The Analysis of Visual Representations to Foster the Development of Visual Literacy.

MELINA PORTO, ANA CENDOYA Y VERÓNICA DI BIN

Buenos Aires

Encuentro; UBERT 2011 (Universidad de Belgrano English Round Table); 2011

Universidad de Belgrano

In the postindustrial age of the late 20th century, the increasing rate of technological innovation produced a plethora of new forms of text. With the advent of film, video, gaming, the Internet, and the increasing visual content in books and magazines came a whole range of texts that were not print based. In this new era of what has become known as the information age, or knowledge economy, this notion of text as only print might be seen as necessary but not sufficient. Knowledge of the linguistic semiotic system that is the basis of print text is still as necessary as it has always been, but in this highly visual and technological age it is no longer sufficient. (Anstey and Bull, 2006:100). Contemporary students face a world far different from the print-saturated environment of their parents. In today's world, these new media texts are part of popular culture and are quite different from the more traditional texts. Students are now confronted with a variety of semiotic systems before they reach school such as visual, auditory, spatial, gestural and linguistic. As a result of this exposure the definition of literacy has changed. Whereas some researchers might define literacy as an ability to read, write and understand print based texts, Harste (2003) suggested that literacy involves experience with a variety of semiotic or communication systems in a particular language, drama, music and the visual arts especially if educators  want them to gain new perspectives on the world. In other words students need to become multiliterate in order to negotiate the increasing number of texts that populate their lives. A multiliterate person is able to interpret, use and produce different kinds of texts that employ different semiotic systems for a variety of purposes in diverse contexts. Learning within a semiotic system approach to literacy enables learners to develop richer and more complex literacy practices and allows them to deal with images and messages of popular culture more thoughtfully. It seems necessary then to find space in which educators can work with students to move them toward a more complex understanding and development of literacy that is explicitly linked to the visual.