Comic Effect of Internet Memes Among Nigerian Netizens

Authors

  • Adebayo Oluwasegun Adetayo Department of Linguistics and African Languages, University of Ibadan, Ibadan.

Keywords:

Internet memes, twitter, comic effect, netizens, tweeps, bomboclaat, common ground theory of presupposition
         Abtract Views | PDF Download: 235 / 300

Abstract

Internet memes in recent times are attracting interest amongst scholars. Language scholars and scholars in journalism are beginning to study the use of memes amongst netizens to determine its use, effect and influence on people on the internet. Also, the use of internet memes has been studied from different perspectives by Nigerian scholars from its use as a tool of political and socio-economic commentary on the internet. However, little attention has been placed on its comic effect among Nigerians on the internet. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to analyse the comic effect of memes in trending issues on twitter by randomly selecting sixteen memes, four memes per section which are politics, entertainment, sports and bomboclaat trends. The selected memes were analysed in line with common ground theory of presupposition. Delogu (2009). The application of common ground theory of presupposition in humour foreground that the shared knowledge between the participants of a conversation helps in decoding the joke been cracked by the speaker. In addition, the paper found out that memes are shared among tweeps with the use of captions that convey the message of the writer and the common knowledge that exists among users on the internet to achieve comic effect.

Author Biography

Adebayo Oluwasegun Adetayo, Department of Linguistics and African Languages, University of Ibadan, Ibadan.

 

 

 

References

Alfred, B. (2019). Analysing Verbal and Visual Indexes in Internet Memes on the APC-Led Administration and “Change” Slogan in Nigeria. Covenant Journal of Language Studies, Vol. 7 No. 1, June, 2019.

Dainas, A. (2015). Keep Calm and Study Memes. (M.A Project) Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, USA.

Dawkins, R. (1976). The selfish gene. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Delogu, F. (2009). ‘Presuppositions’, in Verschueren, J. and Östman, J.O. (eds.), Key Notions for Pragmatics, Amsterdam/ Philadelphia: John Benjamins, pp. 195–207.

Diaz, C. (2013). Defining and characterizing the concept of Internet Meme. Retrieved from http://scielo.org.co/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S2011-30802013000200007

Filani, I. (2017). “Laf wan Kill me die” (I almost died laughing): An analysis of Akpos jokes and the readers’ responses. European Journal of Humour Research, 4(4), 5-25. doi.org/10.75921/EJHR2016.4.4.filani

Galinanes, C. (2000). Relevance theory, humour, and the narrativestructure of humorous novels. Revista Alicantina de Estudios Ingleses 13 (2000): 95-106

Holmes, J. & Marra, M. (2002). Having a laugh at work: How humour contributes to workplace culture. Journal of pragmatics, 34(12), 1683-1710. doi.org/10.1016/S0378-2166(02)00032-2

Stojchevska, B. & Shalevska, E. (2018). Internet memes and their sociolinguistic features. Retrieved from http://oapub.org/lit/index.phb/EJLLL/article/view/73

Yeku, J. (2015). Akpos don come again: Nigerian cyberpop hero as trickster. Journal of African Cultural Studies, 2015. doi.org/10.1080/13696815.2015.1069735

Yeku, J. (2019). The Hashtag as Archive: Internet Memes and Nigeria’s Social Media Election. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/326640799

Downloads

Published

2020-07-01

How to Cite

Oluwasegun Adetayo, A. . (2020). Comic Effect of Internet Memes Among Nigerian Netizens. Journal of The Linguistic Association of Nigeria, 23(1), 36–57. Retrieved from https://jolan.com.ng/index.php/home/article/view/259