Critical applied linguistics (CALx) is an interdisciplinary critical approach to English applied linguistics. One of the central concerns in this approach is exposing the political dimensions and power relations involved in mainstream applied linguistics, in areas like language teaching, language policy and planning, language testing, language rights, and so on.
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“It would be easy ... to regard the whole of world 3 as timeless, as Plato suggested of his world of Forms or Ideas.... I propose a different view—one which, I have found, is surprisingly fruitful. I regard world 3 as being essentially the product of the human mind.... More precisely, I regard the world 3 of problems, theories, and critical arguments as one of the results of the evolution of human language, and as acting back on this evolution.”
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