The present study, framed from a critical and transformative approach to teacher education, aims to investigate whether language portraits (Prasad, 2010)--the mapping of one's language and cultural make-up on a body template--can help improve student teachers' self-understanding about language and identities and can foster critical reflection regarding their attitudes towards linguistic diversity. This study looks particularly at how "emotional engagement" in autobiographical portraits and narratives of language experiences and practices could potentially facilitate personal interrogation of social assumptions and open up possibilities for greater intellectual examination of the sociopolitical dimensions of second-language teaching and learning.