CRITICAL VISUAL LITERACY IN SFL FOR SPECIFIC PORPOSES: READING ADVERTISING AS A SOCIAL POLITICAL PRACTICE

ABSTRACT After the arisen and development of multiliteracies and critical literacy, it was overcome the concept of reading exclusively as decoding, transcription and search of the author´s intentions, that is, it is understood that reading is a critical, social and political practice. Based on this assumption, this study aims at proposing a reading activity of advertisements in Spanish as a foreign language based on the critical literacy perspective of Cervetti et al (2001) and on the visual literacy of Muffoletto (2001) for undergraduates of Tourism, Journalism and Social Communication. Five beer and soda advertisements were analyzed, as well as a proposal activity for reading. The objective of the activity is to develop in the student the critical awareness and to invite him to transform the reality of oppression found in his lectures. This study shows that teaching a foreign language is to go beyond the decontextualized and purely normative grammar contents.