Carnival and Dialogue in Bakhtin's Poetics of Folklore, by Shanti Elliot

It is not the objects of laughter, though, that
interest Bakhtin s o much a s the perspective laughter brings. L a u g h t e r
emphasizes movement and draws attention to the forms of relationship, rather
than the components within the relationship, which are often fixed in one-
sided, hierarchical meaning: "The serious aspects of class culture are official
and authoritarian; they are combined with violence, prohibitions, limitations, CARNIVAL AND DIALOGUE 131
and always contain an element of fear and of intimidation.. .Laughter, on
the other hand, overcomes fear, for it knows no inhibitions, no limitations"
(90). (130-131)
(...)

Laughter works philosophical changes upon life and society. Laughter
erupts from the collective body, but its most important function is internal;
it defends freedom of thought. Thus the life of the body and its relationship
t o the world, represented in the culture of "folk humor," intersects with the
internal processes of perception, thinking, and speaking: the fundamentals
of Bakhtin's philosophy of dialogue. (131)

(...)

"Bakhtin's interest in liberating relativity meets less opposition when
he mo v e s f r om carnival t o dialogue. His theories of discourse involve
deflating the myth of impersonal language: "there are no neutral and objective
words" (Bakhtin 1968: 160); rather words hold infinite layers of complexity.
T h e concrete identities of speaker and hearer, and their relationship, each
person's intentions in speaking and in hearing, and the contradictions within
each person, the tone and context of the words, all these elements shape an
utterance more than the literal meaning of the words" (135)