ABSTRACT
Bakhtin (1981) argued that life and consciousness are filled with a living language that is populated by the words of others:
The word in language is half someone else’s. It becomes “one’s own” only when the speaker populates it with his [sic] own intention, his [sic] own accent, when he [sic] appropriates the word, adapting it for his [sic] own semantic and expressive intention…. Language is not a neutral medium that passes freely and easily into the private property of the speaker’s intentions. … Expropriating it, forcing it to one’s own intentions and accents, is a difficult and complicated process, (pp. 293-294)
The Introduction chapter of the book provides the theoretical and methodological background for the larger collaborative school-university action-research project and this chapter about Pam’s inquiry on writing. See also the last chapter, which further discusses the implications of Pam’s inquiry-as well as those of the other teacher researchers.
