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GRAMMATICAL METAPHOR IN BRUNO

*Joynet Tabita Niarta Manurung **Busmin Gurning

ABSTRACT

This study deals with the types of ideational metaphor in ’ Songs. The objectives of this study are to find out the metaphorical codes applied in Bruno Mars’ songs and the reason of the writer to use metaphorical codes in the songs. The data are the lyrics of Doo-Wops & Hooligans taken from internet. This research is conducted by using descriptive qualitative design to explain the grammatical metaphor coding. The finding shows that there are six types of ideational metaphor occur in the , they are: material process, mental process, relational process, verbal process, behavioral process and existential process. The study shows that Material Process is the dominant which presented the action, activity, doing or happening to tell about Bruno Mars’ experiences.

Keywords: Grammatical Metaphor, Linguistics, Descriptive Qualitative Design

*Graduate Status

**Lecturer Status

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INTRODUCTION

In daily life, metaphors form an important component of our conversation. Metaphor is a concept of understanding one thing in terms of another. Metaphor inherently implies two points; those are comparison and uncommon representation. Metaphors are found not only in daily language but also in songs. According to River (1987), song is an expression of human feelings sung and listened to people as well as symbol of joy and sadness. The lyrics of songs show the feeling or experience of the . Because of that, everybody loves to listen and sing a song to evoke their emotions. In writing a song, the consciously or unconsciously use metaphors to convey ideas, thoughts and feelings to the listeners, so they are able to illustrate the experiences of the song. Based on Riffature (1978), the literature is ungrammaticality. This concept was applied because songwriters are free to use language or they had a purpose to convey the experiences of the song.But, sometimes they use metaphor because they do not find the right words to describe the feeling. Therefore, songwriters often inadvertently create new words in their songs to give new meaning in expressing the experiences.

The research questions of the present study are; what metaphorical codes are applied in Bruno Mars’ songs? And, why the writer used metaphorical code as in the songs?

Grammatical Metaphor Grammatical metaphor as a part of metaphor is a subfield of systemic functional grammar which studies about representing or interpreting meaning from two sides. Metaphor inherently implies two points; those are comparison and uncommon representation. Leezenberg (2001:33) states that according to Aristotle who generally defines metaphor as a transfer of a name belonging elsewhere. Halliday (1994:340) stated that metaphor is a word used for something resembling that which it usually refers to. There are two codes in metaphor; they are the unmarked or congruent and marked or incongruent coding. The congruent coding is also known as a common, usual or literal representation whereas the incongruent one is called uncommon, unusual, or metaphorical representation. Metaphor could be divided into lexical and grammatical metaphors. Lexical metaphor is a usual, common, or congruent coding of meaning in

49 language. Grammatical metaphor is defined as relocation or shift in the wording of meaning from its usual representation to another usual realization.Grammatical metaphor is divided into two types; they are interpersonal and ideational metaphors. Interpersonal metaphor accommodates metaphor of an interpersonal kind in the expression of mood and modality. Ideational metaphor accommodates metaphor in its ideational function as the representation of a process. Ideational metaphor includes process type, configuration of transitivity, and sequence of group classes.

Ideational Metaphor and Its Types Ideational Metaphor Ideational Metaphor is the representation of experience and its relationship among logical meaning. An experiential unit which is realized in a clause congruently consists of three elements, namely; process, participant and circumstance.Grammatical metaphor leads to denser language, maybe “adult language” or language of writing. Ideational metaphor is often found in teacher talk, for example, when a command is phrased as a friendly question. Such language emphasizes teacher authority while hiding teacher identity. The using of metaphor reflects the transition from early childhood classroom talk (congruent in the ideational sense) to more metaphorical, both in the ideational and interpersonal senses.

Types of Ideational Metaphor Ideational Metaphor includes process type, configuration of transitivity, and sequence of group classes. Transitivity system has functions of language. Oneof those functions is to construe or represent experience (Halliday, 1994: 106). Saragih (2010: 7) also stated that transitivity system construes the world of experience. According to Halliday, the process itself is divided into six types, they are: 1. Material: material clauses construe doings and happenings. 2. Mental: mental clauses construe a person involved in conscious processing, including processes of perception, recognition and affection. 3. Relational: relational clauses construe being and do this in two different modes, attribution and identification. 4. Behavioral: behavioral clauses construe human behavior 5. Verbal: verbal clauses represent processes of saying

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6. Existential: existential clauses resemble relational clauses in that they construe the participant involved in a process of being, but differ from the relational ones in that there is only one participant.

Song Songis a composition for voice or voices, performed by singing. A song may be accompanied by musical instruments, or it may be unaccompanied, as in the case of a cappella songs. A song may be for a solo , a duet, trio, or larger ensemble involving more voices. Songs with more than one voice to a part are considered choral works. Songs can be broadly divided into many different forms, depending on the criteria used. For human being, song is a kind of entertainment that really needed. It influences mood and feeling. According to River (1987), song is an expression of human feelings sung and listened to people as well as symbol of joy and sadness. Song can make someone getting sad, happy, cheer up, and so many others. That is why some people have their song of life. It brings memory and removes memory also. Human is an art that God create and music, which is improved become song, is also an art that human create. Lyrics are the words to a song. The lyrics of a song will usually have a meaning. Sometimes the meaning is easy to find but other times it can be very difficult to know what the lyrics mean. Some lyrics are strange that it is nearly impossible to understand them. In such cases, people tend to look more at the form, articulation, meter, and symmetries of the lyrics instead of looking at their meaning.

Bruno Mars’ Song

Bruno Mars was born on October 8, 1985. He is an American singer, songwriter and producer. Peter Gene Hernandez, Bruno Mars’ original name, wasraised in the neighborhood of , , by parents Pete Hernandez of Puerto Rican descent and Bernadette "Bernie" of Filipino descent. At the age of two, he was nicknamed "Bruno" by his father, because of his resemblance to legendary professional wrestler . He adopted his stage name from the nickname his father gave him, adding "Mars" at the end because "I felt like I didn't have [any] pizzazz, and a lot of girls say I’m out of this world, so I was like I guess I'm from Mars." His debut studio album ‘Doo-Wops & Hooligans’ released on October 4, 2010 charted at number three on the and in the top ten of music charts in Australia, Canada,

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Ireland, and New Zealand. The album received generally mixed to positive reviews from music critics. The usage of a wide variety of influences was noted by critics, with musical comparisons made to , and . The album received a total of seven nominations for the Grammy Awards in 2011 and 2012 including Album of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Album. Mars embarked on a US headlining tour throughout November and December 2010 to promote the album. Doo- Wops & Hooligans was announced the third biggest-selling album of 2011 in the UK, selling approximately 1,214,420 copies. The album has sold over 6 million copies worldwide.

Methodology This study was conducted by applying descriptive qualitative design that studied about song lyric and coded them by using grammatical metaphor. The source of data was original website of Bruno Mars, Doo-Wops & Hooligans album. There are 10 songs in the album and every repetition in each song will not be analyzed.To collect the data, the researcher browsed official website of Bruno Mars to look for the song lyrics on the internet. After that the lyrics were printed out. The data were analyzed by using a scheme which showed the sentence and the grammatical codes. The data were analyzed to find out the ideational metaphorical code in Bruno Mars’ The Doo-Wops & Hooligans album, by identifyingthe types of ideational metaphor in the Bruno Mars’ song lyrics, and classifyingthe data based on the Ideational Metaphor’s types. After that, the writer interpreted the real meaning of grammatical metaphor uses in the lyrics of Bruno Mars’ song.

RESULT AND DISCUSSION

Result After identifying and classifying the data into the six types, the writertabulated and calculated the total usage and the percentage of each type of grammatical code used in the album. All grammatical codes of the Bruno Mars’ Album were presented in the table1:

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Table1. The Total of Grammatical Metaphor of Bruno Mars Songs Ideational Metaphor Code No. Songs Mat Men Rel Ver Beh Ext 1 7 6 2 8 1 1 2 Just The Way You Are 7 8 12 6 3 0 3 The Lazy Songs 13 2 4 3 3 0 4 Grenade 15 8 3 3 4 0 5 Our First Time 5 6 13 0 1 0 6 13 4 9 3 1 0 7 6 4 9 6 0 0 8 9 2 5 0 1 0 9 Count On Me 6 2 5 3 1 0 10 The Other Side. 13 3 8 2 1 0 94 45 70 34 16 1 Total of TOTAL the use 260 all TOTAL (%) 36.15 17.30 26.92 13.08 6.15 0.40 ideational metaphor 100%

Table1 shows thatBruno Mars’ songs in “Doo-Wops & Hooligans” album useall the processes,thoseare; Material, Mental, Relational, Verbal, Behavioral and Existential to convey the message in the song. The metaphorical codes used mostly are Material and Relational Process.The total using of Ideational Metaphor in this song is 260 clausesdominantly Material Process (36,15 % ) that is used to describe the experiences and actions of the actors in this album. It is also followed by Relational Process(26,92 %) to construe relation in their love experience through attribution, identification and possession. Then, Mental Process (17,3 %) describes the affections, desires, cognitions and perceptions about the experiences that happened in this album, Verbal Process (13,08 %) shows activities related to information such as saying, commanding, asking, and offering. BehavioralProcess (6,15%) shows the actor’s physiological behaviors and attitudes in the song and Existential Process (0.4 %) tells the existence of the girl.

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Discussion

The analysis of data above shows that the most dominant process used in the album is Material Process. The songwriter uses the material process in the songs to tell the story or describe events or situations that occur. Relational process in used to describe the experiences of the album to the listener. The using of mental process is to express their feelings while verbal process is used to describe how the conversation ever happened in their life. Then, behavioral and existential tend to be less used in each song because the songwriters only wanted to show the attitude or the presence of other people on the situation. Due to the using of ideational metaphor is often to give a clearer picture that the listeners can understand what is perceived by the songwriters. Halliday (1985) said that a word is to be used with transferred meaning. In line with Burke (1945) who states that the metaphor is a device for seeing something terms of something else. Thus, the frequency using of metaphor in the song or daily conversation can create a new word. Usually, metaphor is figured only as a sweetenerbut even more in terms of the language, metaphor can give new meanings to human perception. By using the metaphor, anyone can describe something explicitly and the listeners can also understand the intention of the speaker. Example: If you ever find yourself lost in the dark and you cannot see I'll be the light to guide you (Bruno Mars: Count on Me) Literally, meaning captured is you are in the darknessand I will come as a light. However, the intended meaning is 'when you are desperate, I will come to give help'. This sentence is a metaphor sentencewhich its meaning and experience compare one thing to another. Example: If you ever find yourself stuck in the middle of the sea This clause uses ‘find’ to describe you ‘see’ yourself lost in the middle of the seabut,in the metaphorical meaning, the lyric means that you know you have not any solutionfor your problem. In addition, in the song” just the way you are” by Bruno Mars, he uses a metaphor meaning. In the line “Her eyes make the stars look like they`re not shining”, a metaphor is used. He means that her eyes are so beautiful, even brighter than the stars.

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Bruno mars used this metaphor because he wants to let the people know what the girl looks like. So, the song has a deeper meaning than the actual meaningwhich makes listeners being more enjoy the feeling of the song. As found by Wiradani (2006) in “MetaforaDalamInjilMatius” and Aisah (2010) in “MetaforadalamlaguIwanFals Yang BertemakanKritikSosial” that the metaphor is used to give an idea of the abstract things that cannot be seen clearly then the person can receive the mandate or messages from the speaker more easily. The songwriters often use metaphors to express what he has imagined about a story in that song. So when we are listening a song, we have to imagine the explicit meaning of a story in that song and we will understand what the core of a song. Therefore, we must be careful to classify the use of metaphors in the song. The using of language in the song has similarity with the language of our everyday conversation, but song uses rhythmto express feelings. The songwriters sometimes use some ways to make it looks real. However, sometimes metaphor is also used because the songwriters may not find the appropiate words to describe the events or feelings.

CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS Conclusions After analyzing the data of the Bruno Mars’ album called Doo-Wops & Hooligans, it can be concluded that: First, Bruno Mars used the whole process that is Material, Mental, Relational, Verbal, Behavioral and Existential to convey the message in the song. The total using of Ideational Metaphor in this song is 260 clausesdominantly Material Process (36,15 % ) that is used to describe the experiences and actions of the actors in this album. It is also followed by Relational Process(26,92 %) to construe relation in their love experience through attribution, identification and possession. Then, Mental Process (17,3 %) describes the affections, desires, cognitions and perceptions about the experiences that happened in this album, Verbal Process (13,08 %) shows activities related to information such as saying, commanding, asking, and offering. BehavioralProcess (6,15%) shows the actor’s physiological behaviors and attitudes in the song and Existential Process (0.4 %) tells the existence of the girl. Second, the songwriter has reasons to use different types of Ideational Metaphor in the development of this album. The songwriter uses the material process in

55 the songs to tell the story or describe events or situations that occur. Relational process in used to describe the experiences of the album to the listener. The using of mental process is to express their feelings while verbal process is used to describe how the conversation ever happened in their life. Then, behavioral and existential tend to be less used in each song because the songwriters only wanted to show the attitude or the presence of other people on the situation.

Suggestions

In relation to the conclusions, there are some suggestions needed to be considered. For the students of English Department to understand the using of Ideational Metaphor in song lyrics in order to get the real understanding and meaning of the songs that are listened.For the readers who are interested to listen the music,they are expectedto understand the types of Metaphor of Transitivity (Ideational Metaphor) that is used in song lyrics as a complement to decorate a new meaning (words) and to produce certain word. And also for the next researchers who use Ideational Metaphor (Metaphor of Transitivity) theory on doing the further research in order to get an understanding of other functions of language is to construe or to represent experiences.

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Ngamjitwongsakul, Pattra. 2005. Love Metaphors in Modern Thai songs. Journal of Humanities, 8(2), 14-29 Patton, Michael Quinn. 1990. Qualitative Evaluation and Research Methods. : Sage Publication Ritchie, L. D. 2006. Context and Connection in Metaphor. New York. Palgrave Macmillan Saragih, A. 2010. Introduction to Systemic Functional Grammar of English. Medan: UNIMED: Unpublished Stern, Joseph. 2000. Metaphor in Context. Massachusetts: The Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press Taverniers, Miriam. 2003. Grammatical Metaphor: Views from Systemic Functional Linguistics. Amsterdam: Benjamins Publishing Thompson, Geoff. 1996. Introducing Functional Grammar. London. Edward Arnold Wiradani, Niken A. 2006. MetaforaDalamInjilMatius. Depok: Universitas Indonesia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruno_Mars accessed on December 20th 2011

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