When words are not enough: Combined textual and visual multimodal analysis as a Critical Discursive Psychology undertaking

Abstract

In this paper we sketch out the progress of our recent work, concentrating on methodological developments and insights we have gained along the way. Broadly, we situate ourselves in the field of Critical Discursive Psychology (CDP), but the focus of this paper extends to the study of combined semiotic realms, hence we describe our work as Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis (MCDA). By outlining MCDA and sharing some insight from our own engagement with it, we hope to connect with growing interest amongst qualitative psychologists, and discursive psychologists in particular, to examine discourse beyond just text and talk, and offer a practical example of how to apply MCDA. We begin by briefly outlining discursive psychology and CDP, before introducing MCDA as an analytic method that initially developed in the field of critical linguistics. We reflect on our work in MCDA combining visual and textual modalities to show how this approach can enable exploration of different semiotic forms in a manner that aligns with the ambitions of CDP. We argue that MCDAs novel insights illustrate both a need and value in undertaking discursive psychology of this kind (cf. Byford, 2018). We conclude by emphasising that meaning potentials availed through the visual and textual components of a multimodal discourse are more than the sum of individual components. The combination of modalities fosters a liminal space where meaning potentials expand beyond the additive combination of individual components and are instead rooted in holistic affordances of the multimodal discourse.