Readings of an advertisement by the Language School “Cultura Inglesa”: meaning and effects

Abstract

This study originated when two astonished language teachers, walking on a main street of Cuiabá, Mato Grosso, came across a billboard of Cultura Inglesa, a private English language school. The advertisement combined images (the globe covered by the British flag) with words (“Learn English with those who taught the world to speak”). The advertisement seemed doubly provocative and colonialist and at first sight generated a feeling of indignation. After the initial impact and after remembering that all reading is dialogic, we were curious to know what other readings this advertisement would elicit. In due course a photo of the billboard was shown to several teachers of Portuguese, English, French and Spanish. We noticed two major tendencies in their readings: one that reads the text literally and the other that reads between the lines, or rather, the underlying meanings bringing to the surface the colonialist ideology.