Mikhail Bakhtin (1895-1975) and the Bakhtin Circle, which brought together a group of Russian intellectuals during the Soviet period, revolutionized literary studies and the history of European literature. Its insertion in a gallery of pedagogy of autonomy stems from its contribution to the relevance of the culture of dialogue, the theory of polyphony and the idea of chronotope and the idea of preservation in the development of literary genres, which we call the relevance of formal memory.

According to Bakhtin, language emerges and is created by a dialogic interaction process. It is not an autonomous process detached from society. As such it has to be connected with the diversity of interlocutors in presence who use effective utterances. It is not learned effectively by dictionaries and grammars.
The process of communication, or more concretely the language only exists because of the use that speakers (who speaks or writes) and interlocutors (who reads or listens) make it in context (formal or informal) of communication.
Hence the teaching, learning and use of language necessarily pass through the subject, who is the agent of social relations and responsible for the composition of this narrative, the choice of speech style. This subject’s previous experience (knowledge of utterances) forms the basis of new narratives (new texts or utterances). In this new production, a statement is appropriated by the speaker, adjusted to his social contexts, time and social space experienced. Without this update the texts is not fully understood by others. It is this contribution to the construction of the dialogical relationship (through the verb and nonverbal) between the speaker and the social environment that narratives gain consistency.
Language and its interaction provides the creation of social equality, as everyone participates in the production of statements that are accessible to all and thus understandable to all. At the same time this new dialogue adjusts to the differing contexts.
Another contribution of the Bakhtin circle to the pedagogy of autonomy is its contribution to the understanding of distinction about the “sphere of production” of narratives and communication. So, in everyday life. In the square and in common language, the speech process is primary, using spontaneous forms of communication. In the secondary narratives, words are elaborated, based on more complex codes, embedded in cultural values. Although Bakhtin elected literary analysis as an object of analysis, his linguistic studies are relevant to understanding the production of a reflective discourse, and especially to understanding that for the production of such discourses, it is necessary to start from common sense, to “ filter ”the communicative languages (word and movement). Finally, as in memory, language is itself a means of dialogue between past, present and future.
