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: [email protected]
123
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.
Addressivity in cogenerative dialogues 67
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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
Addressivity in cogenerative dialogues 69
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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
Addressivity in cogenerative dialogues 71
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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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