Speech Genres and Other Late Essays

Speech Genres and Other Late Essays M. M. BAKHTIN

Translated by Vern W. McGee

Edited by Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist

l!NIVERSITI' OF TEXAS PRESS, Al1STIN

Copyright© 1986 by the University of Texas Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America First Edition, 1986 Requests for permission to reproduce material from this work should be sent to Permissions, University of Texas Press, Box 7819, Austin, Texas 78713-7819.

library of Congrrss Cataloging-in-Publication Data Bakhtin, M. M. (Mikhail Mikhailovich), 1895-1975. Speech genres and other late essays. (University of Texas Press Slavic series

; no. 8)

Translation of: Estetika slovesnogo tvorchestva. Includes bibliographies and index.

1. Philology. I. Holquist, Michael, 193511. Emerson, Caryl. Ill. Title. IV. Series. P49.BZ813

1986

410

ISBN O-Z9Z-7Z046-7 ISBN O-Z9Z-7Z560-1 (pbk.)

86-11399

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Contents

'

Note on Translation VII

I ntroduction by M ichael Holquist IX

Response to a Question from the Novy Mir E d itorial Staff I The Bildungsroman and I ts Significance in the History of Realism (Toward a Historical Typology of the Novel) /0 The P roblem of Speech Genres 60 The Problem of the Text in Lingu istics, P h ilology, and the H uman Sciences: An Expe riment in Phi losoph ical Analysis /03 From Notes Made in 1970-71 /32 Toward a Methodology for the Human Sciences 159 I ndex 173

Note on Translation

This translation has benefited a great deal from being among the last rathe r than the fi rst translations of Bakhtin's work. I have been able to take advantage of the careful consideration previous translators have given to many of the problematic terms and concepts that are so plen­ tifu l i n Bakhtin's theory. In most cases I have borrowed the terms used in previous translations in the Slavic Series , such as "heteroglossia" ( raznorechie), "speech" ( rech), and "discourse" (slovo), among others, not only for the sake of consistency throughout the series but because I believe they are good choices. The essays offered i n this volume also contain many of the i r own perplexing words and concepts, such as "outsideness" (vnenakhodi­ most) , w h ich have neve r before appeared in translation-or i n Russian for that m atter. On these I have consulted with both native Russian speakers and recognized Bakhtin scholars. I n each case the options were weighed carefully, and the one most appropriate in style and tone as wel l as the closest i n meaning was chosen. With respect to style, I believe these essays show Bakht i n at his most Bakhtinian. The rough , unfinished quality that comes th rough i n h i s previously translated work i s even more i n evidence here , because most of these essays were not actually prepared by Bakhtin for pub­ lication. They show more the process of h i s thought than the final prod uct. I have attempted to convey this quality in the translation. The transliteration system is a modification of the I nternational Pho­ netic Alphabet: those letters requiring a hachek have been changed to the variants that use the letter "h"-"zh," "ch ," "sh ," "shch" ; the IPA "c" is rendered as "ts" and the "x" as "kh." P roper names are rendered as they o rd i narily are or would be spelled in Engl ish (e. g. , Tolstoy, Dos toevsky). V . W . MeG .

Introduction

"To strive at lzig/ler matlzematical formulas for linguistic meaning while knowing not/zing correctly of tlze shirt-sleeve rudiments of language is to court disaster."

Benjamin Lee Whorf, "Li ngu istics as an Exact Science," 1941 ". . . there can be neither a first nor a last meaning; fanything that can be understood] always exists among other meanings as a link in tlze chain of meaning,

wlziclz in its totality is tlze only thing tlzat can be real. In lzistorica/ /ife this chain

continues infinitely, and therefore eaclz individual /ink in it is renewed again and again, as though it were being reborn."

M . M. Bakhti n , " From Notes Made in 1 970-7 1 "

T h e fi rs t recogni tion i n the United States o f Bakhtin's status as a major thinke r came in 1 968, when he was i ncluded among a group of inter­ nationally known theoreticians contributing to a volu me of Yale French Studies on the topic "Game, Play, Literatu re . " 1 The identification of Bakh tin p rovided i n the notes on contributors has an unmistakable diffidence about it: " M . B akhtin . . . is reaching the end of a long ca­ ree r, but only recently have the boldness of his specu lation and the b readth of his ideas bee n appreciated outside the restricted circle of his Russian friends and colleagues . " Less than a mere two decades later, Bakhtin is being hailed as "the most i m portant Soviet thinker in the human sciences and the greatest theoretician of literature in the twentieth century." z And in March 1 985, the executive d i rector of the Modern Language Association annou nced a "trend-spotting contest to PMLA readers . . I will offe r [a prize] to the fi rst reader to locate the earliest m e ntion in PMI.A of any of the following: Bakh tin, Barthes, Derrida, Freud , Levi-Strau ss, and Karl Marx."-' In the great market­ place of ideas, Bakhtin has obviously risen very high . I t i s , however, a curious fact that o f a l l the names l isted in PMLA's roste r of t rends, Bakhtin is surely sti l l the least know n , if only in the sense that much of his work is still unavailable in E ngl ish translation . Although deceased , he is s i milar to the still l iving figu res with whom .

Introduction

his name is so often conjoi ned , for i n his case as i n theirs we l ack a «.:omp lctc canon of finished works. He is a figu re very m u c h s ti l l i n the process of beco m i ng who he will be. There can be no q u estion , then, of "introd ucing" Bakhtin at this poi nt in h i s u n folding. B ut befo re de­ scribing each of these essays ind ividually, we m ay briefly pon d e r the effect they may have as they appear in E nglish for the fi rs t t i m e . I n Bakhtin's thought the place from which w e speak plays a n i m po r­ tant role in determining what we say. A l i ttle u n easy, the n , a bo u t the place from which I myself speak, I sugges t that Bakhti n has ach i eved the degree of eminence at wh ich those who i nvoke his nam e can be divided into a number of d ifferent camps or schools. T h e re a re those who have responded to him primarily as a l i te ra ry c r i tic; others have seen him as social thinker; sti l l othe rs value h i m as a p h i losoph e r of language (and , of cou rse, these s hadings tend to ble n d i nto each other i n any specific appropriation of Bakhtin). B u t i nc reasi ngly a suspicion is begin n i ng to dawn that his work may best (or at least most c o m p re­ hensively) be though t of as p h ilosophy of a nother kind , a ph i l osophy across the boards: he is being perceived as belonging to a tradi t ion of systematic philosophy of a sort that did not automatical ly equ ate "sys­ te m" with "method" as we do now. Si nce the time o f Kant, we h ave with ever i ncreasing i nsiste nce perceived syste m as a c l osed ord e r rather t h a n as an open-ended series of conn ections. Syste m for Kant meant not only the rigorous a pplication of a fu lly worked o u t a nd abso­ l utely coherent set of categories. System also impl ied that n o m ajor question should be treated in isolation : thus, any consideration o f rea­ son had to answer demands not only of logic or episte mology, bu t of ethics and aesthetics as wel l . I t is in this latter sense only that B a k h tin's thought might be labeled systematic: the sense he seeks to i n voke " when he calls-as i n these pages he so frequently does - for an open un ity. " These essays , the n , w i l l provide new confi rmat ion and