A Multimodal Analysis of Birthday Congratulatory Messages in Nigerian Newspapers

Abstract

This paper critically investigates the ideological dimensions of birthday congratulatory messages in Nigeria’s sociocultural landscape, particularly how senders use semiotic resources to convey power dynamics. The study uses Kress and van Leeuwen’s social semiotics approach to analyse multimodal texts, combined with insights from critical discourse analysis, to uncover underlying ideologies in ten birthday congratulatory messages. The findings highlight the importance of semiotic elements such as page layout, colour, titles, honorifics, symbolic structures, and forms of address in shaping the representation of power and ideologies within Nigeria’s sociocultural context. Recognising these nuances is critical for understanding how senders portray the dynamics of social relationships across Nigeria’s sociocultural, economic, and political spheres. The study concludes that the representation of social relationships in Nigerian newspaper congratulatory messages frequently reinforce existing hierarchies based on gender, status, wealth, and age.