue and externally with utterances in other past, parallel and future dialogues at one and the same time. Grammar ? Language data base Words and utterances ’transcribed’ as socially and situationally situated in many here-and-now dialogues.

11. HiST Is the diatope data base for real? Written communication: –New genres and languages like web pages, chat, text messages, computer programs may provide enough dialogical richness when transcribed to afford a valid (but not total) description of dialogical structures spanning the entire diatope at one and the same time. –New data bases for existing material such as books, research papers, student works, etc. may soon provide enough contextual data (e.g. author, time of first registration, etc.) to open for systematic analysis of dialogical structures. Verbal communication: –Existing methods such as videotape and transcription is difficult to combine with the scope of the diatope model. Need methods, both technical/practical and analytical, to capture data across history for grammatical analysis. Artistic media: –Will it be technically possible to systematically analyze some dialogical patterns in film, music and other extra-linguistic forms?

12. HiST Future work How can we systematically describe words merging, recoiling, intersecting with each other across a thousand of living dialogical threads? Threads situated near and far from each other in a socially and temporally inclusive diatope? Dialogic theory is needed to understand the human side of new genres, languages and dialogues emerging today. And by addressing and responding to these new ’other’ living dialogical threads and linguistic forms, dialogic theory will evolve.