Language Style Seen from Figurative Language Perspective in Taylor Swift’S Red Album
PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
LANGUAGE STYLE SEEN FROM FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE PERSPECTIVE IN TAYLOR SWIFT’S RED ALBUM
AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS
Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra in English Letters
By NABILA WAHYUNINGTYAS Student Number: 154214117
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS FACULTY OF LETTERS UNIVERSITAS SANATA DHARMA YOGYAKARTA 2019
PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
LANGUAGE STYLE SEEN FROM FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE PERSPECTIVE IN TAYLOR SWIFT’S RED ALBUM
AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS
Presented as Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra in English Letters
By Nabila Wahyuningtyas Student Number: 154214117
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS FACULTY OF LETTERS UNIVERSITAS SANATA DHARMA YOGYAKARTA 2019
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Just because there’s a hurricane going on around you,
Doesn’t mean you have to open the window and look at it
(Taylor Swift)
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For
MY life supporters that HAVE NEVER BEEN
OUT OF STYLE
_ _ _ _
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Alhamdulillah, I was blessed with so much encouragement from so many people to finish my study. First of all, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my thesis advisor, Arina Isti’anah S.Pd., M.Hum who provided me with continuous, pertinent and much input as well as support to help me decide the path for my educational journey at Sanata Dharma University. I thank her for her guidance, wisdom, and patience throughout the whole period of this research. I would like to also thank my co- advisor, Wedhowerti S.Pd., M.Hum for putting valuable inputs for my thesis. Furthermore, I would like to be thankful for my great lecturer who has never forgotten to support me no matter how high and how low I was in the life phase, Harris Hermansyah Setiajid, M. Hum.
My special thanks goes to my precious mama, Yuyun Yulia, Ph.D, my life advisor for the never ending support and prayers, also goes to my papa, Ir.
Bambang Wahyudi and my brother Logan Wahyu Fauzan who own my endless love. I am also blessed that I am surrounded by amazing friends that I could not mention one by one in 2015 batch. My sincere appreciation goes for their encouragement and support to finish my study. Last but not least, I would especially like to thank my significant other, who is impatiently waiting for me to finish this study. I thank him for being my living diary, my support system throughout my whole process.
Nabila Wahyuningtyas
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE ...... ii APPROVAL PAGE ...... iii ACCPETANCE PAGE ...... iv STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY ...... v LEMBAR PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN PUBLIKASI KARYA ILMIAH ...... vi MOTTO PAGE ...... vii DEDICATION PAGE ...... viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...... ix TABLE OF CONTENTS ...... ix LIST OF TABLES ...... xii ABSTRACT ...... xiii ABSTRAK ...... xiv
CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION ...... 1
A. Background of the Study ...... 1 B. Problem Formulation ...... 3 C. Objectives of the Study ...... 3 D. Definition of Terms ...... 4
CHAPTER II: REVIEW OF LITERATURE ...... 5
A. Review of Related Studies ...... 5 B. Review of Related Theories ...... 8 1. Stylistics ...... 8 2. Semantics ...... 10 3. Figurative Language ...... 12 a. Simile ...... 12 b. Metaphor ...... 13 c. Personification ...... 13 d. Metonymy ...... 14 e. Apostrophe ...... 14 f. Synecdoche...... 15 g. Symbol ...... 15 h. Allegory ...... 15 i. Paradox ...... 15 j. Hyperbole ...... 16 k. Understatement ...... 16 l. Irony ...... 17 4. Female Language Style ...... 17 C. Theoretical Framework ...... 18
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CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY ...... 20
A. Object of the Study ...... 20 B. Approach of the Study...... 21 C. Method of the Study ...... 22 1. Data Collection ...... 22 2. Data Analysis ...... 22
CHAPTER IV: ANALYSIS RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS ...... 25
A. The Figurative Language Types Found in Song Lyrics ...... 25 1. Simile ...... 27 2. Metaphor ...... 30 3. Hyperbole ...... 33 4. Symbol ...... 35 5. Paradox ...... 36 6. Irony ...... 38 7. Personification ...... 38 8. Metonymy ...... 41 9. Understatement ...... 42 B. The Language Style of Taylor Swift ...... 43 1. Comparative ...... 43 2. Exaggerating ...... 46
CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION ...... 51 REFERENCES ...... 53 APPENDICES ...... 55 Appendix 1: Literal and Non-Literal Meaning of Figurative Expressions ...... 55 Appendix 2: Figurative Language Types ...... 60 Appendix 3: The Lyrics of “Red” ...... 62 Appendix 4: The Lyrics of “Treacherous” ...... 64 Appendix 5: The Lyrics of “I Knew You Were Trouble” ...... 66 Appendix 6: The Lyrics of “22” ...... 68 Appendix 7: The Lyrics of “Starlight” ...... 71
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LIST OF TABLES
No. Table Page 1 Table 1. Levels of Language 9 2 Table 2. Summary of Figurative Language in Song Lyrics 23 (Example) 3 Table 3. Literal and Non-Literal Meaning (Example) 24 4 Table 4. Summary of Figurative Language in Song Lyrics 25 5 Table 5. Literal and Non Literal Meaning of Lyrics with 27 Simile 6 Table 6. Literal and Non-Literal Meaning of Lyrics with 31 Metaphor 7 Table 7. Literal and Non-Literal Meaning of Lyrics with 33 Hyperbole 8 Table 8. Literal and Non-Literal Meaning of Lyrics with 35 Symbol 9 Table 9. Literal and Non-Literal Meaning of Lyrics with 36 Paradox 10 Table 10. Literal and Non-Literal Meaning of Lyrics with 38 Irony 11 Table 11. Literal and Non-Literal Meaning of Lyrics with 39 Personification 12 Table 12. Literal and Non-Literal Meaning of Lyrics with 41 Metonymy 13 Table 13. Literal and Non-Literal Meaning of Lyrics with 42 Understatement
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ABSTRACT
WAHYUNINGTYAS, NABILA. (2019). Language Style Seen From Figurative Language Perspective in Taylor Swift’s Red Album. Yogyakarta: Department of English Letters, Faculty of Letters, Universitas Sanata Dharma.
Language is human property which is employed to communicate and to express one’s feelings verbally. Figurative language is one of language forms that is used in creating song lyrics. In composing lyrics, each songwriter has different styles of using figurative language. Songwriters tend to use more figurative language to be more expressive in conveying the meaning. Taylor Swift as a famous awards-winning singer-songwriter prefers to use more figurative language in her songs. Two problems are observed in this research; to (1) figure out what types of figurative language used as well as (2) find out what language style concluded based on the five selected songs in the Red album. The lyrics were focused in five selected songs from one album; “Red”, “Treacherous”, “I Knew You Were Trouble”, “22”, and “Starlight”. Qualitative method was employed to collect and analyze the data through observation and library study. Purposeful sampling was applied to collect the data. Stylistics was applied as the main approach to analyze the object of the study. The findings show that Taylor Swift has typical styles of expressing her ideas through song lyrics. Swift applies nine kinds of figurative language; simile, metaphor, personification, metonymy, symbol, paradox, hyperbole, understatement, and irony in the five selected songs from the album. Simile is found to be the highest in frequency then followed by metaphor, hyperbole, symbol, and the other figurative language types. It can be concluded that Swift’s style in songwriting can be categorized to be more comparative and exaggerating.
Keywords: Figurative Language, Stylistics, Taylor Swift
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ABSTRAK
WAHYUNINGTYAS, NABILA. (2019). Language Style Seen From Figurative Language Perspective in Taylor Swift’s Red Album. Yogyakarta: Program Studi Sastra Inggris, Fakultas Sastra, Universitas Sanata Dharma.
Bahasa adalah suatu perangkat manusia untuk berkomunikasi dan mengungkapkan perasaan secara lisan. Ada beragam jenis bahasa, satu diantaranya adalah bahasa kiasan. Bahasa kiasan dapat digunakan untuk berbagai macam tujuan, salah satunya dalam penulisan lagu. Masing-masing penulis lagu memiliki gaya yang berbeda dalam mengaplikasikan bahasa kiasan. Para penulis lagu menerapkan bahasa kiasan guna menjadi lebih ekspresif dalam menyalurkan sebuah makna. Taylor Swift, salah satu penyanyi dan penulis lagu ternama memilih untuk menggunakan berbagai macam bahasa kiasan dalam jumlah yang banyak. Di dalam penelitian ini terdapat dua rumusan masalah yakni; (1) untuk mengetahui jenis bahasa kiasan dalam lima lagu Taylor Swift, dan (2) untuk mengidentifikasi gaya bahasa berdasarkan hasil yang ditemukan dalam rumusan masalah yang pertama. Penelitian ini terfokuskan dengan lima lagu Taylor Swift dari album Red yang berjudul “Red”, “Treacherous”, “I Knew You Were Trouble”, “22”, dan “Starlight”. Metode kualitatif diterapkan untuk mengumpulkan dan menganalisis data melalui observasi dan studi pustaka. Teknik pengumpulan data yang dipergunakan adalah purposeful sampling yang berarti pengambilan sampel yang disengaja. Pendekatan stilistika diaplikasikan untuk menganalisis obyek penelitian. Hasil dari penelitian menunjukkan bahwa Taylor Swift memiliki gaya yang khas untuk mengekspreksikan apa yang ia pikirkan melalui lirik lagu ciptaannya. Ada sembilan jenis bahasa kiasan yang ditemukan di kelima lagu yaitu: simile, metafora, personifikasi, metonim, simbol, paradoks, hiperbola, understatement, dan ironi. Simile adalah jenis bahasa kiasan yang paling banyak ditemukan, lalu disusul oleh metafora, hiperbola, simbol, dan tipe bahasa kiasan yang lain. Dapat disimpulkan bahwa gaya bahasa Swift dalam menulis lagu dikategorikan sebagai membandingkan dan melebih-lebihkan.
Key words: Bahasa Kiasan, Stilistika, Taylor Swift
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CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
A. Background of the Study
Language is human property that is used to communicate each other.
According to Jakobson (1995, p. 353), language can be used to express feelings and feelings are sometimes expressed through artworks, one of those is song lyrics. To make it more interesting, songwriters often express his/her feelings throughout figurative language that reveals the uninterpreted meanings in the songs. Figurative language can be observed using semantics theory describing literal and non-literal meaning (Hurtford, 2013, p. 1).
In line with figurative language, the way of using figurative language can be observed by applying stylistics. Stylistics is simply defined as the study of style. The aim is to explain something, and in general, literal stylistics has the goal of explaining the relation between language and artistic function implicitly or expllicitly (Leech and Short, 2007, p. 4).
Accordingly, figurative language tends to be used in expressing feeling, in particular, songs. Songwriters (female and male) express their feelings in the form of songs. Female language style tends to be different from male language style.
Male and female songwriters use different expressions to show what they actually mean to say. Many songwriters use their own experiences to be the matter of the songs. According to Danet and Herring (2007, p. 250), female language is assumed to be more hyperbolic rather than male language because the expressions
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are less direct. Taylor Swift’s style can be one of the representatives of female songwriter’s style of using figurative language in a song.
Taylor Swift is one of many singer-song writers who uses various kinds of figurative language to deliver various points through the songs. Taylor Swift has released 6 studio albums: Taylor Swift, Fearless, Speak Now, Red, 1989 and
Reputation. Based on the researcher’s observation, her songs are mostly about adolescence life, especially about love, heartbreak, and recklessness. Her songs can be perceived as really romantic and cheerful at times but also sarcastic. She wrote songs based on anecdotal experience. It was included commonly on the song description page of her album about whom she was telling about the song.
The researcher uses song lyrics as the research object instead of other sources because song lyrics seem to have literal and non-literal meaning. Songs are also media to express feelings in a creative way. Taylor Swift’s songs are appropriate to choose because Taylor Swift has her own style of using figurative language. Taylor swift likes to talk about her past experiences in her songs by applying figurative language. In the cover booklet of her albums she always mentions whom she dedicates the song to. Moreover, her songs are easy listening and well known in the music industry. She is also still very young, but she has written over 40 songs by herself.
By conducting a research based on the object and the topic, hopefully the findings of this research will give benefits to English students, English teachers, other researchers and readers. This is expected to improve the linguistic PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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knowledge about figurative language and stylistics in field of linguistics and used as a reference in teaching and learning about figurative language and stylistics
This research limits on the expressions in the song lyrics in Red album that has the elements of figurative language in order to find the types and also the meanings of figurative language. To investigate the literal and non-literal meaning in songs, the study focuses on 5 of Taylor Swift’s songs from the album Red
(2012) which are “Red”, “Treacherous”, “I Knew You Were Trouble“, “22”, and
“Starlight”.
B. Problem Formulation
Based on the background, the research questions of this present study are formulated as follows,
1. What types of figurative language are found in Taylor Swift’s selected songs
in the Red album?
2. What are the language styles revealed from the figurative language found in
the album?
C. Objectives of the Study
This study is aimed to answer the questions in the problem formulation.
Firstly, the study aims to find out the types of figurative language that are found
in Taylor Swift’s songs. The answer will help the researcher to investigate the
figurative language used by Swift. Secondly, it aims to figure out the style of
Taylor Swift’s language in song writing by means of figurative language. In PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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further analysis, the writer will start to describe how Taylor Swift as a young pop
country female singer-songwriter composes a song.
D. Definition of Terms
In order to avoid misunderstanding on certain terms, the definition of several words will be explained in this section. The first word is Language Style.
Language style is the particular variety of language used by different individuals and in different situations (Simpson, 2004, p.3)
The second word is figurative language. According to Keraf (2009, p.
116), figurative language is a way of expressing typically through language that shows the spirit and personality of the author or the language user. Figurative language is language that uses expressions with meanings differ from the interpretation.
The third word is Album. Album, in terms of music is the composition of songs which is arranged in beautificial manner in order to develop the concept of the songs grouping which is usually produced in CD’s (Gioia, 2015, p. 2). PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
CHAPTER II
REVIEW OF LITERATURE
In this chapter, there are three things that are presented. The first is review of related studies. This part contains the review of previous studies done on the similar topic. The second is a review of related theories. This part contains theories which are used to provide foundation for the analysis. The source of related studies and theories are taken from books, thesis, and journal articles that support this study. The third is theoretical framework that explains the contributions of those theories and reviews in solving the problem.
A. Review of Related Studies
In order to make this research more accurate and reliable, the researcher considers that this research cannot stand without any references. This consideration has brought the researcher to gather several theses and journal articles which are related to this study. The related studies are presented one by one.
The first related study is by Laksita (2017). Laksita’s thesis mostly discusses the similar topic with this research, which is “Figurative Expressions in
Song Lyrics by Male and Female Songwriters”. The thesis focuses on figurative language and the style that is shown throughout the use of figurative language by male and female. Stylistics is employed as the main approach and combined by the theory of semantic features to determine the literal and non-literal meaning of figurative expressions, which is employed in this research.
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What is found different from this study is the writer compares the use of figurative language between man and woman, while in this study, the figurative language usage is only focused on Taylor Swift’s style. In addition, there are 4 different songs from 4 different singers used in the thesis while this study focuses
5 songs from a singer-songwriter. This thesis comes into conclusion that male songwriter tends to use hyperbole more than female songwriter, while woman tends to use simile more than man which identifies that female style is less direct and more comparing.
The second related study is an undergraduate thesis entitled “Figurative
Languages in Adele’s Album 25”, by Rahmanto (2017). He formulates the problems on types of figurative language found in Adele’s Album, 25 and the frequency of figurative language’s types. The research findings are: There are ten types of figurative language found in Adele’s album 25, which are metaphor, simile, personification, apostrophe, synecdoche, metonymy, symbol, paradox, hyperbole and irony. There were four metaphors, four similes, four personifications, two apostrophes, one synecdoche, three metonymies, two symbols, one paradox, ten hyperboles and four ironies. Hyperbole is the most common figurative language type used in the songs.
The similarities between the related study and this research are the topic about figurative language in songs and the gender of the singer songwriter chosen, whereas the differences are the object of the study (the songs) and the main approach of the study. In Rahmanto’s study, the object of the study is Adele’s songs while in this research the object of the study is Taylor Swift’s songs. The PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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main approach of the study is semantics while in this research the main approach is stylistics. As well, this research further discusses what language style can be concluded from the use of figurative language.
The third related study is a journal article by Setiawati (2018) entitled “An
Analysis of Figurative Language in Taylor Swift’s Song Lyrics” from IKIP
Siliwangi Cimahi. The journal focuses on the dominant figurative language and the contextual meaning of the songs. The songs analyzed are “Red” and “22”.
What differs from the journal and this research is the approach used, in the journal the approach applied is pragmatics. The conclusion of this journal is Taylor Swift uses simile and hyperbole the most in two of her songs and based on the contextual meaning of Taylor Swift tells about romance, treachery and conflict.
The fourth related study is a journal article by Marhamah (2018) entitled
“Figurative Language Portrayed in Rihanna’s Selected Songs” from Islamic
University of North Sumatera. The objectives of the study are to identify the types of figurative language and to find out the meanings of figurative language in
Rihanna’s selected songs. Figurative language theory applied in this paper is proposed by Perrine (1969, p. 60) stating that figurative language is another way of adding extra dimension to language.
What differs the journal article and this study is in the journal article semantics is applied as the main approach, while in this research the main approach used is stylistics. The conclusion of this journal is that figurative language in Rihanna’s selected songs are Hyperbole, Personification, Simile, PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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Metaphor, Symbol, Repetition, Imagery, Alliteration, Metonymy, and Assonance and the meanings of figurative language adapts the songs.
B. Review of Related Theories
To answer the research questions in this research, there are four major theories applied, which are stylistics, semantics, figurative language, and female language style.
1. Stylistics
Leech (2007, p. 11) defines stylistics as “the study of style” and relates it as the study whose purpose is to “explain language and the artistic function”. It is the study about linguistic nature of the expressive means of the language as well as the characteristics and its functions. Simpson (2004, p. 2) asserts, stylistics is “a method of textual interpretation in which primacy of place is assigned to language”. Language is so important to stylisticians because the various forms and levels which constitute linguistic structure are the important indices of the text function.
As stated by Verdonk (2002, p. 215), the purpose of doing stylistic criticism and analysis is to provide linguistic data that are objective to support existing readings or intuitions about a literary work. In this research, the objective linguistic data are taken from 5 songs of Taylor Swift whose purpose is to support the intuitions of Taylor Swift’language style of writing her songs. Simpson (2004, p. 5) notes that the major levels of language and their related technical terms in language study are presented in the following table. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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Table 1. Stylistics: Levels of Language Level of language Branch of language study
The sound of spoken language; the
Phonology; phonetics
way words are pronounced.
The patterns of written language;
Graphology
the shape of language on the page.
The way words are constructed; words and their constituent Morphology structures. The way words combine with other words to form phrases and Syntax; grammar sentences. The words we use; the vocabulary
Lexical analysis; lexicology of a language.
The meaning of words and
Semantics sentences. The way words and sentences are used in everyday situations; the Pragmatics; discourse analysis meaning of language in context.
Table 1 shows the seven levels of language and brief explanation about the levels. The first level of language is phonology, phonetics which is the level of the set of possible human sounds, which constitutes the area of phonetics, and the set of system sounds used in a given human language, which constitutes the area of phonology. The second level is graphology which deals with the patterns of written language and the actual shape of language on the page.
The third level is morphology which is the level of words and endings, to put it in simplified terms. It analyzes minimal forms in language which are used to construct words which have either a grammatical or lexical function. The fourth PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
level is lexical analysis; lexicology which deals with the use of language vocabulary variation. The fifth level is syntax which is concerned with the PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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meanings of words in combination with each other to form phrases or sentences. It furthermore deals with the relatedness of different sentence types and with the analysis of ambiguous sentences.
The sixth level is semantics which is the area of meaning. This level needs to be studied on its own to have a proper perspective on meaning in language. The seventh or the last level of language is pragmatics which is concerned with the use of language in specific situations. The area of pragmatics relies strongly for its analysis of the speech’s notion which is concerned with the actual performance of language.
The level employed for the analysis is lexical analysis which focuses on the vocabulary of language object and semantics which focuses on the words meaning.
2. Semantics
According to Hurtford (2013, p. 1), semantics is the technical term applied for the study of meaning, and since meaning is a part of language, semantics is a part of linguistics. It associates a message with a set of signs which can be seen by the words. Shortly, Semantics is the study of the discussion of meanings. Based on semantics, each of the language meaning will be discussed as literal meaning and non-literal meaning.
The literal meaning of a sentence is just based on semantic information of the knowledge of English that occurs in ‘everyday’ language (Griffiths, 2006, p.
6). While non- literal meaning use certain words to expose other image of its PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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word, non literal language does not concern with the basic or usual meaning of a word or phrase. Non- literal meaning is often called figurative meaning which is not often used in ‘everyday’ language but used to beautify the language as in poems.
To determine literal and non-literal meaning linguistically, semantic properties were applied. Semantic properties is known as the information which is already acknowledged by speakers. Semantic properties is represented by the semantic features. According to Fromkin, Rodman, and Hyams (2014, p. 578), semantic features represent the basic conceptual components of meaning for any lexical item. One of the attempts to analyze word meaning is by paying attention to the information the word carries, for example, + and – symbols followed by the information indicate the semantic features. + symbol presents validity of a quality while - symbol points out invalidity of a quality. The example of using semantic features is presented below.
Woman Girl Kitten +animate +animate +animate +human +human -human -young +young +young
The example shows that woman, girl, and kitten share similarities, all the words above carry the same information that is animate. Woman and girl are both human beings, while girl and kitten are both young. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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3. Figurative Language
Figurative language is a language that uses words different from their proper definitions in order to achieve a deeper understanding. By using figurative language, a meaning can be conveyed more vividly (Leech, 1991, p. 147).
Figurative language is mostly used to beautify and express feelings in literary works such as drama scripts, novels, song lyrics and poems. Furthermore, Keraf
(2009, p. 113) states that figurative language is a way of expressing thoughts typically through language that shows the spirit and personality of the author or the language user. Figurative language is a media for writers to convey intended meanings. To readers, the existence of figurative language gives emotional and persuasive effects from towards the literary works.
It is often debated regarding types of figurative language, it depends on whose perception on figurative language. According to Perrine (2004, p. 60), there are 12 types of figurative language which are simile, metaphor, personification, apostrophe, synecdoche, metonymy, symbol, allegory, paradox, hyperbole/overstatement, understatement, and irony. The 12 types of figurative language are listed in details in the following. a. Simile
Simile is the explicit comparison of two things, indicates by the word or phrase such as like, as than, similar to, resemble or seems (Perrine, 2004, p. 61).
Simile has the likely definition with metaphor but the the difference is the use of connective word. Leech stated that “A simile, conversely, is generally more PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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explicit than metaphor” (Leech, 1991, p. 156). Simile does not tell exactly what one is compared to, there is a bunch of interrelated possibilities.
As an example, an author writes “she is like a glass of lemonade in a hot summer day”, the connective word like is used to compare the two things, “a glass of lemonade in a hot summer day” is associated with what is just needed. In hot summer day, a glass of lemonade will help to refresh people from the hot weather, so by saying that it means the “she” is just what the writer needs. b. Metaphor
According to Perrine (2004, p. 61), metaphor is a type of figurative language that compares one thing to another without using connective words.
Metaphor is similar to simile, the only distinction between them is the use of connective words in simile. In other words, metaphor is a figure of speech which is used to compare one to another without using connective word or phrase such as like, as than, similar to, resemble or seems.
One of the metaphorical expression is “Life is a walking shadow”. It is a metaphorical statement which shows a comparison between life and shadow.
According to Leech, it is claimed to be a series of definitioms of life; but they are plainly not the definitions for the term which is expected to be found in a dictionary (Leech, 1991, p. 151). “Life is a walking shadow” can be interpreted as life is something that really lacks substance, depending on the context of the text. c. Personification
According to Perrine (2004, p. 64), personification is an attribution of human characteristics to something nonhuman, or the representation of an abstract PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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quality in human form. This is a close relative of metaphor, in which events typically with obsecure or complex causes, are portrayed as being caused by a human like agent. In some cases, the actual agent is personified, for example, a volcanic eruption may be presented as the act of an angry subterranean giant or a storm as the act of a vengeful, airborne fury. In some cases, as when death is personified as a coachman, reaper, or thief, it is not so much the cause of death
(such as disease or famine) that is personified, rather than the event itself (Cruse,
2006, p. 127). d. Metonymy
Metonymy is the use of something closely related to the thing actually meant (Perrine, 2004, p. 67). The other definition is a figure of speech in which the name of an attribute or a thing is substituted for the thing itself (Leech, 1991, p. 152). Common examples are ‘The Stage’ for the theatrical profession; ‘The
Crown’ for the monarchy; ‘The Bench’ for the judiciary. To conclude, metonymy is a figure of speech that thing is applied to another with which becoming closely associated. e. Apostrophe
Apostrophe is defined as the type of figurative language that addresses someone absent or something non human as it was present and alive, and could reply to what is being said (Perrine, 2004, p. 65). Apostrophe is also a form of personification in which nonhuman or in animate thing is directly addressed as if it were human or animate.The example is “Oh walls! Why are you here? You are on my way!” talking to the walls is considered as apostrophe. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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f. Synecdoche
Synecdoche is the type of figurative language that uses the part for the whole. Leech noted that Synecdoche is “abstract property for possessor of abstract property” (Perrine, 2004, p. 67). As an example, using the term “ten hands” for ten employees, or “a hundred sails” for ships. g. Symbol
Symbol is defined as something that means more than what it is symbol maybe best understood as an implied metaphor. (Perrine, 2004, p. 82). The example of symbol is “you cannot teach an old dog new trick”. In the example it is seen that the speaker does not only talk about dog itself, but about living creatures of any species and therefore speaking symbolically. An old dog can be understood as an old man that in his age he cannot think like when he was young. h. Allegory
Allegory is a type of figurative language in which abstract ideas and principles are described in terms of characters, figures, and events (Perrine, 2004, p.88). According to Leech, allegory stands in the same relation to an individual symbol as extended metaphor does to simple metaphor, in fact, an allegory may as well be described as ‘extended metaphor’ (Leech, 1991, p. 163). The example of allegory is “everyone is equal, but a few are more equal than others”. In the example, the other way of saying some people are higher than others is shown. i. Paradox
Paradox is an apparent contradiction that is nevertheless something true, it maybe either a situation or a statement (Perrine, 2004, p. 101). Paradox is the PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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statement seemingly self-contradiction to what is commonly held to be true but nevertheless contains a truth. One example of it is “Deep down, you are really shallow”. The contradiction (deep and shallow) is clearly shown in the statement and the statement seems to be abstract. j. Hyperbole/Overstatement
Hyperbole is simply exaggeration out in the service of truth (Perrine, 2004, p. 102). Exaggeration can be perceived in either way, positively and negatively, for instance, when someone says “I cannot live without you” it does not mean he/she is going to die without their serenaded special person, it just means that the person means a lot to him/ her so living without that person will be extremely hard. k. Understatement
Understatement is a type of figurative language employed to make a situation seem less important than it really is intentionally (Perrine, 2004, p. 102).
Understatement is the opposite of hyperbole or overstatement. Overstatement is saying more than what it actually means while understatement is saying less than what it actually means. For example A borrows B’s new jacket and A returns it with a large wine stain on the front of it and in response B makes an understatement, “it does not look too bad”. l. Irony
Irony is a statement in which words are used in such a way that their intended meaning is different from the actual meanings of the words (Perrine,
2004, p. 103). The ironic statement usually involves the explicit expression of one PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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attittude or evaluation, but with indications in the overall speech-situation that the speaker intends a really different attitude. An example of irony is “the butter is as soft as a slab of marble”. It is obvious that marble is a hard substance, by saying it is as soft as a slab of a marble is being ironic because marble is not soft at all.
4. Female Language Style
Different gender has different behaviour and style. It is also connected to the way they speak and make utterances. It happens because of the language and social interaction that affect each other as language is “a multilectal phenomenon; people write and speak differently depending on their social group, audience, setting, and any other contextual factors” (Dancygier, 2014, p. 9). In the aspect of language style, each gender presents specific style.
In daily conversation woman tends to use specific style of speaking.
According to Danet and Herring (2007, p. 250), man tends to speak explicitly and say directly, while woman tends to speak in the opposite way. Woman speaks implicitly, therefore, woman seems to be less direct and complicated in saying her ideas as the listeners are made to guess the intention.
Woman speaks in order to “be cooperative and making connection”
(Cameron, 2006, p.68). Therefore, more implicit statements such as figurative language are used by woman to imply thoughts and ideas and expect that it will be accepted by others. Furthermore, Wright (2002, p. 17) conducts a discourse study and finds out that woman talks more and is less assertive and direct. The phenomenon of woman producing more words and become more indirect is PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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supported by Mills (1995, p.4) who points out that the factor of woman’s language production depend on cites, race, class, age, sexual orientation, and education.
Thus, woman’s language production such as in songwriting depends on various factors. Whereas Cameron (2006, p. 68) asserts that women are more complex while producing language. In other words, women’s language tend to be different than men’s language. Therefore female writers, including female songwriters tend to have specific language style.
C. Theoretical Framework
There are two main problems that were analyzed in this research. This research focuses on the figurative language types used in the album and language style of Taylor Swift seen from the use of figurative language.
The researcher applied stylistic approach to answer research questions.
Stylistics is the core to establish the point that Taylor Swift applies various figurative language to reveal her language style in songwriting. The dominant figurative language types determines Swift’s language style in the album.
The second theory is semantics, which is applied to analyze the literal and non-literal meaning in words and phrases that Swift chose for the song lyrics.
Furthermore, levels of language are applied to analyze the data. The lexical level is employed for analyzing the selected vocabularies, while semantics level is utilized to determine the meanings of the figurative language listed in the song lyrics. It helps the writer to analyze the deeper meaning of the lyrics. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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The third theory is figurative language which helps to analyze non-literal meaning. It is to categorize the song lyrics into some types of figurative language that can ease the analysis of lexical meaning.
The fourth theory is female language style which points out that woman tends to be indirect in expressing her feelings. The findings of this research strengthen the idea of female language style since the lyrics are created by a female singer-songwriter.
Overall, the theory applied for the first research question, which is to find the types of figurative language applied in Swift’s songs, is figurative language theory, stylistics: levels of language and semantics. Meanwhile, the theory employed in the second research question, which is to find the style of Taylor
Swift’s language in songwriting, is the theory of stylistics. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
CHAPTER III
METHODOLOGY
This chapter reveals three things. The first is object of the study which explains the general idea about the object that has been researched. The second is the approach of the study, which contains explanation about the approach that is utilized in the study and the reason why the approach is selected. The third is the method of the study which contains elaboration about the method of the study which includes data collection and data analysis.
A. Object of the Study
In this part, the researcher presented the description of the study. It is about the data analyzed and the linguistic elements contained. The object of this study is the figurative language found, in particular, song lyrics. The data were obtained from listening to the selected songs and websites that publish lyrics,
Azlyrics. The five songs chosen from the album Red by Taylor Swift (2012) are
“Red”, “Treacherous”, “I Knew You Were Trouble”, “22”, and “Starlight”.
All the selected songs in the album were closely related to Taylor Swift’s personal experiences. All different emotions were put together in the album to describe about the kind of insane, romantic, intense, and toxic relationships that
Swift had experienced in 2010-2012. In the cover booklet of her album, Swift added that all those emotions spanned intense love, intense frustration, jealousy, confusion, and she concluded that all those emotions are red.
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The researcher selected them because the songs contain various kind of figurative language whose usage shows Taylor Swift’s language style in songwriting. Morever, the Red album was selected among other albums because as noted from Global Music Report (2013) it was a booming album which earned
Swift two Grammy Award nominations, for Best Country Album and Album of the year. The songs were selected based on various topics representing love, regret, recklessness, youth and dream.
B. Approach of the Study
This study comes under the area of stylistics which is explained as the study of style. It can also be explained as a method of textual interpretation in order to explore creativity in language use by literary text as its object (Simpson,
2004, p. 42). Thus, stylistics approach is suitable to be used as the foundation of the data analysis.
Moreover, according to Verdonk (2001, p. 3), language style is the choice of words used by someone or specific group of people when they speak or write.
In writing song lyrics, language styles of the songwriters reveal the different expressions to convey the content of the song. Therefore, this study is aimed to reveal the idea of Taylor Swift’s style that distinguishes her songs from any other singer songwriters and strengthen the idea of female language style. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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C. Method of the Study
In the purpose of making the process of analysis more detailed, the method applied to conduct this study is divided into two parts. The first part is data collection and the second part is data analysis. Those methods are described as follows.
1. Data Collection
The data were collected by applying purposeful sampling. According to
Creswell (2007, p. 125), purposeful sampling is used in qualitative research and it is employed for the identification and selection of information for the most effective use of limited resources. It is a method which the researcher purposely chose the limited numbers of selected research objects that can be served as primary data source. Purposeful sampling is applied because the researcher chose the selected songs based on the different emotions and different situations of each song.
The data were obtained from five songs which are “Red”, “Treacherous”,
“I Knew You Were Trouble”, “22” and “Starlight”. First, the researcher listened to the song while looking at the lyrics. Second, the researcher put the lyrics containing figurative language in bold then arranged the data.
2. Data Analysis
The first purpose in analyzing the data was to classify the figurative language found in the lyrics. It was done in order to clarify the figurative language types which were used in the songs. After the classification was done, the analysis PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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could be started. The analysis began by counting the number of figurative language that was found in each song. The example of the Table analysis was formed as in the following.
Table 2. Summary of Figurative Language in Song Lyrics (Example) No Types of Figurative Language Frequency
Total
Table 2 shows the writer’s purpose to answer the two research questions which were written in the problem formulation. The table was used to answer the first research question which was to know what types of figurative language that were used in Swift’s song lyrics. The first research question was elaborated under sub-topics based on the type of figurative language that was found and explained in a form of paragraph. The song lyrics that contained figurative language were also concluded in the elaboration. Moreover, to make the clearer understanding of the literal and non-literal meaning, the table of literal and non-literal meaning is inserted and it consists of number, figurative expression, type of figurative language, literal meaning, non-literal meaning and shared semantic feature. The shared semantic feature is written with the symbol + / -. The following is the example of the table followed by the explanation. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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Table 3. Literal and Non-Literal Meaning of Lyrics with Metaphor (Example) No Song Figurative Literal Non-Literal Shared Title Expression Meaning Meaning Semantic Feature 1 I knew You I knew you Difficulties A [+problem] Were were problematic Trouble trouble… person
Table 3 reveals that trouble literally means difficulties, while in the song it indicates a problematic person. The shared semantic feature is [+problem]. The second problem was to know how figurative language showed the style of Taylor
Swift’s songwriting based on five selected songs of her booming album, Red. The style of the songwriter was found by analyzing which figurative language type was foregrounded. Each figurative language type was presented different style. If, for example, simile is foregrounded, it means that the style of Taylor swift’s songwriting is comparative because simile is a type of figurative language which compares one to another by using connective word such as like or as. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
CHAPTER IV
ANALYSIS RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
In this chapter, the researcher discusses the answers of the research questions which were presented in Chapter I. The parts below show the kinds of figurative language found in the song lyrics and how the use of figurative language shows the language style of Taylor Swift.
A. The Figurative Language Types Found in the Song Lyrics
Twelve types of figurative language expressions were discussed in the previous chapter. In the five songs that were analyzed, nine types of figurative language types are found in the data. They are simile, metaphor, personification, metonymy, symbol, paradox, hyperbole, understatement, and irony. Table 4 shows the summary of figurative language expressions which were found in the five selected songs.
Table 4. Summary of Figurative Language in Song Lyrics No Types of Figurative Language Frequency
1 Simile 14
2 Metaphor 10
3 Hyperbole 7 4 Symbol 6 5 Paradox 3
6 Irony 2
7 Personification 2
8 Metonymy 1
9 Understatement 1 Total 45
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Table 4 reveals the quantity of each figurative language type found in the five selected songs in the album. There are nine types of figurative language that are found in the songs and forty five lyrics with figurative language. It is shown from the table that simile is the most dominant figurative language type in the songs. It is then followed by metaphor, hyperbole, symbol, paradox, personification, irony, metonymy, and lastly understatement.
The figurative language found in the songs points out the application of lexical analysis which is the fourth level of language. As mentioned in the second chapter, this level deals with the use of variation in language vocabulary
(Simpson, 2004, p.5). The use of figurative language in the songs indicates vocabulary variation. Swift selects to use numerous types of figurative language to deliver her intention throughout her songs.
The figurative language found are followed by the meaning of lyrics with figurative language since the semantic level is used. According to Simpson (2004, p.5), semantic level, which is the sixth level of language needs to be studied on its own to have a proper perspective on meaning in language. The meaning of figurative language found in the songs gives a deeper understanding of the figurative language types utilized by Swift.
To make the literal and non-literal meaning clearer, tables of literal and non-literal meaning found in the lyrics are conducted and arranged under each figurative language type. The literal meaning is based on the definition on
Merriam-Webster Dictionary (2018). The explanation and examples of figurative language types found also the figurative meanings are in the following. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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1. Simile
Simile is a comparison of one thing to another by using connective words like or as (Leech, 1991, p.153). Simile is similar to metaphor, the difference is only the use of connective words. Table 5 is the literal and non-literal meaning of lyrics containing simile.
Table 5. Literal and Non-Literal Meaning of Lyrics with Simile No Song Figurative Literal Non-Literal Shared Title Expression Meaning Meaning Semantic Feature 1 Loving him is A very Enjoyment, [+valuable] like driving a expensive and Pleasure Red new Maserati... luxurious car 2 ... passionate as A discgraceful Something [-good] sin manner wrong but addictive
3 Keep dancing In the age of Feeling [+youth] 22 like we’re 22 twenty two youthful 4 You look like Unpleasant Something [+problem] bad news news that very brings trouble challenging 5 Starlight And we’re The light Something [+beauty] dancing like emitted by the dreamy and we’re made of stars beautiful starlight
Table 5 shows that Maserati literally means a very expensive and luxurious car and in the song it can be associated with enjoyment or pleasure. The semantic feature shared is [+valuable]. Sin is defined as disgraceful manner while in the song it refers to something wrong but addictive. The semantic feature shared is [-good]. 22 means in the age of twenty two, while in the song is indicated as feeling youthful. The shared semantic feature is [+youth]. Bad news literally means unpleasant news that brings trouble, while in the song it is PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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associated as something very challenging. The shared semantic feature is
[+problem]. Starlight means the light emitted by the stars, while in the song it actually points out something dreamy and pleasing. The shared semantic feature is
[+beauty]. Below is the first example of lyric which contains simile.
(1) Loving him is like driving a new maserati down a dead-end street
The first simile is found in “Red” song in the first line of the verse. It is considered as simile because Swift compares the feeling of loving someone to maserati by using like as the connective word. The word maserati refers to a luxurious sport car which can be related to the songwriter’s feeling. When it is related to something that is luxurious, it is implied as something that provides pleasure and satisfaction. Dead-end street is known as an end of a street without an exit.
In this lyric, Swift implies her feeling of loving someone which feels like driving a new maserati, which gives her a big pleasure and satisfaction. The following term shows the contrast, dead-end street refers to a situation that even the songwriter loves the man so much and that it gives her so much pleasure, it will end soon as there is nothing she can do more than races a dead-end street. The following lyric is the next example of lyric which contains simile.
(2) Faster than the wind, passionate as sin, ending so suddenly
The second example of lyric containing simile is found in “Red” song in line 2 which is the continuity of the first lyric example. It is included as a simile since the songwriter compares how she loves the man that is passionate to a sin by PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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using as as the connective word. Sin is defined in Merriam-Webster Dictionary
(2018) as an action that is or is felt to be extremely disgraceful. It is related to the passionate feeling. When the passionate feeling is compared to a sin, it implies a feeling which is desirable and erotic. What Swift tries to convey is the situation when someone does a sin. It is usually addictive and irresistible. As shown in the complete lyrics, the songwriter explains about her feeling of loving the man in the song which ends so suddenly as if it is faster than the wind as passionate as doing a sin. Below is the next example of lyric containing simile.
(3) Keep dancing like we’re 22
The third example of lyric containing simile is found in the last line of the chorus, just before the pre-chorus in “22” song. Dancing is associated with something fun and 22 is the age that Swift thinks is the most fun. Swift feels that being in the age of 22 is the best because she keeps on relating 22 to matters that are full of enjoyment and freedom. In the lyric it shows that eventhough they are not in the age of twenty two, they should have just pretended that they are 22 years old.
(4) You look like bad news, I gotta have you
The fourth example of lyric which contains simile is found in the last line of “22”. It is considered as simile because of the comparison of you and bad news by using look like as the connective word. Bad news is known as news that is not pleasant or will bring negative emotions. Comparing someone to bad news means that the person compared to bring badness or even badluck. Meanwhile, in the PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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song it means that the guy Swift compares to bad news and it brings challenging experiences because the phrase is followed by I gotta have you. It indicates that
Swift is willing to be with this guy because he brings such an interesting challenge. The following lyric is the fifth example of lyric containing simile.
(5) And we’re dancing like we’re made of starlight
The lyric is found in the last lines of the chorus. The bold phrase is repeated to indicate the actual highlight of the song. Starlight is the light emitted by stars. It literally refers to visible electromagnetic radiation from stars other than the sun which is observable from earth during the night time (Robinson, 2002, p. 38).
Starlight is associated with something dreamy, shiny, and beautiful. By saying someone is made of starlight means that they are born to shine.
Moreover, it is summarized in the album cover booklet that the song is about romantic adventure of Swift which is inspired by the grandparents of her boyfriend at the time. It can be concluded that using the word starlight indicates the dreamy relationship moment Swift has with her significant other at the time.
2. Metaphor
Metaphor is defined as a figurative expression that uses comparison without any connective words such as ‘like’ and ‘as’ (Leech, 1991, p.150). It compares one thing to another or more in order to show their similarity. Table 6 shows literal and non-literal meaning of lyrics with metaphor. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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Table 6. Literal and Non-Literal Meaning of Lyrics with Metaphor No Song Figurative Literal Non-Literal Shared Title Expression Meaning Meaning Semantic Feature 1 Red Loving him Color of blood Intense [+bold] was red
2 Treacherous And all we Outer thin layer Something [+pair] are is skin and hard whitish completely and bone… tissue of different but humans/animals bounded body 3 22 …but I’m The age of twenty Young, wild, [+youth] feeling 22 two years old and free
It is shown in the table that Red is defined as the color of blood, while in the songs it is indicated to be intense. The shared semantic feature is [+bold]. Skin and bone means outer thin layer and hard whitish tissue of humans/ animals body, while in the song it seems to be something completely different but bounded. The shared semantic feature is [+pair]. 22 means the age of twenty two years old, while in the song it seems to be young, wild, and free. The shared semantic feature is [+youth]. Below is the first example of lyric that contains metaphor.
(6) Loving him was red
The lyric above is the last metaphor shown in “Red”. It is grouped into metaphor group because it also has a comparison between the feeling of losing him and the color of red. Loving literally means feeling love and affection, while red is used to evoke the erotic feelings. It leads to the idea of love that is passionate, affectionate, and desirable (Wright, 2011, p.5) As added by Khan
(2015, p.360), the color red also means happiness and warmth. The meaning of affection is shown by the comparison between a feeling of loving someone and PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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the color of red. Red is also associated with erotic feelings, it might be because red roses symbolize the romantic yet attached feelings of a lover. By showing this comparison, the songwriter wants to show how it feels when she is loving someone which is affectionate, warm, and erotic as the color of red. It also shows the contrast between the previous lyrics that use colors that have the meaning of sadness. The following lyric is the second example of lyric containing metaphor.
(7) “I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling 22”
The lyric found in the chorus of “22” is categorized as metaphor. There is only one metaphor found in the song which is the number 22. The subject I is compared to a number, 22. The word I is seen as Taylor Swift. Meanwhile, the number 22 has both connotation and denotation meaning. The number presented in the song shows an age. The connotation meaning of 22 is how happy Swift is at the age of 22 because it is the age when she feels young, energetic, free, creative and full of life. She has a lot of energy and enjoys her life. Moreover, the metaphor explains that 22 is a middle-young phase where Swift finds so much fun. Below is the third example of lyric containing metaphor.
(8) And all we are is skin and bone trained to get along
This metaphor is found in verse 1, line 8 of the song “Treacherous”. It is classified as metaphor because there are two different things being compared in the lyric which are we and skin and bone. In this metaphor, the word we is identified as ‘skin and bone’. Both of the words in this metaphor have literal meaning. The word skin is known as thin layer of tissue covering the body of PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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human or animal and the word bone is any of the pieces of hard tissue that makes up human’s or animal’s skeleton. Meanwhile, skin and bone are bounded together, so by comparing one and another to skin and bone means that they are meant to be together.
3. Hyperbole
Hyperbole is known as the figurative language which uses exaggerated statement to express strong feelings (Leech, 1991, p.167). The hyperbolic expressions can be found by the exaggeration in some part of the lyrics which are done by the songwriters in order to create a stronger or deeper meaning of the song. The following is the Table of literal and non-literal meaning of lyrics with hyperbole.
Table 7. Literal and Non-Literal Meaning of Lyrics with Hyperbole No Song Figurative Literal Non-Literal Shared Title Expression Meaning Meaning Semantic Feature 1 Red …he’s Turning Remains on [+continu- spinning around the mind ous] around my repeatedly head 2 Treacherous And I’ll do Doing Doing things [+action] anything you everything to make say someone someone basically says happy
Table 7 shows that spinning refers to turning around repeatedly where in the song it seemingly remains in the mind. The shared semantic feature is [+bold].
Do anything you say means doing everything someone basically says and it is pointed out that doing things is to make someone happy. The shared semantic PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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feature is [+action]. The first lyric that uses hyperbolic expression is presented as follows.
(9) That’s why he’s spinnin’ round in my head
Spinning is known as a verb that shows a movement of turning around repeatedly, as defined in Merriam-Webster dictionary (2018), yet the song lyric does not literally refer to it. The song lyrics are included as a hyperbole as the song writer adds the extravagant statement spinning around in my head to express her feeling. It refers to the time when the songwriter cannot stop thinking about the man whom she mentions as if the man is spinning around her head. The following lyric is the next lyric which contains hyperbole.
(10) And I’ll do anything you say
The lyric is found in the song “Treacherous” in the third line of the bridge.
It is stated as hyperbole because the speaker says that she is willing to do anything the guy she loves saying. It does not matter whether the thing he says is reckless or harmful, she will do it. Moreover, when a girl or a guy is truly in love with someone, they will do anything, even the stupidest thing just to be with the person they love. This line is such a famous line and it is often heard even in everyday life, in fact, in the lyric the word ‘anything’ will not really be literally anything, it indicates to mean she will do things to make the guy happy. Moreover, the phrase is applied to make the phrase or sentence more convincing and romantic just like the flow of the song. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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4. Symbol
As discussed in the second chapter, symbol is defined as something that means more than what it is. Symbol might be best understood as an implied metaphor (Perrine, 2004, p. 82). Symbol is said to be different from metaphor because in symbol there is no comparison included. Table 8 is the literal and non- literal meaning of lyrics with symbol
Table 8. Literal and Non-Literal Meaning of Lyrics with Symbol No Song Figurative Literal Non-Literal Shared Title Expression Meaning Meaning Semantic Feature 1 Red Burning red A vibrant red Intimate [+bold] color 2 Starlight Don’t you see The light Something [+beauty] the starlight? emitted by dreamy and the stars pleasing
Table 8 shows that burning red refers to a vibrant red color, while in the song it is associated as intimate. The shared semantic feature is [+bold]. Starlight means the light emitted by the stars and it is indicated in the song as something dreamy and pleasing. The shared semantic feature is [+beauty]. The following lyric is the first example of lyric which contains symbol.
(11) Burning Red
The lyric is found in the last line of the chorus and it keeps on being repeated. It is repeated because it strengthens the symbol of the song. The color red is often associated with heat, so the term red in the lyric indicates the intensity of the feeling of love. By adding the word burning in front of ‘red’ symbolizes the PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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intense and highly passionate act of loving. Below is the second example of lyric
with symbol.
(12) Don’t you see the starlight?
The lyric is found in the last line of the chorus of Starlight. Starlight is associated with astronomy phenomenon, but in the lyric the meaning of starlight is not the actual literal meaning. The term starlight here means fantasy or something dreamy and pleasing. The next lyric is Don’t you dream impossible things? so it suits the presence of starlight as the symbol of fantasy of romantic relationship that is considered to be dreamy or fairy tale like.
5. Paradox
Paradox is an apparent contradiction that is nevertheless something true, it
maybe either a situation or a statement (Perrine, 2004, p. 101). The lyric contains
paradox makes a contrast. The following Table shows the literal and non-literal
meaning of lyrics with paradox.
Table 9. Literal and Non-Literal Meaning of Lyrics with Paradox No Song Figurative Literal Non-Literal Shared Title Expression Meaning Meaning Semantic Feature 1 For breakfast Having Having fun and [-time down midnight morning meals forgetting time manage- 22 at very early ment] morning 2 And end up Having dreams Ignoring the [-time dreaming without falling time because manage- instead of asleep of happiness ment] sleeping PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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It is shown on the table that breakfast down midnight refers to having
morning meals at very early morning while it is associated in the song as having
fun and forgetting time. The shared semantic feature is [-time management].
Dreaming instead of sleeping means having dreams without falling asleep, while
in the song it seems ignoring time because of happiness. The shared semantic
feature is [-time management]. The following lyric is the first lyric with paradox.
(13) For breakfast down midnight
This lyric is found in the second line of the third verse of “22”.
Breakfast is known as meal in the morning. If breakfast is down midnight it
means that it is not breakfast. The lyric above does not mean literally, it means
unusual behaviour to be done in such exciting situation. In an exciting situation
such as party, people tend to forget time and do things without thinking about
the time. The following lyric is the next lyric with paradox.
(14) And end up dreaming instead of sleeping
The lyric is found in the same song as the first example which is “22”. It is located in the last just before the second pre chorus of the song. As known generally, sleeping is associated with dreaming as well. A person will not really have a dream if they are not sleeping. Dream in this lyric means the actual dream from sleeping, so the phrase is supposed to mean ignoring the time because of full enjoyment of the situation. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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6. Irony
Irony is a statement in which word are used in such a way that their intended meaning is different from the actual meanings of the words (Perrine,
2004, p. 103). The irony found in the songs points out that what is said is not what is meant. In the selected songs, two irony expressions are found and they are both in the first and second verse of the song “I Knew You Were Trouble”. The following table presents literal and non-literal meaning of lyrics with irony.
Table 10. Literal and Non-Literal Meaning of Lyrics with Irony No Song Figurative Literal Non-Literal Shared Title Expression Meaning Meaning Semantic Feature 1 I Knew You found Unexpectedly Get/trap [+notice] You Were me discover Trouble 2 He’ll never Have not or will Will not be [-action] see you cry not see someone responsible cries
Table 10 shows that found literally means unexpectedly discover, while in the song it is pointed out as get or trap. The shared semantic feature is [+notice].
Will never see you cry means have not or will not see someone cries and in the song it is indicated as will not be responsible. The shared semantic feature is [- action]. The irony found in the songs are listed and explained in the following.
(15) You found me
The lyric above shows that the word found brings an ambiguous meaning.
It means being trapped, because the previous lyric is I was in your sight, you got me alone. It points out the irony of being found. The word found in love songs PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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usually brings the romantic vibes, or it indicates something lost that comes back while in this song it is not the same. Below is the second irony found in the songs.
(16) He’ll never see you cry
The lyric is found in the the second verse of “I Knew You Were Trouble”.
The lyric shows that the phrase will never see you cry involves an explicit expression. It means the guy in the song will not be responsible for the mistakes he does. He will just walk away and does not mind a thing. It does not mean the guy will not literally see the girl cries because he will never let her down. Usually the phrase will never see you cry is associated as making someone happy continuously. The lyric shows that what is said is not what is meant. The phrase chosen suits the whole idea of the song because the song is about a guy who is a kind of troublemaker.
7. Personification
Personification is a human characteristics attribution to something nonhuman, or the representation of an abstract quality in human form (Perrine,
2004, p. 64). In the songs, two lyrics mean something immortal to be given the abstract human quality is included in. The following Table is literal and non-literal meaning of lyrics with personification.
Table 11. Literal and Non-Literal Meaning of Lyrics with Personification No Song Figurative Literal Non-Literal Shared Title Expression Meaning Meaning Semantic Feature 1 Treacherous This path is Careless and Dangerous [-good] reckless thoughtless
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2 I Knew You …saddest fear Comes in a Disturbs [-please] Were Trouble comes disturbing way creeping in or manner
Table 11 shows that reckless refers to careless and thoughtless, while in the song it is associated as dangerous. The shared semantic feature is [-good].
Comes creeping in means coming in a disturbing way or manner, while it indicates disturbance in the song. The shared semantic feature is [-please]. The following lyric is the first lyric with personification.
(17) This path is reckless
The lyric is found in the second line of the chorus of “Treacherous”. The term reckless is an adjective of a person or their actions without thinking or caring about the consequences, while the term ‘path’ is an immortal thing, path is known as a walkway. Meanwhile, by saying this path is reckless meaning the way of having the relationship is careless. The personification of the song suits the whole intention of the song. The song is about a girl falling for someone but she knows and realizes that it could be dangerous. She realizes that the relationship will not work out but anyway she keeps going with it. Below is the second lyric with personification.
(18) And your saddest fear comes creeping in
The lyric is found in the first line of the bridge of “I Knew You Were
Trouble”. the act of human of coming in disturbing way or manner. Meanwhile, the phrase saddest fear is known as the worst unpleasant emotion of being PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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threatened. By putting both phrases together in the song means the stage when someone is feeling threatened and disturbed by something unpleasant. The personification supports the idea of the song because the song presents such a negative idea as well as the meaning.
8. Metonymy
Metonymy is the use of something closely related to the thing actually meant (Perrine, 2004, p. 67) as listed in Chapter II of this research. A metonymy is chosen because it is such a well-known characteristic of the concept. There is only one metonymy found in the song and album. The metonymy is found in the second line of the fourth verse of the song “I knew you were trouble”. The following Table shows the literal and non-literal meaning of lyrics with metonymy.
Table 12. Literal and Non-Literal Meaning of Lyrics with Metonymy No Song Figurative Literal Non-Literal Shared Title Expression Meaning Meaning Semantic Feature 1 I Knew …from Mumbles People’s [+speak] You Were whispers on on the street street Trouble the street talk/gossip
Table 12 shows that whispers on the street refers to mumbles on the street,
while it is indicated as people’s street talk/gossip in the song. The shared semantic
feature is [+speak]. The following lyric is the lyrics with metonymy found in the
songs. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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(19) I heard you moved on from whispers on the street
The lyric shows that the speaker gets information about this guy from people’s talk on the street or may also be said as gossip. Swift chooses the term whispers on the street because the word whispers can replace the word talk. So, the metonymy of this song means people’s street talk which, in this case, is an unpleasant talk to be heard.
9. Understatement
As discussed in the second chapter of this research, understatement is a type of figurative language employed to make a situation seem less important than it really is intentionally (Perrine, 2004, p. 102). Understatement is the antithesis of hyperbole or overstatement. In the selected songs, there is only one understatement found. The understatement is found in the bridge of “I Knew You
Were Trouble”. Table 13 shows literal and non-literal meaning of lyrics with understatement.
Table 13. Literal and Non-Literal Meaning of Lyrics with Understatement No Song Figurative Literal Non-Literal Shared Title Expression Meaning Meaning Semantic Feature 1 I Knew Cause you never Have not Heartless [-good] You Were loved me or her or loved anyone Trouble anyone or or anything anything
It is shown on the table that never loved me or her or anyone or anything means have not loved anyone or anything, while it is associated as heartless in the PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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song. The shared semantic feature is [-good]. The following lyric is the understatement lyric found.
(20) Cause you never loved me, or her, or anyone, or anything
The lyric means the man does not have love-feelings because it is said in the lyric that he never loved ayone or anything. The word never in this lyric indicates understatedness, underemphasis, and negativeness of the meaning. The presence of this understatement lyrics supports the idea of the song. The song is about a bad man who brings problems to his surroundings. So, it is suitable to use understatement to strengthen the idea of the song that the guy in this song is heartless and is deserved to be put down.
B. The Language Style of Taylor Swift Based On Selected Songs
Stylistic approach is used throughout this study. This study is aimed to find the style of Swift by analyzing her album “Red”. The style that has been found in the song is comparative and exaggerating; it is concluded from the frequency of figurative language types applied in the lyrics.
1. Comparative
Taylor Swift applied a lot of figurative expressions in composing her songs, especially in the Red album. Nine types of figurative language were found in forty five figurative expressions. Using figurative language in a song can be depicted as being more romantic in a way because figurative language has sense of art. The facts that Swift tend to speak implicitly and use more complicated PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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expressions lead to the vagueness which is caused by the use of figurative language.
It is shown in Table 4 that the most dominant figurative language type is simile. Out of forty five figurative expressions, there are fourteen similes and ten metaphors. Furthermore, twenty four out of forty six figurative expressions are written to compare, which gives an idea that the style of Swift based on the five selected songs in the album is comparative. The following lyric is the first example of the comparison using simile.
(21) Forgetting him was like trying to know somebody you never met
The lyric is found in the third line of “Red” song’s chorus. Forgetting someone’s love is compared to a matter such as trying to know somebody one that she never met. Trying to know somebody we never met is very complicated because there are no clues of it. It is difficult because when we try to know somebody we haven’t met yet it brings uncertainty and questions to our mind because we cannot really know somebody without seeing them in person. To really know someone, we have to meet them and know their behaviour. Below is the second example of comparison using simile.
(22) Memorizing him was as easy as knowing all the words to your old favorite song
The example is found in the second line of the second chorus of the song
“Red”. As known, memorizing someone means keeping someone in mind, by comparing with knowing all the words to ones’ old favorite song means it will be PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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easily done without any hurdles to memorize. Memorizing an old favorite song is considered to be very easy because when ones like a song so much usually they will keep on listening to it and the lyrics will be remembered. Swift chooses the phrase to reveal the romantic vibes of the song. The “Red” song also presents an idea of an intense romance.
Apart from simile, metaphor also takes a big proportion in the songs, since nine metaphors are revealed. Metaphor is in the second place, right after simile.
What differs metaphor from simile is metaphor does not need connective words to compare. Below is an example of comparison using metaphor.
(23) Missing him was dark grey all alone
The lyric was found in the second line of the chorus of the song “Red”.
Generally, what is usually described by using the word dark relates with sorrow or bad things. Grey means a color intermediate between black and white or associated with the color of ashes, as defined in Merriam-Webster Dictionary
(2018). The color dark grey represents pain and sorrow, so it means that missing someone ones have feelings for brings sadness. In the song, Swift chooses colors in relation to her emotions about a relationship. Swift chooses the dark grey color to express how she feels when she misses the man she loves. It can be concluded that when Swift misses the man she loves she feels gloomy. The following lyric is another example of comparison using metaphor. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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(24) I knew you were trouble when you walked in
The lyric is in the first line of the first chorus of “I Knew You Were
Trouble”. Trouble is defined in Merriam-Webster Dictionary (2018) as a cause of distress, annoyance, or inconvenience. In the lyric, you is being compared to trouble. It is noted in her cover album that this song is about a toxic man. Hence,
Swift expresses how bad this man is by comparing him to trouble. It gives a deeper understanding to the listeners that this man Swift means is a real toxic.
Swift feels that she has been trapped by this man. The rest of the lyrics of the song also direct to negative connotation.
Although all types of figurative language are non-literal, metaphor and simile requires more clues to disassemble the real meaning and it depends on what is being compared to. It needs clues to figure out what dark grey color actually means in term of psychology and emotion, how the word trouble depicts someone, how trying to know somebody ones never met feels like and how easy to memorize an old favorite song.
2. Exaggerating
In Table 4, it can be seen that hyperbole and symbol are in the next order after simile and metaphor. The frequency of hyperbole and symbol marks exaggeration. There are thirteen out of forty five expressions written to exaggerate, consisting of 7 hyperbole and 6 symbol. Hyperbole is known as extravagant statement while symbol is known as something that means more than what it is. In hyperbole the literal meaning is added by the extravagant statement PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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which can make the meaning goes deeper. Roberts and Kreuz (2006, p. 164) assert hyperbole is used to emphasize something. The question that should be asked upon hearing a hyperbolic statement is whether or not it's actually a true statement. Hyperbole would have people believe so, and that is what makes it an effective and strategic stylistic choice. Therefore, hyperbole is considered to be persuassive. The following lyric is the first example of exaggeration using hyperbole.
(25) Your name has echoed through my head
The example is found in the third line of the bridge of the song
Treacherous. The lyric is supposed to indicate that the addresser says that the addressee cannot be forgotten. Merriam-Webster Dictionary (2018) defines that echo is a sound caused by the reflection of sound waves from a surface back to the listener. Meanwhile, in the song lyrics, the use of echo means being repeated and kept in mind. Looking at the context of the whole song, it means swift cannot take the guy she serenades out of her mind. The use of echo gives persuassive effect to make the listeners think that she really cannot take this man out of her mind or cannot stop thinking about him. The following lyric is the second example of the exaggeration using hyperbole.
(26) We could get married and have ten kids and teach them how to dream
The hyperbole above is found in the last lyric of the bridge of the song
“Starlight”. It shows that having ten kids and teach them how to dream is an exaggeration. The example is supposed to show that Swift is being persuassive PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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about dreamy things. She persuades that dreaming is allowed and it also brings hope. Having ten kids is considered as hyperbolic statement because it is such an outrageous statement. Some people wish to have many kids because they think having as many kids will bring luck. Moreover, having many kids is not easy, it will cost a lot for the education, health, and many more. In the song, it means that
Swift wants to have future with this guy she addresses in the song to face beautiful moments together.
The phrase teach them how to dream is actually a clue of being in life with full of hope. The phrase matches with the general idea of the song. It is said in
The Wall Street Journal (2013) that the song “Starlight” is actually a song about a beautiful relationship inspired by Bob and Ethel Kennedy who were the grandparents of Connor, the man she was dating at the time. She added that she liked their black and white picture when they were dancing because she thought it was adorable and she would like to experience a sweet moment.
Besides hyperbole, symbol also comes after simile and metaphor. In the songs, there are five symbols found. Symbol exists whenever something is meant to represent something else. Symbol is a type of figurative language which is used when an author wants to create a certain mood or emotion in a literary work
(Perrine, 2004, p. 82). The symbols used in the songs also suits the general idea of the song. The song “Starlight” gives an idea that people have their own criteria of dreaming. Another example of exaggeration using symbol is in the following. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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(27) You’ll spend your whole life singing the blues
The lyric above is found in the second line of the pre chorus of the song
“Starlight”. In the lyric, Singing the blues does not really mean singing blues songs, it means being melancholist instead. Merriam-Webster Dictionary defined that blues in informal way is the feeling of melancholy, sadness, or depression
(2018). The term blues is an African-American music that traverses a wide range of emotions and musical styles as defined in Merriam-Webster Dictionary (2018).
The lyric before is he says Look at you, worrying so much about things you can’t change. Therefore, the bold phrase indicates the effect of worrying too much is feeling down or becoming very melancholist. Actually, the lyric above is not complete, the bold phrase there is followed by if you keep thinking that way, so it means that if the girl keeps on worrying or over thinking, she will be trapped in sorrow. It is said to be a way of exaggeration because Swift emphasizes the feeling of dreamy with the words with poetic effect such as singing the blues. The second example of exaggeration using symbol is in the following.
(28) Once upon a time, a few mistakes ago
The lyric found in the first line of the first verse of “I know You Were
Trouble”. Usually what is more common to be heard is once upon a time, a few moments ago. Once upon a time is generally used to introduce a narrative of past events, typically in fairy tales and folk tales (Konnikova, 2012, p. 3). Meanwhile a few moments ago is used to indicate the time when the story was set. In the lyrics,
Swift applies mistakes instead of moments or any other words that usually PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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specifies time because she tends to symbolize something. Merriam-Webster
Dictionary (2018) defines mistake as an action or judgment that is misguided or wrong or simply something incorrect. Swift chooses mistakes to show that she considers the time the story happens as a fault that she regrets.
Moreover, the song tells about a toxic relationship so Swift’s choice of using mistakes seems to be appropriate. It strengthens the point that she regrets being in a relationship with this guy she addresses the song to. The symbol shows exaggeration because Swift emphasizes hatred and shame through the choice of words. If she does not exaggerate she will not emphasize the unpleasant feeling through words that have negative connotations.
Generally, women speak in order to “be cooperative and making connection” (Cameron, 2006, p.68). Therefore, women use more implicit statements such as figurative language in order to imply their thoughts and ideas and expect that it will be accepted by others. The two styles found in Taylor
Swift’s songs based on the choice of figurative language reflects on female language. It is said that women tend to hide the literal meaning by saying something implicitly to let the listeners think and take a guess for their aim (Danet and Herring, 2007, p. 250). Both styles, comparative and exaggerating show that
Swift applies indirect way of expressing herself through songs she writes.
Furthermore, the more figurative language is used, the more vagueness is created. Swift applies nine figurative language types in her five selected songs in the album, but there are four types of figurative language that have considerable amounts so the style is concluded to be in two kinds only. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
CHAPTER V
CONCLUSION
This chapter presents the conclusion based on the analysis which has been done in the previous chapter. The data of the analysis are taken from five songs from a singer-songwriter, Taylor Swift. The songs are “Red”, “Treacherous”, “I
Knew You Were Trouble”, “22”, and “Starlight”.
This research finds that Taylor Swift uses various types of figurative language in creating song lyrics. Out of twelve types of figurative language, there are nine types of figurative language found in forty five expressions. The nine types of figurative language are simile, metaphor, personification, metonymy, symbol, paradox, hyperbole, understatement, and irony.
This research reveals that the most used figurative language type is simile with the frequency of thirteen, metaphor with the frequency of nine, hyperbole with the frequency of seven, and symbol with the frequency of six. Three paradoxes, two ironies, two personifications, two metonymies, and one understatement are noted as well.
The language style of Swift in songwriting is determined by the number of figurative language types in the five selected songs in the Red album. Simile and metaphor are the most dominant figurative language types found in the songs. The high frequency of simile and metaphor points out that the style applied by Swift is comparative, since both simile and metaphor are the types of figurative language which are used to compare one to another.
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Apart from simile and metaphor, it is listed in Table 4 that hyperbole and symbol are put in the third and fourth place. It can be concluded from these two figurative language types that the style revealed is exaggerating. Hyperbole is a type of figurative language which is applied to state an extravagant statement. The quite high frequency of hyperbole brings the style of exaggeration. Meanwhile, symbol is a figurative language type that means more than what it is. Symbol also conveys exaggerating style because it emphasizes the meaning of the song with the choice of words that match the song and it persuades the listeners to be in the situation of the song.
The two styles found in the study also reflect on female language style which can be noted that woman tends to be indirect when expressing her feelings.
Woman, in this case is female songwriter, is considered to hide her actual purpose and make riddles to be guessed. In the future research, the researcher argues that it needs more reliable resources to find more language styles. In the end of the conclusion, it is hoped that the readers can be able to understand language style based on figurative language. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
REFERENCES
Azlyrics, October 2018. Retrieved from https ://Azlyrics.com//
Cameron, Deborah. (2002). Verbal Hygiene. New York: Routledge.
Claridge, Claudia. (2010). Hyperbole in English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Creswell, W, John. (2007). Qualitative Inquiry & Research Design: Choosing Among Five Approaches. London: Sage.
Cruse, Alan. (2007). A Glossary of Semantics and Pragmatics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Dancygier, Barbara and Eve Sweetser (2014). Figurative Language. Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press.
Danet, Brenda and Herring, Susan. (2014). The Multilingual Internet Language, Culture, and Communication Online. New York: Oxford University Press.
Fromkin, Victoria, Rodman, Robert and Nina, Hyams. (2014). An Introduction to Language, the Tenth Edition. London: Independence, Heinle & Heinle Ky.
Gioia, Ted. (2015). Love Songs: The Hidden History. New York: New York Times.
Global Music Record. (2013), Retrieved from www.globalmusic-.com/ February 2019.
Hurtford, J, Heasley, and Smith. (2013). Semantics: A Coursebook. Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press.
Jakobson, Roman. (1995). On Language. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Keraf, Gorys. (2009). Diksi dan Gaya Bahasa. Jakarta: Gramedia Pustaka Utama.
Roberts, Richard and Kreuz, Roger. (1994). Why Do People Use Figurative Language? London: Psychological Science + Business Media.
Robinson, Keith. (2009). Starlight: An Introduction to Stellar Physics for Amateurs. London: Springer Science + Business Media.
Khan, Jitendra. Dhoj. (2012). Supreme God: Body, Will, Wisdom, and Work. Pittsburgh: Rosedog Books.
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Konnikova, Maria. (2012). The Power of Once Upon A Time : A Story to Tame The Wild Things. New York: Scientific American.
Laksita, Amadea. (2017). Figurative Expressions in Song Lyrics By Male and Female Songwriters. Universitas Sanata Dharma, Yogyakarta.
Leech, Geoffrey. (1991). A Linguistic Guide to English Poetry. New York: Longman.
Leech, Geoffrey and Short, Mick. (2007). A Linguistic Introduction to English Fictional Prose. Harlow: Pearson Education.
Marhamah. (2018). Figurative Language Portrayed in Rihanna's Selected Songs. Universitas Sumatera Utara, Sumatera. Vol. 01 No. 01: p. 357-364.
Merriam-Webster Dictionary, December 2018. Retrieved from https://www.merriam- webster.com//
Mills, Sara. (1995). Feminist Stylistics (Interface). New York: Routledge.
Perrine, Laurence. (2004). Sound and Sense: An Introduction To Poetry Eleventh Edition. Boston: Thompson Learning.
Rahmanto, Joko. (2017). Figurative Languages in Adele's Album 25. Universitas Sanata Dharma, Yogyakarta.
Setiawati, Willya. (2014). An Analysis of Figurative Language in Taylor Swift’s Song Lyrics, Vol. 01 No. 03: p. 261-267.
Simpson, Paul. (2004). Stylistics: A Resource Book for Students. London: Routledge.
Verdonk, Peter, (2002). Stylistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Wright, Tracy-Edwards. (2011). Your Favorite Color Has a Meaning. Raleigh: Lulu Enterprises, Inc. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
APPENDICES
Appendix 1: Literal and Non-Literal Meaning of Figurative Expressions found in the Lyrics a. Literal and Non-Literal Meaning of Red
No Figurative Figurative Literal Non Literal Shared Expression Language Meaning Meaning Concept Type 1 ... like driving a A very Enjoyment, [+valuable] new Maserati... expensive and Pleasure luxurious car 2 ... passionate as A discgraceful Something [-good] sin manner wrong but addictive
3 ... like... flying Downward Final [+action] through the free movement under decision fall the force of gravity 4 Like the colors in Briliant shades Colors suit [+variation] autumn... Simile of orange, every the feelings shades of brown, gold and yellow
5 ... like trying to Getting to really Doing an [+effort] know somebody know someone extremely you never met we haven’t met difficult task yet
6 ...like realizing Finding out that Being [+Feeling all you ever what is wanted grateful happy] wanted was is in front tof us there... 7 ...as easy as A song that has Something [-forget] knowing... old been favorited that has favorite song for such a long alwas been time memorized
8 ...like trying to A puzzle of A [+problem] solve a words arranged challenging crossword... in grid of matter squares
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9 ...like wishing... Love could be Unbelievably [+feeling in that love could be very deep and in love love] that strong strong
10 Losing him was Color of sky and Sad, painful [-bright] blue... sea
11 Missing him was Metaphor Color of ashes Gloomy [+darkness] dark grey...
12 Loving him was Color of blood Intense [+bold] red...
13 ...he’s spinning Turning around Remains on [+continu- around my head Hyperbole repeatedly the mind ous]
14 Moving on from Not able to Very difficult [+problem] him is impossible occur or be done to be done
15 When I still see it Seeing Stays in the [+remain] all in my head everything in the mind mind
16 Burning red Symbol A vibrant red Intimate [+bold] color
b. Literal and Non-Literal Meaning of Treacherous
No Figurative Type of Literal Non Literal Shared Expression Figurative Meaning Meaning Concept Language 1 ... you’re quick A mass of wet Something that [+hold] sand sand that yields traps and hard to easily to pressure resist Metaphor anything falling into it
2 And all we are is Outer thin layer Something [+pair] skin and bone... and hard whitish completely tissue of different but humans/animals bounded body 3 ... but you’re a The resistance An opposite will [+contrast] friction that one object encounters when moving over another
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4 Your name has A sound being Remains in [+continu- echoed through repeated after the mind, cannot be ous] my mind Hyperbole original sound has forgotten stopped
5 I’ll follow you Following until Keeping [+loyal] home home someone safe 6 And I’ll do Doing anything Doing things to [+action] anything you someone basically make someone say says happy 7 This path is Personificat Careless and Dangerous [-good] reckless -ion thoughtless
c. Literal and Non-Literal Meaning of I Knew You Were Trouble
No Figurative Type of Literal Non Literal Shared Expression Figurative Meaning Meaning Concept Language
1 Once upon a Symbol Something Something [-right] time, a few Incorrect that has been mistakes ago regretted
2 I knew you Difficulties A problematic [+problem] were Metaphor person trouble....
3 Now I’m lying A solid surface of An unpleasant [-pleasant] on the cold the earth which is phase hard ground cold and hard
4 A new notch An indentation on Someone who [+mark] on your belt is a surface will just be a all I ever be memory 5 You found me Irony Unexpectedly Get/trap [+notice] discover
6 He’ll never see Have not or will Will not be [-action] you cry not see someone responsible cries
7 ...from Metonymy Mumbles on the People’s [+speak] whispers on street street talk / the street gossip
8 ...saddest fear Personification Comes in a Disturbs [-please] comes disturbing way or creeping in manner
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9 Cause you Understatement Have not loved Heartless [-good] never loved anyone or me or her or anything anyone or anything
d. Literal and Non-Literal Meaning of 22
No Figurative Type of Literal Non Literal Shared Expression Figurative Meaning Meaning Concept Language
1 ...but I’m Metaphor The age of 22 Young, wild, [+youth] feeling 22 years old and free 2 For breakfast Having Having fun and [-time down Paradox morning meals forgetting the management] midnight at very early time morning 3 And end up Having dreams Ignoring the [-time dreaming, without falling time because of management] instead of asleep happiness sleeping
4 ...to dress up Someone who Very [+style] like hipsters tries hard to fashionable and follow the stands out Simile latest trend and fashion 5 Keep dancing In the age of 22 Feeling [+youth] like we’re 22 youthful
6 You look like Unpleasant Something [+problem] bad news news that challenging brings trouble
7 ...when we Time limits Burdens [+responsi- forget about the bility] deadlines Symbol 8 We ditch the A sequence of Real life [+situation] whole scene continuous circumstances action in a movie
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e. Literal and Non-Literal Meaning of Starlight
No Figurative Type of Literal Non Literal Shared Expression Figurative Meaning Meaning Concept Language
1 We could get Hyperbole Having many Having big [+expectatio married and children ambitions n] have ten kids...
2 ...like we’re Simile The light Something [+beauty] made of emitted by the dreamy and starlight stars beautiful 3 ...like we dream Simile Dreams or hope Something [+thought] impossible that will never that remains dreams come true as wishful thought
4 Pretending to be Metaphor A royal couple An [+pair] a duchess and a from a kingdom impressive prince couple
5 ...your whole life Singing blues Being [-happiness] singing the (sad) songs melancholist blues Symbol 6 Don’t you see The light Something [+beauty] the starlight? emitted by the dreamy and stars pleasing
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Appendix 2: Table of Figurative Language Types Found in the Songs
No Types Lyrics Title 1 “Loving him is like driving a new Red Maserati..” 2 “.. Passionate as sin ending so suddenly” 3 “Loving him is like trying to change your mind once you’re already flying through the free fall” 4 “Like the colors in autumn, so bright..” 5 “Forgetting him was like trying to Simile know somebody you never met” 6 “Touching him was like realizing all you ever wanted was right there in front of you” 7 “Memorizing him was as easy as knowing all the words to your old favorite song” 8 “Fighting with him was like trying to solve a crossword and realizing there’s no right answer” 9 “Regretting him was like wishing you never found out that love could be that strong” 10 “It feels like a perfect night to dress up 22 like hipsters” 11 “Keep dancing like we’re 22” 12 “You look like bad news” 13 “And we’re dancing like we’re made Starlight of starlight” 14 “Losing him was blue..” Red
15 “Missing him was dark grey..”
16 “Loving him was red”
17 “I knew you were trouble when you I Knew You walked in” Were Trouble 18 “Now I’m lying on the cold hard Metaphor ground” 19 “A new notch on your belt is all I ever be” 20 “...but you’re quick sand” Treacherous
21 “And all we are is skin and bone PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
trying to get along” PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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22 “...but you’re a friction”
23 “Pretending to be a duchess and a Starlight prince” 24 “..he’s spinning’round my head” Red
25 “Moving on from him is impossible”
26 “When I still see it all in my head”
27 “Your name has echoed through my Treacherous Hyperbole mind” 28 “I’ll follow you home”
29 “And I’ll do anything you say”
30 “We could get married and have ten Starlight kids and teach them how to dream” 31 “Burning red” Red
32 Once upon a time, a few mistakes ago I Knew You Were Trouble Symbol
33 “Tonight’s the night when we forget 22 about the deadlines” 34 “We ditch the whole scene”
35 “You’ll spend your whole life singing Starlight the blues...” 36 “Don’t you see the starlight?”
37 “For breakfast down midnight” 22
Paradox
38 “And end up dreaming, instead of sleeping” 39 “It’s miserable and magical”
40 Irony “You found me” I Know You
Were Trouble
41 “He’ll never see you cry”
42 Personification “This path is reckless” Treacherous
43 “And your saddest fear comes I Knew You creeping in” Were Trouble 44 Metonymy “And I heard you moved on from whispers in the street” PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
45 Understatement “Cause you never loved me, or her, or anyone, or anything” PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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Appendix 3: The Lyrics of “Red” by Taylor Swift
[Verse 1:] Loving him is like driving a new Maserati down a dead-end street Faster than the wind, passionate as sin, ending so suddenly Loving him is like trying to change your mind once you're already flying through the free fall Like the colors in autumn, so bright just before they lose it all
[Chorus:] Losing him was blue like I'd never known Missing him was dark grey all alone Forgetting him was like trying to know somebody you never met But loving him was red Loving him was red
[Verse 2:] Touching him was like realizing all you ever wanted was right there in front of you Memorizing him was as easy as knowing all the words to your old favorite song Fighting with him was like trying to solve a crossword and realizing there's no right answer Regretting him was like wishing you never found out that love could be that strong
[Chorus:] Losing him was blue like I'd never known Missing him was dark grey all alone Forgetting him was like trying to know somebody you never met But loving him was red Oh, red Burning red
[Bridge:] Remembering him comes in flashbacks and echoes Tell myself it's time now, gotta let go But moving on from him is impossible When I still see it all in my head In burning red Burning, it was red
[Chorus:] Oh, losing him was blue like I'd never known PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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Missing him was dark grey all alone Forgetting him was like trying to know somebody you never met 'Cause loving him was red Yeah, yeah, red We're burning red
[Post-Chorus:] And that's why he's spinnin' 'round in my head Comes back to me, burning red Yeah, yeah His love was like driving a new Maserati down a dead-end street PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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Appendix 4: The Lyrics of “Treacherous” by Taylor Swift
[Verse 1:] Put your lips close to mine As long as they don't touch Out of focus, eye to eye Till the gravity's too much And I'll do anything you say If you say it with your hands And I'd be smart to walk away But you're quicksand
[Chorus:] This slope is treacherous This path is reckless This slope is treacherous And I, I, I like it
[Verse 2:] I can't decide if it's a choice Getting swept away I hear the sound of my own voice Asking you to stay And all we are is skin and bone Trained to get along Forever going with the flow But you're friction
[Chorus:] This slope is treacherous This path is reckless This slope is treacherous I, I, I like it
[Bridge:] Two headlights shine through the sleepless night And I will get you a—get you alone Your name has echoed through my mind And I just think you should, think you should know That nothing safe is worth the drive And I would follow you, follow you home I'll follow you, follow you home PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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[Chorus:] This hope is treacherous This daydream is dangerous This hope is treacherous I, I, I... I, I, I... I, I, I...
[Post chorus:] Two headlights shine through the sleepless night And I will get you, I'll get you alone Your name has echoed through my mind And I just think you should, think you should know That nothing safe is worth the drive And I would follow you, follow you home I'll follow you, follow you home I'll follow you, follow you home I'll follow you, follow you home This slope is treacherous I, I, I like it PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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Appendix 5: Lyrics of “I Knew You Were Trouble” by Taylor Swift
[Verse 1:] Once upon a time, a few mistakes ago I was in your sights, you got me alone You found me, you found me, you found me I guess you didn't care, and I guess I liked that And when I fell hard you took a step back Without me, without me, without me
[Pre chorus:] And he's long gone when he's next to me And I realize the blame is on me
[Chorus:] 'Cause I knew you were trouble when you walked in So shame on me now Flew me to places I'd never been 'Til you put me down, oh I knew you were trouble when you walked in So shame on me now Flew me to places I'd never been Now I'm lying on the cold hard ground Oh, oh, trouble, trouble, trouble Oh, oh, trouble, trouble, trouble [Verse 2:] No apologies. He'll never see you cry, Pretends he doesn't know that he's the reason why You're drowning, you're drowning, you're drowning Now I heard you moved on from whispers on the street A new notch in your belt is all I'll ever be And now I see, now I see, now I see
[Pre chorus] He was long gone when he met me And I realize the joke is on me, yeah!
[Chorus:] I knew you were trouble when you walked in So shame on me now Flew me to places I'd never been 'Til you put me down, oh I knew you were trouble when you walked in PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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So shame on me now Flew me to places I'd never been Now I'm lying on the cold hard ground Oh, oh, trouble, trouble, trouble Oh, oh, trouble, trouble, trouble [Bridge:] And the saddest fear comes creeping in That you never loved me or her, or anyone, or anything, yeah [Chorus:] I knew you were trouble when you walked in So shame on me now Flew me to places I'd never been 'Til you put me down, oh I knew you were trouble when you walked in (you were right there, you were right there) So shame on me now Flew me to places I'd never been Now I'm lying on the cold hard ground Oh, oh, trouble, trouble, trouble Oh, oh, trouble, trouble, trouble
I knew you were trouble when you walked in Trouble, trouble, trouble I knew you were trouble when you walked in Trouble, trouble, trouble PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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Appendix 6: Lyrics of “22” by Taylor Swift
[Verse:] It feels like a perfect night to dress up like hipsters And make fun of our exes, uh uh, uh uh. It feels like a perfect night for breakfast at midnight To fall in love with strangers, uh uh, uh uh.
[Pre chorus 1:] Yeah, We're happy, free, confused, and lonely at the same time It's miserable and magical. Oh, yeah Tonight's the night when we forget about the deadlines It's time
[Chorus:] Uh oh! I don't know about you But I'm feeling 22 Everything will be alright If you keep me next to you You don't know about me But I'll bet you want to Everything will be alright If we just keep dancing like we're 22, ooh-ooh 22, ooh-ooh
[Verse 2:] It seems like one of those nights, This place is too crowded.
Too many cool kids, uh uh, uh uh (who's Taylor Swift anyway, ew?) It seems like one of those nights, We ditch the whole scene and end up dreaming Instead of sleeping.
[Pre chorus 2:] Yeah, We're happy, free, confused, and lonely in the best way It's miserable and magical. Oh, yeah PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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Tonight's the night when we forget about the heartbreaks It's time
[Chorus:] Uh oh! (hey!) I don't know about you But I'm feeling 22 Everything will be alright If you keep me next to you You don't know about me But I'll bet you want to Everything will be alright (alright) If we just keep dancing like we're 22, ooh-ooh (oh, oh, oh) 22, ooh-ooh I don't know about you 22, ooh-ooh 22, ooh-ooh
[Post chorus:] It feels like one of those nights, We ditch the whole scene. It feels like one of those nights, We won't be sleeping. It feels like one of those nights, You look like bad news. I gotta have you, I gotta have you.
[Chorus:] Ooh-ooh Ooh-ooh, ye-e-e-e-eah, hey I don't know about you (I don't know about you) But I'm feeling 22 Everything will be alright If you keep me next to you You don't know about me (you don't know about me) But I'll bet you want to Everything will be alright If we just keep dancing like we're 22, ooh-ooh 22, ooh-ooh 22, ooh-ooh, yeah, yeah PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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22, ooh-ooh, yeah, yeah, yeah [Post chorus:] It feels like one of those nights, We ditch the whole scene It feels like one of those nights, We won't be sleeping It feels like one of those nights, You look like bad news, I gotta have you, I gotta have you. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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Appendix 7: Lyrics of “Starlight” by Taylor Swift
[Chorus:] I said, "Oh my, what a marvelous tune" It was the best night, never would forget how we moved. The whole place was dressed to the nines, And we were dancing, dancing Like we're made of starlight Like we're made of starlight
[Verse 1:] I met Bobby on the boardwalk, summer of '45 Picked me up late one night out the window, We were 17 and crazy, running wild, wild Can't remember what song it was playing when we walked in The night we snuck into a yacht club party Pretending to be a duchess and a prince
[Chorus:] And I said, "Oh my, what a marvelous tune." It was the best night, never would forget how we moved. The whole place was dressed to the nines, And we were dancing, dancing Like we're made of starlight, starlight Like we're made of starlight, starlight
[Pre chorus:] He said, "Look at you: worrying too much about things you can't change. You'll spend your whole life singing the blues if you keep thinking that way." He was tryna skip rocks on the ocean, saying to me, "Don't you see the starlight, starlight? Don't you dream impossible things?"
[Chorus:] Like "Oh my, what a marvelous tune." It was the best night, never would forget how we moved The whole place was dressed to the nines, And we were dancing, dancing Like we're made of starlight, starlight Like we're made of starlight, starlight
[Bridge:] Ooh, ooh, he's talking crazy Ooh, ooh, dancing with me Ooh, ooh, we could get married Have ten kids and teach them how to dream PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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[Chorus:] Oh my, what a marvelous tune It was the best night, never would forget how we moved The whole place was dressed to the nines, And we were dancing, dancing Like we're made of starlight, starlight Like we're made of starlight, starlight Like we're made of starlight, starlight Like we dream impossible dreams
[Post chorus:] Like starlight, starlight Like we dream impossible dreams Don't you see the starlight, starlight? Don't you dream impossible things?