Superaddressee or Who Will Succeed a Mentor?

Abstract

This philosophical essay is inspired by a four-year pedagogical relationship that continues in its altered form today. The main focus of this piece is the transformation of a mentor as an immediate addressee into mentor as a superaddressee, an influential third listener who oversees observable dialogues. I explore the mutual responsibilities of a student and a mentor in order to uncover the elements in the pedagogical chemistry responsible for the transformation of an addressee into a superaddressee. Confirmation (a perfect form of understanding) of a student's intellectual and moral uniqueness, incarnation of a particular value deemed desirable by a student, and education of a student into the dialogic ways of being on his or her own are the necessary ingredients of the process of becoming a superaddressee. Initially a mentor engages in the pedagogy of understanding whose ideal outcome is confirmation of a student's intellectual and moral makeup. After the dialogue is over, a mentor often moves into the domain of inner speech from where he or she continues to offer perfect understanding, especially in the absence of such understanding from an immediate addressee. Two types of superaddressees are identified and their relationship with the invoking consciousness is explored. I conclude that becoming a superaddressee is the most generous pedagogical contribution to a student's future: a mentor thus makes his or her voice available to a student's inner dialogue, often without receiving anything in return.

Translation and Translanguaging in (Post)multilingual Societies

“…For others, the superaddressee is God (Baron 2004;Tull 2005). For yet others it is biomedical science (Swinglehurst 2014); or a judge and jury (Johnson 2008); or a student's mentor (Bryzzheva 2006).…”

“…The superaddressee is not a mystical or metaphysical being, but is a constitutive aspect of the whole utterance. An interlocutor indirectly dialogues with a superaddressee to the extent that her or his utterances reflect the responsive understanding of the superaddressee, and anticipate future responses (Bryzzheva 2006). Kytölä and Westinen (2015) associate the superaddressee with the notion of polycentricity.…”

Cenografias do trabalho docente de orientação em tempos de práticas mercantilistas: sobredestinatário e posicionamento discursivo

“…A título de exemplo, cito a opção de Bryzzheva (2006), que, no contexto da sala de aula, vê no sobredestinatário uma figura de apoio que assegura ao professor a pertinência de suas ações, ou ainda a posição de Midgley, Henderson e Danaher (2010), que postulam três diferentes funções dialógicas em relação à identificação de sobredestinatários em um diálogo: a evocação de um sobredestinatário, quando o falante se dirige a autoridades fisicamente ausentes; a legitimação pelo ouvinte do sobredestinatário evocado pelo falante; a escuta de sobredestinatários não explicitamente evocados pelo falante, mas que são identificados pelo ouvinte.…”