Figurative Language In The Song Lyric Of Green Day’s Album Entitled “Warning”
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ISSN: 2302-920X
Jurnal Humanis, Fakultas Ilmu Budaya Unud
Vol 16.1 Juli 2016: 144 – 150
Figurative Language In The Song Lyric Of Green Day’s Album Entitled “Warning”
I Wayan Juliadi Sastra1*, I Gede Putu Sudana2, Sang Ayu Isnu Maharani3 123English Department, Faculty of Letters and Culture, Udayana University 1[dic.co20@yahoo.com] 2[iputugedesudana@yahoo.com] 3[isnu.maharani@yahoo.com]
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Corresponding Author
Abstrak
Studi ini difokuskan kepada aspek semantik dari lirik-lirik lagu di album Warning dari band Green Day. Tujuan dari studi ini dibagi menjadi dua.Pertama, studi inii bertujuan untuk mengidentifikasi fitur-fitur figuratif diantaranya personifikasi, hiperbola, simile, dan ironi yang ditemukan pada lirik-lirik lagu di album Warning dari band Green Day. Kedua, studi ini bertujuan untuk menjelaskan makna kata dari fitur-fitur figuratif, diantaranya personifikasi, hiperbola, simile, dan ironi yang digunakan di dalam lirik-lirik lagu tersebut. Metode yang digunakan untuk studi ini menganalisis secara kualitatif berdasarkan teori figuratif dari Knickerbocker dan Renier(1963) dan teori makna kata dari Geoffrey Leech(1979).
Hasil analisis dalam teori ini menunjukkan bahwa lirik-lirik lagu dalam album Warning mengandung fitur-fitur figuratif diantaranya personifikasi, hiperbola, simile, dan ironi. Makna kata diantaranya konseptual dan konotatif, dipresentasikan di dalam fitur-fitur figuratif tersebut. Fitur-fitur figuratif dan makna kata tersebut digunakan oleh penulis lagu dengan tujuan untuk menghibur endengar dari lagu-lagu tersebut.
Keyword : Bahasa figuratif, Makna kata, Lirik lagu, Green day.
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1. Background of study
There are plenty ways to express our feeling through language such as writing a song. Song is one of a the media used to express feeling, and it seems interesting to be analyzed because the words used is the variety is various. Combinations of vocabulary and very unique. The languages used in a song usually has different meanings from the ordinary language because the language used in the song has a specific purpose.
A song was made to amuse to listener. A song is also one of the best forms of entertainment. In a song we can get the knowledge by interpreting the languages in the song lyrics while we use listening and exploring the deepest meaning of those lyrics. There are variations of language that can be found in the song such as figurative language.
There are several linguistic aspects of the songs such as figurative language aspect and their meanings are discussed in this study. Those figurative language aspects as personification, hypebole, simile, and irony and those meaning conceptual meaning and connotative meaning. The data that were used in this study are the song lyrics from the album Warning by Green day band.
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2. Problem
From the explanation above there are problems that are discussed figurative language in the song lyric of green day album entitled “Warning” as follow:
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1. What are types of figurative language found in the song lyric of Green Day’s album Entitled “Warning”?
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2. What is the meaning of each figurative language found in the song lyric of Green Day’s album Entitled “Warning”?
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3. Aims
This study aimed to analyze Green Day’s album entitled “Warning”. The aimed are:
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1. To identify figurative language the song lyric of Green Day’s album entitled “Warning”.
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2. To find types of figurative language and meaning the song lyric of Green Day’s album entitled “Warning”.
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4. Research method
Data source of this study used primary data because the data are directly taken from Green Day album entitled Warning. That consists of 12 songs, namely Warning, Blood, Sex, and Booze, Church on Sunday, Fashion Victim, Castaway, Misery, Deadbeat Holiday, Hold on, Jackass, Waiting, Minority, Macy’s day parade. The method and technique in collecting data is documentation method and note taking technique. The data in this study were analyze qualitatively based on the theory of figuratie language by knickerbocker and Reninger, the theory of meaning by Leech.
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5. Result and Discussion.
This part deals with the result and the discussion of the data. The data analysis is divided into parts; analysis of figurative language such as personification, hyperbole, simile, irony and the analysis of its meaning.
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a) Personification
According to Knickerbocker and Reninger (1963:367) overstatement of personification is Personification gives human characteristics to an object, animal, or an abstract idea. It is a metaphor, of course, in the sense that there is an implied comparison between a non-human thing and human being. A personification is a figurative language that gives an inanimate object or abstract idea human traits and qualities, such as emotions, desires, sensations, physical gestures, and speech.
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1. “Making your mascara bleed”
In this sentence, seems to show the use of personification. I can find the word mascara, as i know the mascara is a cosmetic for darkening and thickening the eyelashes especially it’s used by women and that is a noun. I can find the second word bleed, bleed is the lose of blood from the body as a
result of injury or illness. Making your mascara bleed that is gives human characteristic to an object, it makes the mascara has a human characteristic, the mascara bleed a blood like human experience when happen in an accident.
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b) Hyperbole
According to Knickerbocker and Reninger (1963:367) overstatement Hyperbole is an exaggeration used for special effect It is not used to mislead the reader, but to emphasize a point. The exaggeration is deliberately used for the effect, and is not to be understood as if it were a literal description. Hyperbole may be used to evoke strong feelings or to create a strong impression, and is not meant to be taken literally.
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1. “My head is in the gutter”
From the sentence above, it seems that the sentence exaggerated. It see use of hyperbole. it is impossible if there my head is in the gutter. Head usually the head is on the top of our body parts. But, there is no head is in the gutter and then no one put the head in the gutter.
This sentence used by the song writer to a man dominate women in a sex that is a fact in relationship. But in this case the women say thank to men after they were having sex and the men ignored a women again. it is looks like contumely from the man to the women.
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c) Simile
According to Knickerbocker and Reninger (1963:367) overstatement Simile is stated a comparison, usually comparing two essentially different objects, actions, or attributes that share some aspect of similarity, introduced by like or as.
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1. “My conscience beating like pulse of a drum”
The sentence above directly compared the two ideas and allowed them to remain distinct in spite of similarities by employing the words like. Pulse of a drum is beat bythe soundofthe drumthat has atightrhythm. The conscience beating that’s author feel had a same characteristic with the pulse of a drum.
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d) Irony
According to Knickerbocker and Reninger (1963:367) overstatement Irony is the statement whose real meaning completely opposed to its professed or surface meaning. It usually skewing between the meaning and the grammatical forms.
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1. “Your home is a headstone”
From the sentence above, clearly the ironic appears in “your home is your headstone”. In this sentence, home is the place where one lives permanently, especially as a member of a family or household. The writer of this song wants to describe home which has atmospherelike agraveyard and the reader and listener pf this song imagine that the situation of this song is horrible.
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e) Conceptual meaning
According to Leech (1979:13) Conceptual meaning is also called denotative meaning or cognitive meaning. It is logical and widely assumed to be the central factor in linguistic communication. The denotation of word is its agreed-upon sense-what it refers to, stands fur, or designates, apart from the feelings it may call up. Leech (1979:13) claims that the aim of the denotative meaning is to provide, for any given interpretation of a sentence, a configuration of abstract symbols, which shows exactly what we need to know if we are distinguish that meaning from all other possible sentence meanings in the language.
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1. “The catastrophic hits from yesterday”
The sentence above does not refer to any other meaning as it can be easily understood by the listener without any confusing since all the words in the sentence can be taken literally. Therefore, it can be assumed that this sentence is using a conceptual meaning as the writer literally describes the sentence without a hidden message or meaning behind it, all the meaning of the words in the sentence above is already written in dictionary. The writer of the song lyrics describes about catastrophic is a bad weather since yesterday.
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f) Connotative meaning
According to Leech (1979:14-15), connotative meaning is the communicative value an expression has by virtue of what it refers to, over and above its purely conceptual content. Connotative meaning is indeterminate and open in the same sense as our knowledge and believe about the universe that are opened-ended. Connotations play a major role in the language of the literature, of politics, of advertising, and of music. Leech says that connotative meaning is not specific to language, but it is shared with other communicative system, such as that in music and the visual art features.
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1. “But she looks like hell to me”
The writer describes about the sentence above is about fashion victim how pathetically brainless people can become in their attempts to perfectly follow the latest fashion. Not only do they spend incredible amounts of money on things that are "in”, but very often they choose things tastelessly, without realizing that an outfit that is considered the latest fashion might not even look good on them "but she looks like hell to me".
The sentence above contains a connotative meaning from the words “looks like hell to me”. So, what she looks like death will pick her up. She feels freak out look what happen to her.
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6. Conclusion
The existence of figurative language in the song lyrics such as hyperbole, personification, simile, and irony as the parts of figure of speech helps the listeners of this song to get the clear imagination about the song lyrics in their minds. On the other hand, the figure of speech which is related with the special way in using words makes the song lyrics become more interesting to the listeners. The listeners of the song lyrics will be entertained while they also get the knowledge about the figure of speech that is used in the song lyrics. Each parts of figure of speech in the song lyric has its own important roles in building the song lyric and listeners’ imagination.
This study also analyzes the meanings those are contained in the figurative language in the song lyrics in all of the song lyrics of the album “Warning”. The meanings those are found are conceptual meanings, connotative meaning. There are found seven conceptual meanings and eight connotative meanings.
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7. Bibliography
Knickerbocker, K.L and H. Williard Reninger. 1963. Interpreting literature. Toronto: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc.
Leech, G.N. 1979. Semantics. Aukland: Penguin Book.
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