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‘I Speak English and French, NOT American’:Canadian Advertising from an Intercultural and Postcolonial Perspective


Affiliations
1 Marketing and Communications, ESCE International Business School Paris, France
     

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The purpose of the present paper was to explore the famous Canadian Molson beer TV commercial from both an intercultural and postcolonial perspective. This commercial, also referred to as ‘the Rant’, was selected because of the significant role it has played for the creation of Canadian identity since the mid-1990s. For this purpose, the method of critical discourse analysis was applied. The analysis revealed that, besides showing the cultural, political, and linguistic differences between Canada and the US, it mentions Canada’s Inuit and Francophones only implicitly, i.e. it uses the discursive strategy of ‘backgrounding’. In addition, it omits immigrant groups and Indian peoples. This strategy is referred to as ‘suppression’. Thus, ‘the Rant’ primarily addresses Canadians of Anglo-Saxon ancestry.

Keywords

Advertising, Canada, Critical Discourse Analysis, Cultural Studies, Post-Colonialism.
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  • ‘I Speak English and French, NOT American’:Canadian Advertising from an Intercultural and Postcolonial Perspective

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Authors

Erhard Lick
Marketing and Communications, ESCE International Business School Paris, France

Abstract


The purpose of the present paper was to explore the famous Canadian Molson beer TV commercial from both an intercultural and postcolonial perspective. This commercial, also referred to as ‘the Rant’, was selected because of the significant role it has played for the creation of Canadian identity since the mid-1990s. For this purpose, the method of critical discourse analysis was applied. The analysis revealed that, besides showing the cultural, political, and linguistic differences between Canada and the US, it mentions Canada’s Inuit and Francophones only implicitly, i.e. it uses the discursive strategy of ‘backgrounding’. In addition, it omits immigrant groups and Indian peoples. This strategy is referred to as ‘suppression’. Thus, ‘the Rant’ primarily addresses Canadians of Anglo-Saxon ancestry.

Keywords


Advertising, Canada, Critical Discourse Analysis, Cultural Studies, Post-Colonialism.

References