The "boomerang" effect of the radicalism in discourse analysis

"Monological" versus "dialogical" perspectives "in" and "within" RDA and
SRT paradigm
However interesting (and philosophically legitimate) bringing all back to the
discourse may be, it can leave one perplexed. It is undeniable that diverse discourses
exist, that the representations and the aims pursued in the specific communicative
circumstance can orient a discourse, and that the social representations can be identified
in recurring elements in several discourses. Nevertheless the sensation of "monologism"
or closing of the "circular loop" remains. In the same way as the sensation remains that
the discourse is "reified", since immanent to the discursive practices observable (or to
the message, if it is preferred to resort to the "metaphor" of the communication).
Nevertheless the accusation of "circularity" between the definitions of SR and the
social subjects (groups, categories) which produce them was directed precisely by the
upholders of RDA to the social representations, since expressed by socially positioned
groups, which, in their turn, were already preliminary identified on the basis of the
social representations.
“In particular, Litton and Potter (1985) have polemicized on the fact that in the study of social
representations, contrasting elements have been minimized and “consensual universes” created. Next to
the ambiguity regarding the extent to which SRs are shared, the authors lament the lack of explicit,
external criteria for identifying groups independent of shared SRs, which creates circularity insofar as a
group is identified by its SRs and at the same time is assumed to be the generator of those SRs.”
(de Rosa, 1994 p. 285 )
But it is to be demanded how the champions of such a radical socio-construtionist
approach can invoke ""external" criteria that re-echo the role of the "independent
variables" specific of the experimental approach they deny.
The circularity of the S.R. theory is considered as "dialogism” to the extent in which
very clearly - by epistemological roots - it was defined by Ivana Markova (2000) and,
earlier still, by Ragnar Rommetveit (1984). "Dialogism" which may be invoked
precisely because - unlike the RDA approach - a totallising role is not attributed to the
social representation, as construction that - as the equal of the discourse in the RDA -
incorporates and negates all the other constructions and processes (behaviour, opinion,
common sense, communication, cognition, action, memory, etc.) and levels (individual
and social, interpersonal and intrapersonal, external and internal, past-present-future,
stability and change, etc.). On the contrary, to the extent in which it recognises them and
assumes them, it can set itself in the condition of articulating them dia-logically.
“(...) the theory is based on an epistemology which brings to the centre of attention the dynamic
interdependence between socio-culturally shared forms of thinking, communicating and acting and heir
transformation through activities of individual and groups. All these phenomena have a double
orientation? They are embedded in culture and history and thus have a tendency towards stability. At the
same time, they live through the activities, tensions and conflicts of groups and individuals, who actively
appropriate, innovate and create new phenomena. On the basis of this epistemology, social
representations theory develops original dialogical (dialectic) concepts like themata, communicative
genres, objectification as appropriation and creation of meaning, which in turn are relevant to the study of
phenomenon in social change.”
(Markova, 2000, p.455)
That the dialogic conception derives for the classic dialectic of Hegelian stamp (as in
the position assumed by Markova) or instead exceeds the linearity (as in the position
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