THE CONCEPT OF INTERTEXTUALITY FROM BAKHTIN AND KRISTEVA TO MODERN LINGUISTICS

Abstract

This thesis traces the trajectory of intertextuality from its Bakhtinian origins through Kristeva's coinage to its contemporary operationalization in modern linguistics. While Bakhtin's dialogism established the foundational insight that all utterances exist in relation to prior and anticipated utterances, it was Kristeva who, in the late 1960s, formalized this insight into the term "intertextuality," shifting emphasis from intersubjective dialogue to the text's absorption and transformation of other texts. The decisive disciplinary turn occurred in 1981, when Beaugrande and Dressler integrated intertextuality into text linguistics as one of seven constitutive standards of textuality. This thesis argues that modern linguistics has fundamentally reconfigured intertextuality: from a property of texts to a cognitive and social process activated by participants' shared knowledge and realized through identifiable intertextual cues. The analysis further examines how postcolonial literary practice—specifically the hybrid intertexts of Rohinton Mistry—illustrates the concept's continued analytical purchase and demonstrates how intertextual cues operate across cultural and linguistic boundaries.