Making the Polyvocal Polyvocal: Tovares 2006 2007

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Tovares’ research was that like the Tannen 2010, the focus texts themselves received an additional layer of polyvocality through their representation by the researcher who wrote about them. The evaluative nature of not only the topics being discussed but also the researcher added another layer of intertext to the already polyvocalic blending of the television with the speech and evaluation of the family members. For instance, when Alla adds her own interpretation of the words, “I love you,” as repeated by a husband to his wife, her own prosody and expression mark her own stance toward the data and invite us to interpret not only the intertextual nature of the conversation as we are meant to as students, but also to be drawn into the whimsy of the nature of the conversation itself—that a husband is gently joshing his wife. Although some of the whimsy is created by the excerpt itself (by the use of the words “barefoot and pregnant” to describe what the wife stands in opposition to compared to the movie on television), more is laminated by the addition of the researcher’s voice.

The ways in which intertexutal ties allow the blending of the public and the private are something that I believe will be very useful to me in my own research. Bulletin board/forum posting is inherently both a public and a private act—it simulates private “backstage” conversation, in that frequently it can seem as though a post is only in response to a single other interlocutor, or a small group of interlocutors. Yet the message board or forum is usually open to thousands, if not millions, and thus the speech that exists there is very much “frontstage” speech, even as it masquerades as a private conversation.
This also ties back to Bakhtin and his notions of a third-party who is the recipient of some of the text, or toward whom the focus text is constructed (similar to Bell’s notion of the referee). The texts themselves take on new meaning when they are repeated for a new audience; at times, it seems it is the repetition of a line like “I love you,” and the knowledge that it is a repetition which makes it possible to recognize the playfulness of the statement. In turning a comment directed to a movie character and instead directing it towards his wife, the husband creates a moment where the wife is positioned humorously in contrast to the television wife.
In unpacking the ways that gossip and television allows the bridge between public and private to be made, Tovares provides insight not immediately apparent in Bakhtin’s exploration of dialogicality. In Tovares’ work, dialogicality has a purpose distinct from characterization or merely informing the character, but rather also plays a large role in the ways people make meanings out of the mundane everyday inputs of life. Given that the internet is a public sphere where much privacy is assumed, it seems only natural that I could use the same or a similar approach to discuss some of the ways this same gap is bridged in my own texts.