Hortus Conclusus: a Visual Discourse Analysis Based on a Critical Literacy Approach to Education

Abstract

Some form of critical literacy seems to have become essential to all students today, irrespective of where they are studying, at what level, or what their academic field is. Indeed, in even greater need of developing their critical literacy abilities appear to be students of the Humanities for it is in these areas of study that some critical, cultural and historical perspectives are constantly being re-examined, reassessed, deconstructed and reconstructed in accordance with our age/postmodern/modern theories. By way of illustration, and taking as its premise the assumption that all knowledge is, at least to a certain extent, ideological and related to power, this paper attempts, within the theoretical framework of critical literacy, an analysis of a specific visual discourse relevant to art history studies – the iconography of Hortus Conclusus (Enclosed Garden). Methodologically speaking, the benefits from this kind of approach could be manifold. Students are and feel empowered to critically acquire/deconstruct/reconstruct knowledge in specific content areas – a fact which in itself provides higher motivation in an EAP class (they are primarily focused on gaining knowledge in English rather than that of/about English). All the stages of the above demonstrated process are conducted in English, which gives the teacher an excellent opportunity to cater for the students’ specific needs (e.g. employ concept and semantic mapping and other vocabulary-building strategies relevant to their fields of study). The approach also appears to raise the students’ overall awareness of language and stimulate an analytical interest in etymology, semantics and semiotics as well as in the nature, purpose and workings of language in general.