SYNTACTIC AND MULTIMODAL REPRESENTATION OF IDEOLOGY IN NIGERIAN ‘TINUBUNOMIC’ INTERNET MEMES
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Date
2026
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Department of English, University of Zakho
Abstract
Internet memes as principal semiotic practices through which internet users engage in political participation
have been explored from varied dimensions. Despite the growing body of linguistic research, the memeification
of Tinubunomics (a category of PIMs) on social media sites has received little or no attention in the literature.
By implication, Tinubunomic meme discourse is largely unpopular among academic scholars, specifically
linguists. This study is, therefore, a leadoff exploration on Tinubunomic discourse in linguistic scholarship
which draws insights from Kress and van Leeuwen’s (2006) socio-semiotics, van Dijk’s socio-cognitive
approach to critical discourse studies and Neuendorf et al.’s (2014) multiple senses of humour (SOH). Thus, it
investigates the syntactic and multimodal representation of ideology in Nigerian ‘Tinubunomic’ internet
memes. To achieve this, the study identifies the linguistic and semiotic resources in the memes; explores the
interplay between the linguistic elements and semiotic resources depicting participants in the memes; and
illuminates the ideological meanings underlying the humour rhetoric. Data for this study consist of verbal-visual
humorous internet memes that centre on Tinubunomics, and shared on Tiktok Lite, Whatspp, Instagram and
Nairaland between June 2023 and June 2024. The study hypothesises that there is no significant relationship
between the syntactic and multimodal features of Tinubunomic internet memes and the ideological positions
they express about Tinubu economic policies. Findings unearthed that syntactic elements in the memes range
from words, catchphrases to sentences; while images and colour were utilised as semiotic resources; both the
syntactic elements and the visual elements worked together as multimodal ensembles to produce repetition,
allusion, ironic sarcasm, name-calling, and foregrounding. Also, it was discovered that the memes presented
Tinubunomics dark and disparaging humours that serve the ideological dual purposes of denigrating
Tinubunomics as impoverishing economism while emphasising in positive terms Nigerians’ resilience in the
face of oppression. Based on these findings, the hypothesis is hereby rejected. The study concluded that
Tinubunomic meme strategically combines syntactic features and multimodal resources like satire and visual
metaphor to construct and circulate competing ideologies that either legitimize or contest Tinubu’s economic
policies. The study will be a rich addition to the expanding body of literature on the semiotic affordances of
humour discourse in political internet memes.
KEYWORDS: Humour, Ideology, Internet Memes, Multimodal representation and Semiotics Tinubunomics.
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Citation
Olaleye, J. I., Aragbuwa, A., & Dahunsi, T. N. (2026). Syntactic and multimodal representation of ideology in Nigerian ‘Tinubunomic’ internet memes. Humanities Journal of University of Zakho (HJUOZ), 14 (3),445–455,