Language as Dialogue

“In a distinguished career of research, teaching and writing, Edda Weigand has covered a wider range of topics than most of us. Versed in a variety of disciplines and always open to new ideas, she has developed her Mixed Game Model, the view that only the mind engaged in dialogue can enrich reflection. It has guided her in ground-breaking studies which aim to integrate the cognitive and the discourse approach and to reconcile the social nature of communication with its biological foundations. This book will certainly inspire its readers to rethink language.”

“It is extremely interesting, even fascinating to follow the consistent progress of the scholarly thoughts of professor Edda Weigand, as presented in the three parts of the present selection of her contributions. She ranks among those linguists for whom ‘language’ is not a rigid system of strict rules and items, but is grasped as a vivid organism, a complex (holistic) communicative system used by humans in real-life settings, in turn embedded in the sociobiological matrix (cf. her Mixed Game Model). From such a demanding background, all her points of scientific interest, followed by their elaboration in a number of deep analyses, concepts or projects, may be derived; namely: language as dialogue, dialogic action games, the principle of ‘competence-in-performance’ (happily bridging the problematic gap between the two), emotions in dialogue interaction, the postulate of a sociobiology of language (showing her interdisciplinary orientation). Her work is based on the analysis of concrete, vivid language material (often with contrastive comparisons with other languages) and consequently takes account of language users in particular communicative domains and interactive situations (argumentation, business, the media). The title of the final contribution in the present selection “The argumentative power of words or how to move people’s minds with words” appears indicative of Weigand’s appreciation of the phenomenon ‘language’.”

“Language as Dialogue is a book with a strong voice. It is Edda Weigand's voice, arguing for a decisively different understanding of language. [...] Edda Weigand's book is inspiring, it is a rich resource to think seriously about the dialogicality of language.”

“Edda Weigand has an exceptionally strong feel for the many-sidedness of what actually goes on when language is being used. On the one hand, people are social beings, who cultivate received ways of doing things. On the other hand, they are individuals, with their own goals. On the one hand, these individual goals are partly a matter of biology. On the other hand, biological imperatives are tempered by ethical considerations – politeness, for instance, can involve an element of positive respect for the human other. On the one hand, people say or write what is important to them personally. On the other hand, their utterances have addressivity – so much so, that any process of communication is in principle dialogical, even when apparently in the form of a monologue. On the one hand, words have meanings, and are combined into meaningful utterances, and utterances into meaningful texts. On the other hand, meaning is never more than just one ingredient in an interchange, and is context-specific and even negotiable, whether intra- or interculturally. Over the years, Weigand’s theorizing has made all such paradoxes, and their far-reaching consequences, ever more boldly explicit. And that is why her work can appeal to linguists, psychologists, sociologists, biologists and humanists – not least literary scholars – from so many different backgrounds.”