Opaqueness and meaning production: language activity and work activity in dialogue

As languages are dialogic by constitution, it is to be understood that they are also opaque, that is, their dialogic character makes other discourses be permanently inter-related, though not always visible. In language-communication practices observed in work activities, as a result, such opaqueness is also present. As a result, whenever a specific situation is analysed, we are prevented from apprehending everything that is at stake in that particular case. This article focuses on the discourse activities taking place in a bank institution, and aims at analyzing the various facets of the discourse construction of the bank-working personnel, with the purpose of offering subsidies that may contribute to make this professional category reflect about their discourse production. The approach, based on the dialogical theory of discourse and on studies about work activity, has made it possible to reflect about the relation between opaqueness and meaning production, as well as to understand aspects of the plurivocality and singularity of the subjects and the characteristics of bank-related activities.