ANALYSING THE PICTORIALS OF VIOLENCE IN NIGERIA: A SEMIOTICS PERSPECTIVE

Authors

  • Memunat Olayemi Mahmud PhD, Department of English Studies, Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba-Akoko, Ondo State, Nigeria orcid.org/0000-0002-4324-5847

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.46827/ejlll.v6i1.347

Keywords:

Boko Haram, Fulani herdsmen, reportage, semiotics, terrorism

Abstract

Violence attributed to the various agitating groups in the country has become a common occurrence across the Nigerian states. This paper explored a cross-comparative analysis of the pictorials of activities of two northern Nigerian agitating groups (the Boko Haram sect and the Fulani herdsmen) as semiotics signs of violence within the Nigeria socio-cultural space. A corpus of 14 pictorials of online newspaper reportage of the activities of the agitating groups across the Nigerian States downloaded from the Internet served as the primary data in this study. Using Peirce’s triadic sign relations of icon, index and symbol, the study categorised the pictorials in the reportage and analysed them as semiotics sign carriage of violence showing that the communicative imports of the pictorials effectively explicate the magnitude of violence within the Nigerian socio-cultural space in their interpretations. The signs identified in the data include instrument of operation, ruins, body language, emotional display, etc., which are semiotics modals implicative of war, violence, destruction, agony, sorrow, agitation, etc., and symbolism of cruelty, ferocity, homicide and inhumanity generally. The paper concludes that pictorials are communicative signs carriage of concrete and implicative significations.

 

Author Biography

  • Memunat Olayemi Mahmud, PhD, Department of English Studies, Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba-Akoko, Ondo State, Nigeria orcid.org/0000-0002-4324-5847

    Dr. Memunat Olayemi Mahmud is a Senior Lecturer at the department of English Studies, Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba-Akoko, Nigeria. She has B. A. English Studies from the Ondo State University, Ado-Ekiti (OSUA), Nigeria, M.A. English Language from the Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba-Akoko, Ondo State, Nigeria, PhD English, Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba-Akoko, Ondo State, Nigeria and M.Sc. Social Work from Ladoke Akintola University of Technology (LAUTECH). Her areas of specialization include: Semiotics, Stylistics, Sociolinguistics, Pragmatics, Discourse Studies, Strategic Communication, Creative Writing, etc.

    ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Memunat-Mahmud-2; Academia.edu: https://aauaedu.academia.edu/OlayemiMahmud; Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=_jMZd5wAAAAJ&hl=en

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Published

2022-07-21

Issue

Vol. 6 No. 1 (2022)

Section

Articles