Abstract

The present study is a discourse analysis of ‘Projeto de Lei 1676/1999’ from Brazil, which is a proposal that aims to prohibit the use of loanwords in the public domain in that country. Using mainly the discourse analysis theory and method proposed by Gee, I examine how English is conceptualized in the text, the language ideologies that such conceptualizations bring, and how these ideologies and conceptualizations reflect larger sociocultural, political, and historical phenomena in the country, as well as theories of globalization and of the global spread of English. The analysis reveals strong conflicts between the common understanding of Brazil as a monolingual, homogeneous giant, and its heterogeneous sociocultural reality, as well as tensions between long-established understandings of the country and its history, and the questioning of such notions in a global context where traditional concepts have become more and more complex.