Patterns of Meaning in Selected Nigerian Military and Paramilitary Logos: A Systemic Functional Multimodal Discourse Approach

Abstract

This research is concerned with the compositional pattern of meaning in selected Nigerian military and paramilitary logos, how the logos presented their identity, and the appropriateness of visual and verbal elements. This paper is concerned with the analysis of patterns of meaning in visual and verbal components of selected Nigerian military and paramilitary logos. For visual analysis, ten logos were selected, and the texts (agency's name and motto), which accompanied the images , were grouped via 'below the clause.' Both visual and verbal components of the logos were analysed based on Kress and Van Leeuwen's social semiotics, and Halliday's systemic functional linguistics (henceforth, SFL). Our findings showed that the logo designers made use of animal (eagles, bat, horses, elephant and human eye) and object (flag, anchor, shovel, axe, flower, wheat leaves, passport, colours) participants. Analysis 'below the clause' presented Nominal Group (NG) with highest percentage which showed that the major focus of the communicators (military and paramilitary) is to persuade viewers. The verbal components of the logos were appropriately used to accompany the logos for easy understanding. Also, the selected colours are peculiar to Nigeria environment. Therefore viewers had no difficulty in getting the intended messages.