HIV/AIDS, Literacy and health communication: A study on the comprehension of visual symbolism in educational documents produced for people with limited reading skills

Abstract

This article reports on a qualitative research project' undertaken among urban speakers of African languages with limited reading skills. The purpose of the research was to test low-literate South Africans' comprehension of potentially problematic visual symbols featured in public awareness documents about HIV/ AIDS. In the next section, the intricate relationship between HIV/AIDS, literacy and health communication is expounded. Section 3 provides an overview of the problems frequently mentioned in the literature in connection with how visually and verbally lowskilled people interpret pictures. Thereafter, in section 4, the focus of the research project is described and justified . An adapted version of Hoffmann's (2000) semiotic typology, which serves as a framework for the analysis, is discussed briefly in section 5. Section 6 outlines the research methodology, followed by a discussion of the findings in section 7, an interpretation of the results in section 8, and concluding remarks in section 9.