Critical literacy and social agency

Abstract

Upon the understanding of Applied Linguistics as an indisciplinary field of inquiry that aims to create intelligibility regarding language-centered social problems (MOITA LOPES, 2006), this article introduces a pedagogical instrument, a Critical Multiliteracies Thematic Project, as a means to develop learners’ critical social agency. The nature of this educational project derives from the pedagogy of critical sociointeractional literacy (TILIO, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2015), whose understanding of language teaching permeates notions of citizenship that defy hegemonic discourses by prompting the analysis of themes and language, and the adoption of a constant critical stance. As the pedagogical project in focus situates its practices through alternative Brazilian female voices, students of an extension English course are led to respond to the multiple discourses on gender-imbricated matters that dwells their social horizons (VOLÓCHINOV, 2017 [1929]). Hence, by investigating the dialogue established between the project and a student, this article intends to contribute to the production of knowledge on social life. In order to do so, we selected a task that integrates the project and a multimodal digital text produced by a student in response to the project. We close off the article by framing the relevance of ethically committed language education in promoting learners’ transforming practices.