This question concerns the relationship between the transmitter and acquirer in a communicative practice. I shall define two modes.

pedagogic relations

This situation obtains where the principles of evaluation of texts is located with the transmitter.

exchange relations

This situation obtains where the principles of evaluation of texts is located with the acquirer.

The conflation of these relations in a single text generates what I refer to as a dialogic text. That is, a text that constitutes more than one authorial or transmitter . Sometimes this can be unsettling as I found in my recent visit to the Millennium Dome. Here, simplistic messages grate against the tricks and gadgets of advertising.

I found similar dialogic texts at London Zoo and other non-school pedagogic sites and in school mathematics textbooks (see Dowling, 1999, Dowling & Brown, 1999 2000).

These dialogic texts are considered as such insofar as they are being analysed at a single level of analysis.