ABSTRACT
By adopting the dialogic formulation of human nature, one can readily see how multiplicity is the norm, while any apparent singularity of personality is an ongoing accomplishment of certain social forms and practices. Basically, Bakhtin eschewed searching for some formal core lying beneath actual language usages among people communicating and living together; rather, he sought systematicity within the forms or genres of actual speech in use. Bakhtin illustrates another aspect of his analysis of speech genres with the case of a person who is in excellent command of language yet feels helpless in a given situation precisely because he lacks the speech genre that is appropriate to that situation. This chapter examines two somewhat different illustrations of Bakhtin's use of the chronotopic concept, not only to help clarify its meaning, but also to link his ideas with some current work on narratives.
