Cultural Conceptualizations in Nigerian Students’ Sign-Out Discourses

Abstract

Across higher institutions of learning in Nigeria the sign-out practice has become an active custom marking students’ transition from undergraduate life to the wider world. This emerging youth practice is often characterized by flamboyant displays of fashion, style and affluence and carefully curated social media posts blend the local and the digital in compelling ways. Using Cultural Schema Theory (CST), Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT), Critical/Interpretive Discourse Analysis (DA) and Multimodal Discourse Analysis (MDA) as frameworks for analysis, the present study explores the cultural conceptualizations embedded in the discourses of sign-out as performed in selected Nigerian higher institutions of learning. Data for the study are drawn from on-site observations, photographic documentation of inscriptions, and social media hash tags depicting sign-out events. Following from a triangulated analysis, the study shows recurring cultural schemas such as success as communal triumph, life as struggle, education as divine gift, and graduation as digital transformation which are usually encoded in the expressions of students. Further findings submit that inscriptions such as Mama I Made It, Na God Do Am, or B.Sc Loading… Done reveal the fusion of traditional cultural values, religious worldviews, and digital-era metaphors that the graduating students deploy in narrating their academic journey. The study situates the sign-out practice within broader debates on Nigerian languages and expressive practices in the digital era and in addition demonstrates the re-imagination of local linguistic resources and cultural schemas. The paper concludes that the sign-out phenomenon exemplifies the creative adaptability of Nigerian youth in sustaining cultural meaning in a rapidly digitized world.