Hot Rod Biology

For Bakhtin, language is by definition a 'hybrid' form . . . developing primarily by means of hybridisation. He references 'borders' and boundaries ñ Homi Bhabha appropriates Bakhtin for his use of the term 'hybrid', although he relates it to the axis of ethnicity only. Bakhtin's use of the term seems much wider and more open.

Bakhtin refers primarily to literature, but what he says can relate to visual language to . . . esp visual languages within popular culture, like graphic design. He suggests literature is a form that allows writers to blend distinct and often oppositional social languages. That the novel's "power consists in it's ability to engulf and ingest other genres" . . . I'd like to relate this back to my investigation into appropriation in graphic design.

By 'dialogic', Bakhtin refers to the notion that a work exists not only in conversation with any works previous to it, but also to works following it . . . that they influence each other. This is in opposition to a monologic relationship where a work is made, influences another, but is not in itself altered by the newer work it has influenced. This is obviously interesting as it implies that an appropriation alters the reading of the thing that is appropriated and vice versa ñ continually (the two works exist in a state of hybridty, never static always changing), an idea I'd had but hadn't found much in relation to theory wise.

What's most interesting about Bakhtin is that his writings pre-date Foucalt, Barthes, Derrida etc by something like 30 years!?