LANGUAGE, POWER AND EMANCIPATION
REFLECTIONS FROM CRITICAL LINGUISTICS
Keywords:
Language, Social inequality, Critical linguistics, Emancipatory education, DiscourseAbstract
Language transcends its function as a mere communicative instrument, establishing itself as a field of symbolic dispute in which structures of power and social inequality are inscribed, legitimized, and contested. This article, of bibliographic nature and grounded in critical review, aims to reexamine the main theoretical currents that articulate language and social inequality, particularly through the lenses of Critical Linguistics (CL) and Emancipatory Education. It is based on the premise that every linguistic act is intrinsically and ideologically situated, as postulated by classical authors such as Pêcheux and Fairclough, and that educational praxis holds the potential to reconfigure discursive practices into vectors of emancipation, in accordance with Freire’s pedagogy. The theoretical discussion establishes a robust dialogue between historical materialism, Foucault’s theories of power, and Bakhtin’s dialogic approaches, integrating them with contemporary contributions from Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). It is concluded that CL, in synergy with Freirean pedagogy, offers an epistemological horizon for the reconfiguration of Portuguese language teaching as a practice of epistemic resistance, critical awareness, and social transformation—an imperative reinforced by recent research on the discursive reproduction of inequity.
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