ABSTRACT

Semiotics of love involves the decoding of the signs, symbols and other meaning structures that humans have used to express love to others. Hence, this study analyses the semiotic exploration of the themes of love in selected Johnny Drille songs. The aim of this study is to identify the dominant signs; examine the meaning of the dominant signs used to portray love in the selected Johnny Drille songs; discuss the influence of these signs on the characters in the music videos as well as project how these may apply in the Nigerian society. The data of this study is in form of screenshots from seven (3) Johnny Drille's music videos and lyrics downloaded from Youtube. The three (3) music videos and their release dates are 'Wait for Me (2015)'', Count on You (2019)' and 'Loving is Harder (2021)'. This study made use of descriptive qualitative method to analyse the data. The study uses Ronald Barthes theory which is the order of signification that involves the denotative, connotative meanings of signs and these signs are visual and verbal signs from the selected Johnny Drille music videos and lyrics. The study found that the denotation meaning of the theme of love in the music videos is revealed through the characters with their facial expressions, dressings, dialogues and material things and the connotation meaning of the theme of love in the music videos is displayed through the gestures, appearance and dialogue of the characters.. This study relates the concept of love shown by the characters in the music videos to real life. This study concluded that their expressions are not different from real life expression of love. The study recommends that more research should be done in semiotics of love especially in movies.