INTRODUCTION

The "Practice of Linguistic Analysis" (PLA) was coined by ^{Geraldi (1984}, 1997[1991]) and ^{Franchi (2006}[1987]) to meet the communicative and interactive needs of the discipline of Portuguese Language (PL) in the historical context of the 1980s, when the first studies on language as enunciation and interaction arrived in Brazil. PLA was intended to expand and change the way of working with language that had been developed until then. The authors conceived this practice anchored in an interactionist conception of language, which culminated in a proposal for teaching language in a contextualized and reflective way. Over the years, this practice has gained recognition as an axis of PL teaching by scholars in the field and by teaching documents¹, which has led to PLA being studied through different theoretical biases since its creators did not base it on any specific theory.

However, contemporary scholars of Bakhtin Circle theory² have found confluences between the PLA proposition and the concepts of the dialogic conception of language, generating, currently, a search for the resignification of ^{Geraldi's (1984}, 1997[1991] and ^{Franchi's (2006}[1987]) proposal for an explicitly dialogue-based practice. Considering these studies, we seek, in this paper, to contribute to such resignification, anchored on the following questions: How can we broaden the theoretical-methodological orientations of PLA, sustaining it on a dialogical basis? How can Volóchinov's (²⁰¹⁷[1929]) sociological method contribute to the constitution of this PLA?

To answer such questions, we seek support in the sociological method proposed by Volóchinov (²⁰¹⁷[1929]) and in other works of the Circle (^{BAKHTIN, 2010}[1929]; ²⁰¹³; 2016[1979]; VOLÓSHINOV, 2013[1930]; ^{VOLÓCHINOV E BAKHTIN, 1926}). Moreover, we resorted to contemporary scholars who are dedicated to such reflections, such as Acosta Pereira (2013), ^{Polato (2017}), ^{Santos (2017}), among others. Regarding the methodological aspects, we conducted bibliographic and exploratory research anchored in Applied Linguistics within the qualitative interpretive paradigm (^{GIL, 2008}; ^{MOITA-LOPES, 2006}; ^{FLICK, 2009}; ^{BORTONI-RICARDO, 2008}).

In the first section, we present reflections on the sociological method and its implications for a dialogical PLA. In the second section, we reflect on how these concepts imbricate the resignification of PLA. Finally, we present our final considerations to outline the aspects that can configure a dialogical PLA.

SOCIOLOGICAL METHOD: THEORETICAL-METHODOLOGICAL CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE PLA

The theory of the Bakhtin Circle is vast and rich. The concepts coined by these Russian theorists are fertile and can serve as a basis for various areas of knowledge under different approaches. We took, in our research³, the challenge of aligning such reflections established, with more emphasis, in the 1920's context, to rethink PLA in PL teaching in Brazil today.

It is important to understand that the members of the Circle did not intend, throughout its existence, to write precisely about language teaching. The reflections they undertook were theoretical, philosophical and, in some moments, methodological. However, when analyzing their writings, some language scholars (^{ACOSTA PEREIRA, 2013}; ^{POLATO, 2017}; ^{SANTOS, 2017}, among others) have realized how such theory can enrich the debates in a field that, at the time, was not explored, such as PLA.

In his reflections, ^{Bakhtin (2010}[1929]) proposes to think of a discipline that could support a discursive study of language since, in his view, this was not guaranteed in the Linguistics that was done at the time. Therefore, he idealized a new discipline that, in the study of language, would transcend the purely linguistic limits of the text-enunciation, going beyond the formal aspects, and that would have the discourse as the guiding motto of the studies, which he called Translinguistics⁴:

Our analyses [...] can be situated in metalinguistics, implying it as a study [...] of those aspects of discourse life that go beyond — quite legitimately — the limits of linguistics. Metalinguistic research, of course, cannot ignore linguistics and must apply its results. Linguistics and metalinguistics study the same concrete, very complex, and multifaceted phenomenon - discourse - but they study it from different aspects and angles of view (^{BAKHTIN, 2010}[1929], p. 207).

The Translinguistics presented by the author stands out as a proposal of discipline but does not clearly bring methodological aspects of making such an analysis. For this reason, the methodological order systematized by Volóchinov (²⁰¹⁷[1929]) can complement the idea of a study of language focused on discourse, on the extralinguistic aspects that, in this case, are taken as a starting point. Thus, the author points out that one should consider, in this study, the following:

1) forms and types of discursive interaction in their relation to concrete conditions; 2) forms of the singular utterances or verbal discourses in close relation to the interaction of which they are a part, that is, the genres of verbal discourses determined by discursive interaction in life and ideological creation; 3) starting from this, review of the forms of language in their usual linguistic conception (^{Volóchinov, 2017}[1929], p. 220).

In this order, the historical, ideological, and social context ("concrete conditions") of the utterances-texts have primacy in the study of language, since it is these elements that will bring life to the linguistic/semiotic form of an utterance-text⁵; it is they that will determine the possibilities of meaning therein and uniquely define the subject of that utterance-text. After reflecting on the context, it is necessary to study the text in relation to the "forms of the utterances,” that is, the discursive genres in which they are inscribed, because they, together with the context, determine its style and compositional construction, and, therefore, play a central role in its realization in the fields of human activity.

Finally, the linguistic ("forms of language") and/or semiotic study of the utterance-text is made possible, which, being preceded by the other steps, acquires specific values since it is thought of in dialogue with its extraverbal context. When we consider the language used, when we are aware of the context of its enunciation, we infer a different intonation, amplified by the relationship with the situation in which it is inserted.

Thus, it is not enough to look only at the material constitution of the utterance-text because it alone does not guarantee the understanding of the values and discourses that are agented in the utterances-texts; we need to extend the analysis to the context of production and reflect on how it acts in the construction and propagation of discourses, meanings, and values materialized in the text.

Thus, we consider that language as a social practice needs to be studied within the following movement: (i) to start from its concrete conditions of use in society, that is, from its historical, social, and ideological context, understood by Volochinov and Bakhtin (1926) as an extraverbal dimension; (ii) to advance to more specific contexts of interaction between interlocutors, such as the genres of discourse inserted in a field of human activity; (iii) extend to the study of the verb-visual dimension of utterances-texts and, within them, the linguistic/semiotic forms employed in their production, seeking to perceive the evaluative accents that impregnate the selection of such forms, but always in relation to the extraverbal. The sociological method, in this sense, underlies the conception of the dialogical PLA that is presented here, understood, in this study, as illustrated in the figure below:

Source: Elaborated by the researchers.

Figure 1 Theoretical and methodological interlacing of the research 

If we observe this figure, we can see that the sociological method will directly connect with PLA through the study of the extraverbal dimension (^{VOLÓCHINOV; BAKHTIN, 1926}) of the utterances-texts that comprises the first two steps of the methodological order already detailed. These steps, didactically, imply the study of a) the context of production and circulation of the utterances; and b) the genres of discourse, taking into account their constitution and enunciative function in society.

When reflecting on the extraverbal dimension of an utterance-text, it is assumed that what is beyond the linguistic/semiotic is the "soil" that nourishes all forms of language use. If we think about this metaphor by ^{Voloshinov and Bakhtin (1926}), we understand how important this dimension is for the constitution of the utterance since, just like a plant, if these forms are removed from this soil, they lose their vital force and dry up, that is, lose their meaning.

Considering the extraverbal context implies understanding the dialogicity of an utterance-text, since "there can be no isolated enunciation. It always presupposes utterances that precede and succeed it. No utterance can be the first or the last. It is only the link in the chain, and outside this chain, it cannot be studied" (^{BAKHTIN, 2016}[1979], p. 26). Thus, genres, as relatively stable types of utterances, are immersed in this chain of discursive communication and only exist because of it.

Moreover, the extraverbal part is related to its Chronotope. ^{Bakhtin (2002}[1975]) presents the concept of Chronotope as an idea that integrates time (from Greek, chronos) and space (from Greek, topos). Thus, for the author, interactions are particularly embedded in a common physical space between the interlocutors (even if presumably) and, likewise, in a historical moment, shared or not by those involved in the act of interaction.

^{Voloshinov and Bakhtin (1926}) point out, in the study of this dimension, the "common evaluation" of the situation: "Whatever the kind, the concrete utterance always unites the participants of the common situation as co-participants who know, understand and evaluate the situation in the same way" (^{VOLOSHINov; BAKHTIN, 1926}, p. 8, emphasis added). This procedure is related to the valuation that the interlocutors establish for the interaction situation. Each interlocutor has a valued appreciation in relation to the object of discourse (the theme) and, when producing their statements, they present a common assessment so that they can establish, in dialogue, their evaluative emphases that can be both in consonance and dissonance with each other. Finally, the third step of the methodological order presented by Volóchinov (2017[1929]) comprises the study of the verb-visual dimension (^{BRAIT, 2013}) of an utterance-text which, didactically, considering the PLA (^{GERALDI, 1997}[1991]), results in the development of

Furthermore, Costa-Hübes (2017) states that, in the analysis of the verb-visual dimension of the utterances, "[...] the researcher's gaze should turn to the study of the constituent elements of the discursive genre" (^{COSTA-HÜBES, 2017}, p. 560), being these: thematic content, style, and compositional construction, according to ^{Bakhtin (2016}[1979]). Thus, studying the constitution of utterance-texts in relation to the genre of discourse they belong can provide a social and ideological basis for a linguistic-discursive analysis. More specifically, we present how such elements are methodologically intertwined in the dialogical PLA.

DIALOGUE-BASED PLA: DIALOGUES AND REFLECTIONS FOR A TEACHING PRACTICE PERMEATED BY BAKHTIN CIRCLE’S STUDIES

Given the reflections already exposed, we take PLA, in this section, considering it in light of the sociological method advocated by the theorists of Bakhtin Circle. However, we must make it clear that our intention is not to state that the works by Geraldi and Franchi, the founders of PLA, were not influenced by the dialogical theory of the language study. On the contrary, in some moments, these authors put themselves in explicit dialogue with this theory, sometimes in a referential way, sometimes in an interdiscursive way. However, concerning PLA, neither Franchi (2006[1987]) nor Geraldi (1984; 1997[1991]) intended to relate it to a specific linguistic theory. Rather, the authors sought philosophical, theoretical, and methodological inspirations from several theoretical streams to place the teaching of the PLA mainly regarding enunciation studies, considering, for this purpose, the concepts pertinent to this branch of Linguistics.

Thus, our intention is not to turn PLA into a dialogical teaching practice, as if it did not already have, to some extent, such a character. What we aim, therefore, starting from the founding texts, is to anchor PLA theoretically in Bakhtin Circle’s studies, in dialogue with other authors and researchers who have been part of this theoretical movement. As we pointed out earlier, several studies currently focus on PLA with a Bakhtinian basis. Throughout this section, we recall some of them to build our understanding of dialogic PL teaching through PLA.

^{Santos (2017}), in her research⁶, defined certain central points of Circle’s theory that need to be acted upon in PLA, such as the need to recognize: the interactional nature of language; that the subjects use language through social practices; that language is used through concrete utterances embedded in specific socio-historical-cultural contexts; that subjects produce utterances-texts because of the field of human activity in which they are inserted; that each of these fields elaborates its respective genres of discourse; that utterances propagate discourses and ideologies in dialogical relations; and that all these factors are intertwined and related within discourse communication. Such theory concepts are aspects dear to the dialogic conception of language developed by the Circle scholars; hence, they must also be managed in a dialogical PLA.

When we observe the points listed by the researcher, we notice her concern in highlighting aspects that had already been presented by ^{Geraldi (1984}; 1997[1991]). We believe this happens in a discursive movement that seeks to ensure the understanding that the Geraldian basis of PLA is maintained but it is expanded through important concepts of the Bakhtinian theory. Thus, we corroborate ^{Santos (2017}) regarding the indispensability of bringing these concepts to the context, reflecting them theoretically and methodologically as a support for PLA.

We believe that one of the central points of teaching through PLA is, starting from the use of real utterances-texts and their linguistic/semiotic materiality (which is what is presented to the interlocutors), to enter these utterances, seeking to understand exactly what makes them utterances: their relation with a specific context of interaction, which evokes extraverbal aspects, such as the chronotope in which they are inserted, the enunciator(s), their discursive and enunciative project(s), and the discourses involved.

Thus, we could say that the sociological basis that Volochínov and Bakhtin (1926) defended in the study of language gains a prominent place in this PLA, because we seek the core of what makes language social: its insertion in life in the relations between socio-historically situated subjects. This sociological character, which needs to be studied in depth, does not mean that the linguistic/semiotic aspect is forgotten because it is through language (verbal and/or nonverbal) that we first recognize the enunciation. It is to this aspect that we return when we analyze the linguistic-discursive strategies used by the author to accomplish their enunciative purpose. In this sense, it is necessary to establish a relation of dialogue, of coming and going (and also becoming) between the manifestations of language and its insertion in an extraverbal context.

This movement of constant return to the extraverbal aspects is necessary because, according to ^{Voloshinov and Bakhtin (1926}), "it is this very 'social soul' of verbal speech that makes it beautiful or ugly, that is, that also gives it meaning" (^{VOLOSHINOV; BAKHTIN, 1926}, p. 13, emphasis added). Thus, it is this "sociological essence" that makes the utterances-texts have life because it is this essence that guarantees whether it can be "true or false, banal or distinctive, necessary or unnecessary" (^{VOLOSHINOV; BAKHTIN, 1926}, p. 13).

Another Bakhtinian concept that deserves emphasis in a dialogical PLA is that of axiology. ^{Polato (2017}) proposed a dialogic status for PLA, in which she postulates that:

The Linguistic Analysis of Dialogical status (hereafter referred to as LAD) is a pedagogical perspective of approach of linguistic-enunciative and discursive aspects in texts mobilized in discourse genres, which aims, in the foreground, at the understanding of the discourse and, therefore, the represented social relations, from a valorative approach to language. [...] its objectives are both pragmatic-pedagogical and social because the Linguistic Analysis of dialogical status aims that the subjects-students participating in the social organization achieve an understanding of the axiological configuration of the broad and immediate socio-historical and ideological situations of interaction, in an approach especially interested in the event of demarcated interlocution. In this place, the use of language goes beyond cognitive domains, because it is circumscribed to the specificity of constituted social relations, in which the enunciation is founded (^{POLATO, 2017}, p. 195-196, our emphasis).

Thus, the author states that the proposed LAD should be a means for the subjects to know how to interact with the utterances-texts to mobilize the discourses present in them and understand what these discourses represent in society (what values permeate them). Moreover, it is sought that the student starts to occupy the social place of subject-author who interacts in society through language, conveying discourses, values and social evaluations.

The author links the study of PLA to the axiological aspects present in language, considering this concept in the light of the Circle theory. We corroborate ^{Polato (2017}) because we believe that an "evaluative approach to language" is, in fact, an approach that can ensure that PLA provides a study and reflection not only of language but of the discourses materialized in the utterances-texts. We believe that through the concept of valuation, dialogical practices of reading, text production, and linguistic analysis can be developed effectively, focused on the discursive strategies of language use, advocating a translinguistic study, as highlighted by ^{Bakhtin (2010}[1929]), since it goes beyond the materiality of the utterance-text, penetrating the life of the enunciations, that is, the social-ideological texture of the discourses.

^{Polato (2017}), commenting on scholars' attempts to relate the concept of genres to teaching practices, understands that

The dialogical perspective of working with linguistic analysis is both centrifugal and centripetal. It is not locked into the internal orientation of the genre. It pushes you outside of it, to the values, to the social relations represented in the text of any genre, but it brings you back to how those values and relations work in there. Genre, thus, is a socially semiotic place of discourse mobilization and not necessarily an abode or pathway for methods nor a simulacrum for cognitive approaches to linguistic aspects (^{POLATO, 2017}, p.158).

The centrifugal and centripetal movements of language use are explored in Circle studies and represent the social forces acting on its manifestations. In the centripetal movement, forces pull discourses and values toward a center, concentrating them on a relatively homogeneous value axis. On the other hand, the centrifugal movement acts in the opposite way, pushing these discourses and values outward, diffusing them as heterogeneous and multiple.

In considering such forces in the PLA, it is necessary to provide the student with the understanding that we act with language(s) in order to accomplish our enunciative-discursive purposes, through which we express our style and valuation, which we believe to be only "ours" and homogeneous. However, besides being ours, they are also constituted by external, diverse, open, and heterogeneous discourses that penetrate the appreciative emphases we place on language. Therefore, we seek to promote linguistic awareness that in language, there is not only one discourse or some right/good/positive discourses, but that there are several intertwined discourses, which are socio-valued positively or negatively in relation to the common evaluation of the community/social group in which the interlocutors are inserted.

Regarding the concept of genre of discourse, we deduce that in PLA it should be approached in both movements: both considering the discursive genre itself, and its internal forces, which pull for compositional stability, and considering also the external social, ideological, and cultural forces, which demarcate its instability, since they originate from multiple and heterogeneous contexts and subjects. Therefore, addressing the genres of discourse in PLA is to highlight the centripetal and centrifugal forces that act (in the relationship of the extraverbal with the linguistic/semiotic), through them, for the constitution of discourses.

In addition to these forces, in a dialogical PLA, it is essential to situate genres in their sphere of ideological creation/field of human activity. According to their internal logic, the fields exert certain coercions on their respective genres (^{GRILLO, 2017}). Thus, some aspects of the utterances-texts are organized not by choice of the enunciator or by the regularity of the genre but by coercions of the field in which the genre is inserted. This awareness is important for the student because "Each field of ideological creation has its own way of orienting itself in reality, and refracts it in its own way" (^{VOLÓCHINOV, 2017}[1929], p. 94). Therefore, according to the field, the coercions of the genre itself and the choices made by the author, there are, in each new enunciation, a unique way of refracting reality, an aspect that we need to bring to the student's attention. According to Acosta Pereira (2013), "Every genre constructs a worldview and a particular perception of experience; genres are ways, therefore, of thinking about the world" (^{ACOSTA PEREIRA, 2013}, p. 499-500).

Besides the importance of genre, Mendes-^{Polato and Menegassi (2017}) also highlight that in a dialogical PLA, which starts from a value approach to language, it is necessary to consider that the values are at all times reflected and refracted in the ideological signs that constitute the utterance-texts. For the authors, this means that "different media can distort the perception and, in the case of language, the apprehension of the value of the sign, which is not fixed, but plurivalent" (^{MENDES-POLATO; MENEGASSI, 2017}, p. 18) and that signs "accumulate indexes of value throughout their existence - and refract them [...], being the object of struggle between current and past meanings" (^{MENDES-POLATO; MENEGASSI, 2017}, p. 20).

From these findings, the authors claim that in the sign can happen reflection and refraction concomitantly, since the more reflection happens, the less refraction and vice versa. This happens because the ideological signs reflect a common truth for a certain community and, at the same time, refracts, in a more or less distorted way, different realities for other communities (^{MENDES-POLATO; MENEGASSI, 2017}). Thus, when we use the signs, we are at all times operating with reflections and refractions that imply specific/different evaluative emphases and that need to be highlighted in the dialogical PLA.

The authors also argue that when working with reflection activities on language in the classroom, it is necessary to pay attention to the blocks of value judgment that are constructed in the texts in the relationship between the extraverbal context and certain grammatical and syntactic structures that often do not emerge in the linguistic materialities. Hence, they need to be addressed in the face of the extralinguistic. For this reason, for the authors, these blocks of value judgment are not achieved only by a grammatical analysis of the text but, rather, by an analysis that considers the stylistic aspect - pointed out by ^{Bakhtin (2013}) - of the utterance-texts:

Any grammatical aspect circumscribed to the word should also be analyzed as stylistic, or socially expressive [...] because it is alive and has value based on man's social and inner dialogue, being, therefore, able to be recognized, shared between specific interlocutors in unique situations of interaction (^{MENDES-POLATO; MENEGASSI, 2017}, p. 24-25, our emphasis).

The authors point, in this way, to an aspect that we believe to be central in a dialogical PLA: the relation between grammar and style. For them, the stylistic aspect reside in what is alive and related to the social dialogues interlocutors establish throughout life. While grammatical aspects point to categories of language structure study, the stylistic aspect points to the study of the living part of the utterance-texts, the part that, even being elaborated through certain structures, seeks to build meaning(s) by crossing the social context and does so according to the addressability (interlocutors) and expressiveness (values and intonations) (^{BAKHTIN, 2016}[1979]) of each utterance and interactive situation.

We understand, then, that working with dialogical PLA in teaching PL is to provide study situations so that students understand that grammar and style are intertwined but distinct concepts that have their respective importance at certain moments of the study of texts and utterances. ^{Bakhtin (2013}), in his work Questions of stylistics in language teaching⁷, discusses the relationship between grammar and style in the classroom and gives examples of how to do it through his teaching pratice as a Russian language teacher from 1942 to 1945. In this work, it is possible to see the philosopher occupying the social role of teacher and acting in it based on a dialogical conception of language and, which means, the understanding of interaction, enunciation and authorship, typical of his theoretical reflections, present in the other works of the Circle.

Didactically, the Teacher Bakhtin seeks to promote students' reflection before certain syntactic structures, so that they realize how a stylistic reflection can take the use of language out of automatism and place it in a more lively and creative context, that is, in the written productions of his students. According to Bakhtin (2013), the liveliness of language use is lost the moment these students start having their productions regulated by grammatical norms. Bakhtin (2013), when developing stylistic analysis, does with his students, what we can call, given ^{Geraldi's (1997}[1991) later studies, several "epilinguistic activities”. That is, he promotes reflections on the forms of employment of language through dramatic readings, syntactic and grammatical changes in the utterances, practices that, by highlighting the possibility of stylistic differences, highlight other possibilities of (re)signifying the utterance-text, resulting in different readings/understandings.

When analyzing utterances-texts from the works of A. S Púchkin and Gogól with the students, the Teacher Bakhtin tries to introduce a conjunction "mechanically" into the utterance. As his goal was to teach the period composed by subordination without a conjunction, the teacher starts from real statements that already have this structure and tries to deconstruct them with the students, inserting a conjunction so that they can notice the stylistic and meaning difference between the two statements. Through this activity, Bakhtin propitiates his students to reflect on the meaning(s) evoked by such syntactic construction, showing them that, once rephrased, A. S. Púchkin's sentences, for example, (now with a conjunction) lose their "emotional expressiveness," become "colder, drier and logical" and concludes, with them, that the dramatic element of the periods disappears (^{BAKHTIN, 2013}, p. 31). One of his concerns was to demonstrate how the intonation, values, and meanings that an utterance-text carries can be easily modified just by introducing the conjunction.

Consistently with his theoretical postulates, ^{Bakhtin (2013}) shows students how intonation (present in the extraverbal) has great importance for the use of language and that, therefore, only the study of linguistic/semiotic aspects is not enough. In making such analyses, the author presents the idea that intonations (both dramatic — of speech — and appreciative — of discourse) have great importance for the evaluative emphases to be built in the reading of the utterance-text.

It is also important to highlight that ^{Bakhtin (2013}), when doing stylistic and semantic analyses with students, uses metalanguage as a form of aid for his explanations about language. Nevertheless, it is not his goal to teach only what a period composed by subordination without conjunction would be (its description/concept), but also, and mainly, to teach its social function, how to use it to write more vivid, creative, expressive, singular texts, and its potentiality to highlight (or not) diverse appreciative intonations.

After a work like this, the student may learn the grammatical concept/description precisely by constantly interacting with this syntactic construction in the life of texts and with its nomenclature, without such content needing to be the focus of teaching and learning. It opens space for language and discourse to guide the learning of style. For the author, this kind of work "explains grammar to students: by being illuminated by its stylistic meaning, dry grammatical forms acquire new meaning for students, become more understandable and interesting to them" (^{BAKHTIN, 2013}, p.40). In addition to the aspects already highlighted, ^{Bakhtin (2013}) seeks to make the content more interesting and meaningful since when this happens, the knowledge becomes effectively useful; therefore, they allocate more attention to it.

Furthermore, when we analyze Bakhtin's pedagogical practice, his emphasis on the concept of style is noticeable in a particular way. This is because Bakhtin had a sociological way of conceiving Stylistics. For him, this should include a study that went beyond the linguistics of the time that considered discourse as a meeting point between social voices and their dialogical relations materialized in the linguistic realm through style. In this perspective, style is understood by the author as a choice between linguistic forms that requires, for its agency, the consideration of dialogic relations and appreciative orientations present/possible in the extraverbal: "when the speaker or the writer has the possibility of choosing between two or more syntactic forms that are equally correct from the grammatical point of view. In such cases, the choice is determined not by grammar but by purely stylistic considerations, that is, by the representational and expressive efficacy of these forms" (^{BAKHTIN, 2013}, p. 25).

Based on this, we understand that style allows the speakers to place themselves in the discourse as the authors because, through their choices, the expressive and living aspects of their discourse become perceptible, which connects them to the contexts of language use and allow refractions and resignifications of other discourses.

One of ^{Bakhtin's (2013}) concerns in the classroom was to enable his students to constitute themselves as authors, to act with language with awareness of this fact and of the intonations that their discourses produce/refract. At the end of his reflections, after evaluating his students' new texts, ^{Bakhtin (2013)} states that he succeeded in achieving this goal. The change of syntactic form also resulted in a general improvement of the students' style, which became more lively, metaphorical, and expressive, and the main thing: it began to reveal in it "the author's individuality, that is, their own intonation began to sound" (^{BAKHTIN, 2013}, p. 40, emphasis added).

The author, through a reflection process during his classes, helps to develop not only a more critical reading process but also more authorial, expressive, and creative text production, in which the student occupies the social role of author, of a speaker who writes for real interlocutors (as also pointed out by ^{GERALDI, 1997}[1991]).

Thus, we evoke ^{Bakhtin's (2013}) pedagogical practice and his way of conceiving style to highlight what is proposed with a dialogical PLA. A teaching practice that, through stylistic-discursive reflections, can bring greater awareness to students of the choices they make in their utterance-texts. Once again, we present a sum of two forces, internal forces of the language structure and external forces of the living context. In studying this tension of socio-ideological forces, we seek to promote an understanding of how discourses are constructed in dialogical relations of meaning and value.

Given such considerations, we believe that a dialogically based PLA needs to contemplate:

Given such an understanding of PLA, we present below a figure in which we seek to illustrate the main differences between ^{Geraldi's (1984}, 1997[1991]) proposal of PLA and the dialogical configuration we propose for this practice in this section:

Source: Elaborated by the researchers.

Figure 2 - Differences between Generaldian PLA and dialogical PLA 

In Figure 2, we list the main topics covered in this section. We seek, therefore, to differentiate between the PLA conceived by ^{Geraldi (1984}, 1997[1991]) — presenting the main bases that the author elucidated in the 1980s/1990s for this practice⁸ — and the dialogical PLA, based exclusively and explicitly on Bakhtin Circle’s theory.

CONCLUDING REMARKS

In the attempt to answer the motivating questions of this essay — How to expand the theoretical-methodological orientations of PLA, sustaining it on a dialogical basis? How can Volóchinov's (2017 [1929]) sociological method contribute to the constitution of this PLA? — We walked a path of theoretical, methodological, didactic, and practical nature, since our goal was to combine a Russian theory from the early twentieth century, with a PL teaching practice that was proposed in Brazil from the 1980s and that has been perpetuated until today.

Thus, as we try to illustrate in Figure 2, we believe that a dialogically based PLA is anchored on some central topics taken from the works The text in the classroom (^{GERALDI, 1984}) and Ports of Passage (GERALDI, 1991), such as, for example, the establishment of the proposal in the interactionist conception of language, which sees language as a form of interaction (^{GERALDI, 1984}, p. 43). And because of this interactionist perspective, PLA needs to be developed in relation to other language practices such as orality, reading, and text production. Moreover, we believe that its initial proposal is fundamental to understanding the text as a teaching unit, recognizing it as a starting point that permeates the process of PL teaching and learning, until it becomes the end point of all interactions with language. Moreover, based on linguistic activities (utterances-texts), epilinguistic and metalinguistic activities are developed.

Therefore, the dialogical PLA we seek to highlight takes all these topics as assumptions and seeks to expand them from the standpoint of the studies of the Circle. Thus, everything that Geraldi proposed is reinterpreted, re-signified, and expanded, using nomenclatures and concepts from the Bakhtinian perspective. Dialogical PLA is not only based on an interactionist understanding of language, but on a dialogical conception, which encompasses the assumptions of Dialogism and understands that interaction is a vital condition for any language practices.

In addition to maintaining the relationship between the practices of language use (speaking, reading and textual production), the utterance-text is adopted as the PL unit of teaching, understanding it as a place where discursive interactions (written, oral, verbal-visual, multisemiotic) are configured from a project/need to say/express/signify. Thus, we do not think of a PLA as intended only for written texts, as focused on Geraldi's works of the 1980s and 1990s. Considering the moment in which we live, the studies of the Circle and the current studies on language in the face of the advance of technology, we understand that the reflection on the strategies of saying needs to break with the limits of the word and reach the scope of the multimodal utterances and the enunciations.

To do so, the students must reflect on the extraverbal context of the utterance-texts, that is, the part that has to do with the use of language in defined contexts, socially and historically situated, involving real interlocutors and interaction needs. Only by considering this extraverbal part can we study the genres of discourse in light of the field of human activity or the ideological sphere in which they are inserted. In light of this, it recognizes that language is used in a specific Chronotope and by differently socially engaged interlocutors. In the face of such aspects, it is possible to understand that genres are driven by centripetal forces that seek stability through the repetition of the extraverbal conditions of the utterances and, at the same time, by centrifugal forces that seek innovation, difference, and flexibility, because the interlocutors are multiple and the chronotope always changes.

Thus, in dialogical PLA, this understanding of the extraverbal dimension of the discursive genre needs to go through the reflection on language and be present in its verbal-visual dimensions explored in epilinguistic and metalinguistic activities that should be in constant dialogic movement. This implies that the linguistic/semiotic resources analysis must be made at all times in dialogue with the extraverbal aspects, which occurs when the stylistic analyses are made.

In practical terms, this would mean that, in the classroom, it is not enough for the teacher to bring a text statement, comment briefly on the context (author, historical moment, place of publication, etc.), and start teaching grammar using the statement as an example. To think of a dialogical PLA would imply bringing an utterance-text to the students by first addressing its context of production and circulation, the specific characteristics of the discursive genre used, and the social field to which it belongs. Then, we would work with a reflection about the perceptible value positions on the textual surface and those constructed by students about the utterance-text, considering the extraverbal that underlies it (epilinguistic activities).

Finally, the stylistic choices made to construct meaning in the utterance-text would be specifically addressed, thus departing for a more grammatical and particular study of the linguistic/visual/auditory structures (metalinguistic activities) in order to highlight that all of them are placed in the utterance-text in order to fulfill a discursive purpose of its author, in their social position and a particular context of production and circulation. All the perceptible elements in the utterance-text are closely linked to non-perceptible elements in the textual texture. Only in the interconnection of these analyses, the values co-constructed by the interlocutors will be interpreted and seen by the students as discourse, loaded with intonations and ideological evaluations.