POLYLOGUING
Although dialogue technically involves two people talking to each other, it
may include several people and many different voices. In this case it is
called a polylogue ( see Exercise 5). If you think in terms of several inter-
changes at different levels of communication, the whole notion of what it
means to dialogue can become more and more complex.
Both polylogues and dialogues can be made up of overlapping voices—
they do not necessarily have to consist of one person speaking and
stopping, and another one speaking and stopping. Also people can dia-
logue with themselves: a polylogue may be a monologue in which the
speaker adopts many different voices.
CHATTING AND CHAT SHOWS
Dialoguing takes a variety of social forms in contemporary society, from a
private chat between friends to public debate (see Exercise 6). New tech-
nologies have also extended the range of ways we talk to each other. Mobile
phones are used for everything from planning social events to terrorist
attacks—governments sometimes send out alerts of such attacks based on
raised levels of telephone ‘chatter’. Chat is now a common social phenom-
enon from TV chat shows to web-based chat rooms. To extend your
notion of dialoguing, create a dialogue or polylogue based on one of the
following exchanges:
- a telephone conversation
- an email exchange
- a radio or television interview
- a television chat show
- a talkback radio show
- a political television debate
- a classroom tutorial
- an Internet chat room.
In composing such a dialogue try to capture the social conventions which
characterise it: for example, the language used in email and chat-room
exchanges is part of a developing code of electronic communication and
net etiquette. Try also to draw attention to the power relationships
and hidden agendas which often characterise such communications. The
chat show interview, for example, may not be so much an even-handed
dialogue as a process of manipulation by the interviewer. Likewise, in a
Dialoguing 123