Relating Dialogues and Dialectics [Paperback]

This book draws on the dialogism of social theorist Mikhail Bakhtin to develop a new approach which the authors term relational dialectics to the study of interpersonal communication. Emphasizing a social self instead of a sovereign self, multivocal oppositions instead of binary contradictions, and indeterminate change instead of transcendent synthesis, chapters examine and critique prevailing approaches to interpersonal communication. Building on these theoretical foundations, the volume rethinks such key areas as relationship development, closeness, certainty, openness, communication competence, and the boundaries between self, relationship, and society, and raises intriguing questions for future research.

...an ambitious and important book... Scholars should take seriously the implications of the relational-dialectics perspective advanced by Baxter and Montgomery. --John Carl (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) and Julia T. Wood (Communication Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)Contemporary Psychology, 1997

This is an excellent work. It was a difficult undertaking and the authors succeeded in presenting a dialogic approach which is coherent, persuasive, and useful. Their review of alternative perspectives and historical roots is both fair and concise (a difficult combination)....This is a provocative and useful work. It should stimulate considerable research and theory. --C. Arthur VanLear, Department of Communication Sciences, University of Connecticut

This is a superb book in every aspect...a tour de force that will be standard work on the subject for years to come. No one in the foreseeable future is likely to produce a work of this importance, and I predict that it will be required reading for scholars and students in the fields of communications, psychology, sociology, family studies, and others....A fine piece of work that accomplishes many things. It draws on an enormous bodl“.