Vygotsky, Bakhtin, Lotman: Towards a theory of communication in the horizon of the other

Abstract

Shortly before his death, Yuri Lotman (1922-1993), by now blind, dictated some considerations on the concept of 'alien,' 'stranger' (chuzhdoe): a concept that de facto weaves all of his thirty-year reflections on the relationship between language, meaning, and culture and that, until the end, appears as the mark of a speculative orientation focused on the ethics of otherness. A profound influence on Lotman's thinking in this direction was exercised by two leading figures of the Russian intellectual tradition: the psychologist Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934) and the philosopher, critic, and literary theorist Mikhail Bakhtin (1895-1975). It is no wonder the Tartu-Moscow Semiotic School dedicated to them volumes IV (1969) and VI (1973), respectively, of the Trudy po znakovym sistemam, the review on sign systems launched in 1964 by the Department of Russian Literature of the University of Tartu. The horizon of otherness, and the consequent emphasis on the relational nature of man, fill in fact as much of Vygotsky's theoretical reflection on the human mind as does Bakhtin's on literary creation (slovesnost'). This article intends to explore the concept of "dialog" as thematized in Vygotsky's and Bakhtin's studies, theoretical roots of the Lotmanian idea of communication as a dialogical semiotic act.