Multislicing Semiotic Analysis (MSA): Engaging with the Meanings of Creative-Visual-Arts Data

The emergence and growth of arts-based research has challenged researchers to develop systematic approaches for engaging with arts data. In my own research, involving arts-based, interdisciplinary and intercultural complexities, I encountered this analytical challenge and had to develop my response to it, namely ‘Multislicing Semiotic Analysis’ (MSA). In this chapter, I present MSA and explain how it enabled me to: a) directly engage with the plausible meanings of creative-visual-arts data; b) accommodate both the visual and accompanying verbal insights; c) flexibly tailor strategies to analyse multiple types of creative-visual-arts data; and d) embrace a reflexive space through multiple modes of thinking. I exemplify my design of MSA with a cartoon data-set ‘Intercultural Bubble’ generated in my doctoral study. By illustrating how I carefully engage with my data-sets in a thoughtful, systematic and reflexive way, my ultimate objective here is to contribute to the quality and trustworthiness of arts-based research. In the chapter, I first introduce the background to my study, and the analytical challenges that I faced when working with my creative-visualarts data; then, I present and exemplify MSA; and finally, I offer a discussion of MSA in relation to the challenges that I intended to address.