The Multimodal Hermeneutic-Cultural Discourse (MHCD) Model as a Lens on Citizen-Authored Expressions of Saudi National Identity

This study investigates how Saudi National Identity (SNI) is performed through citizen-authored multimodal texts commemorating the 94th Saudi National Day. It introduces the Multimodal Hermeneutic-Cultural Discourse (MHCD) Model—a novel triadic framework integrating Cultural Discourse Studies (CuDS), visual grammar, and philosophical hermeneutics—to analyze how meaning emerges across visual and verbal modes. Fifteen image-caption pairs were purposively selected and examined across five thematic