Everyday creativity is always dialogic in Bakhtin's sense Traditional definitions of language have often classified creative activity into the "canonical" literary uses we see in works artistic. However, contemporary definitions no longer limit creativity with language to the work of the novelist or poet. It is a well-argued point that the seeds of such literary language lie in what can be described as the practical and mundane uses of "everyday" speaking and writing. This change in opinion and approach to the study of language can largely be attributed to the work of Mikhail Bakhtin, who developed a social theory of language. Bakhtin's main argument was that there should be no special category in which to place literary language, as different from and superior to everyday language, but that "literature was only a set of genres out of the wide range of different linguistic genres within social life". (Maybin, 2006, p.418). Bakhtin's interest was not only in the formal properties of language, but also in the recognition of the many linguistic genres, how it functions, and how it is influenced by social, cultural, and historical factors. (2006) It is Bakhtin's arguments, in relation to 'everyday' creativity, that I will consider here, focusing in particular on a key concept of his theory: 'dialogism'. In this essay I intend to argue that the nature of everyday creativity in the use of language is always dialogic. I will highlight examples from the work of others that support Bakhtinian concepts, furthermore, I will contrast Roman Jakobson's inherent approach and his notion of the poetic function of language with Bakhtin's more socio-historical approach. Bakhtin's theory of dialogism has significantly influenced the study of language and many other disciplines.“[…] Dialogism is the idea that culture, or even existence[…], is intrinsically reactive,[…] involving individuals acting at a particular moment […] in reaction to what has gone before and in anticipation of what will follow.” (http://homepages.nyu.edu/~klc1/) In terms of language, dialogism describes the way in which all uses of language, spoken and written, are in some way a response to previous uses, while being at the same time always addressed to an "audience" awaiting its response. (2006) A related concept is heteroglossia, since Bakhtin's language is composed of many voices, any word or phrase will always carry connotations arising from previous use in various social contexts as well as "a glimpse of the intentions of previous speakers".