multi-accentuality

multi‐accentuality, the ability of words and other linguistic signs to carry more than one meaning according to the contexts in which they are used. The concept was introduced in an important Russian critique of Saussure's abstract theory of la langue: Valentin Voloshinov's Marxism and the Philosophy of Language (1929; sometimes alleged to have been written by Mikhail Bakhtin) accused Saussure of attributing fixed meanings to signs, when in actual practice the meaning of words is open to continual redefinition within the struggles between social classes and groups. In certain historical circumstances, particular words become objects of struggle between groups for whom they have different meanings: the meaning of freedom is constantly contested, while recent examples would include terrorist, among many others. See also dialogic, polysemy.