The British Council’s role in nourishing the English language teaching industry in the Gulf Cooperation Council region: a visual social semiotic perspective

Abstract

ABSTRACT Although the interlocking of the British Council with wider political and economic activities and interests is well documented in some parts of the world (Pennycook, A. 2017. The Cultural Politics of English as an International Language. New York: Pearson; Phillipson, R. 2017. “Myths and Realities of ‘Global’ English.” Language Policy 16 (3): 313–331; Rapatahana, V., and P. Bunce. 2012. English Language as Hydra: Its Impacts on Non- English Language Cultures. Bristol: Multilingual Matters), precious little has been written on how the British Council is constructing the reality of the English language as an ‘unstoppable juggernaut’ (Demont-Heinrich, C. 2007. “The Ideological Construction of the Juggernaut of English: A Critical Analysis of American Prestige Press Coverage of the Globalisation of Language.” Studies in Language and Capitalism 2: 107–144) in parts of the Arab world. This paper scrutinizes the ways through which the British Council is nourishing the highly acclaimed English Language Teaching industry in the six member Arab states of the Gulf Cooperation Council: Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia. This issue will be explored through visual social semiotics analysis of nine videos that were published on the British Council’s six websites of the Gulf Cooperation Council member states to promote various courses and programs in the region.