ABSTRACT
Mikhail Bakhtin's "dialogic" theory helped him explain better than most other theorists how the individual enters into social life through language. This chapter attempts to explain more fully the notions of dialogic literacy and learning through a brief reading of Bakhtin's theory of language as it is laid out primarily in Marxism and the Philosophy of Language and in Speech Genres and Other Late Essays. Recognition of identity, Bakhtin argues, is effaced by the orientation of language to understanding, to the process of being heard and responded to. The linking of language, thought, and understanding in Bakhtin's dialogic theory of language implies a similarly dialogic theory of learning. Dialogic literacy and learning suggest similar directions for writing programs across disciplines and for writing in multicultural classrooms. The decision to "allow" a variety or voices in disciplinary writing is also not just an unfortunate necessity in classes grounded in a commitment to dialogic learning.
