THE SEMIOTIC APPROACH OF THE METAPHORS IN THE LAND OF FIVE TOWERS NOVEL
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THE SEMIOTIC APPROACH OF THE METAPHORS IN THE LAND OF FIVE TOWERS NOVEL
By:
KADEK WAHYU GUNA PUTRA ENGLISH DEPARTMENT FACULTY OF LETTERS AND CULTURE UDAYANA UNIVERSITY
Abstrak
Apapun di dalam dunia ini bisa dianggap sebagai sebuah tanda asalkan seseorang menginterpretasikannya sebagai sebuah tanda. Kehidupan manusia sangat bergantung pada tanda sebagai sarana komunikasi. Tanda tidak hanya berupa benda, tapi juga berupa suara, bau, teks, gerak tubuh, dan objek. Seperti yang disebutkan, teks juga dapat menjadi tanda. Dalam hal ini, contoh teks yang dapat dikaji dengan pendekatan semiotika adalah metafora. Karena fungsinya yang memungkinkan pembaca untuk mendapatkan pemahaman yang lebih besar dari sebuah konsep dan dari segi artistik, metafora dapat ditemukan dengan mudah sehari-hari seperti dalam puisi, novel dll. Data diambil dari novel The Land of Five Towers karya A Fuadi. Novel ini dipilih karena novel best seller ini mengandung banyak ekspresi metafora yang menjadi pembahasan utama dalam penelitian ini. Metafora terdiri dari subjek utama "literal" yang disajikan dalam sebuah objek sekunder "kiasan". Dalam semiotika, metafora melibatkan satu petanda, bertindak sebagai penanda mengacu pada penanda yang berbeda. Fungsi yang unik dari penanda (signifier) dan petanda (signified) dari metafora ini sangat menarik untuk dikaji. Dalam studi ini, metafora diklasifikasikan menggunakan teori metafora Lakoff kemudian signified dan signifier diperiksa menggunakan teori semiotik Saussure.
Kata kunci: penanda, petanda, metaphor
Communication is essentially needed by human being. As a social creature, human needs to communicate to other human in order to fulfill their needs. One kind of communication processes is through signs. Human uses and produces sign in their daily life as a communication device. Signs can be found easily around us every day. Waking up when heard the alarm, stopping when the traffic light turns red, and of course taking meal when feeling hungry are examples of the existence of signs in our daily activity. Sounds of alarm, traffic light, gesture are some kind of signs. Sign takes the form of words, images, sounds, odours, gestures, and object. The study of sign is called semiotics. Road signs are great examples of signs since they have clear meaning behind them. Anything can be a sign as long as someone interprets it as “signifying” something – referring or standing for something other than itself (Candler : 2007)
Since a text can also be seen as a sign, metaphors are not an exception. According to the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, metaphor is a word or phrase used to describe somebody/something else, in a way that is different from its normal use, in order to show that the two things have the same qualities and to make the description more powerful. The word metaphors originally come from Greek metaphorsa: transition, exchange.
Metaphors consist of a ”literal” primary subject expressed in a “figurative” secondary object. In other words, metaphors are expressions used to express another meaning. In semiotic terms, metaphor involves one signified acting as signifier referring a different signifier. This study analyzed the metaphors the novel The Land of Five Towers contains.
Based on the background above, there are several problems in this study. They are:
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1) What are the types of metaphors in the novel The Land of Five Towers?
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2) What is the signifier and signified of the metaphors in the novel The Land of Five Towers?
The aims of this study are:
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1) To classify the metaphors in the novel The Land of Five Towers.
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2) To investigate the signifier and the signified in the metaphors in the novel The Land of Five Towers contains.
The data were taken from the novel The Land of Five Towers written by A Fuadi (2011). The consideration of choosing this novel is that this bestseller novel contains a lot of metaphorical expressions that are the main discussion of this study.
The method used in this study was documentary method. The data were collected using both library research and online research. The library research was used to obtain information about semiotic theories, the signifier and the signified and also to find the theories and concepts about metaphors.
The data were analyzed based on the theories applied in this study.
The data were taken from the novel and classified based on their kinds. After that, several metaphors were randomly examined to find out the signifier and signified. Lakoff’s metaphors classification concept is implemented in the classification process while the semiotic theory proposed by Saussure was
used to examine of metaphors to find out the signifier and signified in the metaphors.
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5. Analysis of Metaphors in The Land of Five Towers Novel
5.1 Classification of Metaphors in the Novel The Land of Five Towers
After an intensive reading of the novel, it was found that approximately there were 246 metaphors in forty-six chapters in The Land of Five Towers novel. Based on the Lakoff and Johnson’s concept, metaphors can be divided into three: orientational metaphor, ontological metaphor, and structural metaphor.
Orientational metaphor does not structure on concept in terms of another, but organizes a whole system of concept with respect to one another, primarily relating to spatial organization (up/down, in/out, front/back, left/right, on/off, near/far, deep/shallow and central/peripheral);
Example :
|
Number |
Metaphor |
Page |
|
1 |
The dream world I had built up in my head for so long slowly rattled, and then collapsed in the blink of an eye. |
8 |
In that sentence there are two concepts of orientation: built up and collapsed. The conceptual metaphor is construct is up, broken is down. The reason of using built up is based on our experience that to make a building there are steps that need to be followed and normally, the next step is done based on the previous steps. While the experience of collapsed in our daily life is related to something that falls down. This is possible because of the gravity that always pulls everything to the ground. Imagine
if the satellites in the orbit collides each other, in this cases the concept of collapse may be unsuitable since there is no gravity in the orbit.
The concept of ontological metaphor is identifying our experiences as entities or substance. Once we can identify our experiences as entities or substance, we can refer to them, categorize them, group them, and quantify them—and, by this means, reasoning about them.
One of the examples of ontological metaphors in this novel is hearts is an entity. Viewing heart as an entity provides us broad range of usage of it in daily life as seen in the novel below:
Hearts is an entity
|
No |
Metaphor |
Page |
|
1 |
But my heart jumped for joy |
5 |
In this example, heart refers to the feeling, therefore, this metaphor is an example of referring. Instead of using word “feeling”, this example uses the word “heart” because in our daily experience we thought that heart is the place where emotion takes place.
Moreover, this metaphor is assumed that heart is something that has legs that provides ability to jump. This is the essence of ontological metaphors—identifying our experience as entities or substance—. In this case, the word jumped comes from our daily experience that when we feel happy, joy, or pleasure, we use to jump to express it. Therefore, it can be concluded that this example is referring heart as a substance that has legs to jump for happiness.
Structural metaphor involves multiple concepts in single metaphor. This kind of metaphors is slightly different from ontological or orientational metaphors. In orientational and ontological metaphor there is a single concept of daily experience on it, however, in structural metaphors, multiple conceptual metaphors can be applied at once. For example: time is money. This metaphor has two concepts on it: time is quantity and time is a resource. The structural metaphors can also be found in The Land of Five Towers novel:
|
No |
Metaphor |
Page |
|
1 |
To hand in the result of my mission and seize my freedom back |
77 |
In this case, at least there are two freedom concepts applied at once. First is freedom is my right and freedom is resource. The concept of freedom is my right can be clearly seen as part of “my freedom”. It is indicated that freedom is someone right and personal properties, while the concept of freedom is resource which is applied on “seize my freedom back”. The use of the word “seize” indicates that freedom is something that we need, we want, we have and we put effort into maintain freedom therefore, it leads to the concept of freedom is resource.
As a semiotic study, this paper also analyzes the semiotics features of metaphors found in novel The Land of Five Towers. As mentioned earlier, semiotic is a study about sign or simply by X=Y formula, in which X is called signifier while Y is signified. However in metaphor there is not only one X (signifier) instead two as seen in a metaphor found in the novel The Land of Five Towers below:
The ground appeared to be covered by a white carpet (page 1)
That metaphor consists of two domains; target and source domains. Target domain is the ground while source domain is white carpet. The formula is X= the ground and Y= is covered by a white carpet. However, there is one more formula in that metaphor, Y=X1=Y1 as seen in the structure below:
The ground appears to be covered by a white carpet
White carpet = Snow
Carpet with white color Cotton, etc.
After an intensive reading and analysis, there are three types of metaphor found in The Land of Five Towers Novel. They are (1) Orientational metaphor (2) Ontological metaphor and (3) Structural metaphor. As to metaphor properties involve one signified (Y) acting as signifier (X1) referring to another signified (Y1), The Saussure’s semiotic theory was applied twice to analyze the signifier and the signified of the metaphor. As seen in the formula X=Y=X1 =Y1.
From the explanation above, it can be concluded that metaphor is a kind of signs that exist in everyday life not only as a device for enhancing and beautifying text or speech but also as foundation of the conceptual system.
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