Startseite ‘Title gone’: a multimodal appraisal of Nigerian internet users’ visual representation of Arsenal football club
Artikel
Lizenziert
Nicht lizenziert Erfordert eine Authentifizierung

‘Title gone’: a multimodal appraisal of Nigerian internet users’ visual representation of Arsenal football club

  • Oluwayemisi Olusola Adebomi ORCID logo EMAIL logo
Veröffentlicht/Copyright: 5. Mai 2025

Abstract

This paper examines English Premier League (EPL) – related memes with the aim of exploring the way Nigerian football fans express intersubjective opinions about Arsenal Football Club (Arsenal FC). 30 EPL matches related memes, gathered between November 2023 and May 2024 from Nigerian WhatsApp users, were purposively sampled for this study. The memes were subjected to qualitative analysis leveraging Kress and van Leeuwen (2006. Reading images: The grammar of visual design, 2nd edn., London: Routledge) multimodality theory and Martin and White (2005. The language of evaluation: Appraisal in English. London: Palgrave Macmil1an) appraisal system. The findings reveal that Nigerian EPL fans positively/negatively evaluate Arsenal FC through multimodal appraisal resources such as: expressions of affect, salience, social distance, attitude, framing, judgement and appreciation of things. The study further shows that verbal and visual resources in the images work together to evoke the intersubjective positioning extended in the data. The study affirms that text producers effectively utilise multimodal elements to interrogate the various expressions of attitude which Nigerian football fans exhibit towards Arsenal FC in the EPL.


Corresponding author: Oluwayemisi Olusola Adebomi, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany; and Federal University of Technology, Akure, Nigeria, E-mail:

Acknowledgements

I acknowledge the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation for graciously sponsoring my postdoctoral research stay in Germany, first at the University of Hamburg and later, at the University of Bonn. I am also thankful to Prof Dr Robert Fuchs, the Chair of Bonn Applied English Linguistics (BAEL) for hosting me both in Hamburg and Bonn. I value his mentoring and support. My research stay in Germany enabled me to commence and complete this study. I am also grateful to the reviewers of my manuscript for their very useful suggestions.

References

Adebomi, Oluwayemisi. 2020a. A multimodal analysis of memetic representation of Nigeria government’s response to COVID-19. Research in Pragmatics 2(1). 8–28.Suche in Google Scholar

Adebomi, Oluwayemisi. 2020b. Memetic representation of individuals and institutions in Nigeria president muhammadu buhari administration. Language, Text, Society 7(1). 1–16.Suche in Google Scholar

Adebomi, Oluwayemisi. 2023. A pragma-rhetorical analysis of speeches of Nigeria’s president muhammadu Buhari on COVID-19. Language Matters 54(1). 21–39. https://doi.org/10.1080/10228195.2023.2185903.Suche in Google Scholar

Adebomi, Oluwayemisi. 2024a. Surviving covid-19: A multimodal discourse analysis of new media covid-19 vaccination related pictorials. Language and Semiotic Studies 10(2). 290–315. https://doi.org/10.1515/lass-2023-0035.Suche in Google Scholar

Adebomi, Oluwayemisi. 2024b. The land of your fathers lieth in ruins’: A multimodal critical discourse analysis of Nigeria’s 2023 pre- election crises-related internet memes. Discourse & Society 36(1). 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1177/09579265241252998.Suche in Google Scholar

Adebomi, Oluwayemisi. 2024c. A multimodal critical discourse analysis of Nigeria president Bola Tinubu’s fuel subsidy removal policy-related internet memes. Social Semiotics. 1–23. https://doi.org/10.1080/10350330.2024.2441701.Suche in Google Scholar

Adetunji, Akin. 2010. Nicknaming soccer players: The case of Nigerian supporters of English premier league clubsides. California Linguistic Notes 35(1). 1–19.Suche in Google Scholar

Adetunji, Akin. 2013. A discursive construction of teasing in football fandom: The context of the Southwestern Nigerian viewing centre. Discourse & Society 24(2). 147–162. https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926512469392.Suche in Google Scholar

Ajayi, Temitope, Temidayo Akinrinlola & Daniel Ajayi. 2023. Fandom language and banter-throwing in football-related interactions among Nigerian fans of English premier league clubs. Arusha Working Papers in African Linguistics 5(1). 67–91.Suche in Google Scholar

Akinmameji, Oluwayemisi. 2017. Power expressions and persuasive strategies in the speeches of former Nigeria´s presidents Olusegun Obasanjo and Goodluck Jonathan. Ibadan: University of Ibadan PhD Thesis.Suche in Google Scholar

Akinmameji, Oluwayemisi. 2018. Persuasive strategies in selected speeches of Nigeria’s Vice-President, Yemi Osinbajo. In Osisanwo Ayo (ed.), Discourse-stylistics, sociolinguistics and society: A Festschrift for ayo ogunsiji, 463–484. Ibadan: Stirling Horden Publishers Ltd.Suche in Google Scholar

Akinmameji, Oluwayemisi. 2020. Leadership ideology in the inauguration speeches of Olusegun Obasanjo. Marang: Journal of Language and Literature 33(1). 138–151.Suche in Google Scholar

Alzawaydeh, Rashid. & Sharif Alghazo. 2018. Analysing media discourse: The case of conceptual metaphors in football news headlines in English and Arabic. International Journal of Linguistics 10(6). 116–133. https://doi.org/10.5296/ijl.v10i6.13502.Suche in Google Scholar

Apyewen, Utensati. 2021. The use and abuse of religion: Implications in Nigerian Society. Ilorin Journal of Religious Studies 10(1). 65–75.Suche in Google Scholar

Aworoh-Okoh, Joy. 2016. An analysis of discourse markers in football commentaries. Scholars Bulletin 2(10). 554–563.Suche in Google Scholar

Bradley, Joseph. 1998. ‘We shall not be moved’! Mere sport, mere songs? A tale of Scottish football. In Adam Brown (ed.), Fanatics! Power, identity and fandom in football, 203–218. London: Routledge.Suche in Google Scholar

Callies, Marcus, Eva Graf & Melanie Fleischhacker. 2023. The language and discourse(s) of football. Interdisciplinary and cross-modal perspectives: Introduction to the thematic issue. Soccer and Society 24. 1–5. https://doi.org/10.1080/14660970.2023.2250658.Suche in Google Scholar

Church, Scott & Garvin Feller. 2020. Synecdoche, aesthetics, and the sublime online: Or, what’s a religious internet meme? Journal of Media and Religion 19(1). 12–23. https://doi.org/10.1080/15348423.2020.1728188.Suche in Google Scholar

Cleland, Jamie. 2017. The English Premier League in a global context. London: Routledge.10.4324/9781315636696-6Suche in Google Scholar

Degenhard, John. 2024. WhatsApp users in Nigeria 2020-2029. Statistica. https://www.statista.com/forecasts/1146609/whatsapp-users-in-nigeria.Suche in Google Scholar

Ebner, Sarah. 2013. History and time are key to power of football, says Premier League chief. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/history-andtime-are-key-to-power-of-football-says-premier-league-chief-3d3zf5kb35m.Suche in Google Scholar

Edgar, Romero-Jara, Francesc. Solanellas, Samuel López-Carril, Dimitrios Kolyperas & Christos Anagnostopoulos. 2024. The more we post, the better? A comparative analysis of fan engagement on social media profiles of football leagues. International Journal of Sports Marketing & Sponsorship 25(3). 578–599. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJSMS-12-2023-0252.Suche in Google Scholar

Giulianotti, Richard. 2002. Supporters, followers, fans, and flaneurs: A taxonomy of spectator identities in football. Journal of Sport & Social Issues 26(1). 25–46. https://doi.org/10.1177/0193723502261003.Suche in Google Scholar

Gong, Yuan. 2016. Online discourse of masculinities in transnational football fandom: Chinese arsenal fans’ talk around ‘gaofushuai’ and ‘diaosi’. Discourse & Society 27(1). 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926515605964.Suche in Google Scholar

Grant, Wyn. 2011. England: A liberal model under challenge. In Arne Niemann, Borja García & Wyn Grant (eds.), The Transformation of European football, 80–96. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press.Suche in Google Scholar

Halliday, Michael. 1994. An Introduction to functional grammar. London: Edward Arnold.Suche in Google Scholar

Halone, Kelby & Lindsey Mean. 2010. ´Situating Report’, language and culture as a site for intellectual discussion. Journal of Language and Social Psychology 29(3). 386–396. https://doi.org/10.1177/0261927x10368832.Suche in Google Scholar

Hashemi, Ali & Fatemeh Mahdavirad. 2023. A cross-cultural, cross-disciplinary, and cross-gender study on Appraisal resources in PhD dissertation abstracts: Martin & White (2005) Appraisal Theory in focus. https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2023Heliy...922074H/abstract.10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e22074Suche in Google Scholar

Holmes, Janet & Meredith Marra. 2002. Over the edge? Subversive humor between colleagues and friends. Humor – International Journal of Humor Research 15(1). 65–87. https://doi.org/10.1515/humr.2002.006.Suche in Google Scholar

Jenkins, Alexander & Hilde Van den Bulck. 2023. Audience relations to african American athletes’ activism from a diachronic, media ecology and celebrity apparatus perspective: Tommie Smith, John Carlos and Colin Kaepernick. In G. Ouvrien, A. Jorge & H. Van den Bulck (eds.), An interdisciplinary Approach to Celebrities and their audiences. USA: Lexington Books Publishers.Suche in Google Scholar

Kassing, Jeffrey. 2020. Messi hanging laundry at the Bernabéu: The production and consumption of Internet sports memes as trash talk. Discourse, Context & Media 34. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcm.2019.100320.Suche in Google Scholar

Kemp, Simon. 2020. Digital 2020: Nigeria. Datareportal. https://datareportal.com/reports/digital-2019-nigeria.Suche in Google Scholar

Kops, Matthew. 1996. They say it’s beyond words: A study of professionals’ discourse on football. Loughborough: Loughborough University PhD Thesis. https://repository.lboro.ac.uk/articles/thesis/They_say_it_s_beyond_words_a_study_of_professionals_discourse_on_football/9480572?file=17105678 Suche in Google Scholar

Kress, Grunther. & Theo van Leeuwen. 2006. Reading images: The grammar of visual design, 2nd edn., London: Routledge.10.4324/9780203619728Suche in Google Scholar

Kšrner, Henricke. 2000. Negotiating Authority: The logogenesis of dialogue in common law judgments. Syndey: University of Sydney Unpublished PhD Thesis. https://www.grammatics.com/appraisal/kornerphd/korner-phd-links.htm Suche in Google Scholar

Levental, Orr. 2023. Online sports fans communities: Humor, trivial knowledge, and anti-modern tendencies. Frontiers in sports and active living 5. 1280519. https://doi.org/10.3389/fspor.2023.1280519.Suche in Google Scholar

Ly, Tan. & Chae Jung. 2015. Multimodal discourse: A visual design analysis of two advertising images. International Journal of Contents 11(1). 0–56. https://doi.org/10.5392/IJoC.2015.11.2.050.Suche in Google Scholar

Martin, James & Peter White. 2005. The Language of evaluation: Appraisal in English. London: Palgrave Macmil1an.Suche in Google Scholar

Menon, Sneha. & Leena Philip. 2018. A study on the effect of social media on increasing interactivity between football fans and clubs. International Journal of Creative Research Thoughts 6(1). 1053–1057.Suche in Google Scholar

Nartey, Mark. 2018. Football in computer-mediated discourse: A move analysis of match previews. Linguistik Online 89(2). https://doi.org/10.13092/lo.89.4274.Suche in Google Scholar

Okesola, Saheed & Oluwabunmi Oyebode. 2023. ‘The soro-soke (speak-up) generation’: Multimodality and appraisal choices in selected #ENDSARS civil protest-related memes in Nigeria. Language and Semiotic Studies 9(2). 290–312. https://doi.org/10.1515/lass-2022-0016.Suche in Google Scholar

Oparaugo, Buike. 2021. Influence of televised European football matches on Nigerian youths and Nigerian football. The Beam: Journal of Arts & Science 14(1). 1–14.Suche in Google Scholar

Osisanwo, Ayo & Matthew Alugbin. 2024. Metaphorical constructs and semiotic expressions in the BBC Yoruba Internet memes of English Premier League match results. Language and Semiotic Studies 10(3). 415–436. https://doi.org/10.1515/lass-2024-0032.Suche in Google Scholar

Owonikoko, Saheed & Joel Rockwood. 2022. Consumer behaviour and the relational dynamics of English premier league supporters in Nigeria. Soccer and Society 23(3). 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/14660970.2022.2059864.Suche in Google Scholar

Oyebode, Oluwabunmi & Foluke Unuabonah. 2013. Coping with HIV/AIDS: A multimodal discourse analysis of selected HIV/AIDS posters in south-western Nigeria. Discourse & Society 24(6). 810–827. https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926513503269.Suche in Google Scholar

Oyebode, Oluwabunmi. 2023. Multimodal resources in the ‘Get it Together’ reproductive health campaign in Nigeria. Visual Communication 22(3). 510–532. https://doi.org/10.1177/14703572231167528.Suche in Google Scholar

Painter, Clare. 2003. Developing attitude: An ontogenetic perspective on appraisal. Text 23(2). 183–209. https://doi.org/10.1515/text.2003.008.Suche in Google Scholar

Parnell, Daniel, Joel Rookwood, Alex Bond, Paul. Widdop & Jan Ludvigsen. 2022. It’s a whole new ball game’: Thirty years of the English premier league. Soccer and Society 23(4–5). 329–333. https://doi.org/10.1080/14660970.2022.2059853.Suche in Google Scholar

Peterlicean, Andrea. & Elena-Christina Berariu. 2020. On the discourse of online sports news headlines. Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Philologica 12(3). 155–171. https://doi.org/10.2478/ausp-2020-0029.Suche in Google Scholar

Sabrina, Laila & Rizqa Ahmadi. 2021. Gus Mus’s representation in countering the narrative of religious fundamentalism on social media. Al-Tahrir. Jurnal Pemikiran Islam 21(2). 237–260. https://doi.org/10.21154/altahrir.v21i2.3134.Suche in Google Scholar

Sahragard, Rahman. & Salah Rahimi. 2017. Critical discourse analysis of football reports: The case of real Madrid official website. Paper presented at the 2nd International Conference on modern approaches in humanities, management, economics, and accounting, July 18, 374–392. Paris.Suche in Google Scholar

Shifman, L. 2013. Memes in a digital world: Reconciling with a conceptual troublemaker. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 18(3). 362–377. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcc4.12013.Suche in Google Scholar

Seiffert-Brockmann, Jens, Trevor Diehl & Leonhard Dobusch. 2018. Memes as games: The evolution of a digital discourse online. New Media & Society 20(8). 2862–2879. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444817735334.Suche in Google Scholar

Taylor, Russell. 2013. Debate on 25 July: Contributions of the English premier league Football to the United Kingdom. London: House of Lords Library Note. https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/LLN-2013-022/LLN-2013-022.pdf (accessed April 24, 2025).Suche in Google Scholar

Tran, Thuy. 2017. Reading images - the grammar of visual design. VNU Journal of Foreign Studies 33. 164–168. https://doi.org/10.25073/2525-2445/vnufs.421.Suche in Google Scholar

Vamplew, Wray. 2017. Creating the English premier football league: A brief economic history with some possible lessons for asian soccer. International Journal of the History of Sport 34(17/18). 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1080/09523367.2017.1343816.Suche in Google Scholar

Wiggins, Bradley. 2020. Memes and the media narrative: The Nike-Kaepernick controversy. Internet Pragmatics 5(2). 202–222. https://doi.org/10.1075/ip.00032.wig.Suche in Google Scholar

Wilson, Russell. 2011. Appraisal Theory as a linguistic tool for the analysis of market research interview data. Leeds: University of Leeds PhD Thesis. https://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/id/eprint/21142/1/658609.pdf.Suche in Google Scholar

Yékú, James. 2018. The hashtag as archive: Internet memes and Nigeria’s social media election. In Abimbola Adelakun & Toyin Falola (eds.), Art, creativity, and politics in Africa and the diaspora, 217–245. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.10.1007/978-3-319-91310-0_11Suche in Google Scholar

Yusuf, Aliyu. 2016. The interface between politics and football in language use: A conceptual metaphor theory. ANSU Journal of Language and Literary Studies (AJLLS) 1(5). 93–105.Suche in Google Scholar

Received: 2024-07-22
Accepted: 2025-03-13
Published Online: 2025-05-05

© 2025 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Heruntergeladen am 3.11.2025 von https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/mc-2024-0076/html
Button zum nach oben scrollen