Monologue versus monologicity: dialogue versus dialogicity

Because of the unclarity of the distinction between monologue we can expect to discover dialogical soliloquies and monological dialogues. I already mentioned the Epiphany as a form of dialogical soliloquy: most of the time there is no addressee; yet, at some time Todd addresses the audience and Mrs. Lovett.

The standard definition of a monological speech is:

Definition 5.1   A monological speech is speech which has an extended length and internal coherence.

I think this definition can be improved. First of all: what is extended length? And what is internal coherence? I think many speeches, normally labeled as monologue, fall outside this definition. Furthermore the link with the situational criterion has yet to be explained. I prefer Mukarovský's definition. According to Mukarovský a dialogue always rests on the polarity or suspense between 'several or at least two contextures' which 'interpenetrate alternate in logic discourse':

Because there is more than one participant in a dialogue, there is also a manifold contexture: although each person's utterances alternate with those of the other person, or persons, they comprise a certain unity of meaning. Because the contextures which interpenetrate in this way in a dialogue are different, often even contradictory, sharp semantic reversals occur on the boundaries of individual replies. The more vivid the dialogue, the shorter the individual replies, and the more distinct the collisions of the contextures. Thus arises a special semantic effect for which stylistics have even created a term: stichomythia^5.22

We can see here that there is still an opposition between dialogue and monologue but the definitions are so refined that it is possible that a speech contains certain characteristics of both. If we table the characteristics:

Figure 5.14: Monological versus dialogical speech

We can now replace the opposition between monologue and dialogue with a graded scale of values and speak of a greater or lesser degree of 'monologicity' or 'dialogicity'^5.23.

For instance, at the end of A Little Priest when Todd and Mrs. Lovett come to an agreement, we can say that because of the absence of the semantic changes of direction, their initial dialogue has taken on a monological quality. This agreement is symbolized in the music by the appearance of a consonant instead of a dissonant at the end of their refrain.