The social-psychological and epistemological concept of the dialogical self, as originally conceived by Hermans, Kempen, and van Loon, refers to a dynamic multiplicity of I-positions within both internal and external interchanges. It draws from US theorists of the self, such as the pragmatist William James and the symbolic interactionist George Herbert Mead, as well as from the Russian dialogical school in the tradition of Mikhail Bakhtin's innovative theory of dialogism and heteroglossia in literary creation.