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Article published In: Australian Review of Applied Linguistics
Vol. 24:1 (2001) ► pp.75–92

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Aids awareness and discourse interpretation

The travel safe campaign

 | Auckland University of Technology
 | University of Melbourne
Published online: 1 January 2001
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/aral.24.1.06pal
Abstract
This paper describes a study which examines how people interpret the safe sex messages presented in posters distributed throughout Australian airports as part of the government’s Travel Safe AIDS awareness campaign. The subjects who participated in the study were all under 25 years old, one of the target groups for the particular campaign. The group was made up of 20 native speakers of English and 20 non-native speakers of English. Both groups of readers largely recognized the intended messages of the texts and, in many cases, learnt something new from them. This was particularly the case with the non-native speakers of English. The paper cautions, however, on drawing the conclusion from the study that all readers will necessarily enter into the intended reading position of the texts, and respond positively to them.
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