Dialogue as tensional, ethical practice

One effect of this decade's explosive growth of works on dialogue has been a broadening of the term to encompass, in some books and articles, all human meaning‐making. We argue that there are disadvantages to this broadening, that descriptive approaches to dialogue can be usefully distinguished from prescriptive ones, and that prescriptive approaches are especially potent for communication theorists and practitioners. We appropriate three elements of the Aristotelian distinction between poiesis and praxis to develop a prescriptive understanding of dialogue as tensional, situationally‐accomplished, and inherently ethical. We then focus on one venue of dialogic practice—the classroom—and illustrate some ways in which what we take to be the central tension of dialogue, letting the other happen to me while holding my own ground, is made manifest in this context. We also briefly sketch the operation of two additional tensions, those between univocality‐and‐mul‐tivocality, and theory‐and‐practice. We believe that, especially when it is understood prescriptively, dialogue can help teaching and learning happen in almost every classroom, and it can fruitfully be taught as a central part of many communication courses.