REFLECTION ON DIALOGIC FEATURES IN VIETNAMESE NOVELS OF THE EARLY 21ST CENTURY FROM BAKHTIN’S THEORY

Abstract

As a focus of introduction since the early 1990s of the twentieth century, Bakhtin’s theroy has significantly influenced the research, criticism and writing activities of the Vietnamese literary circle. Bakhtin’s foundational concepts, especially the dialogical principle, have urged Vietnamese writers to renovate their thinking for novels and their forms of creativity. This article is based on Bakhtin's dialogue theory to identify the movements and renovations of Vietnamese novels in the early twenty-first century. Accordingly, many novels that have gone from “multiphonics” to “polyphony” in the narrative language tone not only demonstrate the intersubjective dialogic feature but also bear the intertextuality dialogic sense. Particularly, novels have been transformed into a language play with endless dialogues between storytellers and characters, among characters as well as among writers, characters and readers, etc.