Aspects of the Dialogical Self

Aspects of the Dialogical Self is, at the core, a documentation of the outcome of a symposium held at the Second International Connference on the Dialogical Self (2002). Starting from a psycholinguistical and socio-cultural approach, its aim was to present several perspectives on the phenomenon of (inner) speech on the borders of communication and cognition and of individual and social performances. The symposium was concerned with the concept of development in different respects: in regard to the relation between inner speech and literacy (Juan Daniel Ramirez), to questions and their special role for the dialogical self (Marie-Cécile Bertau), and to the role of mutuality in psychological growth (Vera John-Steiner). The contributions are each followed by comments, thereby conveying some orality and "voicedness".

This core is surrounded by an introductory part depicting the theory of the dialogical self accompanied by a proposition on modeling (Marie-Cécile Bertau), and by an additional topic which is a quite important and complex issue for the dialogical self: addressivity. The first contribution tries to open up the horizon in which addressivity could be placed, departing from philosophical considerations, going via conversational analysis to developmental aspects (Marie-Cécile Bertau). This general approach is supplied by two contributions dealing with specific moments of addressivity: the first one focuses on the special cases of open states of talk, faked multiple addressing, and self-talk (Heike Baldauf-Quilliatre). The second contribution (Marta Soler-Gallart) could well be read as a complement to Ramirez's article since it deals with dialogical reading, stating the transformative force of addressing.

Thus, the book offers specific as well as general vistas of the dialogical self and of related questions such as ontogenetic and microgenetic development and conceptions of addressivity.