International Multilingual Research Journal, 7: 119–137, 2013 Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC ISSN: 1931-3152 print / 1931-3160 online DOI: 10.1080/19313152.2012.664989 Reading Pennycook Critically 10 Years Later: A Group’s Reflections On and Questions About Critical Applied Linguistics Patricia Friedrich New College of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences Arizona State University Anita Chaudhuri Faculty of Education University of Calgary Eduardo Diniz de Figueiredo, Daisy Fredricks, Matthew Hammill, and Erik Johnson Department of English Arizona State University Chatwara Suwannamai Duran Department of English University of Houston MiJungYun Arizona State University As we, an instructor and her students, read through Alastair Pennycook’s Critical Applied Linguistics (2001) in a PhD seminar by the same name, we found ourselves contrasting and comparing the insights provided in that book with those in other critical texts and wondering what the ten years since the work’s publication had meant. This article is a collection of such reflections, one that is guided by our belief that activities relating to language use, change, and teaching are inherently polit- ical and dynamic, and that therefore we must be prepared for the challenges that operating within this paradigm always brings. After a brief introduction to the work itself, we present our thoughts on what critical approaches do—in particular what Critical Applied Linguistics as proposed by Pennycook intends to do—the relationship between the critical and linguistics, the possibility of change through the critical, and the role of questioning and skepticism in forging a different reality. Keywords: Critical Applied Linguistics, critical pedagogies, language change, language education Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Patricia Friedrich, New College of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences, Arizona State University, P.O. Box 37100, 4701 W. Thunderbird Rd. Mail Code 305, Phoenix, AZ 85069-7100. E-mail: patrica.friedrich@asu.edu