Image has accompanied man since his own origin. It has a painstaking role in culture diffusion, particularly within the teaching-learning process of the subject History of the English speaking peoples, for it is the vehicle to transmit, appropriate and reconstruct the British heritage, but at the same time it is a mediating devise to sustain that diffusion. In the view of this author’s position, it depicts, in the area of History of the culture of the English speaking peoples I, those aspects involved in the cultural inheritance of the U.K. and trainees are able to include them in their personal reservoir and retain them longer.
In this process of mediated internalisation they do not only get the culture of the English civilisation but also that of image, i.e., the role of colours for conveying messages, areas , tones, values, texture, etc. These semiotic codes are learned step by step and trainees and they are vital to interpret this sign. Consequently, this will contribute to the formation of the image culture as part of their general culture. So, the application of the icastic-generating image in the educational context is an important choice to be considered since mediation is useful to teach students how to learn.
The icastic-generating image is not only a semiotic system used to act as a cultural mediator, for it involves other types of mediation as the pedagogic one since it is a resource to better up the learning process. The linguistic mediation is when language is used as a tool to learn and explore this image, to construct meaning from it, being this an entity resulting from human production and culture. The icastic-generating image displays a communicative process but it is not an autonomous way. Image as a semiological system has to do with language. Learners, in the process of perceiving and constructing the image meaning, they should inevitably use language.
The cultural mediation is the intermediation achieved through image as an entity where the advance and progress of human culture is manifested. It is itself a result, and part of culture. Besides, this mediation allows learners know the effects and role that this sign belonging to culture can have in their lives. Eventually, the semiological mediation has to do with the codes of the visual language, how it is presented, its syntax and its meaning.
The icastic- generating image is defined as an iconic system of denotative and connotative nature that acts as a didactic mediator to vehicle an interpretation of the content, capable to express and propitiate an intersemiosis, an axiological sense and some visual decoding upon the processes, objects and phenomena that trainees should learn.
The historic-contextual configuration stands for what is being said and has some correspondence with the semantic perspective of image as a semiological system. This configuration represents, as it is stated by Vilches (1993) the two ways trainees’ establish relation with this kind of image; in the first the image creator prevails with his/her intention of making the others see what she/he has coded. The second and the one this conception puts all this emphasis on, is related to the act of doing from what is being perceived. Consequently, an active and selective perception takes place and the co-creator turns into an explorer and discoverer of image.
The iconographic configuration sums up the informative domain related to the image structure or its expressive means.
Messages and concepts resulting from the historic- contextual ground are exteriorised and perceived through the elements of the system-form, which in turn, make a whole where each of them fulfils a function without diminishing the others´ importance and role. The dialectical interrelation of the historic- contextual and the iconographic domains is stressed by Vilches´ statement when pointing out that “(…) the visual texts are just a game of several thematic and formal components (1993).
The decoding of the historic- contextual information retained in the icastic- generating image depends on the trainees´ knowledge and abilities regarding lines, areas, colours, values, tones and textures that constitute the vehicle to the final purpose of the message transmitted.
The author agrees with Morriña on the fact that trainees can perceive through lines not only the denotative elements of image but also the means used by the image creator to make his/her thought visible.
Through the process of the iconic reading can discriminate that lines have been used in all their expression forms to shape out the different figures that represent the different sense units regarding the content to exteriorize different meanings in the process of perception of the icastic- generating images lines guide the direction of the trainees reading inside the composition they are indispensable elements for the materialization and representation of the information transmitted, and they are to image what graphemes to the text.
Another element is volume. Though image is the synthesis of two dimensions it is possible to create certain illusionist effects from light, depth and perspective which contribute to create a space that reproduce the one existing in the objective reality. Though certain trends discard the volumetric imitation in image for this author illusion does not represent a way to deceit the trainee, but a lively perceptive experience near to reality is achieved.
Tones are important elements within image and these unlike values, highlight differences in colour due to variations in the mixtures of it.
The merger of several tones of a colour produces a degradation of it and this contributes to create the illusion of volume in image.
In the specific case shown by this author, volume is obtained through perspective that provides credibility to the druid rite around the Stonehenge. Perspective makes the druids’ standing be much more dynamic and real.
The approach towards the previous elements and some others like values and colours is based upon the existence of light, the later composed of a wide range of electromagnetic waves of different frequencies which produce a visual sensation of different colours when reflected in certain objects’ surface.
Values in image are classified into high, medium and low (Morriña, 1989: 65). Colours and values are striking elements to construct a whole virtual universe. Colour displays its essence in this type of image in such a way that if the part of the cultural reality had been deprived of colour, the spectator could had decoded little information from it. The addition of natural colour stresses the effect of reality and influences greatly on the realism function that goes far beyond the shape of things allowing the spectator decodes in an effective way the message conveyed in image.
These expressive elements are of a connotative nature for they elicit the most varied spectrum of feelings and moods and take us to a world of subjectivities. This phenomenon is known as the colour psychology (Moles, Janiszewki, 1990). Through it people associate black low values with death, hell, mischief, mystery, dirt; white and the high values with purity, clearness and good; red with life, vitality, sensuality and passion. Colour takes us and occupies the place of something that is not directly perceptible in that portion of reality retained in image. To this respect, A. Moles and Luc Janiszewki (1990) state: “[…] it is an aesthetic component that affects the perceptive subtlety of sensibility.”
Another item related to colour is its dynamics which establishes the relative conditioning between colour and the neighbouring ones. It means that colour is directly altered taking into account the others that surround it. For instance it is quite noticeable in the image containing gladiators that the skull and the arena look darker and diminish in size since they are upon a black ground.
On the other hand, the colour temperature establishes a distinction between hot and cold colours. Temperature is a suggestively expressive form between image and spectator. The use of hot colours emphasises the proximity, liveliness and stimulating effect between image and spectator since hot colours “go forward” upon the surface and the cold ones “go back” (Morriña, 1989: 77).
Texture is the last element to be analysed within the iconographic configuration. It is the tactile quality of the denotative elements’ surface shown in image. Through perception the spectator gets integrity of what is represented; that is, objects are shown taking into account the human experience of them to tact. So, they are perceived as totalities where not only their configurations are depicted, but also their colours and textures. Consequently, the icastic-generating image educes the visual and tactile association which comes to be a unique learning experience to trainees.
The linguistic domain. A learning reality based upon the authoritarian communication of the trainer triggers a facial language showing boredom and lack of interest, and this, in turn, makes any linguistic production of their own fade away.
A contrasting reality is the one trainees experience when interacting with the icastic-generating image. This comes to be a meaningful moment which triggers the trainees’ facial language denoting interest, amazement, curiosity and motivation. A meaningful learning generates appositive mood and trainees get eager to share this experience one another, and of course, it unchains the inner mechanisms to make an optimal use of the language, whose grammar, lexicon, pronunciation, syntax, fluency and style exteriorise the lively experience trainees have had.
On the other hand, the image perception is carried out with the aid of the kinetic analysers (articulatory organs). The visual analyser, once it has received the optical signs, unchains a reaction upon the articulatory organs due to the action of the inner language in the visual perception. Trainees can understand, explain and interpret what is shown in image if they talk to themselves. The inner language is of extraordinary importance, even in tough conditions, since it activates like analysis, synthesis and generalisation which make possible the visual comprehension.
All the domains achieve an even relevance to this author; however, the linguistic one is a foundational axis for the development of the linguistic skills and the trainees’ communicative competence as the chief goals of the foreign languages specialty. So image establishes a communicative situation whose solution depends on the trainees’ linguistic skills.
So to speak, the icastic-generating image promotes the systematisation of the trainees’ knowledge and abilities related to language. In the particular case of History of the culture of the English speaking peoples, they get trained on the formers of expressing past events, on how to emphasise both, events and personalities and consolidate how to establish general truths.
It is worth saying that trainees are endowed of a general vocabulary to make clear their ideas, but they also should master the special terms of the subject since the use of the right words in a specific context has an undeniable communicative effect.
In the process of meaning construction related to image, trainees get use of certain linguistic strategies to begin, keep and up their speech (Swain and Canale, 1996). Likewise, they should be able to relate all the arts to make of the text totality since it is a system whose elements are strongly interrelated.
The image decoding promotes the natural cross-pollination of the four abilities of the English language (reading, listening, speaking, and writing). In the case of our proposal, image together with the text are the fundamental reading sources to enable comprehension and interpretation. Image is an invaluable resource to develop the trainees’ speaking and also to foster the development of writing as an autonomous ability and to even this to speaking. Listening is also worked out since they exchange ideas and criteria upon the basis of what they listen to.
Language is the primary socialization mediator through which the social construction of reality occurs [Berger and Luckmann 1996]. Thus, our knowledge of the world is mediated by the linguistic systems that organize our experience of it. Language and image as sign- systems play a major part in the 'social construction of reality' and realities cannot be separated from the sign-systems in which they are experienced," (Chandler 2002:17).
The dialectics among the historic-contextual, iconographic and linguistic domains of the icastic-generating image moves the teaching learning process of this subject to the cognitive-communicative dimension which comes to be one of the goals of the interaction between trainees and image. This movement allows the establishment of a process of social interaction in which the meaningful information provided in image becomes a communicative act on behalf of the learners whose result reflects a change in their attitudes enabling the transformation of themselves as well as of their surroundings. Only in this sense, the author of this paper considers that communication promotes a developmental learning, whose definition is stated by Castellanos (2001, 33): “[…] it is the process through which the individual guarantees the active and creative appropriation of culture enhancing his constant growth, autonomy and self-determination in closely connection to the necessary process of socialisation and social commitment.
As one drops farther into the essence of the icastic-generating image, its gnoseological function blinks to the eye. It reveals the existence of the objective reality and the cognitive relation that trainees establish towards it.
Again, the image of the surrounding world flashes into the trainees’ minds having the icastic-generating image as a bridge to it. In this respect, it constitutes an instrument to explore and know reality and themselves, and it also widens the trainees’ communicative chances towards their world fostering their human betterment. The author of this paper, likewise researcher E. Frómeta (2006), envisages three other levels of essentially or configurations of the icastic-generating image.
The aesthetic configuration asserts the wide range of the aesthetic values gathered by the icastic-generating image when trainees perceive their world and interact with it. This domain is attained when achieving a unity among the historic-contextual, iconographic and linguistic fields. It represents a positive via to exert a deep influence on the trainees’ consciousness abort a new learning reality whose major achievements are: identity of ideas, trainees´ leading role, flexibility, respect for diversity and difference, and the enrichment of each trainee’s personal and psychological heritage. The icastic-generating image opens up a spectrum of didactic opportunities that ranges from the revealing of its gnoseological side, its expressiveness, its dialects of content-form, the complexity of stimulation of aesthetic likes and tastes, the lively experience shaping out o the interchange with it, the comprehension of its language to the co-creation made by trainees from it.
The teaching-learning process finds in the icastic-generating image a didactic resource for the new generations´ aesthetic education upon the basis of the emotional and spiritual appropriation of all processes, and phenomena studied. It also encompasses the creative activity promoted in youngsters towards reality and particularly towards this type of image as a didactic-social lives and a proximity to the aesthetic perfection of the teaching-learning process.
The aesthetic side of this image influences on the degree of meaning that learning gets for trainees, but it is also achieved by the ideological and cognitive sense evidenced in this image through which trainees get a new knowledge from life, and stirs correspondence, identity or reflection towards the piece of reality portrayed; therefore, the icastic-generating image is something to take into account of.
In addition to this, the aesthetic side is related with the final goal of the icastic-generating image creation that does not lie only in the coding and decoding of messages, but also in the trainees’ professional formation allowing them to adopt a coherent attitude towards their world and the results or objects of culture. The goal of this image has to do as well with the never- ending possibilities of visual communication that constitutes for this author, a human exclusiveness to enjoy, recreate and create the surrounding reality and enlighten the trainees´ inner universe. From this perspective, the aesthetic configuration of this image aims at fostering the trainees´ image culture.
The different didactic components of the teaching- learning process have been analysed by some outstanding authors like Graells Pere Marquès (2001, 2004), Fátima Addine (1995, 2004), Carlos Álvarez de Zayas (1993, 1996, 2000). They agreed on the fact that the content synthesises the flexibility and richness of culture. Content has been defined by Carlos Alvarez de Zayas as:” […] that part of the culture and social experience that has to be assimilated by the learners depending on the objectives proposed”.
Though this vision of culture has been firmly established among teachers, another one is possible. In the view offered by Elaine Frometa (2007), she considered that not only content contains culture; the other didactic constituents are results and syntheses of culture. As it is observed, the author emphasises in the culture achieved through the processes of image creation and co-creation within the teaching learning process.
As she stated, the rest of the authors has not realised the fact that when images acts as mediatic configuration in the teaching learning process, it can promote the contextualised culture synthesised in the didactic content through the process of creation and co-creation.
The no recognition of the teaching- learning process of the image culture is due to the lack of sensitivity and formation as a result of the old prejudice that image is as simple, innocuous and accessible that the training to decipher it is not need.
The image culture is defined as the holistic, continuous and dynamic process that embodies the accumulated visual elaborations, the constant image creations and cultural units derived from them that emerge from the objective/subjective activity developed by the teacher and students that are dialectically articulated on the complex social and individual dynamics to satisfy their educative needs and those of visual communication in a determined socio-historical context (Frometa, 2007:14).
As a conclusion, teachers should cope with the wide repertoire of the image culture to contribute to trainees´ formation in accordance with the demands of the present social dynamics and teach them how to code and decode this sign system as a way to be freer in a world of visual pollution.