“Personality is itself generated through language” (153).
Throughout his text Volosinov explicates many processes in the form of generation, in this he emphasizes the active form a Marxist Philosophy of language encompasses and works to underline the dynamic relationship between the base and superstructure. In one specific example, Volosinov argues that personality does not exist in itself, but reveals itself through language. Personality finds its reality, its material objectification, in language (152). In this manner, there exist no innate or inherent personality, but rather every individual is the product of her social environment. A person’s characteristics and behavior act as a reflection of their encounters with language; “Language lights up the inner personality and its consciousness” (153). An individual does not reach out for words to describe his experiences, but rather, language identifies his experiences and makes them coherent. Similarly, personality is not expressed outside of language; “a word is not an expression of inner personality; rather, inner personality is an expressed or inwardly impelled word” (153).
As personality develops within the realm of language, the generation of language exists in the generative process of social communication. Social intercourse, stemming from the base,
Volosinov outlines the actual generative process of language when he writes,
Social intercourse is generated (stemming from the basis); in it verbal communication and interaction are generated; and in the latter, forms of speech performances are generated; finally, this generative process is reflected in the change of language forms” (96)
It is here we see that language is conceived as “a continuous generative process implemented in the social-verbal interaction of speakers” (98). The material of language, the sign, exists wholly as a social being, in a social stream where every drop of the stream is social (given that the entire dynamic of its generation is social) (94). Social intercourse, generated within the basis, acts as a fundamental aspect of language’s relationship to base and superstructure. The generation of language, intrinsically linked to context and its material base, participates in the dynamic between base and superstructure. Volosinov writes, the “material base determines differentiation in a society, in its sociopolitical order; it organizes society hierarchally and deploys persons interacting within it” (153).
Monographic 