Dialogic communicative acts communicative acts of power in research

Vulnerable groups participating in research increasingly reject the type of communication between researchers and them in a radical way, since this communication is full of power-related speech acts. In other words, these acts are oriented towards a certain action without taking into account whether a consensus on the subject being researched is reached along with them. This occurs both when qualitative and quantitative methodologies are used. In contrast to this form of research, the critical communicative methodology constructs knowledge based on dialogic communicative acts, thus minimizing the power relations and power-related interaction, which is produced during communicative processes. Therefore, it has been and is currently used within the European Research Framework Programme. By basing research on dialogic communicative acts, then the search for a consensus through dialogic interaction rather than power-related interaction is prioritized, thus avoiding any type of imposition or coercion. This article provides an explanation for how the substitution of dialogic communicative acts for power-related communicative acts that take place using the critical communicative methodology influences the quality of scientific results.