Valentin Nikolaevich Voloshinov (; June 18, 1895,

St. Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. The city had a population of 5,601, ...

– June 13, 1936,

Leningrad Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

) was a Russian

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...

, whose work has been influential in the field of

literary theory Literary theory is the systematic study of the nature of literature and of the methods for literary analysis. Culler 1997, p.1 Since the 19th century, literary scholarship includes literary theory and considerations of intellectual history, m ...

and

Marxist Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflic ...

theory of ideology.

Biography

Details of Voloshinovs's early life is unclear but it is believed he was born in to the family of an attorney. In his youth, he was a member of the mystical

Rosicrucian Rosicrucianism () is a spirituality, spiritual and cultural movement that arose in early modern Europe in the early 17th century after the publication of several texts announcing to the world a new Western esotericism, esoteric order. Rosicruc ...

society where he befriended

Anastasia Anastasia (from ) is a feminine given name of Greek and Slavic origin, derived from the Greek word (), meaning "resurrection". It is a popular name in Eastern Europe. Origin The name Anastasia originated during the Early Christianity, early d ...

and

Marina Tsvetayeva Marina Ivanovna Tsvetaeva ( rus, Марина Ивановна Цветаева, p=mɐˈrʲinə ɪˈvanəvnə tsvʲɪˈta(j)ɪvə, links=yes; 31 August 1941) was a Russian poet. Her work is some of the most well-known in twentieth-century Russ ...

. Even before the revolution, he became a close friend of

Mikhail Bakhtin Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin (; rus, Михаи́л Миха́йлович Бахти́н, , mʲɪxɐˈil mʲɪˈxajləvʲɪdʑ bɐxˈtʲin; – 7 March 1975) was a Russian people, Russian philosopher and literary critic who worked on the phi ...

, a participant in the Nevel school of philosophy. Voloshinov studied at the Faculty of Law of

Petrograd University Saint Petersburg State University (SPBGU; ) is a public research university in Saint Petersburg, Russia, and one of the oldest and most prestigious universities in Russia. Founded in 1724 by a decree of Peter the Great, the university from the be ...

but his studies were interrupted in 1916. From 1919 to 1922, he lived in Nevel, later in Vitebsk where he published several articles on music, gave lectures on art history and literature at the Proletarian University founded by Pavel Medvedev in Vitebsk. In 1922, following Medvedev, he returned to Petrograd, where, after he and Bakhtin moved there in the spring of 1924, their close communication continued. He performed poems and musical sketches in the salon of pianist

Maria Yudina Maria Veniaminovna Yudina ( ; 189919 November 1970) was a Soviet pianist. Early life and education Maria Yudina was born to a Jewish family in Nevel, Vitebsk Governorate, Russian Empire. She was the fourth child of Veniamin Yudin, a renowne ...

. After graduating from Leningrad University, he was a postgraduate student of the Research Institute of Comparative History of Literature and Languages of the West and East and later an associate professor at the Herzen Pedagogical Institute. In the last years of his life, Voloshinov was seriously ill and was cut off from his work and even reading. He died from tuberculosis in a tuberculosis sanatorium in Detskoye Selo, Leningrad. Some scholars believe that works bearing Voloshinov's name were actually authored by his colleague

, although the topic is still the subject of debate; a few of these works have been added to reprinted editions of Bakhtin's collected works.

''Marxism and the Philosophy of Language''

Written in the late 1920s in the

USSR The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

, Voloshinov's '' Marxism and the Philosophy of Language'' ( tr.: ''Marksizm i Filosofiya Yazyka'') attempts to incorporate the field of

linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...

into

Marxism Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflict, ...

. The book's main inspiration does not come from previous Marxists, whom Voloshinov saw as largely indifferent towards the study of language. Voloshinov's theories are instead built on critical engagement with

Wilhelm von Humboldt Friedrich Wilhelm Christian Karl Ferdinand von Humboldt (22 June 1767 – 8 April 1835) was a German philosopher, linguist, government functionary, diplomat, and founder of the Humboldt University of Berlin. In 1949, the university was named aft ...

's concept of language as a continuous creative or "generative" process, and with the view of language as a sign-system posited by

Ferdinand de Saussure Ferdinand Mongin de Saussure (; ; 26 November 185722 February 1913) was a Swiss linguist, semiotician and philosopher. His ideas laid a foundation for many significant developments in both linguistics and semiotics in the 20th century. He is wi ...

. To some extent, Voloshinov's linguistic thought is also mediated by the analyses of his Soviet contemporary

Nicholas Marr Nikolai Yakovlevich Marr (, ''Nikolay Yakovlevich Marr''; , ''Nikoloz Iak'obis dze Mari''; — 20 December 1934) was a Georgian-born historian and linguist who gained a reputation as a scholar of the Caucasus during the 1910s before embarking o ...

. For Voloshinov, language is the medium of

ideology An ideology is a set of beliefs or values attributed to a person or group of persons, especially those held for reasons that are not purely about belief in certain knowledge, in which "practical elements are as prominent as theoretical ones". Form ...

, and cannot be separated from ideology. Ideology, however, is not to be understood in the

classical Marxist Classical Marxism is the body of economic, philosophical, and sociological theories expounded by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in their works, as contrasted with orthodox Marxism, Marxism–Leninism, and autonomist Marxism which emerged after t ...

sense as an illusory mental phenomenon that arises as a reflex of a "real" material economic substructure. Language, as a

socially constructed Social organisms, including human(s), live collectively in interacting populations. This interaction is considered social whether they are aware of it or not, and whether the exchange is voluntary or not. Etymology The word "social" derives fro ...

sign-system, is what allows

consciousness Consciousness, at its simplest, is awareness of a state or object, either internal to oneself or in one's external environment. However, its nature has led to millennia of analyses, explanations, and debate among philosophers, scientists, an ...

to arise, and is in itself a material reality. Because of this belief that language and human consciousness are closely related, Voloshinov holds that the study of verbal interaction is key to understanding

social psychology Social psychology is the methodical study of how thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others. Although studying many of the same substantive topics as its counterpart in the field ...

. Voloshinov further argues for understanding psychological mechanisms within a framework of ideological function in his book ''Freudianism: A Marxist critique''. Voloshinov argues that it is a mistake to study language abstractly and synchronically (i.e. in an unhistorical manner), as Saussure does. For Voloshinov, words are dynamic social signs, which take different meanings for different social classes in different historical contexts. The meaning of words is not subject to passive understanding, but includes the active participation of both the speaker (or writer) and hearer (or reader). While every word is a sign taken from an inventory of available signs, the manipulation of the word contained in each

speech act In the philosophy of language and linguistics, a speech act is something expressed by an individual that not only presents information but performs an action as well. For example, the phrase "I would like the mashed potatoes; could you please pas ...

or individual utterance is regulated by social relations. In Voloshinov's view, the meaning of verbal signs is the arena of continuous

class struggle In political science, the term class conflict, class struggle, or class war refers to the economic antagonism and political tension that exist among social classes because of clashing interests, competition for limited resources, and inequali ...

: a ruling class will try to narrow the meaning of social signs, making them "uni-accentual", but the clash of various class-interests in times of social unrest will make clear the "multi-accentuality" of words.Selden, R. (2005). ''A Reader's Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory (5th Edition)'', 40 By virtue of his belief that the "struggle for meaning" coincides with

, Voloshinov's theories have much in common with those of Italian Communist

Antonio Gramsci Antonio Francesco Gramsci ( , ; ; 22 January 1891 – 27 April 1937) was an Italian Marxist philosophy, Marxist philosopher, Linguistics, linguist, journalist, writer, and politician. He wrote on philosophy, Political philosophy, political the ...

, who shared an interest in linguistics. Voloshinov's work can also be seen to prefigure many of the concerns of

poststructuralism Post-structuralism is a philosophical movement that questions the objectivity or stability of the various interpretive structures that are posited by structuralism and considers them to be constituted by broader systems of power. Although diffe ...

. Voloshinov devotes the last portion of ''Marxism and the Philosophy of Language'' to a treatment of reported speech in order to show social and temporal relations between utterances to be integral properties of language. This was taken up by

Roman Jakobson Roman Osipovich Jakobson (, ; 18 July 1982) was a Russian linguist and literary theorist. A pioneer of structural linguistics, Jakobson was one of the most celebrated and influential linguists of the twentieth century. With Nikolai Trubetzk ...

in an essay entitled: "Shifters and Verbal Categories," and influenced the development of the

Prague School The Prague school or Prague linguistic circle is a language and literature society. It started in 1926 as a group of linguists, philologists and literary critics in Prague. Its proponents developed methods of structuralist literary analysis and ...

functional linguistics Functional linguistics is an approach to the study of language characterized by taking systematically into account the speaker's and the hearer's side, and the communicative needs of the speaker and of the given language community. Linguistic fu ...

as well as

linguistic anthropology Linguistic anthropology is the interdisciplinary study of how language influences social life. It is a branch of anthropology that originated from the endeavor to document endangered languages and has grown over the past century to encompass mo ...

. Through an entirely parallel evolution, Voloshinov's model of dialogism, of meaning being functionally contextual and of cognition/consciousness emerging from verbal behaviour, prefigured the empirically derived poststructuralist model of language and cognition

Relational Frame Theory Relational frame theory (RFT) is a behavior analytic theory of human language, cognition, and behaviour. It was developed originally by Steven C. Hayes of University of Nevada, Reno and has been extended in research, notably by Dermot Barnes-H ...

which emerged in the 1990s, and upon which CBT and ACT therapies are based.

References

External links

Voloshinov archive at Marxists.org
* ttp://pubs.socialistreviewindex.org.uk/isj75/parring.htm Discussion of Voloshinov from Issue 75 of "International Socialism"br>The Bakhtin CircleMarksizm i filosofija jazyka
secondary bibliography, overview, influence on & of, new terminology (in French) (Notice: Corpus des textes linguistiques fondamentaux) {{DEFAULTSORT:Voloshinov, Valentin 1895 births 1936 deaths Academics from Saint Petersburg People from Sankt-Peterburgsky Uyezd Linguists from Russia Marxist theorists Linguists from the Soviet Union 20th-century Russian philologists

Biography

''Marxism and the Philosophy of Language''

See also

References

Further reading

External links