Critical Consciousness in Contemporary Discourse: Elevating the Act of Reading Toward Deep Interpretation

Abstract

This study investigates the nature of critical consciousness within contemporary Arabic discourse, focusing on its capacity to enable reading, analysis, and deep interpretation. It explores whether critical discourse possesses a distinct methodology—given the proliferation and expansion of meanings—and whether it governs literary discourse or is shaped by it. The study further interrogates whether the criteria for reading various forms of discourse are unified or specialized, and whether critical consciousness seeks to uncover the unique features of texts or dissolves these features in the process of interpretation. By adopting an integrative analytical method, the research traces the contributions of renewed critical awareness to discourse in general and to literary and critical discourse in particular. It also examines the role of readers, critics, and interpreters in shaping discourse, developing its conceptual directions, and contributing to the formation of ideas, theories, and critical methodologies. The findings reveal that critical consciousness marks a fundamental transformation in the relationship between text and reader, where the reader becomes an active participant in reconstructing the text and generating meaning. Through redirecting the text toward a productive interpretive horizon, critical consciousness enriches the creative and critical act, granting discourse a dynamic analytical and hermeneutic depth.