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2026 - Volume 9 - Number 1

“Open Admissions”: A Multimodal Discourse Analysis of a Private Bilingual School Advertisements in Central Mexico

Briza Zafiro Ortiz Guzmán * ORCID: 0009-0005-4867-2089
University of Guanajuato, Department of Languages, Guanajuato, MEXICO

Open Journal for Studies in Linguistics, 2026, 9(1), 1-14 * https://doi.org/10.32591/coas.ojsl.0901.01001o
Received: 31 May 2026 ▪ Revised: 8 August 2026 ▪ Accepted: 26 August 2026

LICENCE: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

ARTICLE (Full Text - PDF)

ABSTRACT:
This small-scale research investigates the process of meaning-making through discourse analysis in the advertisements of a bilingual elementary school in central Mexico. The analysis was based on five advertisements posted by the Mexican bilingual school on its official Instagram account. For the analysis, a qualitative and interpretive research approach was chosen, incorporating Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and Multimodal Discourse Analysis (MMDA). CDA involves analyzing discourse three levels: text, discursive practice, and social practice. As for MMDA, it involves the use of the model developed by Kress and van Leeuwen (2006) to analyze images. According to this model, visual images can be analyzed based on representational, interactive, and compositional meanings. The results show how discourse is strategically used to position bilingual education as prestigious, highlighting its international status and promising better educational and professional opportunities. These discourses are constructed within certain social and ideological assumptions regarding languages, education, and social mobility.

KEY WORDS: language ideologies, language and power, marketization of education, social media discourse, Mexico.

CORRESPONDING AUTHOR:
Briza Zafiro Ortiz Guzmán, University of Guanajuato, Department of Languages, Guanajuato, MEXICO.

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