I'm not sure if it's the lack of morning coffee, or a lack of braincells, but I continue to read over Bakhin's piece hoping for some intellectual and insightful view on the piece, and find myself sitting with a blank page before me.
Bakhtin states that "when the listener perceives and understands the meaning (the language meaning) of speech, he simultaneously takes an active responsive attitude toward it" (68). I can understand his claim that a reader will either agree or disagree with a piece, but to claim that this always happens is a bit too definitive for me. In reading this piece, I can truly say I didn't feel one way or the other after my initial reading. I took Bakhtin's words at (more or less) face value and continued about my way. The only reason that I have an opinion is because I've been told I have to respond to a piece for the blog so I found myself trying to find something worth writing about in the readings. Does this still make me an active reader? Or would I become a new reader entirely--a unrequited reader; one who reads to read? I think you can have these types as both readers and writers. How many times have we been assigned with reading assignments and physically feel our eyes scanning the words, processing the words, and still have no idea what we read, or cannot describe the "bigger picture" if our well-being depended on it? Do Bakhtin's rules apply to unrequited readers? Or must readers be committed if they are to fall into the rule and boundaries he's laid out?
Bakhtin goes on to say that the speaker will "end his utterance in order to relinquish the floor to the other or to make room for the other's active responsive understanding" (71). If the unrequited reader does not uphold this end of the unspoken "agreement" between reader and writer, then what is the point of utterances? Is there one? Or is the only point of speech to be responded to--making us needy of communication? It seems that everyone is talking AT each other, and when they're not talking, they're waiting for their turn to speak. If, as Bakhtin seems to claim, this is the only reason we're communicating, then I want to stay quiet until I can find someone who doesn't necessarily need a reply.
1 comment:
I completely know where you're coming from. These are difficult texts, so it can sometimes be challenging to have any other reaction to the text than frustration. First of all, I wonder if a frustrated reader still counts as an active listener. "An the listener adopts this responsive attitude for the entire duration of the process of listening and understanding, from the very beginning" (Bakhtin 68). However, from picking apart Baktin's discussion of active listeners, he continuously says that the listener understands the speech. "The fact is that when the listener perceives and understands the meaning (the language meaning) of speech, he simultaneously takes an active, responsive attitude toward it" (Bakhtin 68). "Any understanding is imbued with response and necessarily elicits it in one form or another: the listener becomes the speaker" (Bakhtin 68). Thus, I feel like your question is valid but left open by Bakhtin. He only states that a listener who understands the message given from the speaker becomes the speaker. I mean, how can someone speak out in response if he or she didn't understand the message in the first place? As I said, that would likely only be to speak out in frustration. But Bakhtin doesn't mention such an occurrence.
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