heteroglossia

noun

het·ero·glos·sia ˌhe-tə-rō-ˈglä-sē-ə

-ˈglȯ-

: a diversity of voices, styles of discourse, or points of view in a literary work and especially a novel

Examples of heteroglossia in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

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This example shows one kind of language at use–one part of the heteroglossia this student/speaker could have chosen to use. —

Bruce Sterling, WIRED, 6 Feb. 2007

Word History

Etymology

hetero- + -glossia (as in diglossia), as translation of Russian raznorečie

Note: The Russian term was introduced by the philosopher and literary critic Mikhail Bakhtin (1895-1975) in the essay "Slovo v romane" (translated as "Discourse in the Novel"), written in the 1930's, read at the Institute of World Literature in Moscow on October 14, 1940, and published in the journal Voprosy literatury in 1965.

First Known Use

1988, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler

The first known use of heteroglossia was in 1988

See more words from the same year