Beyond Spoken Linguistic Landscape: Semiotic Ideologisation of Regimented Practices in the Nigerian Army

This article examines the dimensions of military ideologies that are tactically communicated through the semiotic mechanisms of the Nigerian Army’s regimented practices. Data were sourced through participant observation and semi-structured interview in a fourteen-month fieldwork involving 22 staff members of the Nigerian Army. Drawing on insights from the concept of semiotic ideology to account for the underlying interpretations of semiotic practices in the social context of the Nigerian Army, the findings show various military ideologies nuanced in the agency’s semiotic-mediated activities and communication. Through the semiotic resources and significations embedded in the service uniforms, military funerals, hoisting and lowering of flags, military weddings and their salute system, the Nigerian Army is to seen to have maintained regimented performances of core military ideologies. Such practices constantly resonate ideologies of patriotism, courage, ruggedness, regimentation, comportment, subordinate-superior relationship, professionalism, perseverance and suppressive mien for victory in military battles. These beliefs present Nigerian Army’s personnel and their operating environment as regimented sites that consistently reproduce semiotic impulses that portray the agency as the totalistic organisation it propagates. Such performances through their unspoken actions help to rebuild and stabilise the psychology of the officers and men, enhance unwavering social bonding of soldiers, foster communication of professional identity and sustain the resilience of the troops as they work towards strengthening the workforce for the protection of the sovereignty of Nigeria.