This work investigates how the subjective cultural aspects of Brazilian and American societies are evident in the respective advertisement discourse. Its goals are: (i) verify the particularities in the way of being, behaving, thinking and using the linguistic codes in these two cultures and, in order to reach this goal, three categories of analysis were selected: reason / emotion, individualism / collectivism and proximity / distance; (ii) contribute to make possible that the differences found in the data can be understood and respected by all those who are involved in situations of intercultural communication; and (iii) enrich the area of foreign languages learning/teaching, and more specifically, the area of Portuguese as a second language for foreign students ( PL2E ), with pieces of information about the cultural values which permeate the two societies in evidence. In order to reach these goals, the author of this work used the studies of prominent scholars of the areas of knowledge here mentioned, which gave the theories necessary to support this research. With the data obtained through the analysis of advertisements, it was possible to verify that, according to the three categories selected, in Brazilian society there is predominance of emotion, collectivism and proximity, while in American society there is predominance of reason, individualism and distance, confirming the initial hypothesis. The research helps teachers in the task of preparing new didactic material and in the improvement of methodologies which may contribute to a more dynamic and efficient PL2E learning.