Language as space of power: classroom research from a critical perspective

Abstract: In 2014, the first author of this article taught English Oral Practice 2 in the English Teacher Education Program (Letras) atUniversidade Federal de Goiás, grounded on Critical Applied Linguistics. The course focused on the themes of "race" and "language", aimed at problematizing social inequalities and language as a space of power. This problematization was possible not only because of the texts read, but also because of critical events that happened between students and the professor during the course. These events motivated the report of other critical events, experienced by the students, which occurred before the course. In this study, we analyzed this set of events as comprising offensive speech acts which were alleviated and rearticulated affirmatively, opening the possibility of agency (BUTLER, 1997).