Developing students’ literary interpretation competence through semiotic analysis of shakespearean drama in literature education

Abstract

Teaching literature in contemporary educational contexts requires strategies that move beyond the transmission of information about authors, historical periods, and plots and instead promote the development of interpretive competence and critical reading. This study examines the educational potential of literary and semiotic analysis of William Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew as a method for teaching literary interpretation. A qualitative interpretive design based on close textual reading and semiotic analysis was employed, organized through an adapted introduction, methods, results, and discussion structure. The analytical procedure examined key scenes by considering rhetorical devices, verbal irony, genre conventions, language, gesture, costume, spatial organization, and performance context. The findings show that the Christopher Sly induction enables identity to be understood as a construction based on signs and social conventions; the verbal confrontations between Katherina and Petruchio reveal language as a site of power, control, and resistance; and the taming episodes demonstrate how everyday objects and bodily representation can become mechanisms of discipline. Likewise, disguises and identity exchanges reveal the performative character of social roles, while Katherina’s final speech constitutes a polysemic sign open to conservative, ironic, or subversive interpretations. The study concludes that integrating literary and semiotic analysis provides a relevant educational strategy for developing interpretive competence, critical reading, and evidence-based argumentation, enabling students to understand literary meaning as the result of the dynamic interaction among text, context, performance, and reader