Microsoft Word - Sabey, Relational Becoming, Layout.docx


Dialogic Pedagogy: An International Online Journal | http://dpj.pitt.edu 
DOI: 10.5195/dpj.2022.459  |  Vol. 10 (2022) A1 

  

 
 
Relational Becoming: Considering Classroom Dialogue in 
Ethico-ontological Terms 

 
 
David Sabey 
Equipo Academy, Las Vegas, USA   

 
Abstract 
This paper draws on Bakhtin’s ethico-ontological vision of dialogue to theorize “relational becoming” on a micro-level. 
To do so, it introduces three “ethical dimensions of dialogue” (responsibility, responsiveness, and capacitation) and 
develops the interrelated concepts of addressability and presencing as analytical lenses. Drawing on transcript data 
from a series of high school and college students’ discussions about controversial political issues, the analysis 
examines how interlocutors made themselves addressable, addressed each other, and were “presenced” in dialogue. 
It also discusses the ethico-ontological potential of these interactions, identifying a problematic tendency among 
interlocutors to not “show up” in verbal discourse in a variety of ways, including, in particular, reliance on abstractions.  
 
Key words: dialogue, ethics, ontology, classroom discussions, dialogic pedagogy 

David Sabey completed his doctoral studies at Vanderbilt University. As a teacher-researcher, he 
approaches questions about classroom discourse and education more generally in ethical terms. He 
currently teaches high school English, where he appreciates the opportunity to continue exploring these 
issues in practice. 

ÏÒÒ 

Introduction 
In this paper, I approach classroom dialogue from an ethico-ontological perspective, that is, in terms 

of how interlocutors are involved in a social process of becoming certain kinds of people, both collectively 
and individually, for better or worse, in response to each other. I refer to this as “relational becoming.” 
Relational becoming is an ontological process because it affects the nature of the world, at least insofar as 
it is accessible to humans. The world, from this perspective, does not exist neutrally as the pre-existent 
background to an interaction but is, instead, dialogically co-authored by the interlocutors. In Bakhtin’s (1993) 
terms, it is not simply “given,” but “posited” (p. 18). This is not to say that the human world is entirely 
emergent, created ex nihilo with each new interaction, but, to some degree, the quality of one’s being in the 
world is at stake with every response. As Bakhtin (1984) muses, “nothing conclusive has yet taken place in 
the world, the ultimate word of the world and about the world has not yet been spoken, the world is open 
and free” (p. 166). Our existence unfolds in response to a dynamic world populated and partly authored by 
actual and potential interlocutors. In short, human ontology is always already dialogic.  

It follows that the quality of my responses to my interlocutors and their responses to me affect our 
mutual being in the world—and, therefore, have a profoundly ethical import. This is why I refer to relational 
becoming as an ethical, in addition to an ontological, process. To be clear, I intend the word “ethical” here 

ISSN: 2325-3290 (online)  



Relational Becoming: Considering Classroom Dialogue in Ethico-ontological Terms  
David Sabey 

 
 

Dialogic Pedagogy: An International Online Journal | http://dpj.pitt.edu 
DOI: 10.5195/dpj.2022.459  |  Vol. 10 (2022) 
 

A2 

and throughout this essay to mean “having to do with ethics” or “relating to the quality of interpersonal 
relationships,” rather than “morally good.” In this sense, relational becoming can always be understood in 
ethical terms but is not necessarily good. Although this is a relatively straightforward observation, it has 
rarely been addressed head on in educational research and theory. Even educationalists working in dialogic 
pedagogy seem to shy away from the question of what makes a given response more or less ethically 
optimal (see Sabey, 2021 for a fuller treatment of this tendency, and Matusov & Marjanovic-Shane, 2018, 
for a notable exception). This widespread hesitance may stem from an understandable wariness of moral 
absolutes, but the specter of oppressive dogma does not change the fact that our responses are ethico-
ontologically consequential, nor does it excuse us from the work of conceptualizing and pursuing better 
responses.  

The primary purpose of this paper is to articulate and employ a framework for conceptualizing such 
“better responses.” I refer to this framework as the ethical dimensions of dialogue1. For me, this framework 
is an attempt to take seriously both the weighty ethical obligation to respond well to one’s interlocutors, and 
the unfinished, dialogic nature of the good. In conceptualizing and articulating the ethical dimensions of 
dialogue, I have been largely inspired by Bakhtin, particularly his early, explicitly ethical writing, but I do not 
see this framework as a direct application of Bakhtinian thought. Instead, it is my synthesis and distillation 
of several themes that resonate across Bakhtin’s work, as will be described below. The ethical dimensions 
of dialogue are premised on the understanding that humans exist in the world dialogically and that all 
meaning-making is the byproduct of that dialogue. The great dialogue of the ages has produced important 
understandings, including ethical ideals such as justice. But, having emerged in the unruly reality of human 
relations, these ideals are shot through with the perspectives, biases, and partiality inherent in human life. 
Any ideal, however defined and articulated, remains an imperfect standard, incapable of adequately 
directing one’s ethical behavior in every situation. I think, for example, of Martin Luther King Jr.’s Letter from 
Birmingham Jail, in which he laments the way White moderates invoked the ideal of “peace” to justify their 
lack of support for the civil rights movement. Although peace is certainly a worthy ideal, what it actually 
means in practice is not self-evident but is always a matter of perspective—and one’s understanding of 
peace may be in tension (or even opposition) with another’s, as was the case with Dr. King and the White 
moderates. We cannot escape the perspectival nature of meaning-making and, consequently, ethical 
action. With no extra-discursive and transparent ideals upon which we can always rely, we are left with the 
fundamental truths that we exist in response to others, each of whom has a unique perspective and voice, 
and that our world is the byproduct of our responses. 

Ethical Dimensions of Dialogue 
The ethical dimensions of dialogue are an attempt to approach dialogic ethics as a never-ending 

process of relating to the Other rather than having to do with some predetermined outcome. In this 
processual perspective, what might it mean to respond well? Put simply, I believe that, at any moment of 
responding, there are at least three different dynamics that have positive ethical potential2. I refer to these 
as 1) responsibility, which has to do with how one speaks as oneself, from one’s own unique perspective, 
and with one’s own voice, 2) responsiveness, which has to do with how one attends to and is moved by 
one’s interlocutor(s), and 3) capacitation, which has to do with how one affords one’s interlocutor(s) 
opportunities to respond. As I will explain, although I believe each of these ethical dimensions of dialogue 
has positive ethical potential, I do not believe that they are inherently good, but rather that determination of 

 
1 For the sake of simplicity, I have used the term “ethical” instead of “ethico-ontological,” though I see ethics and ontology as 
interrelated. The ethical qualities of a given response have to do with its effect on the relational becoming of persons-in-dialogue.  
2 I phrase this in terms of potentiality because there is no guarantee that any of these ethical dimensions of dialogue will necessarily 
turn out to be good in a given interaction.  



Relational Becoming: Considering Classroom Dialogue in Ethico-ontological Terms  
David Sabey 

 
 

Dialogic Pedagogy: An International Online Journal | http://dpj.pitt.edu 
DOI: 10.5195/dpj.2022.459  |  Vol. 10 (2022) 
 

A3 

their value is a matter of open or implied dialogic negotiation. In what follows, I will describe these ethical 
dimensions of dialogue and briefly discuss how I see them in relation to Bakhtinian concepts. 

Responsibility 

The ethical dimension of responsibility, which has to do with speaking as oneself, from one’s own 
unique perspective, and with one’s own voice, derives from the ontological fact that each person is unique. 
Bakhtin (1993) writes, “I occupy a place in once-occurrent Being that is unique and never-repeatable,” 
adding that this uniqueness is “compellently obligatory” (p. 40). The spatial language Bakhtin uses here 
affords an ocular metaphor (see Bakhtin 1993, p. 62-63): From my particular vantage point, I see the world 
in a way that no one else does. In a sense, I am the only eyewitness of some aspect of reality, and this fact 
obligates me to be a witness, to share what only I have seen. Bakhtin (1993) refers to this obligation as a 
“non-alibi in Being” (p. 40). Because I occupy a unique place in existence, I can never claim that someone 
else was in my place or that I was elsewhere. I never have an alibi and, therefore, must act responsibly.   

Expounding on this idea, Bakhtin compares a responsible way of being to signing one’s name to a 
document, writing that life lived without this sense of obligative uniqueness is like “an unsigned 
document…[or] a rough draft.” He goes on to say that “only through the answerable participation effected 
by a unique act or deed can one get out of the realm of endless draft versions and rewrite one’s life once 
and for all in the form of a fair copy” (p. 44). I take “a unique act or deed” to mean that the act is one’s own, 
performed without an alibi, from one’s particular place in existence. “Answerable participation,” then, is 
taking part in life in this way—as oneself, with skin in the game, with one’s name on the line, being willing 
to take responsibility for what one does and what one is uniquely capable of doing. It is to respond to the 
concrete particularity of each moment as oneself, uniquely positioned and obligated by that uniqueness. 
This is no easy task. Indeed, writing at the end of his life, Bakhtin (1986) returned to these ideas, saying, 
“The I hides in the other and in others, it wants to be only an other for others, to enter completely into the 
world of others as an other, and to cast from itself the burden of being the only I (I-for-myself) in the world” 
(p. 147), echoing his earlier recognition that people are not always disposed to shoulder the burden inherent 
in their uniqueness: “I can try to prove my alibi in Being, I can pretend to be someone I am not. I can 
abdicate from my obligative (ought-to-be) uniqueness (Bakhtin, 1993, p. 42).  

As Bakhtin implies, responsibility entails risk: There is some risk in signing one’s name, taking 
responsibility for one’s words and choices, and relinquishing the chance to claim an alibi. Sensing some 
possible embarrassment, discomfort, or liability, one might understandably protect oneself by avoiding 
accountability, but doing so may withhold from one’s interlocutors a potentially beneficial perspective. 
Indeed, the potential benefit one’s perspective may provide an interlocutor is the reason why responsibility, 
in the sense I am using it here, is one of the ethical dimensions of dialogue. This benefit derives from what 
Bakhtin (1990) calls the “excess of my seeing in relation to another human being” (p. 24). Given that each 
individual is uniquely situated in existence, no one’s field of vision ever entirely overlaps with another’s; 
each can see what others cannot. In Bakhtin’s view, this simultaneous surplus and lack bind self and Other 
together in a state of interdependency and complementarity. In this light, Bakhtin’s (1986) discussion of 
how great literary works “outgrow what they were in the epoch of their creation” (p. 4) can be seen as 
parallel to what happens to the Other when one shares aspects of one’s excess of seeing. Referring to the 
way Shakespeare’s plays continue to generate new insights, Bakhtin explains, “The author is a captive of 
his epoch, of his own present. Subsequent times liberate him from that captivity” (p. 5). Analogously, each 
individual is a captive of their own place in existence and can be “liberated” by someone who stands 
elsewhere, with an excess of seeing relative to them. Seeing things that others cannot, my unique 
perspective may help my interlocutors beyond their current field of vision. 



Relational Becoming: Considering Classroom Dialogue in Ethico-ontological Terms  
David Sabey 

 
 

Dialogic Pedagogy: An International Online Journal | http://dpj.pitt.edu 
DOI: 10.5195/dpj.2022.459  |  Vol. 10 (2022) 
 

A4 

Responsiveness 

I characterize responsiveness as a dynamic openness and careful attention toward the Other which 
entails an ongoing cycle of attuning to the particularities of one’s interlocutor(s) and adjusting accordingly. 
Responsiveness can be understood as the flipside of responsibility because it involves viewing the Other 
as a unique and answerable self for whom oneself is an Other who stands to benefit from their unique 
perspective. Without this recognition—without tempering responsibility with responsiveness—there is an 
ethical danger in simply speaking from one’s own place in the world. This is because one’s excess of seeing 
can fuel the assumption that the Other is entirely transparent, knowable, and judgable —“finalizable” is 
Bakhtin’s (1984) term (p. 61). Thus, rather than finalizing the Other, one must seek to “consummate” them 
(Bakhtin, 1990, p. 14), offering a unique outside perspective that supplements their current understanding, 
but respecting their “holy of holies” (Bakhtin, 1984, p. 59), their potential to transcend categorization, resist 
definition, and respond differently than expected. Meditating on this in relation to Dostoevsky’s polyphonic 
novel, which he seems to view as a model of ethically optimal self-Other relationships3, Bakhtin (1984) 
writes, 

[T]he author's consciousness does not transform others’ consciousnesses…into objects, and does not 
give them secondhand and finalizing definitions. Alongside and in front of itself it senses others’ equally valid 
consciousnesses, just as infinite and open-ended as itself. It reflects and re-creates not a world of objects, but 
precisely these other consciousnesses with their worlds, re-creates them in their authentic unfinalizability (which 
is, after all, their essence) (p. 68). 

This is the key—to speak as a unique self while simultaneously responding to one’s interlocutors with the 
recognition that they are just as unique and open-ended.  

Bakhtin (1993) notes that one way to “finalize,” rather than “consummate,” one’s interlocutors is “to 
see in every other, in every object of a given act or deed, not a concrete uniqueness which participates in 
Being personally, but a representative of a certain large whole” (p. 53). Recognizing that “Man-in-general 
does not exist; I exist and a particular concrete other exists” (Bakhtin, 1993, p. 47), one must seek to 
understand and relate to one’s interlocutors in their particularity, not simply because they are unique, but 
because they are always in the process of becoming something else. In the Author and Hero essay and 
later in the Dostoevsky book, Bakhtin discusses this in terms of (non)coincidence: As everyone occupies a 
unique location in Being, nobody “coincides” with anybody else (1990, p. 13), and as each person is also 
always in a state of becoming, nor do they ever entirely coincide with themselves (1984, p. 59). In carefully 
attending to the Other, one must never lose sight of their radical alterity and unfinalizability. 

Recall that responsiveness entails both a careful attention and dynamic openness toward the 
Other. I appreciate the adjective “careful” as a modifier of the noun “attention” because of the way it implies 
thoroughness, but also suggests a certain benevolence. Indeed, Bakhtin (1990) goes so far as to suggest, 
“What I must be for the other, God is for me. What the other surmounts and repudiates within himself as an 
unworthy given, I accept in him and that with loving mercy as the other’s cherished flesh” (p. 56). Bakhtin 
who was by all accounts a faithful, if somewhat unorthodox, believer sees in Christ a divine example of 
what he calls vzhivanie or “live entering” (sometimes translated as “living into” or “active empathy”), in which 
the self (Christ) addresses the Other from a position of both outsidedness and love—the kind of love that 

 
3 There is some debate about how analogous Dostoevsky’s authoring of novels is to the way interlocutors “author” each other—or if 
authorship is an appropriate metaphor for describing interpersonal relationships. Although I think it is obvious that there are significant 
differences between the relationships of authors and their characters and those of living interlocutors, I am comfortable with the idea 
that our responses to each other shape and constrain our being in the world and are, therefore, a kind of authoring with some analogy 
to other forms of authorship, including Dostoevsky’s novel-writing.  



Relational Becoming: Considering Classroom Dialogue in Ethico-ontological Terms  
David Sabey 

 
 

Dialogic Pedagogy: An International Online Journal | http://dpj.pitt.edu 
DOI: 10.5195/dpj.2022.459  |  Vol. 10 (2022) 
 

A5 

allows one “to make serious extended incursions into the depths of the other, to take seriously its 
unfinishedness” (Emerson, 2000, p. 18), to deeply understand but never to determine, to live alongside but 
never to merge.  

In addition to carefully attending to one’s interlocutors, one must also open oneself to them. A part 
of this involves being open to the possibility that one has not entirely understood the Other, that there is 
more to understand; one might even deliberately approach the encounter, expecting to be surprised 
(Matusov et al., 2016). Another kind of openness has to do with willingness to adjust in response to the 
Other, to change as a result of one’s encounter with the Other. This is what Warnick, Yacek, & Robinson 
(2018) refer to as the “responsibility to be moved” (p. 36). Referring to understanding a work of art, but with 
ethical implications, Bakhtin (1986) writes, “The person who understands must not reject the possibility of 
changing or even abandoning his already prepared viewpoints and positions. In the act of understanding, 
a struggle occurs that results in mutual change and enrichment” (p. 142). In order for a self/Other 
relationship to be mutually enriching, the self must be willing to be responsively moved. 

Capacitation 

The third ethical dimension of dialogue has to do with how one’s responses to the Other enable 
them to respond in certain ways, bridging the gap between self and Other in their ongoing interrelations. In 
a sense, this is an aspect of “live entering,” in which, after empathizing with the Other and returning to one’s 
own place in Being, one replies to the Other in a way that combines the perspectives of outsideness and 
empathy, offering to the Other a unique and potentially enriching perspective. Morson & Emerson (1990) 
describe the process thus: “Without trying to finalize the other or define him once and for all, one uses one’s 
‘outsideness’ and experience to ask the right sort of questions. Recognizing the other’s capacity for change, 
one provokes or invites him to reveal and outgrow himself” (p. 242). 

In Bakhtin’s (1984) account, Dostoevsky developed a method to author his characters in a way that 
renders them capable of responding. He explains that “the author's discourse about a character is organized 
as discourse about someone actually present, someone who hears him (the author) and is capable of 
answering him” (p. 63). Indeed, one of the things that makes Dostoevsky’s writing so remarkable to Bakhtin 
is that the characters do not seem predetermined and entirely subject to the author’s vision; rather, 
Dostoevsky enables his characters to respond to him, something that is evident in his creative process: 

Dostoevsky did not first work out a structure, plan, or overall plot of the work. Rather, he first imagined 
specific ‘voices,’ that is, integral personalities with their own ideas and sense of the world…Dostoevsky 
then…contrived situations that could provoke these people into dialogue with each other and with his own views. 
Characters join in dialogue, Dostoevsky himself may in some form participate, and the characters (perhaps also 
the author) outgrow themselves in the process. Sometimes Dostoevsky continues the dialogue in new scenes; at 
other times, he leaves preliminary dialogues in his notebooks and starts anew with characters recently made 
more complex (Morson & Emerson, 1990, p. 245). 

Although most interactions between people look very different from Dostoevsky’s drafting, there are ethical 
principles that are applicable across these situations. Like Dostoevsky, one ought to view (and author) 
one’s interlocutors without predetermined notions of who they are and what they will do, and must provide 
space and develop processes through which to enable the Other to respond movingly, in ways that will 
enrich both self and Other, rendering them capable of ongoing and potentially enriching interactions. 



Relational Becoming: Considering Classroom Dialogue in Ethico-ontological Terms  
David Sabey 

 
 

Dialogic Pedagogy: An International Online Journal | http://dpj.pitt.edu 
DOI: 10.5195/dpj.2022.459  |  Vol. 10 (2022) 
 

A6 

Clarification 

Before continuing, let me clarify a few items: First, while I think it is useful to describe these ethical 
dimensions of dialogue separately, in practice, they are very much interrelated. Still, even though they are 
interrelated, each dimension can help us attune in different ways to our interactions. Second, I am not 
suggesting that speaking responsibly, responsively, and/or capacitatingly is necessary good at every 
moment. Although each of these ethical dimensions of dialogue has potential to be generative and 
enriching, each interaction is unique and calls for particular responses that cannot be predetermined. The 
challenge for the ethically minded interlocutor is to discern in the particularities of the moment how best to 
respond. The ethical dimensions of dialogue are not an alibi; they are not the criteria of an ethically optimal 
response. Instead, I see them as sensitizing concepts that can help us attune to the ethical potential of 
certain kinds of responses and, over time, become more discerning of how best to respond at any given 
moment. 

Addressability and Presencing as Analytical Lenses 
Any moment of dialogue is ethico-ontologically significant, and the ethical dimensions of dialogue 

help us attune to the relational becoming of interlocutors. In other words, they help us notice patterns in 
how interlocutors respond to each other (and, consequently, become certain kinds of people in relation to 
each other), and to imagine alternatives. This is what I attempt to do in the following analysis. For the 
purposes of this paper, I consider the relational becoming of interlocutors at a micro-level, regarding 
interactions that lasted between several seconds and several minutes. I do so with the assumption that 
these small-scale moments of relational becoming are consequential (see, for example, Wortham’s (2008) 
discussion of how durable identities emerge across multiple interactions, as interlocutors address and 
respond to each other in similar ways over time).  

One way to examine the relational becoming of persons-in-dialogue is by attending to their 
addressability. Whenever we speak, we make certain aspects of our thinking, personality, identity, and/or 
history salient and available to others for address; we make ourselves addressable in certain ways. 
Interlocutors’ relational becoming is a function of how they render themselves addressable and how they 
address (or not) that which each other makes addressable. Both prior to and in the process of making 
oneself addressable and/or by being addressed in certain ways, interlocutors become present to each other 
in certain ways, or, at least, they potentialize that presence, becoming presence-able in certain ways. From 
this perspective, one’s presence is not a given, but is dynamically authored in dialogue with one’s 
interlocutors. In other words, we are not simply present, but are “presenced” to each other as we are 
rendered addressable in certain ways. This is not only the result of actual interactions, but is shaped by our 
sense of the genre of activity we are engaged in. A discussion, for example, affords certain kinds of 
presencing, predisposing interlocutors to co-author each other in certain ways.  

For example, if I were to find myself in a classroom teaching situation, I would likely make myself 
addressable as a teacher either explicitly or implicitly (“Can I get your attention? We’re about to start class.”) 
and address my interlocutors as students (“What did you think about last night’s reading, Bryan?”). If Bryan 
were to say, “What reading?” I might consider him to be addressable as a disorganized student or a class 
clown, especially if we had had similar interactions in the past, and I would likely address him accordingly. 
If Bryan were to explain that he had played in a championship soccer game last night and had not had time 
to complete the reading, he would make himself addressable as, among other things, an athlete. Perhaps 
another student would address Bryan as such, saying, “Yeah, tough luck, Bryan. But you guys played hard. 
It was a good game.” This would make Bryan addressable as having lost and, likely, as being disappointed, 
and the speaker as someone who had watched the game. The way in which we navigated these moments 
of addressability would affect the way various members of the classroom community were presenced to 



Relational Becoming: Considering Classroom Dialogue in Ethico-ontological Terms  
David Sabey 

 
 

Dialogic Pedagogy: An International Online Journal | http://dpj.pitt.edu 
DOI: 10.5195/dpj.2022.459  |  Vol. 10 (2022) 
 

A7 

each other, and largely determine our relational becoming over the course of the class. If we repeatedly 
had similar interactions, these kinds of addressability would likely become more durable over time.  

For the purpose of this paper, I will define addressability as the ways in which interlocutors are 
rendered addressable to each other, and presencing as the dialogic process of becoming present to one’s 
interlocutors in a certain way. Both dynamics are subjective—how my interlocutors consider me to be 
addressable and how they perceive my presence are a matter of perspective that may not be entirely 
shared—though aspects of addressability are evident in discourse. While presencing is harder to empirically 
examine, I appreciate the way it attunes us to the ethico-ontological dynamics of dialogue: Any interaction 
is constituted by interlocutors who are becoming certain persons-in-dialogue; they are not simply present 
for the discussion but are being presenced in the discussion. The stakes are not simply interlocutors’ 
conceptual understandings, but their being in the world.  

In the following examples, I will draw on these lenses to analyze the relational becoming of certain 
groups of students involved in a series of discussions; that is, how, at a micro level, students were made 
addressable, subsequently addressed, and presenced in the process of discussing. To be clear, while many 
aspects of addressability are evident in verbal discourse, it is impossible to empirically verify every way in 
which interlocutors understand each other to be addressable. Relatedly, how someone is presenced in a 
certain situation is perspectival and subjective. We are always presenced and rendered addressable to 
someone, and different interlocutors may have varying senses of our presence/addressability. In the 
subsequent examples, my analysis will rely on my own retrospective perspective. In many cases, I believe 
this perception was shared by others, but it is entirely possible that this is not the case. Additional analyses 
that considered how multiple interlocutors understood each other’s addressability/presence would be 
illuminating but are beyond the scope of this paper. 

Research Context 
The examples below come from a study in which, as a teacher-researcher, I facilitated a series of 

discussions and meta-communicative activities with three different groups of students, the first, a group of 
undergraduates (mostly freshmen, around 18 years old), and the second and third composed of 9th graders 
(around 14 years old). My purpose in each of these groups was to explore how I might pedagogically 
cultivate ethically optimal dialogue in the context of classroom discussions about controversial political 
issues. All students who participated in the discussions were aware of my intent, though they had different 
understandings of what that means and varying degrees of investment in that goal. The group of 
undergraduates had enrolled in a one-credit elective course I taught about talking across political 
differences, and the high school students voluntarily participated in the discussions with me during their 
“personalized learning time,” a daily ungraded study hall period supervised and occasionally directed by a 
teacher. In both cases, the academic stakes were relatively low.  

The topics we discussed were proposed by group members and selected through a vote, but it 
would be inaccurate to claim that the groups were entirely democratic. I was admittedly an authority figure, 
directing the groups and facilitating the discussions. My approach to facilitation changed over time both 
within and between groups, as my understanding of ethically optimal dialogue and the needs of my student-
interlocutors evolved. At times, I facilitated the discussions with a light hand, letting the discussion flow 
organically, sometimes even explicitly removing myself from the conversation, while at other times, I took 
a more heavy-handed approach, intervening to preempt or repair what seemed to me to be problematic 
interactions or asking students to practice certain discursive moves.  

The students in the three groups represented a variety of backgrounds, as summarized in the 
following charts. The undergraduate students attended a prestigious private university, and the 9th graders 



Relational Becoming: Considering Classroom Dialogue in Ethico-ontological Terms  
David Sabey 

 
 

Dialogic Pedagogy: An International Online Journal | http://dpj.pitt.edu 
DOI: 10.5195/dpj.2022.459  |  Vol. 10 (2022) 
 

A8 

attended a diverse urban public high school. Some of the differences in their social background and 
academic achievement are evident in their verbal discourse. Although I will provide some additional 
commentary about these students in my subsequent analysis, for the purpose of this paper, I simply want 
to posit that the participants in the study are relatively diverse on a variety of dimensions and, thus, that the 
interactions I will be analyzing are not unique to any particular demographic—that the lenses of 
addressability and presencing are broadly applicable and that the tendencies I document are likely to 
manifest in a variety of contexts, especially in school. 

GROUP 1 (Undergraduates) 
David* White M 
Keith* White M 
Liam White (Germany) M 
Makenzie Black F 
Anand Asian American (India) M 
Brodie White M 
Ted White M 
Jane White F 
Savannah White F 
Joe** Black M 

*Instructors/facilitators 
**Joe was Makenzie’s brother, a college senior, who was invited to the final discussion of the group. 
 

GROUP 2 (9th Grade) 
David* White M 
Jabari Black M 
Ivan White (Ukraine) M 
Sandy White F 
Jimena Latinx F 
Amala Asian American (Vietnam) F 
Jared Latinx M 
Yvette Black (Kenya) F 
Rosa Latinx F 

 
GROUP 3 (9th Grade) 

David* White M 
Patience** Black  F 
Brandin** Black  M 
Luis Latinx M 
Noemi Latinx F 
Derya Kurdish F 
Cody White M 
Laura Latinx F 
Adriana Latinx F 
Aliyah Black (Sudan) F 
Graciella Latinx F 

*Facilitator 
**Patience and Brandin were step-siblings. 
 



Relational Becoming: Considering Classroom Dialogue in Ethico-ontological Terms  
David Sabey 

 
 

Dialogic Pedagogy: An International Online Journal | http://dpj.pitt.edu 
DOI: 10.5195/dpj.2022.459  |  Vol. 10 (2022) 
 

A9 

Most of the discussion below is the result of my retrospective analysis in which I examined the 
transcripts from our meetings and sought to understand them in terms of ethically optimal dialogue. With 
my interest in the ethical dimensions of dialogue, I was initially drawn to moments in which students seemed 
to “show up” in their comments or, conversely, when they seemed to be “hiding” in some way as being 
related to responsibility. Consider, for example, the difference between saying, “I disagree” and “Some 
people might disagree.” In the former, the speaker “shows up” more clearly than in the latter. This is not to 
say that simply using “I-statements” is necessarily responsible, nor that it is irresponsible to not make 
oneself explicitly present in a comment, but the way interlocutors make themselves addressable certainly 
affects their relational becoming. Attending to how my student interlocutors made themselves addressable 
led me to notice how others addressed them, which I have come to see as one aspect of responsiveness. 
Again, I do not necessarily think that it is always ethically obligatory to address one’s interlocutors in every 
way they make themselves addressable, but the way in which we address our interlocutors does affect the 
kind of person they become within the context of the interaction.  

As I examined these moments, I came to see them in terms of addressability and presencing. 
Furthermore, I came to see that the way interlocutors were made addressable and presenced in the group 
was a joint accomplishment—not the result of any individual’s comments. The way interlocutors make 
themselves addressable, which affects how they are presenced in the group, is itself a response and, thus, 
a joint accomplishment of the group. In other words, I came to see that the whole group was responsible to 
some degree for the ethical quality of the discussion. 

Data Analysis 
In what follows, I analyze six different episodes of varying lengths from all three groups. I hope that 

applying the lenses of addressability and presencing to this variety of examples will both show their 
usefulness and help readers attune to some of the ethico-ontological dynamics of the interactions in light 
of the ethical dimensions of dialogue. As readers will see, my analytical methods are very much akin to 
traditional discourse analysis of interlocutors’ positioning, though I find the notions of addressability and 
presencing, which emerged in my initial study of the transcripts, to be a productive lenses for this kind of 
analysis. However, I am not merely interested in documenting discursive patterns in these groups’ 
discussions, but in considering their ethico-ontological qualities and potential. Thus, in light of the ethical 
dimensions of dialogue, I hope that my analysis of addressability and presencing will raise questions about 
how we could have responded differently and how we ought to respond in the future. This aspiration 
exceeds the scope of traditional empirical analysis, as it has to do not only with discernable historical reality 
but with subjective values and potentiality. This approach may be aligned with what Matusov et al. (2019) 
call “dialogic analysis.” In that vein, after analyzing each of the episodes and providing some commentary, 
I imagine how some of the episodes could have gone differently. The purpose of this reimagining is to raise 
questions about which kinds of responses might lead to different and perhaps more generative and 
enriching forms of relational becoming. I do not pretend to have final answers, but I think asking these 
questions is vitally important and I hope the conceptual and analytical tools I develop in this paper will help 
us ask good questions and, perhaps, arrive at some preliminary responses. 

Episode #1: Sidestepping a Certain Address (Group 3) 

This first example comes from Group 3’s discussion on racism. The speakers in the following 
transcript are me (David) and Noemi, who in our discussion group was always rather reserved. She self-
identified as shy and that is, indeed, how I came to see her and respond to her (i.e., that is how she was 
presenced to me), as we will see below. In the course of this discussion, several students, including Noemi, 
indicated that their parents had immigrated to the United States, and, in response, I had invited them to 



Relational Becoming: Considering Classroom Dialogue in Ethico-ontological Terms  
David Sabey 

 
 

Dialogic Pedagogy: An International Online Journal | http://dpj.pitt.edu 
DOI: 10.5195/dpj.2022.459  |  Vol. 10 (2022) 
 

A10 

share their stories with the group, if they would like. After each of the other students did so, the following 
exchange took place: 

David Noemi, do you want to share? 1 
Noemi It’s a long story but like, I don’t know like the full story because like usually I never like, 

listen to my, [David: Mm-hmm] my mom say it, [David: Mm-hmm] 
but like when she tells my other siblings.  

2 
3 
4 

David Do you want to share anything you do know or? You don’t have to. 5 
Noemi I, I don’t know the full story, so. 6 
David Okay. 7 

 

I begin by addressing Noemi as possibly wanting to share her family’s story (line 1). In her 
response, she sidesteps this address and instead makes herself addressable as not knowing the full story 
(line 2), as generally not listening to her mother’s storytelling (lines 2-3), and as having siblings who do 
listen (line 4). Although I conceivably could have responded by addressing her in any of these ways, I 
mostly repeat my initial address, asking once again if she wants to share the part(s) of the story she knows, 
and reiterate that she does not have to do so (line 5). Again, she sidesteps this address and makes herself 
addressable as not knowing the full story (line 6), which I interpret and accept as a bid to be excused from 
comment (line 7). Notice how Noemi’s presencing is dialogically co-authored, particularly in how I address 
her in ways that do not align with the ways she makes herself addressable. This is not to say that, had I 
addressed her otherwise, she necessarily would have responded differently, but a different address may 
have opened up other possibilities of relational becoming. As it was, this interaction simply presenced 
Noemi as a shy student who did not really want to participate in the discussion. 

Episode #2: Obscuring Addressability (Group 1) 

The following exchange took place during a discussion about abortion among the undergraduate 
group. Brodie, the primary speaker in the exchange, was the most outspoken liberal in the group and often 
the person who spoke the most in our discussions, both because he had strong opinions and because he 
tended to be rather verbose in articulating them. He was aware of this tendency and attributed it to his 
upbringing in a conservative state where he often found himself in situations in which he was the only liberal 
and had to defend progressive politics single-handedly. What is particularly interesting to me is how different 
Brodie’s participation in our discussions was from Noemi’s, but how, when viewed in terms of addressability, 
both seem to be “hiding” in some ways.   

The extended transcript included below begins as Brodie responds to a brief discussion among 
other students about the comparability of a human fetus to a non-human animal, indicating that he largely 
agreed that a fetus need not be considered human. 

Brodie I do kind of- I'm interested by this notion that the humanistic quality of life, 
like often people disassociate humans as like a species, or like an animalistic 
species, but like the humanistic quality of life, I don't- I would agree. I don't 
think it's found as a fetus. I think there is something about a shared human 
experience that gives you a sense of humanistic life, and I- I don't know if I 
would've went so far to like name examples, but I agree with the theory, I 
guess. I guess, um something else that I've heard raised a lot recently, people 
often when they talk about abortions will say that they're worried the baby or 
fetus will suffer. A baby will suffer if born. Something else that I've heard 

1 
2 
3 
4 
5 
6 
7 
8 
9 



Relational Becoming: Considering Classroom Dialogue in Ethico-ontological Terms  
David Sabey 

 
 

Dialogic Pedagogy: An International Online Journal | http://dpj.pitt.edu 
DOI: 10.5195/dpj.2022.459  |  Vol. 10 (2022) 
 

A11 

raised recently is people having a very philosophical and ethical debate is, what 
world am I bringing a child into? Not that the child might necessarily suffer 
when it gets here from like anything physical or biologically wrong with it, but 
um, this id- this notion that maybe you're bringing into a child, a child into a 
world that is not fit for it to be prosperous or live a healthy, good life, whatever 
standards you want to set to it. This notion that just because a child is born, 
does not, or a baby is born, it is not instantaneously guaranteed the same equal 
human experience that every other baby is.  So maybe there has to be this 
ethical question of what life am I bringing a person into? And I think that's just 
something that, it's been very recently talked about. But I don't think that most 
people are acknowledging like there are different qualities of life that may 
impact this decision. 

10 
11 
12 
13 
14 
15 
16 
17 
18 
19 

Liam Would you- would you sign your name to that? (Laughter from group) 20 

Brodie I personally believe, yeah. At some point you have to consider it's inethical for 
you to think, I can have a child, we'll figure it out after it happens. Like we'll 
figure out if this was a life that this child deserved or if this is the life that any 
human deserved, like I don't think, I feel like that's very inethical as a parent, 
which would be like, oh, okay, well let me accidentally get pregnant, whatever 
the situation may be, and then have a child. I feel like that's an inethical 
situation to bring them into like a very, if there are situations that it's not fit for 
a person to live in, including yourself. If you feel like you're in a situation that's 
unfit for you, to bring another person into that situation seems very inethical 
and irresponsible. 

21 
22 
23 
24 
25 
26 
27 
28 
29 

Liam Right. 30 

Ted You gotta ( ) 31 

Anand                  Can I ask a question? 32 

Brodie Please 33 

Anand So, what you were saying- So, um, so like how would you view it if, let's say, 
someone who's born in a rich family and had a teen pregnancy and they were at 
high school, or whatever, and they decided to get an abortion. Compared to 
someone who was like, in a actually a very difficult situation, where they could 
not raise the baby in a healthy environment. Would you see- would it- would 
one be more okay than the other? 

34 
35 
36 
37 
38 

Brodie I'm very pro choice, I think either's fine. 39 

Anand So okay, so- 40 

Brodie                     but I, but I think that is something that a lot of, um, a lot of people  
and, very, including myself, there's a actually a film that raises this notion to 
me, it was called, it was called A Private Life. It's about a couple that's trying to 
have a baby and they have to do it, not like naturally, I do not, it's like a sperm 
don-, they get a sperm donor. But um, while she's like filling out the papers, 

41 
42 
43 
44 
45 



Relational Becoming: Considering Classroom Dialogue in Ethico-ontological Terms  
David Sabey 

 
 

Dialogic Pedagogy: An International Online Journal | http://dpj.pitt.edu 
DOI: 10.5195/dpj.2022.459  |  Vol. 10 (2022) 
 

A12 

she goes to this kind of like a meta-level philosophical like struggle with like, 
What am I doing to this child? Like they're coming into a world that is not in a 
good place right now. And then she goes off on this tangent about all the issues 
in the world that she's bringing a child into. And until I saw that, I was like, 
wow, I never thought of it like that. I always thought of it much like you all are 
thinking, or most people think about it as like, Am I bringing a child into a 
place where they are going to suffer physically or for whatever biological 
reason, where it's like, at some point there's like a moral question of like suffering too. 

46 
47 
48 
49 
50 
51 
52 

David So when you talk about the world, you're not talking about the- like the family's 
socioeconomic status. 

53 
54 

Brodie I think- I think you can go to both. I think there are situations where it's just the 
socioeconomic status and other situations you look at- in the tangent, she's like, 
what am I bringing it out into? And then she goes off, she's like climate change 
and war and famine and disease and all the, and she just goes off on a tangent 
about everything that's wrong with the world, and while I didn't necessarily 
agree with all of that, I still found it interesting that like this is something that is 
interesting to think about, and like a lot of countries are sharing like a very 
similar like philosophy of like how like aside kind of but like they're saying 
some similar philosophy, like they want a negative population growth because 
they're so overpopulated and that terrifies them as like a government, that 
they're encouraging, like very heavily, like negative population growth. Like a 
lot of western European countries, and like China is like very crazy about how 
spec- like, like crazy's the wrong word, but very, very restrictive on their 
population growth. But like it is something that like, is not like an 
Americanized concept yet, which I just find interesting. 

55 
56 
57 
58 
59 
60 
61 
62 
63 
64 
65 
66 
67 
68 

Liam Um, so there, so it's either the, so there are two two like kind of points here as I 
see it. It's one of them is the um, like the world we live in due to like stuff like 
climate change and stuff is becoming so horrible that potentially every child 
might not like have a good life. And the other one is depending on your 
situation, your child might- depending on your socioeconomic or whatever 
situation, that your child might not have a good life. Those- so those are the 
two possible like arguments. 

69 
70 
71 
72 
73 
74 

Brodie I don't know if it's limited to just those two. I just, I thought that question that 
was raised was very interesting and I was just, it, what I won't sign my name to 
is that I agree that that's a probable cause for an abortion. I'm very pro-choice 
for the first two trimesters. I don't feel like you need a reason that you don't 
want to have a child don't have a child. Uh third trimester, I think it has to come 
down to viability or if it's going to harm or kill the mother. But I don't know if 
I'm uh willing to sign my name to, oh I wouldn't have a child right now because 
of climate change, but I do mean that it's something that people have to start 
asking, is like, what is, what is the environment they're coming into? 

75 
76 
77 
78 
79 
80 
81 
82 

Liam So you're, you're just stating this argument, but you don't necessarily even 
believe in its validity. 

83 
84 



Relational Becoming: Considering Classroom Dialogue in Ethico-ontological Terms  
David Sabey 

 
 

Dialogic Pedagogy: An International Online Journal | http://dpj.pitt.edu 
DOI: 10.5195/dpj.2022.459  |  Vol. 10 (2022) 
 

A13 

Brodie I don't agree with every facet of the argument. I agree with raising the 
questions. 

85 

David You would say, it could be the ethical choice to choose to abort a baby given 
world conditions. [Brodie: Yeah] That that is a defensible argument. 

86 
87 

Brodie I think- Yeah. I think it's defensible and it- and to say, but yeah, I can't, I don't 
agree with every facet, but I would, I wouldn't judge someone who made that 
argument and that was their defense for having an abortion. 

88 
89 
90 

Liam You wouldn't judge anybody for having an abortion. 91 

Brodie Uh, if a mother was, we used, what was it, 40 weeks if it was 39th week and 
that the fetus was in every scientifically provable way viable outside of the 
womb, had an abortion. I don't know if I could see a moral reason for that. 

92 
93 
94 

Liam Okay, gotcha.  95 

 

After responding to an idea brought up by his classmates, Brodie maintains the floor and pivots to 
“something else that I’ve heard raised a lot recently” (lines 6-7). He goes on to introduce two different ways 
people talk about abortion, one having to do with suffering (lines 7-8), the other having to do with quality of 
life (lines 8-13). Though the distinction between the two orientations is not entirely clear, he seems to align 
with the latter perspective, but does so obliquely. In Goffman's (1974) terms, he acts as the “animator” of 
other speakers rather than revealing himself as the “principal” and/or “author” of these ideas, a documented 
means of achieving discursive neutrality (Clayman, 1992). Although this is likely more habitual than 
deliberate, he does a lot of discursive work to obscure where exactly he stands relative to the ideas he 
introduces. In this initial turn, the closest he gets to self-revelation, to making himself addressable as having 
a particular opinion, is when he says, “So maybe there has to be this ethical question of what life am I 
bringing a person into?” (line 16). Immediately afterwards, however, he creates some distance between 
himself and that question, saying, “And I think that’s just something that, it’s been very recently talked about” 
(lines 17). With this comment, he makes himself addressable as someone who has heard this idea but not 
necessarily as the bearer of that opinion—as a hearer, not a believer. If his opinion is that the quality of life 
a newborn would inherit is a legitimate criterion when considering abortion, he discursively inserts other 
people between himself and that idea, saying “I don’t think that most people are acknowledging like there 
are different qualities of life that may impact this decision” (lines 17-19). In terms of what Brodie makes 
explicit, he becomes addressable only as someone who has heard other people talking about abortion and 
who has some “meta” understanding of how they are (not) discussing it.  

In the moment, my sense was simply that Brodie was verbose, but I have come to see this tendency 
as also functioning as a kind of self-protection. Perhaps Brodie participates in the discussion in this self-
protective way simply because he is exploring these ideas, or perhaps because he is wary of the 
consequences of taking a hard and potentially controversial stand. In response, Liam calls Brodie out, 
asking, “would you sign your name to that?” (line 20), a remark that invokes a Bakhtinian concept (i.e., 
“name signing”) we introduced to the class and seems intended to prod Brodie to put himself on the line, to 
make himself directly addressable in relation to these ideas. The laughter this question elicits may suggest 
that other students also sense how Brodie’s comments obscure his addressability. In lines 21-29, Brodie 
responds, speaking more directly as himself and explaining that he considers it unethical to bring a child 



Relational Becoming: Considering Classroom Dialogue in Ethico-ontological Terms  
David Sabey 

 
 

Dialogic Pedagogy: An International Online Journal | http://dpj.pitt.edu 
DOI: 10.5195/dpj.2022.459  |  Vol. 10 (2022) 
 

A14 

into a situation that is unfit for human life, leaving open, however, the question of what qualities make a 
given situation more or less “fit.”  

Anand picks this up and asks if Brodie sees two different scenarios differently—if abortion would 
be “more okay” in one (line 38)—implicitly searching for the criteria Brodie has in mind. Brodie responds by 
identifying as “pro-choice” and saying that “either’s fine” (line 39). Anand seems poised to further examine 
Brodie’s stance when Brodie continues. Echoing some of his earlier animation of other voices, he begins 
by referring to “something that…a lot of people” (line 41) presumably are saying; he adds himself to the 
group (“including myself” line 34) but then, rather than directly sharing what he thinks, defers to the film A 
Private Life, giving voice to its protagonist as she considers using a sperm donor to become pregnant. At 
line 42, the comment becomes autobiographical, as Brodie narrates how the movie changed his 
perspective. He explains, “I always thought of it much like you all are thinking, or as most people think about 
it” (lines 49-50). I take the revision from “you all” to “most people” to indicate a recognition that it might not 
be appropriate to label the entire group as having a certain opinion; in either case, however, Brodie seems 
to address a seemingly homogenous group of people and not any person(s) in particular. Apparently, in 
Brodie’s mind, the perspective held by most people, including his most proximate interlocutors, has to do 
with physical suffering or biological concerns, whereas his new perspective concerns the “moral question 
of…suffering” (line 52).  

Still seeking clarity, I ask another follow up question. As he begins answering, he seems to 
approach his own opinion, saying, “I think there are situations where it’s just the socioeconomic status and 
other situations you look at” (lines 55-56), when he breaks off and once again begins to give voice to the 
film’s protagonist (lines 56-59). Done referencing the movie, Brodie initially hedges, saying, “I didn’t 
necessarily agree with all of that” (line 59) and then takes an ambiguous stance: “this is something that is 
interesting to think about” (line 60). After referring to “a lot of countries” who have a similar philosophy (lines 
60-67), he concludes, saying, “which I just find interesting” (lines 67-68). Brodie’s repeated ventriloquations 
and ambiguous stances make it hard to identify where exactly he stands in all this; he makes himself 
addressable to the group as someone with interest in and familiarity with ethical questions about abortion, 
extant conversations, and certain national policies, but not really as a unique individual with a particular 
opinion on the matter.  

Liam in particular seems frustrated with Brodie’s obscure addressability. In lines 69-74, he offers 
two possible arguments having to do with “a good life,” implicitly asking Brodie to identify which one he is 
talking about. Brodie resists the binary choice, saying “I don’t know if it’s limited to just those two” (line 75), 
and reiterates his ambiguous stance: “I thought that question that was raised was very interesting” (lines 
75-76). Echoing the terminology of signing one’s name which Liam used in his first question (line 20), Brodie 
then says that he does not necessarily agree that “that’s a probable cause for an abortion” (line 77). I take 
this to mean that he does not necessarily believe that the possibility that a child will inherit a bad life should 
preclude someone from giving birth. As he explains this, he notes that he is “very pro-choice for the first 
two trimesters” (line 77) and does not think that someone needs any particular reason to abort a pregnancy 
within that time frame (lines 77-78). In the third trimester, however, he believes that abortion should be 
limited to cases related to fetal viability and the health of the mother. Concluding this turn at talk, Brodie 
returns once again to the name-signing metaphor, saying that while he would not necessarily approve of 
someone choosing not to have a child because of climate change, he thinks that people have to start 
considering the environment their children will inherit. It may be that Brodie’s position is that, during the first 
two trimesters, people can choose to have an abortion for any reason they see fit, and the likelihood of their 
child inheriting a good life is a valid reason—one that prospective parents should take into consideration; 
but Brodie does not explicitly connect his pro-choice stance during the first two trimesters with his other 
musings, and he only indirectly states his opinion in terms of what he will not sign his name to.  



Relational Becoming: Considering Classroom Dialogue in Ethico-ontological Terms  
David Sabey 

 
 

Dialogic Pedagogy: An International Online Journal | http://dpj.pitt.edu 
DOI: 10.5195/dpj.2022.459  |  Vol. 10 (2022) 
 

A15 

Once again, in lines 83-84, Liam pushes for Brodie to make himself more directly addressable in 
relation to the ideas he is raising. This opens a series of questions in which Liam and I, speaking in the 
second person, characterize Brodie’s opinion for him: “You’re just stating…” (line 83), “You would say…” 
(line 86), and “You wouldn’t judge…” (line 91). Perhaps tired of Brodie’s repeated obscurations, we speak 
for him, providing him words that he can either accept or reject. He responds, repeating that, while he does 
not agree with every facet of the argument, he thinks people should be raising these questions (about the 
quality of life a child will inherit) and that such considerations could provide a legitimate reason to get an 
abortion. When pressed, he ultimately says, “I don’t know if I could see a moral reason for” aborting a 
pregnancy of a viable child at the 39th week (line 94). Although, as I read it, there remain several loose ends 
in this exchange, Brodie’s answer seems to satisfy Liam, his most insistent questioner, and the conversation 
moves on.  

One way to read this episode—which, in fact, reflects my original orientation to Brodie’s mode of 
participating in our discussions—is to blame Brodie for his loquacious and circumlocutory discourse. 
However, from a dialogic perspective, his utterances must be viewed as a joint accomplishment and not 
simply as Brodie’s fault. This is because, first, Brodie’s previous and imagined interlocutors play some role 
in shaping how he tends to speak, not simply because of habits he has developed, but because, in many 
ways, he continues to respond to them – rather, it sometimes seems, than those he is physically present 
with – and, second, the other members of the group (myself included) were complicit to some degree in 
Brodie’s utterances. In making ourselves addressable, asking questions, listening, and, most obviously, 
facilitating the discussion in certain ways over time, we allowed for and jointly co-authored certain 
responses.  

Consider, for example, how all of the follow-up questions and assertions seek to render Brodie 
addressable in terms of his opinion while not actually offering any particular addressability themselves. 
Though they invite a certain response, the questioner is not made explicitly present in the asking. When 
Liam tries to clarify Brodie’s point by outlining, as he sees it, the two possible arguments Brodie might be 
making (lines 69-74), Brodie’s response, “I don't know if it's limited to just those two. I just, I thought that 
question that was raised was very interesting” (lines 75-76) might be understood as an attempt to side-step 
a potential trap. Unsure of what Liam thinks, which of the options he and other group members might be 
more sympathetic to, and how they might respond, Brodie plays it safe with an ambiguous stance.  

Although, in terms of amount spoken in our discussions, Brodie was the opposite of Noemi, like 
her, he struggled (in dialogue with the rest of the group) to become addressable as an individual with a 
unique voice and perspective. Despite his many comments, the group often did not really encounter Brodie 
himself; instead, we encountered Brodie the ventriloquist as he gave voice to a variety of different people. 
This affected the quality of our relational becoming in part because it was unclear who we were responding 
to and how we might address Brodie. As I consider my own experience, I think, regrettably, that Brodie was 
presenced to me primarily as a problem—as a verbose and sometimes convoluted interlocutor who tended 
to monopolize the discussion. Attending myopically to this aspect of my student interlocutor limited the 
possibilities of our relational becoming. 

Episode #3: Overlooking a Possible Address (Group 2) 

The next example comes from one of Group 2’s discussions, and it features Rosa’s only unsolicited 
comment. Rosa only attended seven out of the twelve sessions that took place between October and 
November 2019. She was classified as an English Language Learner and was rather reticent during the 
discussions but was often talkative and giggly in the time before and after, especially with Yvette, her closest 
friend in the group. On the day of this discussion, as we walked to our meeting place in the library, I told 
Rosa and Yvette that I would love to hear their thoughts about toxic masculinity during our discussion. 



Relational Becoming: Considering Classroom Dialogue in Ethico-ontological Terms  
David Sabey 

 
 

Dialogic Pedagogy: An International Online Journal | http://dpj.pitt.edu 
DOI: 10.5195/dpj.2022.459  |  Vol. 10 (2022) 
 

A16 

Yvette responded, saying, “But you always ask questions to go deeper” (Memo 11/20/2019). I responded, 
saying that I was not planning to intervene much during the discussion, so she would not have to worry 
about that.  

The portion of the discussion from which the following excerpt is taken was largely a response to a 
YouTube video we watched, in which a female narrator argued that the use of the term “toxic masculinity” 
discouraged masculine behaviors that are actually beneficial to society. Several students, Jimena and 
Sandy in particular, had taken issue with this argument, drawing on their lived experiences to speak back 
to the narrator. The group had discussed how, contrary to the argument of the video, women (including 
Jimena’s and Jabari’s mothers) are perfectly capable of raising children on their own, though they amended 
this stance slightly by saying that it was still important to have a father figure of some kind. Subsequently, 
Jimena had introduced a new idea about how the video we watched had implied that it was bad for men to 
be effeminate—an idea she disputed. During this time, Yvette and Rosa had been whispering and writing 
in Rosa’s notebook in what seems to be preparation for the following comment. It is not entirely clear in the 
video, but it seems that Yvette wrote out “I don’t need my father for be happy” for Rosa. After Jimena spoke, 
Rosa said: 

Rosa I... 1 

David Yeah? 2 

Rosa I feel like for me like, I don't need my father for be happy. I can be happy with 
my mom, [throws hands up] only me and her. [throws hands up] Like that's... 

3 
4 

Amala [Raises hand] [David: nod] So, adding on to what she [pointing to Sandy] said 
about how she [the female narrator] made women seem weak, she like used 
stereotypes of women and men. Like, men should be strong, like this type of 
thing and then, women need a strong man, but she should've like made them 
both seem equal. 'Cause she... yeah. 

5 
6 
7 
8 
9 

 

By volunteering this comment, Rosa made herself newly addressable as a willing participant in the 
discussion (something I was eager to support) and by alluding to her relationship with her parents, she 
made herself addressable as someone who believes she does not need her father to be happy. This allusion 
had the potential to flesh out her physical presence, making her addressable in at least these two new 
ways. However, rather than responding to this newly addressable Rosa, Amala returned to an idea that had 
been brought up previously. Perhaps it was Rosa’s accent combined with her previous reticence which, for 
Amala, may have raised questions about her willingness and ability to elaborate in English; perhaps it was 
the possibility that the story would be intensely personal and uncomfortable for the group to discuss; or 
perhaps it was the fact that Rosa’s comment did not follow directly from the preceding comment or add 
much conceptually to the discussion; whatever the reason, Amala’s comment does not address Rosa at 
all. Though Rosa theoretically remained addressable as someone with a potentially fraught history with her 
parents, the group never addressed her as such, and her presence in the group was largely unchanged, 
despite the self-revelation explicit and implicit in her comment. Rather than addressing Rosa, Amala 
addressed the video’s narrator as someone who uses problematic gender stereotypes. As other students 
responded to this critique, the narrator was presenced to the group perhaps more than Rosa.  

Amala’s response is understandable in the context of a classroom discussion. In some ways, it fits 
better in the flow of the conversation than Rosa’s comment because it more directly advances the 



Relational Becoming: Considering Classroom Dialogue in Ethico-ontological Terms  
David Sabey 

 
 

Dialogic Pedagogy: An International Online Journal | http://dpj.pitt.edu 
DOI: 10.5195/dpj.2022.459  |  Vol. 10 (2022) 
 

A17 

conceptual discussion and more clearly follows Jimena’s comment. Understood conceptually, Rosa’s 
comment does not add anything new to the conversation, but from the perspective of relational becoming, 
it opens up the possibility of encountering Rosa and her parents as individuals with unique voices and 
perspectives. Because Rosa only alludes to the story, she leaves much of the work of addressability (of 
herself and her parents) to her classmates who do not seem to notice or respond to her newly addressable 
and storied self. As a result, her presence in the group remained largely unaffected. 

Episode #4: Presencing and Addressing Potential Interlocutors (Group 3) 

This excerpt comes from one of Group 3’s discussions about toxic masculinity, after several 
students shared ideas and personal stories about how men and women are treated differently in certain 
situations. Brandin talked about how his grandmother always asks him to take out the trash rather than his 
female relatives, Aliyah talked about how her mother insists that her brothers carry heavy groceries in from 
the car, and Carlos talked about how women sometimes got paid less than men for doing the same job. 
Riffing on this theme, Patience related the following story: 

Patience Yeah. My mom used to, well she still do make the boys, him [Brandin] and 
my brother cut the grass. [David: Mm-hmm.] And I used to like, go out 
there and wanna help and stuff and she used to be like, nah, nah. And I'm 
just like, why can't I help like [David: Mm] just 'cause I'm a girl, don't 
mean nothing. I'm a girl and I do a lot of stuff. [David: Mm-hmm.] Like I'm 
a girl and I lift a lot of stuff and it just kinda irritating sometimes 'cause it's 
like, you don't see the value in what girls have. You just see that [David: 
Right] men are supposed to be like [David: Hm.] more like aggressive or 
stronger, when that's not the case. [David: Yeah.] I mean this is not a bad 
thing but like, I wish they would, they would see that in women too. 

1 
2 
3 
4 
5 
6 
7 
8 
9 
10 

David Yeah. Yeah so what I hear you saying this, like, I said, you know, it could 
be a good thing to say men are brave and strong or whatever, but you bring 
up that, the danger in that is, if by saying that, you imply that women are 
not that, right? Like if men are brave and strong, what does that mean about 
women? And one thing that people could say is like, that means women are 
not so much those things. Right? 

11 
12 
13 
14 
15 
16 

Patience Mm-hmm (affirmative). 17 

David Yeah. So, I've, I think that's a, good point. 18 

 

In her first turn at talk, Patience begins by telling a story about how she, as a girl, was discouraged 
from mowing the lawn (lines 1-3). This portion is spoken in the habitual past (“used to”). Although it is not 
entirely clear where the story stops, and if a younger Patience ever explicitly resisted her mother’s gendered 
division of household labor, the verb tense shifts at the end of line 3 to the present tense. Whether or not 
her self-quotation (starting with “I’m just like” on lines 3-4) is meant to be part of the story or to reflect her 
current thinking, it represents a response to her mother. Note how the story makes Patience’s mother 
addressable and how Patience addresses her directly, using the second person (lines 6-9) to articulate her 
frustration and assert herself as a capable woman. As she concludes her comment (lines 9-10), Patience 
broadens her response to a generic “they,” suggesting that the issues she encountered with her mother are 



Relational Becoming: Considering Classroom Dialogue in Ethico-ontological Terms  
David Sabey 

 
 

Dialogic Pedagogy: An International Online Journal | http://dpj.pitt.edu 
DOI: 10.5195/dpj.2022.459  |  Vol. 10 (2022) 
 

A18 

prevalent beyond her household—that her mother is part of a vague collective that tends to see certain 
characteristics in men and not in women.  

Following both Patience’s lead and my own schooled inclinations, my response addresses this final 
comment and fails to address anything other than the supposed message of Patience’s story. This comment 
takes what “I hear [Patience] saying” (line 11) and translates it into a generalizable principle—that the 
danger of having a normative vision of masculinity is that it implies that women do not/should not have the 
characteristics ascribed to men. Although I believe there is value in this kind of reflective listening, in this 
case, it ignored the presence and addressability of Patience’s mother. After Patience confirms that this was 
what she was saying, I characterize the idea as a “good point” (line 18). Indeed, it seems that her story 
became, in my mind, merely a vehicle for a message, and that, in the end, the message was all I heard her 
saying. Consequently, I do not address Patience as anything other than someone with a point to make in 
the discussion, as the owner of a certain idea, nor does it occur to me to address her mother.  

In this episode, we seem to fail to fully address two interlocutors who became newly addressable: 
Patience and her mother. Patience’s mother was, of course, not physically present (though she was 
certainly presenced in significant ways to Patience), and was represented secondhand, but she is still a 
person with a particular point of view who could be presenced and rendered addressable in a variety of 
ways to the group. To be clear, I am not suggesting that we necessarily have the same ethical obligations 
to narrativized individuals as to those with whom we are physically present, but I think we do have some 
obligations and can mutually benefit from seeking to be in dialogue to the extent possible. In this example, 
by giving voice to and addressing her mother, Patience was able to articulate some of her own thoughts 
and feelings, but her final comment closes off her mother’s addressability, suggesting that her story is an 
example of a broader trend and, relatedly, that her mother need not be addressed as a unique individual—
at least, not by anyone else in the group. Perhaps this abstractive closure functions to protect her mother, 
or perhaps it is simply due to some schoolish sense that a comment should do more than tell stories—that 
it should have some generalizable message. Whatever the reason, neither Patience nor other members of 
the group address her mother further, and her presence in the group quickly wanes. Likewise, Patience 
herself is addressed simply as someone with a “good point” (line 18), not as a young woman who has felt 
that her gender excludes her from certain activities and makes other people, including her mother, view her 
as less capable than she considers herself to be. Rather than dealing with any of the emotional or relational 
complexities of her story, the conversation proceeds based solely on an abstraction. This seems largely 
due to my response, which treats her story as a vehicle for her final comment, translating it entirely into an 
abstract plane. This kind of response was the result of how Patience (and her mother) were presenced to 
me, and this presencing was shaped by our discourse, the quality of my attention and attunement to 
Patience’s comments, and, relatedly, my sense of the discussion genre.  

This episode reveals a pattern that will be evident in the following two examples, namely, a 
tendency to translate stories into abstractions and to relate to each other as bearers of ideas, and not as 
embodied, thinking-feeling, storied selves. Patience’s abstraction of her mother seems to manifest an 
emerging form of this pattern, while my response and the following examples show it in its maturity. 

Episode #5: Reducing a Story to a Moral (Group 1) 

The following example comes from Group 1’s discussion of physician’s assisted suicide (PAS) in 
which Liam, after telling a personal story, immediately translates it into an abstract principle. Remember 
that this group was composed of undergraduates studying at a prestigious university, something that is 
evident not simply in their diction, but in their fluency with abstractions. My growing sense is that this 
discursive move is the kind of thing that is cultivated and rewarded in school and, consequently, something 
that successful students like Liam are well-practiced in. While this kind of abstraction is not inherently bad, 



Relational Becoming: Considering Classroom Dialogue in Ethico-ontological Terms  
David Sabey 

 
 

Dialogic Pedagogy: An International Online Journal | http://dpj.pitt.edu 
DOI: 10.5195/dpj.2022.459  |  Vol. 10 (2022) 
 

A19 

it comes at a cost. Notice how, in the following example, it forecloses certain forms of presencing and 
addressability: 

Liam Okay, so this is pretty intense and extreme but... So, okay. My stepdad, he has this 
kind of... He's got this muscle disease, and that means his muscles are slowly 
degenerating. And, there might come a time where he just won't be able to move, 
and will be tied to a bed, because... He just won't be able to do anything else. And 
he's very adamant about not wanting to live anymore at that time. And since, I 
think, in Germany, I don't think it's legal, so what he wants... He basically has this 
plan where there's this procedure where we could bring some kind of poison to his 
room, we would have to leave the room, so that we're not culpable, and then he 
can just ingest it himself. So that's what he says. It's intense. And he doesn't want 
to do it now, he's fine right now. But, what I'm saying is it's certainly possible to 
commit suicide without a physician's assistance. So what are the arguments that 
it's so necessary? Why would... I don't understand why you would go to the 
trouble of moving to a different state and doing all this legal application, when 
you can- there are other ways to end your life. 

1 
2 
3 
4 
5 
6 
7 
8 
9 
10 
11 
12 
13 
14 

Joe I mean, I think part of that might just be... I'm trying to be super careful. Maybe 
the way that suicide is viewed in this country, and in society... I don't know. I just 
feel like if somebody was struggling with something, with an illness or 
something, and I said, "Hey, why don't you just go kill yourself?”, that probably 
would not be received, I think, as well as if, kind of saying to them, "How about 
you kind of go talk to your physician and kind of see what kind of options are 
available?" And I just think maybe it's kind of... I don't know. The culture, or the 
connotation of just committing suicide, kind of on your own, that kind of prevents 
people from wanting to do that. Because, I mean, I think you're right. There's no 
reason that these other people can't commit suicide. But I do think it's kind of just 
that... I don't know, culture connotations kind of associated with it on its own. 

15 
16 
17 
18 
19 
20 
21 
22 
23 
24 
25 

 

In his comment, Liam makes his stepfather addressable, prefacing his comment with the 
acknowledgement that “this is pretty intense and extreme” (line 1). After telling about his stepfather, he 
concludes, saying, “So that’s what he says. It’s intense” (line 10), adding as an assurance, “And he doesn’t 
want to do it now, he’s fine right now” (lines 10-11). As I read it, these are the only moments in this exchange 
in which Liam’s stepfather is addressed (along with Liam himself), albeit tangentially, as an embodied, 
thinking-feeling being; everywhere else, his story is represented and responded to merely as an illustration 
of a principle. After telling the story and assuring the class that his stepfather is not currently contemplating 
suicide, Liam says, “But, what I’m saying is it’s certainly possible to commit suicide without a physician’s 
assistance. So what are the arguments that it’s so necessary?” (lines 10-12). This comment not only 
translates the story into a concept (i.e., that suicide does not require a physician) but explicitly invites a 
response on the same plane of abstraction, making his stepfather addressable merely as an example of a 
concept, subsumed within a broader whole, and limiting, in the process, his unique presence in the group. 
And indeed, Joe responds on this plane of abstractions, even conjuring up a hypothetical person “struggling 
with...an illness or something” (lines 18-19), rather than addressing Liam’s stepfather. His comment, “I think 
you’re right” (line 25) is revealing in this regard, implying that he understood the comment, story included, 
as nothing more than a defensible point in an argument and not the revelation of newly addressable Others. 
This simplifies the story to a moral and, in the process, limits the presence of its characters (who have 
simply functioned as vehicles for the moral).   



Relational Becoming: Considering Classroom Dialogue in Ethico-ontological Terms  
David Sabey 

 
 

Dialogic Pedagogy: An International Online Journal | http://dpj.pitt.edu 
DOI: 10.5195/dpj.2022.459  |  Vol. 10 (2022) 
 

A20 

As noted, this is the kind of response Liam invites; Joe complies, and together they jointly 
accomplish the abstraction of Liam’s stepfather. In the end, the living reality of a person facing the prospect 
of a bedridden life and a stepson asked to endorse and perhaps even play a complicit role in a suicide has 
been replaced by a hypothetical somebody and an abstract principle. Liam acknowledges the intensity of 
his story, but otherwise makes himself addressable simply as someone familiar with his stepfather’s plans 
and who sees them as evidence of the idea that suicide is already accessible to anyone willing to carry it 
out. By telling the story, Liam makes himself addressable as a stepson of someone with suicidal 
contingency plans related to his muscular degeneration, but by translating the story into a specific principle 
and inviting abstract responses, he is presenced simply as a knower—as someone with a particular stance 
in the ongoing discussion. And, predictably, this is how Joe addresses him—and there is no further mention 
of Liam’s stepfather. 

Example 6: Approaching (and Retreating from) Different Kinds of Presence and Addressability 
(Group 2) 

My comments in this final example manifest a similar pattern, though I think they also show a 
nascent sense of a potentially more ethically optimal mode of facilitating discussions. This episode took 
place during Group 2’s third and final discussion about abortion, in which Jabari shares with the group that 
his mother had aborted a pregnancy “a long time ago.” This was particularly notable to me because, up to 
this point, Jabari had generally argued for positions that would be considered “pro-life.” In our very first 
discussion, for example, after Sandy suggested that a family without the means to provide for a child would 
be justified in getting an abortion, Jabari said, “If they’re like poor and stuff, and don’t have enough money 
to take care of the baby, then can’t they just like put it up for adoption instead of killing it?” He seemed to 
view abortion as a form of homicide and consequently struggled to justify it as an alternative to adoption, 
so I wondered if learning that his mother had had an abortion would be disturbing and disorienting.  

On the day of the final discussion, I had asked the students to write in their journal about the 
abortion policies they would institute if they had the chance. This admittedly simplistic prompt was designed 
to elicit and concretize students’ opinions in order to help them take a stand and engage with the 
implications of each other’s ideas. Jabari volunteered to begin the discussion by paraphrasing his journal 
entry, saying that he thought abortion was justifiable in some situations (e.g., in the case of rape), adding, 
“but like if you're getting pregnant like with your husband and then you guys just like don't want the baby at 
all, then that's when I think you should just have the baby and put it up for adoption.” Noting some 
exceptions, he still positions himself as generally opposed to abortion, focusing his attention on a 
hypothetical situation in which adoption would be preferable to abortion. Following Jabari, Jimena explained 
that she would permit abortion “if like you don't have the funds,” comparing her ideal abortion policy with 
the way the government provides health insurance for people below a certain income level. Jabari seemed 
to appreciate this idea, remarking affirmatively, “Yeah, it just depends on the situation.” When Jimena 
finished explaining her idea, the following exchange took place: 

Jabari Another thing is that- Well, this has really nothing to do with like, [gesturing 
to what he had written in his notebook] this whole thing, but I asked my mom 
about it and it turns out she actually had an abortion a long time ago and she 
was actually supposed to have twins, another set of twins, and I guess she 
didn't decide to have them because she didn't have enough funds at the time, 
and that was like a while back. So we would- we would have like, six people 
in our house. [David: Hmm.] Which would've been a lot. 

1 
2 
3 
4 
5 
6 
7 

David Interesting. Well, so what do you think about that? 8 



Relational Becoming: Considering Classroom Dialogue in Ethico-ontological Terms  
David Sabey 

 
 

Dialogic Pedagogy: An International Online Journal | http://dpj.pitt.edu 
DOI: 10.5195/dpj.2022.459  |  Vol. 10 (2022) 
 

A21 

Jabari Um, I think it's understandable. She told me why she couldn't really have 
them, and I wasn't like angry at her for that or anything, so... Like, yeah I 
guess it's really just situational, really. Yeah, that's all I have. 

9 
10 
11 

David Interesting. How does- so I'm- if you don't mind sharing, how does your- does 
your mom feel like that was the right thing to do? Does she- 

12 
13 

Jabari She said she kinda like... She says the- she kinda like... Well, she said it 
would've been hard to raise like all six of us, because she was a single mom 
for like most of her life, and she had like her first baby in her senior year, so 
she kinda just like- She never really had like, a personal life. She's always had 
to like, take care of, us the entire time, and I guess she just didn't wanna, have 
that many people to deal with, ‘cause she would've still had like way more 
kids, and by the time we were all grown up, she probably would've passed 
away or would've been like, super old by now. She hasn't really had any time 
to herself, really, because she's been taking care of all of us, so. 

14 
15 
16 
17 
18 
19 
20 
21 
22 

David Interesting...So far I'm hearing people are saying there are situations when 
abortion is okay. We seem to agree that rape is one of those. Do we all agree 
that uh poverty is another reason for [Students “Mm-hmm” affirmatively]... 
Does anyone disagree? Would anyone say that's not a good enough reason?...I 
guess I'm thinking about Ivan, Yvette, and Jared. You've tended to be more on 
the pro-life side. Would you say if someone's poor, they should be able to get 
an abortion? 

23 
24 
25 
26 
27 
28 
29 

 

In his first turn at talk, Jabari begins by separating the story he is about to tell from the journal entry 
and, by extension, his earlier comment, saying, “this has really nothing to do with like...this whole thing” 
(lines 1-2). This seems both to create space for him to tell a story that may not align with the stance he has 
generally taken in our discussions, and to set the story apart from the ongoing discussion. He proceeds to 
tell the story, which is both autobiographical (“I asked my mom about it,” lines 2-3) and biographical (“she 
actually had an abortion a long time ago and she was actually supposed to have twins, another set of twins,” 
lines 3-5), a tension that lingers throughout this episode. With the basic narrative told, he says, “I guess 
she didn't decide to have them because she didn't have enough funds at the time” (lines 5-6). I suspect that 
this is his own commentary more than the continued retelling of his mother’s story both because he begins 
with “I guess” and because he uses the term “funds,” which Jimena introduced. This latter point is significant 
because, in the context of the discussion, the word invokes a situation in which abortion would be 
considered permissible. As he makes his mother addressable to the group, he introduces her as someone 
who meets the criteria Jimena introduced for justifiably aborting a pregnancy. The comment concludes on 
a similarly sympathetic note, as Jabari imagines what it would have been like to have two additional people 
in the house (lines 6-8).  

In response, I simply say, “Interesting” (line 9) and ask what he thinks about that. This is a 
pedagogical move oriented toward responsibility, a response to the sympathetic but noncommittal quality 
of his storytelling. I seem to want him to reconnect the story and “this whole thing” (line 2)—our discussion 
about ideal abortion policies. He responds first somewhat vaguely in terms of his emotional reaction, saying 
that his mother’s choice was “understandable” and he says, “I wasn't like angry at her” (lines 10-11). 
Describing his reaction in negative terms implies an audience that might have expected an angry response, 



Relational Becoming: Considering Classroom Dialogue in Ethico-ontological Terms  
David Sabey 

 
 

Dialogic Pedagogy: An International Online Journal | http://dpj.pitt.edu 
DOI: 10.5195/dpj.2022.459  |  Vol. 10 (2022) 
 

A22 

suggesting again that Jabari is aware of the possible discrepancy between his mother’s choice and his own 
previously stated opinions. Perhaps sensing this and, relatedly, that I want him to take some kind of stand, 
Jabari restates the idea he formulated in response to Jimena’s proposal with an ambiguous stance, saying, 
“I guess it’s really just situational” (line 12). In this moment, Jabari’s ambiguous stance seems to provide 
him some space to process and withhold judgement on his mother’s story which, as I learned in a 
subsequent interview, she may have told him only the night before this conversation.  

Given this context, an ambiguous stance of this kind is certainly understandable and seems 
indicative of Jabari’s evolving understanding. It also indicates something about what he thought I intended 
with my question. Although the question “what do you think about that?” could yield a wide variety of 
responses, he seems to interpret it as a request to take a stand that can be articulated in terms of a general 
principle. Given my orientation toward abstractions evident in my response to Patience’s story and at the 
conclusion of this episode, Jabari’s interpretation seems reasonable. His comment “Yeah, that’s all I have” 
(line 12) can be read as a bid to be excused not simply from further comment, but from this kind of comment, 
as if to say that he does not necessarily want to subject his mother’s story to this kind of schoolish scrutiny.  

Sensing that Jabari may not be comfortable opining on his mother’s choice but also wanting to 
continue discussing the story he shared, I change tack and ask him to speak on his mother’s behalf. The 
question I initially begin to articulate asks how she feels about her choice, but I ultimately narrow the 
question to whether she thinks it was the right thing to do (lines 12-13). This narrowed question resonates 
with my broader tendency toward abstract concepts and limits the responses available to Jabari—in fact, it 
affords a yes/no answer—but it also represents a moment of seeking to address an interlocutor: Jabari’s 
mom, who has been made newly addressable through storytelling; it invites her voice into the discussion. 
Jabari struggles at first to speak for her (line 15), but eventually finds a rhythm, imagining what it would 
have been like to be a single mother of six kids. Perhaps the struggle is to respond to my narrowed question 
(something he never actually does) or to share something so personal and still somewhat unprocessed, 
but it also seems to reflect Jabari’s simultaneous search for both his mother’s voice and his own. As he 
remembers what his mother told him, imagines her choice and retells her story, we see him dialogically 
portraying her not only for the group, but for himself. A twin himself, Jabari seems to identify with his 
imaginary unaborted siblings, using the first-person plural (“all six of us,” line 16) and entering into the 
timespace of this alternative reality (“she probably would’ve passed away or would’ve been like, super old 
by now,” lines 22-23). Indeed, by the end, this imagined world and the present are blurred, as he speaks in 
the perfect (“hasn’t really had any time to herself,” line 23) and perfect progressive (“been taking care of all 
of us,” line 24) tenses, suggesting that this is not purely hypothetical. In other words, Jabari is not simply 
imagining how his mother would justify her choice; he has begun to “translate” the story from her point of 
view into his. He is not merely giving voice to her but is retelling and reworking her story in his own voice 
and from his own perspective. I think this is also evident in the tonal shift that begins at lines 19-20, when 
Jabari begins to speak in a less formal, more hyperbolic, and less fragmented style.  

In doing this, Jabari renders his mother addressable as a single mother of four whose first child 
was conceived in her senior year (of high school, I presume); a woman who at one point in time was 
struggling to take care of both herself and her children, who decided that, rather than bearing another pair 
of twins, it would be best to abort her pregnancy. Although I have never met Jabari’s mom, I began to 
imagine her, a woman making complicated choices in a world that surely has not always been hospitable 
to her. There are obviously dangers of stereotyping and other forms of assumption-making in this kind of 
characterization, but it represents how Jabari’s story presenced a potential interlocutor to me—someone I 
might address, whose voice I might, to some degree, hear and respond to. While Jimena’s proposal was 
an interesting thought experiment, Jabari’s story introduced us to a person who was actually in a position 
to decide between pregnancy and abortion.  



Relational Becoming: Considering Classroom Dialogue in Ethico-ontological Terms  
David Sabey 

 
 

Dialogic Pedagogy: An International Online Journal | http://dpj.pitt.edu 
DOI: 10.5195/dpj.2022.459  |  Vol. 10 (2022) 
 

A23 

Of course, by telling the story and responding to my questions, Jabari did not simply make his 
mother addressable, but also made himself addressable in new ways to the group, particularly with regards 
to his upbringing, family situation, and evolving perspective on abortion. In a sense, the constitution of the 
group had changed, as Jabari became Jabari-with-a-mother—this particular mother who had also, in a way, 
joined the group. Although she was certainly present for Jabari in significant ways throughout this episode, 
her presence in the group was limited by the ways we responded to her story. All of this is ethico-
ontologically consequential because it makes group members capable of new and different responses to 
differently addressable and presence-able interlocutors. By telling the story, Jabari invited us all, himself 
included, to grapple with his mother’s complicated choice, to hear her voice (as well as his own), and to 
respond. It also invited us to understand abortion not merely in terms of abstract principles, but as a thing 
in the world which is made meaningful in particular ways to diverse individuals in unique situations. In other 
words, it afforded us the opportunity to encounter a new interlocutor (or a familiar interlocutor in a new way), 
a person for whom abortion has some particular meaning, and to respond to them from our unique place in 
Being.  

In that light, the final move I make as a facilitator in lines 25-31 strikes me as a failure to tap much 
of the ethico-ontological potential of Jabari’s story, to address the interlocutors that had become newly or 
differently addressable. Perhaps because Jabari had already made a bid to be excused from further 
comment (line 12), perhaps due to the sensitivity of the topic, perhaps simply in an effort to involve other 
students in the discussion, particularly those who tended to be more pro-life, I shift the focus away from the 
story, summarizing the group’s preliminary consensus, and asking if anyone disagrees with the idea that 
being poor is a sufficient reason to abort a pregnancy. While there may be nothing inherently wrong with 
this move, in this instance, it does two problematic things: It translates Jabari’s story into an abstraction, 
something he never does, and removes all reference to his mother. The former imposes my reductive 
interpretation of the story and the latter depersonalizes the idea. Although I implicitly ask students to 
respond to Jabari’s story, I seriously constrain the kinds of responses they might give; rather than inviting 
them to respond to Jabari or to his mom, I ask them to respond to my depersonalized abstraction of their 
story, limiting the possibilities of relational becoming. 

Discussion 
What can we learn from these episodes about addressability, presencing, and ethically optimal 

dialogue? Looking across these examples, one pattern that stands out is our schooled tendency to address 
each other on the ideational plane—with regards to our ideas, opinions, reasons, and beliefs—even when 
other forms of address are available. Indeed, as I expect is the case in many classrooms, there was a clear 
tendency to relate to each other in terms of abstractions. This is evident both in how group members made 
themselves and narrativized Others addressable to the group and in how they responded to each other. In 
a variety of ways, we failed to relate to each other as unique persons with a particular perspective—as 
uniquely embodied, storied, relationally enmeshed, thinking-feeling persons-in-dialogue. Instead, we 
addressed each other and narrativized Others as idea- and opinion-holders, and instances of principles. 
This both stemmed from and affected the ways in which we were presenced to each other.  

For those who are familiar with Bakhtin’s (1984) insistence that speech is always addressed to 
interlocutors and, consequently, contains “a thousand reservations, concessions, loopholes and the like” 
and “cringes in the presence or the anticipation of someone else's word, reply, objection” (p. 198) may not 
find my analysis of addressability and presencing in these discussions particularly surprising. It is to be 
expected that interlocutors would, anticipating possible responses, conceal or protect themselves 
discursively. I agree. What my analysis adds to this insight is, first, documentation of particular kinds of 
“loopholes” that seem widespread in classroom discussions and, second, the concern that the widespread 



Relational Becoming: Considering Classroom Dialogue in Ethico-ontological Terms  
David Sabey 

 
 

Dialogic Pedagogy: An International Online Journal | http://dpj.pitt.edu 
DOI: 10.5195/dpj.2022.459  |  Vol. 10 (2022) 
 

A24 

use of such loopholes may limit the relational becoming of the interlocutors. This concern is not so much 
that individuals are failing to speak responsibly but that the genre of classroom discussions does not afford 
certain kinds of responsible speaking.  

There is nothing inherently wrong with addressing someone on the ideational plane, but if that is 
the predominant way that they are addressed, only certain kinds of relational becoming are possible. 
Assuming that the patterns I have documented here are similar to those in other settings, it is likely that 
interlocutors’ relational becoming in these contexts is driven primarily by their articulation of abstract ideas, 
opinions, beliefs, and reasons, rather than any number of other possibilities. This limits the kinds of 
becoming that are likely to occur and excludes some interlocutors from certain kinds of presence, 
participation, and validation.  

As I consider the discussions I facilitated in retrospect, I am not satisfied. In my judgement, my 
student-interlocutors and I would make ourselves addressable in ways that now seem somewhat 
irresponsible and address each other in ways that do not seem particularly responsive, rendering each 
other capable of only certain kinds of responses, including silence. Our relational becoming was significantly 
limited. While there were moments of generative vulnerability and vitality, by and large, we tended to 
approach each other guardedly, as if our interlocutors were somewhat dangerous or antagonistic. To the 
extent that this is characteristic of classroom discussions more broadly, it suggests that the genre constrains 
some of the ethical dimensions of dialogue and, therefore, may not be ethically optimal.  

Although these tendencies are partly due to the conventions and systems of schooling which are 
resistant to change, perhaps, newly attuned to our discussions in light of the ethical dimensions of dialogue 
and addressability/presencing, there are small steps researchers and educators might take to relate to 
students differently and tap some of the latent potential in many of their comments. 

Reimagining Our Interactions 

In considering how, in the course of a discussion, my responses might foster different kinds of 
relational becoming, I return to two interactions analyzed previously and draw on the ethical dimensions of 
dialogue to imagine how I might have responded to my student-interlocutors more responsibly, 
responsively, and capacitatingly. The first example is the simple exchange between Noemi and me, 
previously discussed as Episode #1: 

David Noemi, do you want to share? 1 
Noemi It’s a long story but like, I don’t know like the full story because like usually I never like, 

listen to my, [David: Mm-hmm] my mom say it, [David: Mm-hmm] 
but like when she tells my other siblings.  

2 
3 
4 

David Do you want to share anything you do know or? You don’t have to. 5 
Noemi I, I don’t know the full story, so. 6 
David Okay. 7 

 

How might I have responded differently, in ways that might have fostered different kinds of relational 
becoming? One possibility, informed by responsibility, is to make myself more explicitly present in how I 
invite Noemi to share. As it is, my repeated question “do you want to share?” places the onus of ethical 
accountability on her. An alternative would be something like, “I would like to hear your story too, Noemi.” 
Phrasing the invitation in this way renders me addressable as someone with an interest in her story, while 
the original question only renders me addressable abstractly as the one asking the question. The ethico-
ontological potential I see in making myself more explicitly addressable as myself is that it might make it 



Relational Becoming: Considering Classroom Dialogue in Ethico-ontological Terms  
David Sabey 

 
 

Dialogic Pedagogy: An International Online Journal | http://dpj.pitt.edu 
DOI: 10.5195/dpj.2022.459  |  Vol. 10 (2022) 
 

A25 

more likely that my student interlocutors would respond to me-myself rather than to me in my role as the 
teacher/facilitator—I might become presenced to them differently. While there is no guarantee, it is possible 
that this shift in my presence/addressability would yield a different response from Noemi. Of course, there 
are dangers in this alternative, most notably in asserting the authority of a teacher to compel students to 
speak, and this should be taken seriously. However, dialogue is never entirely safe, so the fact that some 
versions of speaking responsibly entail some risk does not necessarily mean that it would be better to avoid 
that particular risk entirely. As always, what is at stake in this interaction is who we understand ourselves 
and our interlocutors to be, and what we understand ourselves to be doing in dialogue with each other. 
Shifting the ways in which we make ourselves addressable may alter, however slightly, the possibilities of 
relational becoming.  

A second possibility, informed by responsiveness, is to pay more careful attention to and to be 
moved by the ways Noemi makes herself addressable. In the transcript, after Noemi sidesteps my initial 
question, I respond by asking an only slightly adjusted question. Acknowledging that she does not know 
the full story, I ask, “Do you want to share anything you do know?” Although this question accommodates 
Noemi’s concern about the partiality of her knowledge, it does not change direction at all but simply 
reiterates the invitation to share her story. Perhaps by being moved more radically, my response would 
yield different possibilities of relational becoming. For example, in response to her comment that she does 
not listen when her mom tells the story to her siblings, I could have said, “So you never listen to your mom 
tell the story? That’s interesting. Why is that?” This is not to say that Noemi was deliberately offering to 
speak about her family; as noted, I think her comment is best understood as a bid to be excused. Assuming 
that to be the case, however, the comment was, crucially, a bid to be excused from the discussion—from 
the genre of activity as she understood it. Allowing myself to be radically moved by how she makes herself 
addressable is not a way to trick her into participating in the activity as I understand it; it represents, instead, 
a willingness to suspend my understanding of the nature of the activity as it unfolds and to allow my 
interlocutors to be presenced differently in the group.  

The final ethical dimension of dialogue, capacitation, invites us to consider how we might render 
our interlocutors capable of different and potentially better responses. Recognizing that the prospect of 
sharing her family’s story on the spot might be daunting to Noemi, I could find ways to facilitate her 
response. One way to do this would be to ask, “Noemi, is your family’s story similar to the ones the other 
students shared?” A question like this might provide a kind of steppingstone to help Noemi begin telling her 
story. There are, of course, other, more extensive ways to do something similar. I could, for example, 
respond by saying, “Would you like to take some time to talk to your mom and prepare to share your story 
in our next meeting?” A response like this would alter the temporal/spatial (in Bakhtin’s terms, “chronotopic”) 
scale of the activity from one typical of discussions (i.e., taking place in a single sitting over tens of minutes) 
to one that spans home and school and stretches across multiple days, perhaps providing Noemi alternative 
ways to respond and become addressable and presenced in the group.  

The next example I will consider is the exchange between Patience and me previously discussed 
as Episode #4: 

Patience Yeah. My mom used to, well she still do make the boys, him [Brandin] and 
my brother cut the grass. [David: Mm-hmm.] And I used to like, go out 
there and wanna help and stuff and she used to be like, nah, nah. And I'm 
just like, why can't I help like [David: Mm] just 'cause I'm a girl, don't 
mean nothing. I'm a girl and I do a lot of stuff. [David: Mm-hmm.] Like I'm 
a girl and I lift a lot of stuff and it just kinda irritating sometimes 'cause it's 

1 
2 
3 
4 
5 
6 



Relational Becoming: Considering Classroom Dialogue in Ethico-ontological Terms  
David Sabey 

 
 

Dialogic Pedagogy: An International Online Journal | http://dpj.pitt.edu 
DOI: 10.5195/dpj.2022.459  |  Vol. 10 (2022) 
 

A26 

like, you don't see the value in what girls have. You just see that [David: 
Right] men are supposed to be like [David: Hm.] more like aggressive or 
stronger, when that's not the case. [David: Yeah.] I mean this is not a bad 
thing but like, I wish they would, they would see that in women too. 

7 
8 
9 
10 

David Yeah. Yeah so what I hear you saying this, like, I said, you know, it could 
be a good thing to say men are brave and strong or whatever, but you bring 
up that, the danger in that is, if by saying that, you imply that women are 
not that, right? Like if men are brave and strong, what does that mean about 
women? And one thing that people could say is like, that means women are 
not so much those things. Right? 

11 
12 
13 
14 
15 
16 

Patience Mm-hmm (affirmative). 17 

David Yeah. So, I've, I think that's a, good point. 18 

 

In my response to Patience, I make myself addressable as having said that it could be good to 
associate certain characteristics with men, and as considering her response (or at least my ventriloquation 
of her) which problematizes that idea to be valid. Once again, I render myself addressable as merely the 
bearer of certain ideas and opinions. If I were to try to speak more explicitly as an embodied, storied, and 
relationally enmeshed person, I might explain something of where my idea comes from and why it is 
meaningful to me personally. I might, for example, explain that I discipline my son when he is physically 
aggressive toward my daughter more than I discipline her when she is physically aggressive toward him 
partly because he is male and will, in all likelihood, end up physically bigger and stronger than her and other 
women in his life. I want to make sure that from a young age he understands that it is inappropriate for boys 
to hit girls. This parenting approach is based on the understanding that boys and girls are different and that 
those differences may justify different treatment in certain situations. By making myself addressable as a 
person for whom these ideas are meaningful in my relationality, I might become presenced more holistically 
and not merely as the bearer of certain opinions and ideas. This imagined response, I realize, would also 
follow suit with most of Patience’s own turn at talk, rather than shifting the discussion away from storytelling 
and back toward abstractions, which is what I did in the original exchange.  

As always, my response to Patience stems from how I attend to her and, specifically, how I 
recognize the ways in which she is rendered addressable. Although in the moment, I attended mostly to 
the conceptual substance of her comment, in retrospect, I realize that her comment renders her 
addressable in several other ways: as someone who is frustrated by her mother’s gendered division of 
labor, as a capable and physically strong girl, and as someone who wishes that “they” would see traditionally 
masculine qualities in women too. In other words, as I have studied the transcript of our discussion, Patience 
has become presenced to me differently than she did in the moment. If I had been more attuned to other 
ways of addressing Patience, instead of reverting immediately to abstractions, I might have said, “You seem 
especially irritated with the idea some people have that boys are stronger than girls. I’d be interested to 
hear more about that.” Or perhaps, noting that she seems drawn to address her mother, and sensing that 
this may be particularly significant for Patience, I could have responding by saying, “You said, sort of 
speaking to your mom, ‘You don't see the value in what girls have.’ Can you say more about that and about 
what your mom might be missing?” In both of these cases, my imagined responses would address Patience 
on dimensions other than the abstract point I understood her to be making, allowing both her and her mom 



Relational Becoming: Considering Classroom Dialogue in Ethico-ontological Terms  
David Sabey 

 
 

Dialogic Pedagogy: An International Online Journal | http://dpj.pitt.edu 
DOI: 10.5195/dpj.2022.459  |  Vol. 10 (2022) 
 

A27 

to be presenced differently in the group. Though there are no guarantees, this may have engendered 
different and perhaps better forms of relational becoming among the group.  

Recognizing that Patience had rendered her mother addressable, I could also have tried to 
capacitate this narrativized Other of fuller presence and voice in the discussion. For example, I could have 
invited Patience to sympathize with and ventriloquate her mother by asking, “Why do you think your mom 
has the boys cut the grass and stuff like that? What would she say if she were here?” In this way, perhaps, 
we would not only encounter Patience’s mother more fully, but we would relate to Patience more fully in 
her relationality. 

Conclusion 
If we want to cultivate different kinds of relational becoming in classroom discussions, we must be 

willing to reimagine what might happen in a discussion. One way to do this is to consider alternative ways 
we might respond to our student-interlocutors and help them respond to each other more responsibly, 
responsively, and capacitatingly—to explore the kinds of relational becoming that such practices afford. 
Each interaction that pushes the envelope with regards to the discussion genre influences, however slightly, 
how students will understand what it means to participate in a discussion, at least as it relates to that 
particular class. And, little by little, different kinds of interactions will yield different kinds of relational 
becoming, as interlocutors become presenced and are rendered addressable to each other in different 
ways.  

As I have tried to understand and respond to Bakhtin’s ethico-ontological vision of dialogue, I have 
come to appreciate more fully the fact that we exist and live “in response”—to our interlocutors past and 
present and to our various senses of the “kind(s) of thing” we are doing together. This includes not simply 
the ideational material of these interactions, but all their embodied, relational, and storied baggage. We are 
inextricably entangled in these relationships, always already responding to something or someone beyond 
ourselves. To take this seriously requires us to rethink assumptions prevalent in schooling, including the 
mind/body dualism that allows us to respond to each other in a discussion as if what ultimately matters is 
that which can be abstracted from our stories, experiences, and relationships.  

Furthermore, if we assume from the start that our student-interlocutors exist “in response,” we must 
acknowledge that we are implicated in their relational becoming and have an ethical obligation to respond 
to them in ways that are likely to be generative and enriching. This is no easy task. It is challenging enough 
in a one-on-one interaction to discern which ethical dimension of dialogue should be prioritized and how it 
should be manifest in a given moment. Multiply that complexity by the number of students in a classroom 
and we arrive at an impossibly complex situation in which there are sometimes contradictory obligations 
and any number of possible responses that could be beneficial but might be harmful to certain students 
and/or to the group as a whole. There are no clear answers and no guarantees, and yet we must respond 
with the knowledge that each response is an act of partially co-authoring the world and our places in it, with 
implications for who students will understand themselves to be and who they will become relative to us, the 
disciplines we represent, their classmates, and their future.  

As we seek to foster generative and enriching forms of relational becoming, the ethical dimensions 
of dialogue and the notion of addressability can help us sense ways in which we might respond differently, 
perhaps better, to our student-interlocutors. Although I have no final answers, I can offer, in conclusion, 
some questions that may be useful as readers consider the relational becoming among their own 
interlocutors and seek, in their own interactions, to foster more ethically optimal dialogue: 



Relational Becoming: Considering Classroom Dialogue in Ethico-ontological Terms  
David Sabey 

 
 

Dialogic Pedagogy: An International Online Journal | http://dpj.pitt.edu 
DOI: 10.5195/dpj.2022.459  |  Vol. 10 (2022) 
 

A28 

Responsibility How do I make myself addressable? To what extent am I speaking as myself, from 
my own unique perspective, and not merely as the bearer of certain 
ideas/opinions? How am I being presenced to my interlocutors? 

Responsiveness How do my interlocutors make themselves (and others) addressable? How might 
I be moved in response to them? How are they being presenced to me? How else 
might they be presenced to me? 

Capacitation How can I help my interlocutors speak as themselves, from their unique 
perspectives, and not merely as the bearers of certain ideas/opinions? 
How can I help my interlocutors be more responsive to each other? How are they 
being presenced to each other? How else might they be presenced to each 
other?  

 

References 
Bakhtin, M. M. (1984). Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics (C. Emerson, Ed. & Trans.). University of 

Minnesota Press. 

Bakhtin, M. M. (1986). Speech Genres and Other Late Essays (C. Emerson & M. Holquist, Eds.; V. W. 
McGee, Trans.). Austin: University of Texas Press. 

Bakhtin, M. M. (1990). Art and Answerability: Early Philosophical Essays by M. M. Bakhtin (M. Holquist & 
V. Lipunov, Eds.; V. Liapunov & K. Brostrom, Trans.). University of Texas Press. 

Bakhtin, M. M. (1993). Toward a Philosophy of the Act (V. Liapunov & M. Holquist, Eds.; V. Liapunov, 
Trans.). University of Texas Press. 

Clayman, S. E. (1992). Footing in the achievement of neutrality: The case of news interview discourse. In 
P. Drew & J. Heritage (Eds.), Talk at work: Interaction in institutional settings (pp. 163–198). 
Cambridge University Press. 

Emerson, C. (2000). The Next Hundred Years of Mikhail Bakhtin (The View from the Classroom). 
Rhetoric Review, 19(1/2), 12–27. 

Goffman, E. (1974). Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience. Harvard University 
Press. 

King, M. L. (1963). Letter from Birmingham Jail. Retrieved from 
https://www.csuchico.edu/iege/_assets/documents/susi-letter-from-birmingham-jail.pdf 

Matusov, E., & Marjanovic-Shane, A. (2018). Beyond equality and inequality in education: Bakhtinian 
dialogic ethics approach of human uniqueness to educational justice. Dialogic Pedagogy: An 
International Online Journal, 6(2009), 1–38.  

Matusov, E., Marjanovic-Shane, A., Kullenberg, T., & Curtis, K. (2019). Dialogic analysis vs. discourse 
analysis of dialogic pedagogy: Social science research in the era of positivism and post-truth. 
Dialogic Pedagogy: An International Online Journal, 7, 20–62. 

Matusov, E., Smith, M., Soslau, E., Marjanovic-Shane, A., & Von Duyke, K. (2016). Dialogic education for 
and from authorial agency. Dialogic Pedagogy: An International Online Journal, 4(2016), 162–
197. 

Morson, G. S., & Emerson, C. (1990). Mikhail Bakhtin: Creation of a Prosaics. Stanford, CA: Stanfor 
University Press. 



Relational Becoming: Considering Classroom Dialogue in Ethico-ontological Terms  
David Sabey 

 
 

Dialogic Pedagogy: An International Online Journal | http://dpj.pitt.edu 
DOI: 10.5195/dpj.2022.459  |  Vol. 10 (2022) 
 

A29 

Sabey, D. (2021). The Meaning and Practice of Dialogue: An Ethico-Onto-Epistemological Re-Reading 
and Exploration of Bakhtinian Dialogue. http://hdl.handle.net/1803/16608 

Warnick, B., Yacek, D., & Robinson, S. (2018). Learning to Be Moved: The Modes of Democratic 
Responsiveness. Philosophical Inquiry in Education, 25(1), 31–46. 

Wortham, S. (2008). The objectification of identity across events. Linguistics and Education, 19(3), 294–
311. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.linged.2008.05.010 

 

 
 

New articles in this journal are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 United States License. 
 
 
 
 

This journal is published by Pitt Open Library Publishing. 
.