Language ideologies can be identified as the set of conceptualizations about the nature of language and its usage as present in explicit ideas about language and more tacit assumptions. These ‘ideas’ can be read from both explicit metalinguistic statements and more implicit paralanguage indices, code choices and other behaviours.Language ideologies are never solely about language but inevitably link people to, often morally charged, social and physical characteristics. Consequently, the concept of language ideologies provides a useful tool to relate language use to its socio-political status. Language ideologies are grounded in diverging social experiences, spurring potential conflict, leading to contestation and alterations of ideologies, social structures and the languages themselves. This justifies the focus on language ideologies in times of political and legislative transformation within Bolivia. In 2010 the Bolivian government passed a new education law based on a combination of ‘intercultural’ and ‘intracultural’ (culture strengthening) principles, meant to ‘revolutionize’ and ‘decolonize’ the education system and the Bolivian plurination. The promotion and instruction of indigenous languages, now aimed at the whole Bolivian population, stands at its core. Language ideologies play an effective and significant role in both linguistic and political changes. Linguistic in that they influence actual language usage and lead to the preference of particular language forms and expressions over others, and their spread within a group. Political in that they can delineate physical and psychological borders implying a range of socio-economic inclusions/exclusions and discriminations.The explicit and implicit meaning given to Quechua within the university setting contributes to understanding the role of language played in the decolonisation and inter and intra cultural governmental agenda. This talk will present the results of month’s long fieldwork at San Simon University in Cochabamba, Bolivia analysing the views and attitudes of different actors within the department of linguistics– teachers, teacher assistants, students – towards the Quechua language and how they position themselves in respect to the government’s aim to create ‘plurinational’ citizenship. The classroom is a site of metasemiotic discourse and functioning, in which the conversational events shape what the students assume is appropriate Quechua use (its metapragmatics) and the meaning of it (its metasemantics). It is a locus of ideology and identity creation.Two thematic umbrella branches, encompassing the different language ideologies – Quechua as an Identity and Quechua as an Academic Discipline – emerged from the research data. The two branches, however, cannot be easily divided and resemble intertwined lianas more than regular tree branches. Ideologies differ at an individual level in their expression, implementation and use in discourse and social practice. The university, and the linguistics department in particular, is a space for reflection on language, which helps bring to consciousness and question historically disparaging language ideologies. Quechua has been historically excluded from institutional settings such as the University, and its appearance in the curriculum triggered a process of language ‘sensibilisation’ and prestige growth, gradually grounding its belonging.When dissenting discourse enters the dialectic, with actors challenging the accepted pragmatics of interactions, it spurs consciousness in others, leading to possible chains of interaction from micro to macro level. Discourse underpins the effectivity of language shaping not only dominant power and material relations, but also mediating the social (self-)conception of the subject. The most visible recent changes inside UMSS are in the symbolic status of Quechua from that of historical stigmatisation and shame to that of pride in the language as cultural heritage. This new dominant discourse is not, however, mirrored ubiquitously in the social activities at the department, demonstrating the fluidity between past and present in what are historically revolutionary and transitory times for Bolivia. The biggest challenge the actors at LAEL seem to face, albeit in diverse ways, is how to reconcile the necessity to adjust the language to an academic setting and new technologies with the desire to preserve what is conceived of as its ‘essence’. The cultural value of ‘traditional’ or ‘ancestral’ Quechua practices is generally accepted and named a prime reason to learn the language. However, these practices are somehow adapted to the contemporary demands for the participation in the international global society. Quechua is entering the space of new technologies bringing indigenous values into places of ‘(post)modernity’ and beginning to foster the intercultural dialogue that the state is seeking to promote as the basis for a plurilingual and pluricultural Bolivian society.