In the motion of the kaleidoscope:
Doing sociolinguistic scales and refocusing in Applied Linguistics
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1590/1678-460x202259475Keywords:
escalas sociolinguísticas; complexidade sociolinguística; Complexo do Alemão; esperança.Abstract
In this article, I draw from one aspect of Marilda Cavalcanti’s fruitful work in Applied Linguistics – her attention to movement, to readjusting focus, and to language not as a static object but as a kaleidoscope of resources – to carry out a similar exercise on the set of interactions, dialogues, missteps, plans, failures, and continuous adjustments of what we call field research. The question this paper asks is: If we conceive language not as a fixed, static and circumscribed object, but as a sociolinguistically mobile complex of voices, dimensions, spaces, times and interactions, how can we avoid taking as given or reified the communicative practices we observe in our empirical fields? I return to my research trajectory on violence in language, by demonstrating how the focus shifted from processes of symbolic domination to resistance and hope (without, at the same time, dismissing domination). I conclude that the focus on inequality, while a legitimate and necessary step, should not obscure the production of voice and agency on the ground of the school, the collective, the periphery, that is, the field of research.
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