It remains to consider the status of the bare assertion (e.g McGuinnes unfairly criticises the chattering classes) from this dialogistic perspective. Following Bakhtin, we observe that all communication operates in a social world dominated by heteroglossia, by a diversity of `voices' and socio-semiotic positions. Hence, when we speak, when we adopt a particular socio-semiotic position, our utterances necessarily interact with, or enter into a `dialog' with, all the various more or less divergent social positions activated by that utterance. Utterances which employ some value of Engagement acknowledge this `dialogic imperative' (Bakhtin 1981: 426) Those which do not, which employ the form of the bare assertion, ignore or deny this dialogic imperative and thereby suppress the basic heteroglossic nature of social reality. Accordingly, from this perspective, we do not see the bare assertion as in some way `neutral', `unmediated' or factual - as in some way being the communicative default. Rather we see them as adopting a particular socio-semiotic position, an `undialogized' (Bakhtin 1981: 427) stance by which the inherent dialogism of the communicative process is denied. Thus we see such `undialogized' language as rhetorically, interpersonally and socially charged, as entering into relationships of tension with whatever related set of alternative or contradictory utterances it brings into play. The degree of that tension will, of course, vary according to the social context. It is a function of the number and the social status of those alternative socio-semiotic realities under which the utterance at issue would be problematised. Consider, for example, the difference between an utterance such as `Australia was terra nullius, an empty land, when the first European settlers arrived' and `In the view of some historians/It seems/I think/It's my contention, Australia was an empty land when the first European settlers arrived.'. Under a commonsensical, truth-functional perspective we might view the difference simply as one between `factuality' and `assessment/opinion'. Under the dialogistic perspective we see the first utterance (the bare assertion) as highly charged inter-subjectively since it denies or suppresses the significant heteroglossic diversity and difference within which it is situated and which it will inevitably activate
Accordingly, we categorise the bare assertion as another option within the system of Engagement, an option by which particular dialogistic terms can be set for the current utterance, though of course in this instance, the dialogistic terms are those of denial or suppression. I therefore distinguish broadly between the monologism of bare assertion (I say they `monologise') and the dialogism of the all formulations I have discussed above (I say they `dialogise').
