FORUM

Addressivity in cogenerative dialogues

Pei-Ling Hsu

Received: 14 June 2013 / Accepted: 14 June 2013 / Published online: 28 August 2013© Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013

Abstract Ashraf Shady’s paper provides a first-hand reflection on how a foreign teacher

used cogens as culturally adaptive pedagogy to address cultural misalignments with students.

In this paper, Shady drew on several cogen sessions to showcase his journey of using different

forms of cogens with his students. To improve the quality of cogens, one strategy he usedwas

to adjust the number of participants in cogens. As a result, some cogensworked and others did

not. During the course of reading his paper, I was impressed by his creative and flexible use of

cogens and at the same time was intrigued by the question of why some cogens work and not

others. In searching for an answer, I found that Mikhail Bakhtin’s dialogism, especially the

concept of addressivity, provides a comprehensive framework to address this question. In this

commentary, I reanalyze the cogen episodes described in Shady’s paper in the light of

dialogism. My analysis suggests that addressivity plays an important role in mediating the

success of cogens. Cogens with high addressivity function as internally persuasive discoursethat allows diverse consciousnesses to coexist and so likely affords productive dialogues. The

implications of addressivity in teaching and learning are further discussed.

Keywords Addressivity · Authoritative discourse · Internally persuasive discourse ·

Cogenerative dialogues

Executive summary

Ashraf Shady的文章對外國移民老師如何用「互動對話」來調適老師與學生間的文化

差異提供第一手經驗分享。文中 Shady 展示多個不同形式的互動對話。為了改善互

Lead editor: K. Tobin.

This review addresses issues raised in Ashraf Shady’s paper entitled: Negotiating cultural differences inurban science education: an overview of a teacher’s first-hand experience reflection of the cogen journey.doi: 10.1007/s11422-013-9486-7.

P.-L. Hsu (&)Department of Teacher Education, University of Texas at El Paso, 500 W. University Avenue, El Paso,TX 79968, USAe-mail: phsu3@utep.edu

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Cult Stud of Sci Educ (2014) 9:63–75DOI 10.1007/s11422-013-9527-2

動對話的品質, 他調整參與者的人數。 結果顯示有些互動對話相當成功有些則不

然。 在閱讀此文章中, 我對 Shady 的靈巧使用互動對話感到印象深刻, 同時, 我也在

心中產生一個問題:『為何互動對話有些成功有些則不然?』在找尋解答過程中, 我發

現Mikhail Bakhtin的對話理論,尤其是「對應性」這個概念,提供一個完整的理論架

構來回應這個問題。 因此此文我採用對話理論來對 Shady 的資料做對應性分析。我的分析顯示對應性對互動對話的品質有深切的影響。 高對應性的互動對話可以

作用成「內在有說服力的話語」來讓參與者平等地發聲並產生有建設性的對話。本文最後針對對應性對教學和學習的應用提供討論。

In “Negotiating Cultural Differences in Urban Science Education: An Overview of Tea-

cher’s First-Hand Experience Reflection of Cogen Journey,” Ashraf Shady provides a first-

hand reflection on how a foreign teacher used cogenerative dialogues (cogens) to address the

issue of cultural misalignments, which often occur among immigrant teachers and students.

Cogens are conversations among students, their teachers, and other classroom participants

that reflect participants’ experiences inside and outside of classrooms and help them reach

collective decisions about the rules, roles, and responsibilities that govern their partnerships.

Cogens have been shown to be a powerful means of helping students and teachers address

various issues in urban education, which is a difficult environment due to poverty and other

social issues. For immigrant teachers in particular, cogens can further serve as a powerful

pedagogy to bridge the cultural gap and differences between teachers and students. While

reading Shady’s paper, I was amazed to see not only cogens’ powerful function in addressing

cultural misalignments, but also the thoughtful and flexible uses of different forms of cogens

in Shady’s classroom. It is evident that Shady not only aimed to improve teaching and

learning practices through the pedagogical tool of cogens, but that he also paid attention to the

uses of cogens and found ways to improve cogens themselves. That is, according to the

feedback he received from students, Shady not only adjusted his teaching in his science

classes but also improved the quality of cogens outside his science classes. The trajectory of

these cogen changes is from whole-class cogens, to small-group cogens, to one-on-one

cogens, and back to whole-class cogens. The dynamic use of cogens is an impressive practice

because it shows the instructor’s high sensitivity and willingness to change his practices

holistically. As Shady articulates in his paper, the reason he changed the form of cogens is

because he found that not every cogen produced desired outcomes. Some cogens were

counterproductive and some were productive. As a reader, I was especially intrigued by the

different forms of cogens, and I wonder what make some cogens more productive than the

others. In the same classroom with the same instructor, why did only some cogens work? In

searching for an answer to this question, I found that Bakhtin’s dialogism provides an

insightful framework for explaining this phenomenon. Thus, in this forum paper, I aim to

address this question by looking closely at the cogen episodes described in Shady’s paper and

discuss the different natures of cogens in light of Bakhtin’s dialogism.

Dialogism and addressivity

Dialogism is a theoretical framework proposed by Mikhail Bakhtin to analyze the features and

genres of literary work, such as novels. Because of his profound insights on dialogues, dialogism

is further utilized by social science researchers to investigate human interactions and commu-

nication, including learning practices and the art of teaching. Dialogism argues that “language is

not a neutral medium that passes freely and easily into the private property of the speaker’s

intentions; it is populated—overpopulated—with the intentions of others” (Bakhtin 1981,

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p. 294). That is, words never belong to one individual but are alwaysmediated by others’ voices.

In fact, any utterance, from daily conversations to an artistic novel, is preceded by the utterances

of others and is followed by the responsive utterances of others. In other words, an utterance is

determined equally by both the speaker and the listener and its boundary is determined by a

changeof speaking subjects.Becauseof the simultaneous existencesofSelf andOther, “aword in

the mouth of a particular individual person is a product of the living interaction of social forces”

(Volosinov 1973, p. 41).As a result, an utterance never purely belongs to speakers themselves but

is shared with the addressees. Dialogism suggests that the very nature of human existence is

surrounded by the concept of dialogues and the very being ofman is the deepest communication.

Bakhtin (1984) writes: “To be means to communicate dialogically; when dialogue ends,

everything ends. Thus dialogue, by its very essence, cannot and must not come to an end” (p.

252).Thus, a person is continuously situated in endless dialogueswith theOther and is never fully

revealed or fully known in the world. This “unfinalizability” of human beings respects the

possibility that a person can andwill change: “As long as a person is alive he lives by the fact that

he is not yet finalized, that he has not yet uttered his ultimate word” (Bakhtin 1984, p. 95). Not

surprisingly, when one person is threatened with finalization or death, the natural reaction is to

fight back and express one’s “unfinalization.” The important role of dialogues for human beings

also implies a different view about “truth.” In dialogism, “truth is not born nor is it to be found

inside the head of an individual person; it is born between people collectively searching for truth,

in the process of their dialogic interaction” (Bakhtin 1984, p. 110). This viewof truth is consistent

with the spirit of cogens because cogens value open-ended dialogues and listening to different

stakeholders’ perspectives. To address the concerns of cogen participants, it is important to

provide a supportive space for them toarticulate their opinions andaddress eachothers’ responses

freely. Only when participants understand each others’ perspectives can “truth” (e.g., feasible

solutions) emerge in the process of dialoging.

Informed by dialogism, to communicate means to acknowledge each others’ voices and

respond ethically to one another. An “essential (constitutive) marker of the utterance is its

quality of being directed to someone, its addressivity” (Bakhtin 1986, p. 95). That is, each

utterance has both an author and an addressee and is oriented toward a future answer. When

one speaks, one’s words are in accordance with the response s/he anticipates. The addres-

sivity, the quality of being directed to someone, is an essential feature of utterances.

Accordingly, each utterance is always addressed to someone and anticipates an answer. Anauthentic discourse therefore acknowledges the otherness and embraces the diverse voices

brought by theOther. For example, internally persuasive discourse is an exemplary discourse

that reflects the true nature of utterances and exhibits one’s own and others’ voices equally.

Internally persuasive discourse possesses not one but two consciousnesses: Self and Other.

That is, internally persuasive discourse is part of ours and part of someone else’s. Every

internally persuasiveword is renewedwith new rejoinders and newmaterials in new contexts.

Even when one speaks the same words, these words mean something different because of the

unique qualities mediated by different spaces, times, tones, intonations, and contexts. Thus,

each word has its own newness every time it is produced. Bakhtin (1981) explains: “The

semantic structure of an internally persuasive discourse is not finite. It is open, in each of thenew contexts that dialogize it, this discourse is able to reveal ever newer ways to mean ” (p.346). That is, internally persuasive discourse is organic and alive whenever it is produced!

However, in certain forms of language, the presence of the Other is oppressed and

limited. Monologism, for example, “at its extreme, denies the existence outside itself of

another consciousness with equal rights and equal responsibilities” (Bakhtin 1984, p. 292).

Monologism represents only one consciousness and does not allow recognition of other

kinds of consciousness.

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Withamonologic approach (in its extremepure form) another person remainswholly and

merely an object of consciousness, and not another consciousness. No response is

expected from it that could change anything in the world of my consciousness. Mono-

logue is finalized and deaf to others’ response, does not expect it and does not

acknowledge in it any force. Monologue manages without the other, and therefore to

some degree materializes all reality. Monologue pretends to be the ultimate word. It

closes down the representedworld and represented persons. (Bakhtin 1984, pp. 292–293)

Unlike dialogue, which includes at least two ideas, monologue only allows one’s own

idea. An extreme form of monologism is authoritative discourse, a discourse that allows noother voices and demands absolute allegiance. It is the word of the fathers, the authority,

and the past: “The authoritative word is located in a distanced zone, organically connected

with a past that is felt to be hierarchically higher” (Bakhtin 1981, p. 342). It is therefore a

prior and fixed discourse acknowledged by the past and does not allow newness contrib-

uted by the Other. Authoritative discourse does not open for assimilation or

appropriateness. Rather, it demands our unconditional allegiance. Therefore, Bakhtin

(1981) argues, “authoritative discourse permits no play with the context framing it, no play

with its borders, no gradual and flexible transitions, no spontaneously creative stylizing

variants on it” (p. 343). As a result, as opposed to internally persuasive discourse,

authoritative discourse seeks no input from the Other and is presented as an absolute, fixed,

and hegemonic truth authorized by the past. That is, authoritative discourse does not value

others’ voices and so limits addressivity toward others.

From low addressivity to high addressivity

The purpose of cogens is to address issues occurring in collective practices by listening to

different voices and facilitating dialogues among different stakeholders through cogens’

openness and respect for dialogues. To structure cogens, Shady announces the following

rules to be shared in his class: “(1) no one voice is privileged; (2) all participants should

make every effort to partake in the cogen session; (3) the participating stakeholders (the

students and myself in this case) should make every attempt to improve teaching and

learning in the classroom; (4) speak for others; (5) exercise radical listening in which

individuals attend to the conversation to the end; and (6) don’t change the focus of the

conversation until consensus has been reached.” However, not every cogen grants success

and produces its intended outcome. As a reflective practitioner, Shady noticed this

dilemma and so changed the size of the cogen itself. As he experienced in his classroom

and articulated in his reflection, “Originally, I extended the invitation to the whole class,

hoping to include as many educationally and culturally diverse voices as possible, but this

setting didn’t achieve its intended outcomes. I followed this by downsizing the cogen team

to two African American students…. Unfortunately, even at such small scale we couldn’t

overcome our cultural differences, therefore we agreed on downsizing the structure of

cogen to one-on-one cogen.” Shady’s paper demonstrates four episodes of cogens,

including a whole-class cogens (Episode 2), small-group cogens (Episode 3), one-on-one

cogens (Episode 4), and back to a whole-class cogens (Episode 5). The first two episodes

show the difficulties of dialogues in the whole-class cogen (Episode 2) and small-group

cogens (Episode 3); the latter two episodes demonstrate successful dialogues in the one-on-

one cogens (Episode 4) and the whole-class cogen (Episode 5). To address the question of

why some cogens work better than others, in the following sections, I reanalyze these four

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episodes and suggest that a cogen’s success is mediated by the quality of addressivity

involved. I first present the analysis for Episodes 2 and 3, two less productive cogens, and

then present the analysis for Episodes 4 and 5, two more successful cogens. Informed by

dialogism, my analysis suggests that the quality of addressivity involved in cogens is

closely associated with the success of cogens. As a result, a discursive evolution (Hsu and

Roth 2012), from authoritative discourse to internally persuasive discourse, is identified in

Shady’s cogens with students. That is, the first two cogens are more authoritative and the

latter two cogens are more internally persuasive.

Cogens with low addressivity

In the first two episodes demonstrated in Shady’s paper, Episode 2 is the whole-class cogen

and Episode 3 is the small-group cogen. These two cogens were labeled by the author/

teacher, Shady, as unproductive cogens, and so he decided to change the structure of

cogens to one on one. While looking closely at the utterances of these episodes, I noticed

low addressivity in both episodes. In the following sections, I analyze these episodes with

the focus on utterances’ addressivity.

In Episode 2, with great interest in solving problems in the class, Shady (the teacher)

begins the whole-class cogen by discussing reasons that lead students to dislike science.

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Shady starts the dialogues by articulating a problem: “what is it about science that you

don’t like (01)?” Ramiek responds to the teacher’s question with a general answer: “it is

the subject (02).” In responding to Ramiek’s utterance, Shady then starts with a disjunctive

conjunction “but” followed by an authoritative voice: “we have to learn earth science

(03).” The disjunctive conjunction “but” is usually used when someone disagrees with the

previous utterance. In this case, Shady’s use of “but” suggests that he disagrees with

Ramiek’s reason for disliking science, “it is the subject (02).” Then, Shady further artic-

ulates his reason for this disagreement: “we have to learn earth science (03).” Without

receiving a comprehensive response, Shady then changes the conversation topic to another

subject: “Ramiek, would you explain to the class what you have been working on?” During

these three turns (01–03) between Shady and Ramiek, I noticed a breakdown of addres-

sivity between them. Shady first asks an open question: “what is it about science that you

don’t like?” and receives a general response from Ramiek: “it is the subject.” However,

Shady seems to not agree with this answer and responds with “but we have to learn earth

science.” Here, we see that although Shady seems to intend to understand students’ reasons

for disliking science, he is not really open to listening to students’ voices. Without asking

further questions like “what do you mean, it is the subject?” or “why don’t you like the

subject?” Shady quickly responds in a negative tone (“but”) and a strong voice (“have to”),

which suggests a firm regulation that everyone has to follow. This strong voice suggests a

closed end and authority that no one can challenge, and so Ramiek’s answer cannot serve

as a reason for not liking science. Shady’s utterance (03) exhibits low addressivity because

it does not really address Ramiek’s comment but draws on an authoritative voice to

respond. This is an ironic situation. Originally, the teacher wants to know why students do

not like science. However, when a student expresses his opinion, the teacher just denies it

with an authoritative voice without offering the student opportunities for elaborations.

Moreover, without further elaboration to justify his rejection of the student’s opinion, the

teacher just continues the conversation with another topic as if students understand the

rationale behind his rejection.

The phenomenon of low addressivity can also be found in the rest of Episode 2. After

rejecting Ramiek’s answer to Shady’s first question, Shady continues to ask a second

question: “Ramiek, would you explain to the class what you have been working on (03)?”

Ramiek then describes the result of his project: “I found out that tap water is bacteria

positive, as they described it (04)” and provides a suggestion to the class: “don’t drink tap

water yooo (04).” In response to Ramiek’s description, Shady questions Ramiek’s result:

“are you sure of this (05)?” and questions his understanding about tap water: “what do you

mean by tap water (05)?” Ramiek then provides an elaboration: “tap water is bottled water,

and it came out bacteria positive (06).” Shady then questions Ramiek’s answer again: “how

could you call tap water a bottled water? Tap water means that it is coming from the tap

(07).” Here, again, we sense an authoritative voice from the teacher, who corrects Ra-

miek’s description about tap water by first questioning Ramiek’s definition of tap water

—“how could you call tap water a bottled water (07)?”—and then providing an absolute

truth about tap water: “tap water means that it is coming from the tap (07).” Unfortunately,

the conversation about science stops here because of an interruptive event that happened

between Najee and Tre, who are making fun of each other’s skin. This event leads Ramiek

to initiate a new rule in the cogens: “listen up, new rule, no more backin (13),” “let us set

up clear rules (16).” However, this initiative is not supported by everyone in the class, as

shown in Tre’s response: “I don’t give a damn about rules (17).” These remarks show that

there is no consensus among participants about cogens, which are accompanied by certain

rules for participants to follow. Tre’s comment shows that not every participant respects

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the rules of cogens. That is, the structure of cogens itself is challenged and disrespected. In

this situation, the rules/structure of cogens are not properly addressed and respected by

participants. In fact, as Shady describes in the paper, the five female students who were

present during the whole-class cogen stayed silent throughout the conversation, and when

Shady inquired afterwards why they hadn’t participated in the conversations, they

responded, “What conversations? They were making fun of each other.” That is, these five

female students don’t even consider these conversations as part of the cogen, and so

naturally they don’t bother to act on the rules of cogens (e.g., all participants should make

every effort to partake in the cogen session). This breakdown exhibits an important issue of

low addressivity, not only at the individual level but in relation to the group as a whole.

That is, participants did not adhere well to the structure/rules of cogens collectively. Some

participants (e.g., these five female students) didn’t realize the boundary between cogens

and casual conversation and some participants didn’t want to follow the rules even though

they knew they were situated in a cogen session (e.g., Tre’s comment of “I don’t give a

damn about rules”). This low addressivity towards the cogen structure makes it difficult to

have cogenerative dialogues among participants.

Another sample of low-addressivity cogens can be found in Episode 3 where Shady

downsizes his cogen group to three participants (Shady, Steven, and Star). The reason for

downsizing the cogen from the whole class to a small group is to address the failure of the

previous whole-class cogen (e.g., Episode 2). By doing so, Shady is “hoping that it might

be easier to talk across differences if the number of the participants was smaller.” How-

ever, as Shady states, the small-group cogens are still unsuccessful and exhibit negative

emotions, as demonstrated in the following episode.

In the small-group cogen, Shady first asks Steven a question: “so Steven…lately you

have been having your head down again, and not paying attention. Is there any reason

behind that (01)?” Instead of responding to Shady directly, Steven mumbles “hmm” (02)

and looks at Star with a smile as if he is looking for help from Star to address Shady’s

question. Shady then turns to Star and asks, “have you noticed that (03)?” Star answers “no

(04).” In responding to Star, Shady seems not satisfied with the answer and attempts to

explain why he is asking this question: “the reason I am saying this (05).” Before Shady

finishes his sentence, Star promptly adds an explanation to justify her answer: “he do his

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work (06).” Without responding to Star, Shady then turns to Steven and asks, “so you think

you’re doing better now (07)?” Star then continues her support for Steven and says, “better,

I think so, cause he usually say sure, good when he does his work (08).” Again, without

responding to Star’s remark, Shady continues to look at Steven and asks another question:

“so, how are you doing in your other classes (09)?” Steven first stumbles again: “huh

(10)?” and then says, “I don’t know (13).” Then, Star again affirms Steven’s performance

with “better (11)” and “I think so [he is doing better] (14).”

In Episode 3, we again hear the voice of authority, which aims to express an absolute

truth. When Star first expresses her opinion (“no, he do his work”) to address Shady’s

question (“have you noticed that?”), Shady does not accept Star’s statement. Without

responding to Star, Shady continues to question Steven’s performance in science (“so you

think you’re doing better now?”). Star again provides reasons to explain why she thinks

Steven is doing better now (“because … he does his work”). Again, without responding to

Star, Shady asks Steven another question (“so how are you doing in your other classes?”).

Here, the whole situation sounds like an interrogation session! Shady (the teacher) first

assumes that Steven is not doing well in science and seeks a reason. However, when Star

and Steven provide responses that challenge this assumption (i.e., Steven is not doing

well), Shady does not acknowledge their responses and keeps asking questions that aim to

figure out why Steven is not doing well in his classes. The series of questions makes the

cogen sound like an interrogation session where a police officer tries to force the criminal

to speak the truth. Here, we sense that the absolute truth for Shady is that Steven is not

doing well in his classes and there must be some reasons to explain the situation. More-

over, another form of low addressivity is also exhibited in this episode. That is, every time

Star responds with an undesired answer, Shady does not directly address her, but turns

toward Steven and ask other questions. It is as if Shady already has a predetermined answer

in mind and doesn’t want to hear different kinds of answers. Thus, Shady chooses to ignore

these undesired answers from Star and keeps changing his questions in order to get the

desired response. At the same time, we also observe that Star and Steven try to fight back

when they encounter the teacher’s statement about Star’s performance, which is a threat of

finalizing Star as a bad student. From Star’s mumble and Steven’s defense, we also sense a

struggle of getting their opinion across to their teacher. That is, although three people are

talking to each other, they are not really having a dialogue; they are having a monologue

that only allows one consciousness. In Episode 3, the low addressivity of Shady’s utter-

ances in response to Star’s statements again constitutes an authoritative discourse that only

has one absolute consciousness and does not acknowledge others’ ideas.

Having dialogues means to allow for different voices and an equal exchange of ideas.

To address means to respond to others’ utterances properly regardless of whether the

speaker and the listener agree or disagree with each other. In the two episodes above

(Episodes 2 and 3), we observe different forms of authoritative discourse that aims to

express its one absolute truth (e.g., “but we have to learn earth science”; “lately you have

been having your head down again, and not paying attention”) and does not allow other

voices. Low addressivity in authoritative discourse is clearly an issue for authentic dia-

logues, even in the context of cogens.

Cogens with high addressivity

In the latter two episodes demonstrated in Shady’s paper, Episode 4 is the one-on-one

cogen and Episode 5 is the whole-class cogen. These two cogens were deemed successful

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by Shady. While looking closely at the utterances of these two episodes, I noticed high

addressivity in both episodes. In the following sections, I reanalyze these episodes with the

focus on utterances’ addressivity.

In Episode 4, Shady and Steven are the only two participants in the cogen session.

Shady begins the one-on-one cogen with a question concerning the relationship between

people’s skin color and their identity.

Shady solicits Steven’s opinion on the relationship of one’s skin color and their identity:

“do you think the color of your skin should determine who you are (01)?” In response to

Shady’s question, Steven provides an answer in an ambiguous dispreferred mode (Hsu,

Roth and Mazumder 2009), which indicates a simultaneously preferred and dispreferred

organization. That is, Steven first responds with a dispreferred organization of disagree-

ment “actually no (02)” but then provides a preferred organization of agreement “but some

people judge you that way (02).” This utterance expresses two consciousnesses at the same

time. One disagrees with Shady’s statement and the other agrees. That is, Steve’s utterance

partially disagrees and partially agrees with Shady and shows his holistic view on the

relationship between people’s skin color and their identity. Steve provides examples to

support his statement on why “some people judge you that way (02),” such as “when there

is a black person in the movie, he has to be a gangster (02),” “every Chinese people got to

know karate (02),” and “a white person has to be rich (02).” Steven’s utterance in the

ambiguous dispreferred mode, supported with examples, receives Shady’s affirmation:

“yeah, stereotyping (03).” Steven continues to express his opinion on how this stereotype

mediates black people’s identity: “that is how they separate us, especially in the movies,

that represent what we are, at least in the movies (04).” Shady seems satisfied with this

answer and then goes on to ask another question: “do you think a black person would have

a better understanding of another black person than, let us say, a white person (05)?”

Steven answers this question with a preferred mode that provides an affirmative answer:

“yeah, because they share the same circumstances (06).” In response to Steven’s answer,

Shady this time also responds with an ambiguous dispreferred mode. Shady first com-

ments, “maybe you are right (07)” to agree with Steven’s answers, but then provides a

counter statement—“but that is not always true (07)”—to disagree with Steven’s answer.

Similarly, Shady then lists an example to support his statement: “take Michael Jordan for

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instance, he might have experienced economic hardship at one point, but his kids grew up

surrounded by money, probably they don’t know what it means to be poor (07).”

Episode 4 shows a high degree of addressivity in several senses. First, in response to

Shady’s first question, Steven draws on the ambiguous dispreferred organization that

involves two consciousnesses. That is, Steven partially disagrees and partially agrees with

Shady’s statement at the same time. Steven’s response demonstrates one form of internally

persuasive discourse, which does not present the absolute one truth but integrates two

different voices/consciousnesses. This internally persuasive discourse receives a positive

confirmation from Shady: “yeah, stereotyping.” Second, in response to Steven’s statement

that people who share the same ethnicity “share the same circumstances (06),” Shady

responds with internally persuasive discourse as well, because he first acknowledges

Steven’s statement (“maybe you are right”) and then provides a counterstatement (“but that

is not always true”) supported with an example (“take Michael Jordan for instance”). That

is, Shady’s utterance (07) also integrates two consciousnesses, one from Steven’s statement

and one from his own. This internally persuasive discourse allows one to express their

opinion and, at the same time, acknowledge others’ voices. This acknowledgement of

others’ voices exhibits high addressivity to others’ utterances.

Another cogen session with high addressivity can be found in Episode 5, where Shady

conducted another whole-class cogen to discuss rules that can govern the class after the

success of one-on-one cogens. Episode 5 starts with a student (Maria) reminding other

students about one of the cogen rules in Mr. Shady’s class: “no talking (01).”

Maria initiates a question, “what you all do in Mr. Shady’s class (01)?” which later

receives other students’ smiles, as if everyone knows what Maria refers to: “yeah, no

talking (01).” In response to Maria’s question, Ramiek and Najee both mention other rules:

“how about my favorite one (02)?” and “yeah, how about no iPod (03).” At this moment,

Najee probably stares at Maria and so Maria looks at Najee and asks, “why are you looking

at me (03)?” Najee says “if you bring yours, I am going to bring my mp3 player (05).”

Another student, Tre, then mentions another rule: “how about treat your classmates with

respect (06)?” Tre’s utterance quickly receives an affirmation from another student,

Stephanie: “yea, treating your classmates with respect (07).” After staying silent for a

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while, Shady then speaks: “we didn’t discuss what happens if someone breaks the rules

(08).” In response to Shady’s suggestion, Maria then asks a question: “so you want me to

write what happens if we break the rules (09)?” This question then receives a preferred

response from Shady: “yes, what are the consequences if you break the rules (10)?” Najee

then responds: “you get a call home (11).” Tre then asks “what else (12)?” Shady then asks

another question: “and how about if you obey all the rules or part (13)?” In response to

Shady’s question, Maria utters, “it’s all here, you get to be invited to pizza party and go on

the next trip (14).”

Episode 5 demonstrates quite different dynamics between Shady (the teacher) and the

students. The content of their dialogue shows that the class is discussing the rules for their

classes and Maria is the mediator who leads and records the discussion. This cogen exhibits

that students are very comfortable expressing their opinions, as demonstrated by the dif-

ferent rule suggestions from Ramiek, Najee, and Tre. In their discussions, Shady (the

teacher) is not the one who imposes certain ideas to students or guides their discussion.

Rather, Shady listens to students’ voices and, when necessary, he reminds students of

things that they haven’t discussed, such as “we didn’t discuss what happens if someone

breaks the rules (08)” and “how about if you obey all the rules, or part (13)?” That is,

Episode 5 shows that students are the ones who are in charge of the topic of the dialogue

and provide diverse ideas and input in the cogen. The teacher, Shady, only provides

general questions for open discussion rather than having a predetermined agenda for

getting certain answers from students, as illustrated in previous episodes (Episodes 2 and

3). Episode 5 shows that the teacher’s role is to assist students’ discussions rather than

imposing one voice to the cogen. This open-ended discussion allows diverse voices and so

exhibits high addressivity because everyone’ voice is heard (e.g., the rule input from

different students) and acknowledged (e.g., Maria’s note taking in the class). Interestingly,

Maria’s last utterance, “it’s all here, you get to be invited to pizza party and go on the next

trip (14),” in response to Shady’s question “how about if you obey all the rules, or part

(13)?” shows that she is on top of the whole discussion because she is aware of the fact that

they had addressed this question before (“it’s all here”). Obviously, in this cogen session,

students are more comfortable speaking up and taking charge of their conversation.

The two episodes above show high addressivity of dialogues among participants. In

Episode 4, by using internally persuasive discourse that integrates one’s and others’ ideas,

both the teacher (Shady) and the student (Steven) are able to effectively communicate and

exchange ideas without conflicts. In Episode 5, students’ turn taking for expressing ideas

and the teacher’s assisting role (rather than imposing ideas on students) in the cogen allow

diverse voices to be heard and addressed. These observations suggest that high addressivity

in internally persuasive discourse and diverse voices are important qualities for conducting

successful cogens.

Addressivity in teaching and learning

In this forum paper, informed by Bakhtin’s dialogism, I provide an alternative analysis of

Shady’s data to illustrate the different quality of addressivity involved in different sessions

of cogens. With a focus on addressivity, I reanalyzed these four episodes and observed that

the first two cogens labeled as unproductive cogens exhibited low addressivity, while the

latter two cogens labeled as productive cogens exhibited high addressivity. My analysis

suggests that the first two episodes were constituted by authoritative discourse which was

dominated by the authority voice of the teacher, who did not properly listen to or address

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students’ utterances in cogens as if his questions only allow certain predetermined answers.

The latter two episodes were constituted by internally persuasive discourse, which was not

dominated by any voice but intertwined with both the voices of teacher and students, and

their voices were equally addressed and acknowledged. The success of cogens in Shady’s

classroom therefore demonstrates a discursive evolution, from authoritative discourse with

low addressivity to internally persuasive discourse with high addressivity. These findings

suggest that the quality of addressivity play a critical role in shaping the quality of cogens

and we should avoid authoritative discourse (low addressivity) and adopt internally per-

suasive discourse (high addressivity) to allow diverse voices and mutual addressivity

among participants.

Another form of high addressivity can also be found in the concept of radical listening(Tobin 2009). In radical listening, one intends to fully understand others’ standpoints

without trying to change them or injecting an alternative standpoint. That is, one ensures to

identify key components of the speaker’s statement and find possibilities in adopting

others’ ideas. Unlike authoritative discourse, which represents an absolute truth and does

not allow the voice of others, the act of radical listening does not promote one’s own voice

but is enacted to listen to and enrich others’ voices. The discourse of radical listening

therefore can be viewed as an opposite end of authoritative discourse. That is, the discourse

of radical listening is only for the other’s voice and addresses others with the purpose of

enriching and expanding the other’s voice. Radical listening thus involves extremely high

addressivity towards the other. In the case of cogens, instead of discussing teachers’concerns and ideas, teachers might practice radical listening by listening attentively to

students’ initiated concerns and exploring possibilities of students’ initiated ideas for

improving teaching and learning.

The concept of addressivity has several implications for teaching and learning. First, the

quality of addressivity can serve as an indicator for authentic dialogues. Having dialoguesmeans to exchange ideas rather than simply to have monologic conversations among

people. As illustrated in this forum paper, some conversations in cogens could be mono-

logic (e.g., authoritative discourse) and some conversations in cogens are dialogic (e.g.,

internally persuasive discourse). That is, the fact that people have conversations does not

necessary mean that people have “dialogues.” It is possible that there is only one dominant

voice in the conversations between two persons, which often occur when there is a power

difference between participants. Thus, to improve teaching and communications, teachers

can use addressivity as a tool to examine their own discourse with students in daily

teaching and learning and make sure that students’ voices and needs are really addressed.

Second, addressivity can serve as a criterion for evaluating the quality of adult-child

collaborations. In the adult-child collaborations, the transfer of “ownership” of certain

tasks from adults to children is often deemed as a criterion for evaluating the success of the

collaboration. That is, if children can gradually take over the responsibility from adults to

accomplish certain tasks, they are usually deemed successful learners. However, research

suggested that “addressivity” is a better criterion than “ownership” in evaluating adult-

child collaboration (Hayes and Matusov 2005). They found that children could become

legitimate participants in an adult initiated project, even the child did not have a sense of

the ownership for this project, as long as they both addressed to each other and had a

dialogic participation in the project. That is, the concept of addressivity allows us to look at

the adult-child collaboration with a collective and holistic lens rather than only focusing on

the individual possessions of certain quality, such as ownership. Third, addressivity can

also serve as a theoretical lens to understand how individuals respond to institutions, such

as schools. For examples, researchers (Graue, Kroeger and Prager 2001) used the

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Bakhtinian lens of answerability and addressivity to investigate how parents came to

understand and enact relationships with school people in order to increase their capacities

for addressing the needs of their children in schools. In particular, the concept of ad-

dressivity allows researchers to investigate how parents act with trajectories created for

presumed audience or hope-for ends.

Unfinalized dialogues for multiple-levels of analysis

As Bakhtin suggests, the world is an open-end, multi-voiced, unfinalized, and dialogical in

nature. Truth therefore can only be approached through a process of negotiation and

communication in dialogues. As a researcher, I believe that multiple-levels of analysis help

us better understand certain research topics. In this forum on cogens, Ashraf Shady’s

analysis in the featured paper and my analysis in the forum paper simply provide a

beginning of dialogues on the use and discourse of cogens. As a reader, one might resonate

with and related to some analysis. Similarly, one might disagree with some statements we

claimed. In dialogism, these diverse voices on the same phenomenon or discourse are

particularly valued because “truth is not born nor is it to be found inside the head of an

individual person, it is born between people collectively searching for truth, in the process

of their dialogic interaction” (Bakhtin 1984, p. 110). To enrich and advance our under-

standings, I encourage us to continue the dialogues as the discourse only lives and the truth

can only be found when dialogue continues!

References

Bakhtin, M. M. (1981). The dialogic imagination. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.Bakhtin, M. M. (1984). Problems of Dostoevsky’s poetics (trans: Emerson, C.). Minneapolis: University of

Minnesota Press.Bakhtin, M. M. (1986). The problem of speech genres (trans: McGee, V. W.). In Emerson, C. and Holquist,

M. (Eds.), M. M. Bakhtin: speech genres and other late essays (pp. 60–102). Austin, TX: University ofTexas Press.

Graue, M. E., Kroeger, J., & Prager, D. (2001). A Bakhtinian analysis of particular home-school relations.American Educational Research Journal, 38(3), 467–498. doi:10.3102/00028312038003467.

Hayes, R., & Matusov, E. (2005). From “ownership” to dialogic addressivity: Defining successful digitalstorytelling projects. Technology, Humanities, Education and Narrative (THEN Journal), 1. RetrievedJune 13, 2013, from http://thenjournal.org/feature/75/.

Hsu, P.-L., & Roth, W.-M. (2012). From authoritative discourse to internally persuasive discourse: dis-cursive evolution in teaching and learning the language of science. Cultural Studies of ScienceEducation. doi:10.1007/s11422-012-9475-2.

Hsu, P.-L., Roth, W.-M., & Mazumder, A. (2009). Natural pedagogical conversations in high schoolstudents’ internship. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 46, 481–505. doi:10.1002/tea.20275.

Tobin, K. (2009). Tuning into others’ voices: Radical listening, learning from difference, and escapingoppression. Cultural Studies of Science Education, 4, 505–511. doi:10.1007/s11422-009-9218-1.

Volosinov, V. N. (1973). Marxism and the philosophy of language. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Author Biography

Pei-Ling Hsu is assistant professor of teacher education at the University of Texas at El Paso, Texas, USA.She is a former high school earth science teacher in Taipei First Girl High School and NanKan High Schoolin Taiwan. Her research interests focus on informal science learning, partnerships with scientists, discoursestudies, and students’ career pursuits in science. She is a co-author of books entitled Analyzing communi-cation: praxis of method and Authentic science revisited: in praise of diversity, heterogeneity, hybridity.

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