Dialogicity and Contradictions in Self Narratives: Study of Multiple Cases with Adolescents

Abstract

In this study, the construction of adolescent’s narratives about themselves, was investigated using the dialogic exercise about the self as tool. This research was based on the perspective that the self is composed of multiple voices, like family, friends, school and the participant himself, as a result of their different social positions like student, son, friend and person. This is a multiple cases study, with a qualitative and descriptive nature, non-probabilistic sample of three high school students. This study observed the movements of the voices and the moral valences (positive and negative) assigned to positions as requested by the interview. It means that each speech unit brings with it a voice written with a moral valence contextually constituted according to the social position occupied by each participant. The positions are hierarchically organized within the narratives confirming the understanding of the dialogical self as multiple, polyphonic resulting from different discourses dialogue.