Continued:

As an example, we can consider transformations in our literature and history that have changed the meanings associated with the word “woman”: from *za’ifeh* and *mota’alleqeh*—terms conveying weakness and belonging—in the Qajar era, to “madam” in the Pahlavi period, “revolutionary woman” during the Revolution, and “independent woman with rights” in recent years. Looking at the evolution of this word’s meanings under political and social transformations makes it clear that the relationship between word and meaning is by no means intrinsic or natural; it is conventional and produced through social interests.
It is understandable how the mistaken belief that this relationship is inherent has penetrated so deeply into the unconscious layers of our society that among some groups and strata the word “woman” still evokes meanings of dependency and weakness. Their conduct becomes tied to a belief rooted not in reality but in a convention produced by interests. This example also shows how many words remain imprisoned within previous meanings and must be freed and returned to language through a new perspective.

Bakhtin considers consciousness a product of dialogue. From his perspective, consciousness and knowledge are reciprocal, intersubjective phenomena that emerge only through dialogical relations. Yet dialogue in this particular sense is not simply a conversation between two people; it is an ontology in which the self acquires meaning through the existence of the “Other”.
Dialogue here means every form of linguistic communication: a form of collective and critical exploration in search of truth that ultimately leads to self-awareness and self-correction.
“Dialogue” can occur between one literary genre and others, between a text and the texts before and after it, and between one utterance and other utterances preceding and following it.
Every word that comes to mind has entered language in some way. In its passage through history and across different eras it has acquired different meanings before reaching us. While it carries the meaning we place upon it, it passes through us into the future, making possible our own dialogue with those who come after us.
It is understandable that these linguistic dialogues, as sites of multiplicity of meaning, reveal themselves to us especially within the linguistic realms of philosophy, history and literature.

Bakhtin grounds dialogism and dialogue in the relationship between self and Other and regards awareness of “otherness” as a condition for communication and dialogue. From his perspective, our consciousness takes shape through interaction with others: through the experience of the “Other”. This experience occurs through meanings. Every meaning contained within a word opens a dialogue through which we become able to experience the “Other”—the class or group that at some point, according to its interests, placed that meaning upon the word.
Thus it is only through reading language, encountering meanings and internalising them that dialogue with “Others” becomes possible for us.
The more signs and meanings we hold within our minds, the more capable we become of speaking about our humanity and of producing thought and knowledge. Consciousness, in this sense, is otherness.

Our society suffers from a loss of connection with language, history, meanings and ideas. This is why dialogue, at both an internal and a social level, has become one of the most difficult things possible. This difficulty appears across many domains: our inability to express ourselves in order to connect with the Other; to express wants and needs; to think and produce knowledge; to think together in order to address problems and crises; and in many other areas.

If meanings are to enter us through language, we have no path except to strengthen our relationship with linguistic realms such as literature, philosophy and history. Among these, the novel—because it is filled with otherness and meaning and can establish a more widely intelligible relationship among these linguistic domains—has great capacity to create a space for dialogue with “Others”.
Through language and literature we allow other people and their lives to enter us. They become part of us, expand us, and create a form of otherness within us that can make us loving, ethical and capable of thought. The eyes of other human beings are where we encounter our human responsibility. This is precisely why reading novels may become one of the most political possible acts in the direction of social transformation. As Levinas, one of the distinguished thinkers of ethics in contemporary philosophy, often called the philosopher of the “Other”, is rendered here as saying: