THE UNSAID AS A SPACE OF MEANING: LANGUAGE AND CONSCIOUSNESS IN THE DIALOGUE BETWEEN BAKHTIN AND VYGOTSKY

Abstract

This article develops a theoretical reflection on the unsaid as a constitutive dimension of meaning production and the formation of consciousness, based on an approximation between the contributions of Mikhail Bakhtin and Lev Vygotsky. Starting from a conception of language understood as a social, living, historical practice permeated by ideology, the study problematizes silence, discursive intervals, and zones of indeterminacy as active elements of the dialogical process. The investigation adopts a theoretical-bibliographic approach, with a qualitative and interpretative orientation (Minayo, 2001; Silveira; Córdova, 2009), grounded in the dialogical analysis of language in dialogue with historical-cultural psychology. By bringing together Bakhtinian reflections on the word, the ideological sign, dialogism, and alterity with Vygotskian conceptions of semiotic mediation, inner speech, and the social genesis of consciousness, the article argues that the unsaid is not configured as absence or communicative failure, but rather as a space of tension, listening, and responsive anticipation. It is thus argued that it is within this intervallic field, inhabited by latent meanings and socially shared voices, that consciousness is constituted as a historical, social, and unfinished process, opening possibilities for interpretation in contemporary debates in the fields of language, education and psychology.