Acceso usuarios
Miren Otxotorena Aranguren
, Luisa Martín Rojo 
Abstract In 2020, we initiated a participatory action research project focused on understanding the role of language in perpetuating inequality and addressing language-related injustices. We implemented a longitudinal conscientization process at a public university in Madrid, inspired by Freire’s philosophy of education and framed within the nationalist linguistic conflict in Spain. The article examines ethnographic and recorded interactive data from an intercomprehension (i.e., mutual understanding) workshop in 2022. The dominant sociolinguistic order favors Spanish as the “common language” throughout the state, and diverging practices tend to be socially punished. A territorial linguistic principle and hegemonic practices contribute to the maintenance of certain citizen privileges and to the marginalization of other languages and their speakers. Participants worked in groups to explore practices of intercomprehension, discuss the fairness of Spanish language dominance, and critically reflect on linguistic concepts and ideologies. Building on a participation framework and an analysis of power dynamics, our interactional analysis illustrates how transformative agency is activated, constructed, and negotiated through classroom activities and researcher-participant interactions through the consideration of the habitus, social position and social field. It enriches the understanding of the operation of transformative agency through its interrelated dimensions: reflexive, situated, interactional, distributed, and negotiated. Within the interaction, we also examine the shift in our role as researchers. Finally, this article contributes to the evolving understanding of language policy as both an instrument of power and a socially embedded practice, highlighting the potential of participatory pedagogy to promote sociolinguistic justice and create pathways for systemic change.
