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Licensed Unlicensed Requires Authentication Published by De Gruyter Mouton November 11, 2022

Visual representations on Nigerian trucks: a semiotic study

  • Eyo Mensah ORCID logo EMAIL logo and Benjamin Nyong
From the journal Semiotica

Abstract

The public transport sector in the urban landscape in Nigeria is a prominent social site for the spatial distribution of automobile graffiti signatures. Transporters have various kinds of symbolic tags on their vehicles that convey different messages which represent their local attitudes, beliefs, religious identities, folk psychology, and safety precautionary measures to recipients (other road users and passers-by). This article, based on two case studies, examines the practice of automobile graffiti on trucks and lorries in Calabar metropolis, Cross River State, south-eastern Nigeria. It investigates the motivations, thematic categories, and subjective semiotic interpretations of these verbal signatures from the perspectives of visual semiotics theory using participant observations, semi-structured interviews, and informal conversations. The study demonstrates that truck drivers/owners use their vehicles as visible artistic platforms in the public space to express their thoughts and sentiments on personal, social, and religious issues affecting the society. The study concludes that these inscriptions and imageries are artistic subcultures that mirror wide ranging value categories and provide outlets for spatial transformation, creative agencies, and social commentaries.


Corresponding author: Eyo Mensah, University of Calabar, Calabar, Nigeria, E-mail:

  1. Conflict of interest: The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

  2. Informed consent: The research involved human participants who were informed about the use of the data and signed a consent form.

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Received: 2019-12-29
Accepted: 2022-04-21
Published Online: 2022-11-11
Published in Print: 2022-11-25

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