Question:
Analyse the two texts below for creativity and dialogicality.
Creativity in the contemporary sense undermines the
romantic (individual) notions of creativity. Rather than
starting from scratch, the modern notion of creativity
includes putting together a collage of previous utterances
and texts to inspire fresh perceptions of our world and it
simultaneously constructs our multi-dimensional self
-identity. Intertextuality is a concept that refers to the
referencing or borrowing and transforming of prior texts.
Intertextuality allows one to gather different texts and fuse
them into a narrative that may either reinforce or challenge
one’s own beliefs. In the process of transformation, these
texts take on new refreshing and multiple meanings.
Dialogicality, an important theoretical concept in
everyday creativity, is the relation of an utterance
to preceding utterances and the addressivity of the
utterance (the orientation to the other’s
responsive understanding). According to Bakhtin,
the dialogic nature of human consciousness is an innately
inherent feature in human life itself. ‘Life itself is
dialogic, we constantly use open-ended dialogues
to verbally express authentic human life’
(Bakhtin, 1984b, p. 293).In analysing text A and
text B, we will look into their creative elements
that emerge from intertextuality and dialogicality
and the attempt to express the meanings of the
texts as well as the writers’ self identities along
with the audience’s interpretation of the writers’
identities.
Text A is a graffiti. Graffiti is the name for images
or letterings scrawled, scratched, painted or marked in any
manner on property. Graffiti is generally regarded as
unsightly damage and at other times it is considered a form
of art. Creativity here operates within the affordances
(possibilities offered by environment) and constraints of
graffiti. Graffiti affords anonymity, privacy; however it
also affords public punishment. Though graffiti artists have
the freedom to express themselves anonymously, they also need
to work within social and cultural constraint (graffiti is
seen as vandalism and is illegal) to meet their personal
purposes of marking their territories and expressing
themselves. Due to the illegal nature of graffiti, the writer
has to express himself within the limited choice of words,
phrases or sentences and write it speedily in the shortest
possible time to avoid getting caught (time constraint).
In Text A the graffiti written is:
ISSAC
NEWTON
WAS RIGHT
THIS IS
THE CENTRE
OF GRAFFITI
This sentence should have been read as ‘Issac Newton was
right. This is the centre of gravity’. Creatively in this
simple sentence has employed some textual artistry. Isaac
Newton is famous for his discovery of the laws of gravity
and this graffiti artist has cleverly performed the word
play of ‘Gravity’ with ‘Graffiti’. Pun is a deliberate
word play; it treats homonyms as synonyms. The ambiguous
meaning of the pun ‘Graffiti’ (Gravity) produces a humorous
and rhetorical effect. At the same time metaphor is created
by comparing seemingly unrelated subjects without using ‘as’
or ‘like’ – here Graffiti is being compared to Gravity.
This allusion attempts to compare the significance of
graffiti to the remarkable ability of gravity to hold all
things in place. Puns and metaphors are pattern-reforming
choices. They draw attention to language by re-forming the
language and re-shaping our ways of perception.
Repetition is created by using only two words in each of
the last four phrases to create a sense of rhythm. Moreover,
assonance (same vowel sounds) is found in the internal rhyme
of ‘This is’ and alliteration (the same consonant sound)
is featured in ‘This…The’ and in the sound of ‘f’ in ‘Of
Graffiti’. This repetition of phrases, vowels and consonants
further enhances the rhythmic flow. he words IS and
GRAFFITI are underlined, to re-emphasise their significance
by highlighting them. This has an echoing effect and serves
as another repetition when these two words are read again
apart from the other words. The graffiti artist has
demonstrated a surprising number of creativity in this
simple sentence.
Dialogic means responding and addressing to others
(audience). This text is written in response to the
multiple addressees: in particular to those of upper or
middle socioeconomic class (who usually discredits street
art), as well as to the other graffiti members
(expressing group identity) and a challenge to authority.
The purpose is to elevate the status of their subculture.
The dialogical construction of writer’s self-identity
suggests our identity is a creation of continuing
communication with others: the shaping of self identity
in responding to others and anticipating their responses.
Identity here refers to how one expresses one’s own position
and meaning and how one is defined by others.
Here, the writer presumably comes from a disadvantaged group
and together with graffiti (part of a subculture), are both
denied recognition and value in the society (mainstream
culture).By writing all words in upper-case,graphically it
creates a visual image of a ‘shouting voice’ that paints an
assertive and macho identity. In identifying himself this way,
this maybe how he wants his audience to interpret his
identity. All communication involves the performance of
identity. Identity is not a passive unfolding of the innate
one-dimensional self; identity is multi-dimensional and it
emerges through the dynamic interaction between what and how
the writer creates it and according to how it will be
perceived as well as how the addressee will interpret it.
This sentence drawing on intertextuality (by previous
reference to Isaac Newton) is intentionally associating
graffiti with Issac Newton. By associating graffiti with
Issac Newton, a genius, the writer intends to identify
himself as part of this elite class ( the intellects) thus
elevating the status of graffiti art. Through disguised
identity, the oppressed and suppressed individual has an
outlet to dramatise his private expressions publicly:
linking the individual with the social. On the other hand,
how the audience interprets his identity ( he may be
interpreted as ignorant, obnoxious or witty by different
audience ) is also influenced by time, social aspect and
cultural context.
Text B ‘We can fly!’ is a children rebus story.
The message of Rebus is expressed through the combination
of words, graphic symbols and pictures. Rebus includes the
use of a pictogram to represent a syllabic sound which
adapts pictograms into phonograms. Rebus uses a word through
the logogram of another which is phonetically similar. Thus,
a rebus is a representation of words using pictures for
their sounds regardless of what they mean. Rebus has longed
been used by teachers and parents to help children read
before they can decipher words, for example, using a picture
of an apple to substitute the word, so that children can
learn to read a short story. Rebus focuses mainly on the
sound of words rather than the spelling of words. Children
also learn to play with language and create poems through
rebus by using rhythm and rhyme.
After decoding text B, this rebus poem is written as :
This girl can fly. She can
fly an aeroplane.
This bird can fly, 2.
He does not have an aeroplane.
The girl goes up in the cloud.
The bird goes up in the cloud, 2.
Creativity in text C reveals some textual artistry: The rhyme
of this poem is ABCBDC. Tühe first sentence starts off with a
repeated sound in ‘can’ (This girl can fly. She can’).
Repetition is seen in words ‘can fly’, ‘an aeroplane’,
‘goes up in the cloud’ and 2 (too). Rhyme and repetition come
together to produce a rhythmical sensation.
Pun is evident in this text. A rebus is also a variation on a
pun: the pun is created by pictures (‘picturable’ nouns) that
evoke an identical sound:
Picture of a can (noun) represents can (verb)
Picture of a fly (noun) represents fly (verb)
Picture of a knot (noun) represents not.
The number ‘2’ represents ‘too’.
All the above present the same sounds of the individual word
and its representative picture simultaneously. Pun, a
pattern-reforming choice seeks to transform and refresh our
perceptions.The last 2 sentences:
The girl goes up in the clouds.
The bird goes up in the clouds too.
The writer seems to use a metaphor by comparing the girl
‘flying’ to a bird in its ability to fly. Affordances
(materials from the environment) and constraints come
together to mark out the potential for creativity. Rebus
affords pictures to represent words, is a creative option
in this poem. Creativity here is within the constraints of
using limited words that children understand and it can only
use picturable nouns.
Humour is produced in using a
picture of a fly for fly(verb),
a picture of a can for can(verb)
and picture of a knot for ‘not’.
Humour is infectious, it amuses children and motivates them
to learn. Creativity includes overcoming constraints
(working with limited choice of words) and exploiting the
affordances of the rebus. This rebus most likely is written
by a child who employs intertextuality- she must have taken
her ideas from previous voices, books or TV shows. The
child have to first learn what an aeroplane, a bird, fly,
can, knot and clouds are from previous references to be
able to put them together and come up with something new
in writing this poem. This poem is certainly dialogic, it
is responding to its readers, presumably to teachers,
parents and other children. The child did not write
this in a vacuum, she has in mind to create something that
will respond and address to her readers. In writing this
poem the child has unwittingly created and revealed her
identity. By stating that the girl in her poem fly an
aeroplane and that ‘he does not have an aeroplane’ she
seems to align herself with girls’ power, highlighting and
elevating the capability of the female gender. The last two
sentences:
The girl goes up in the clouds.
The bird goes up in the clouds too.
present as a person who values freedom (could fly), an
optimistic person (goes up) and person who fantasises quite
a bit (in the clouds). The girl unwittingly presents an
identity that is interpreted by her audience as a girl who
is optimistic, wistful and values girls’ power and freedom.
There is a close link between creativity, language use and
self identity. This poem shows an interactive process in
how one sees and expresses one’s own meaning and how one is
in turn being ‘identified’ by readers and audiences.
Identity emerges dialogically and is established through
interactions with readers.
“Language lives only in the dialogic interaction of those who
make use of it” (Bakhtin, 1984, p.183). Dialogicality is the
multivoicedness of an utterance. An utterance, however, not
only reaches backwards in response to preceding, it also
anticipates its own response as well as speaks to future
possible utterances. This means that any utterance exists only
in response to what have been said before, we never speak in
a vacuum. Thus language is the dynamic in its endless
re-description and re-creation of our perception of
the world.
Meaning does not come directly from the symbolical
representation of a word, rather it emerges through the
inherent dialogicality of communication. A word has already
been saturated with multiple meanings by its association
of the past could echo previous meaning or challenge present
meaning or create new meaning. Depending on the intention of
the speaker- one might echo these connotations or challenge
these connotations by providing an ironical contrast- as in
William Blake’s poem which begins :
O Rose, thou art sick!/ the invisible worm...’
By associating the rose with a worm, the rose carries a new
contrasting meaning. We assemble our utterance in anticipation
of the addressee’s active responsive understanding. The
addressees emerge from a differentiated cultural
communication: likeminded people, opponents, a subordinate,
a superior or perhaps a foreigner and so on. These addressees
are not merely passively receiving a ready-made message and
decode it, rather as co-participants are simultaneously
creating and created by the utterance’s content, structure
and style. Thus, the productivity and quality of dialogue
depend upon many aspects of the addressee and of the
relationship between the utterance and the interlocutor.
The language we use is heteroglossic (many-voiced) emerges
out of different texts and voices in different social and
cultural contexts. Any word, phrase or text we use originates
previously from its social and contextual connotations that
carries the intentions of previous speakers. These
connotations of previous texts or voices are manipulated in
intertextual references. Creativity is no longer restricted
to the prestigious, literary, lone genius of the Romantic era.
In the world now saturated with overwhelming source of
information, the notion of creativity evolves.Our creativity
as well as identity rather than passively unfolds; emerges
through writers’ and speakers’ clever exploitation of
intertextuality and dialogicality. Creativity has
metamorphosed into a hybrid collage of infinite descriptions,
expressions and endless possibilities.
(2094 words)
Bibliography
Barlow, D.H., & Durand, V.M. (2009, 2005). Abnormal psychology:
An integrative approach (5th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
Suzanne, Dialectic, Dialogic, Dialogicality.
Retrieved 7 March 2009 http://weblogs.elearning.ubc.ca/suzanna/archives/006012dialectic
_dialogic_dialogicality.html
Bakhtin, M. (1984b). Problems of Dostoevsky's poetics. (C. Emerson, Ed. and Trans.), Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
Bakhtin, M. M. (1984a). Rabelais and his world. (H. Iswolsky, Trans.), Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Authenticity—dialogicality—recognition: an improbable journey. Retrieved 7 march 2009. http://sidorkin.net/pdf/Authenticity.pdf
Dialogic. Retrieved 7 March 2009. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialogic
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