Humanities Journal of University of Zakho

SYNTACTIC AND MULTIMODAL REPRESENTATION OF IDEOLOGY IN NIGERIAN ‘TINUBUNOMIC’ INTERNET MEMES

Joel Iyiola Olaleye, Adetutu Aragbuwa, Toyese Najeem Dahunsi — Sun, 12 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

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.

A STYLO-LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS OF SELECTED E-NEWSPAPER HEADLINES ON PARRICIDAL VIOLENCE

Emmanuel Jolaolu Adegbenro — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Scholarly research is awash with the examination of violence-related reports in newspapers to determine different psychological and sociological factors responsible for these crimes. However, violence relating to parricide from e-newspaper headlines remains one area which has scarcely been explored by scholars, especially from linguistic orientations. This study examined a stylo-linguistic analysis of selected e-newspaper headlines on parricide to unravel the linguistic choices employed by the writers to convey in-depth and subtle meanings. The theoretical framework adopted for the study is Halliday’s functional stylistics, which highlights the meeting point between language use and social meaning of texts, and also sees language as a coding method of constructing what is implied in a given text. Thirty-six e-news headlines on parricide between November 2022 and January 2023 were sampled from different online sources and were closely read to identify, classify and analyse, through a qualitative approach, the stylo-linguistic resources used by the news writers to communicate their intended messages. It was found from the corpus that the writers preponderantly made use of catchy hypotactic nominalization, prominent paratactic lexicalization, accusative and incriminating verbal elements, copious complex complementation and adversative adverbials to synthetically and systematically portray the ‘who’ (offenders/accomplices), the ‘whom’ (victims/casualties), the ‘how’ (weapons used), the ‘why’ (reason for/purpose of the crime) and the ‘what next’ (consequences/results of the heinous crimes).

POLICY OF THE KINGS UR III TOWARDS KURDISTAN (2113-2006 B.C)

Jehan A. Omar, Rebar J. Ahmed Mayi — Mon, 20 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Kurdistan’s distinctive strategic location has historically made it a target for several ancient peoples looking to extend, seize its resources, enforce taxes on its residents, and control the vital commercial route that passes through it. The Third Dynasty of Ur was among the most outstanding, whose kings dedicated their capabilities and led repeated military campaigns into the Kurdistan regions. Despite the strong resistance that was shown by the Kurdish peoples and their regular rejection of the subjugation policies pursued by the Sumerian kings, cuneiform texts dating back to the Third Dynasty of Ur clearly indicate that some Kurdish groups and parts of Kurdistan were subject to their authority, and that this resulted in the imposition of taxes upon them.

HEALTH STATUS OF ERBIL GOVERNORATE 1885-1975

Korek H. Ahmed, Faraidon A. Abdullah — Mon, 20 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Erbil's healthcare has gone through various stages and periods، each stage left its impact on the health situation، especially due to political events. Generally، during the Ottoman era، hospitals consisted of two small rooms in the municipality building and often lacked a physician. However، during the British occupation، some minor changes occurred، with army officer-doctors treating patients، though their main objective was to prevent the spread of diseases to protect their own soldiers. After the establishment of the Iraqi government، the Ministry of Health، and the College of Medicine were established and brought about some changes، but they were by no means sufficient or met the demands of the population. Throughout the monarchy of Iraq، the health condition was poor، and it was even worse in districts، sub-districts، and villages. At the beginning of the July 14th، 1958 revolution، some changes occurred، and the health situation improved compared to previous stages. However، political events such as military coups and the emergence of the September 1961 revolution in Kurdistan impacted all aspects of life، especially healthcare. All these factors together had a significant impact on the health condition. This led to the healthcare sector in Erbil not developing adequately in terms of facilities، number of hospitals، health centers، doctors، and staff، failing to keep pace with the city's expansion and populationgrowth. The scarcity of allocated budgets was another factor contributing to this situation.