Dialogical self
Inspired by the original ideas of William James and Mikhail Bakhtin, Hubert Hermans, Harry Kempen and Rens van Loon wrote the first psychological publication on the "dialogical self" in which they conceptualized the self in terms of a dynamic multiplicity of relatively autonomous "I"-positions in the (extended) landscape of the mind. In this conception, the "I" has the possibility to move from one spatial position to another in accordance with changes in situation and time. The "I" fluctuates among different and even opposed positions, and has the capacity to imaginatively endow each position with a voice so that dialogical relations between positions can be established. The voices function like interacting characters in a story, involved in processes of question and answer, agreement and disagreement. Each of them have a story to tell about their own experiences from their own stance. As different voices, these characters exchange information about their respective Me's and mines, resulting in a complex, narratively structured self.
Mikhail Bakhtin
“Bakhtin’s life work can be understood as a critique of the monologization of the human experience that he perceived in the dominant linguistic, literary, philosophical, and political theories of his time." True to his roots of social constructionism and post-modernism Bakhtin “was critical of efforts to reduce the unfinalizable, open, and multivocal process of meaning-making in determinate, closed, totalizing ways." According to Bakhtin, the meaning found in any dialogue is unique to the sender and recipient based upon their personal understanding of the world as influenced by the socio-cultural background. “Bakhtin’s dialogism opens up space for communication scholars to conceive of difference in new ways” meaning they must take the background of a subject into consideration when conducting research into their understanding of any text as “a dialogic perspective argues that difference (of all kinds) is basic to the human experience." Kim argues that “his ideas of art as a vehicle oriented towards interaction with its audience in order to express or communicate any sort of intention is reminiscent of Clifford Geertz’s theories on culture." Culture and communication become inextricably linked to one another as one's understanding, according to Bakhtin, of a given utterance, text, or message, is contingent upon their culture background and experience.