EXPERIENTIAL MEANING IN THE STUDENTS’ INTERPRETATION OF SONG LYRICS.

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EXPERIENTIAL MEANING

IN

THE STUDENTS’ INTERPRETATION

OF SONG LYRICS

A thesis

Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements

for

Master’s Degree in English Education

BY

R. YENI DEWI CAHYANI

1007080

ENGLISH EDUCATION PROGRAM

SCHOOL OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES

UNIVERSITAS PENDIDIKAN INDONESIA

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EXPERIENTIAL MEANING

IN THE STUDENTS’ INTERPRETATION

OF SONG LYRICS

A thesis

BY

R. YENI DEWI CAHYANI

1007080

APPROVED BY

Supervisor

Dr. Iwa Lukmana, M.A.

NIP. 196611271993031002

Head of Faculty

Prof. Dr. Emi Emilia

196609161990012000

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Hereby, I declare that this thesis entitled “Experiential Meaning in the Students’ Interpretation of Song Lyrics” is originally composed by myself. The people’s works or statements are written in quotations.

If in the future, it is proven I cheat, I am ready to take responsibility even withdrawing of my academic title.

Bandung, June 2014 The researcher,

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R. Yeni Dewi Cahyani, 2013

EX PERIENTIAL MEANING IN THE STUDENTS’ INTERPRETATION OF SONG LYRICS

Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia | repository.upi.edu | perpustakaan.upi.edu

2.4.1 Representation through Experiential Meaning --- 17

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2.4.2.2.4 Cause Circumstances --- 30

2.4.2.2.5 Accompaniment Circumstances ---- 32

2.4.2.2.6 Role Circumstances --- 32

CHAPTER III RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 3.1 Research Design --- 41

4.2 Representation of the students’ interpretation of the song lyrics in their writing --- 63

CHAPTER V CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS 5.1 Conclusions --- 98

5.2 Suggestions --- 100

REFERENCES --- 101

APPENDICES Appendix 1 The data of the students’ favorite English love song --- 106

Appendix 2 The summary of the students’ comprehension levels in Interpreting the song lyrics --- 108

Appendix 3 The table of the representation of the students’ interpretation of song lyrics --- 115

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Appendix 5 Song lyrics --- 131 Appendix 6 The representation of the student’s texts using transitivity --- 135

LIST OF FIGURE AND TABLES

List of figure:

Figure 2.1 Text in context --- 13

List of tables:

Table 2.1 The example of six possible classifications of relational

processes in terms of modes and types --- 24 Table 2.2 The example of attributive clauses --- 24 Table 2.3 The example of identifying clauses --- 25 Table 4.1 The students’ comprehension levels in interpreting the “Rolling

in the deep” song lyrics --- 50 Table 4.2 The students’ comprehension levels in interpreting the “Because

of you” song lyrics --- 58 Table 4.3 Summary of process type in the texts written by the students --- 64 Table 4.4 Summary of the three dominant processes type in relation

with the sub-category of the process in the texts written by

the students --- 66 Table 4.5 Summary of circumstance in the process type in students’

texts of “Rolling in the deep” interpretation --- 68 Table 4.6 Summary of circumstance in the process type in students’

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CHAPTER I

INRODUCTION

This Chapter consists of the research background, the research problem, the purpose of the study, the scope and limitation, the significance, the method, and the clarification of key terms.

1.1. Research Background

Experiential meaning concerns the use of language that functions as an

instrument of thought to represent the people’s experience of what goes around

them and inside them in a clause as experiential construct (Halliday, 1985). The ideational function of the clause is concerned with the transmission of ideas. Its function is that of “representing processes or experiences: actions, events, processes of consciousness and relations” (Halliday, 1985:53).

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gives a different meaning according to the language use. It means that the language used in the song lyrics can gives different meaning which can influence someone to act or to do something. And it can be a good thing or a bad thing.

The problem is that the literal meaning of song lyrics is often hard to establish, and this meaning is usually enriched with allusion, suggestion, and implied meanings. Moreover, the words are only the beginning. How a song is performed contributes a great deal to its meaning. A song performed at a dance tempo means something different from the same song performed as a ballad.

One of the best ways to get an idea of the different things that a song means and has meant is to see what people have said about it (Peake, 1980). Responses to songs and interpretations of songs are available not just in reviews but also in poems, novels, and letters (Griffee, 1992). The opinions of the original songwriter are sometimes available, and they should be given special weight, but they should not be taken as a gold standard of meaning, because performers and audiences add many meanings of their own that are

also important to a song’s history (Peake, 1980). The ways in which songs take on different meanings in different settings provide potentially rich examples for understanding popular songs as historical evidence (Griffee, 1992).

On the other hand, it is not true that any meaning is as good as any other. Interpretations that contradict the literal meaning of the lyrics or the obvious intent of the performer, that are clearly anachronistic, or that do not

correspond to anyone’s actual reaction to the song have to be considered in a

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always opened to multiple interpretations (Peake, 1980). The richness of using songs as sources for understanding history—and the need to delve deeply into the available evidence when doing so—lies in their openness to such multiple uses and interpretations (Griffee, 1992).

Students interpret the song lyrics in a variety of ways to find the message of the song. When interpreting the song lyrics, it is important to try to understand the conditions of the world as it set up and depicted within the song lyrics (Kurland, 2002). They examine features running throughout the lyrics to see how the discussion shapes their perception of reality. They examine what the lyrics do to convey meaning: how patterns of content and language shape the portrayal of the topic and how relationship between those patterns conveys underlying meaning (Kurland, 2002). There have been many different ideas about how meaning can be represented in their interpretation. There are literally thousands of things, and they are different for each person.Their responses to the song lyrics might different.

This study is primarily focused on capturing the English as foreign language learners’ experience in comprehension the song lyric, i.e. to what extent the song lyrics are comprehended by the students, to analyze how the

students’ interpretation of the song lyrics is represented in their writing, and to recognize the meaning making through representational strategies. This analysis is centered on the use of ideational metafunction which is focused on the experiential meaning. It associates with the representation of what is happening and can be identified through transitivity (Eggins, 2004).

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meanings realize the contextual variable of field (Halliday, 1985). These mean that the ideational function of language concerns for the representation of experience of the world, and reflects the kinds of activities and the types of participants which are involved (Halliday, 1985). These functions can be seen in the studies of the ideational meaning done by Queenie, (2003); Ochi, (2008); and Mulasih, (2007), who stated that the ideational metafunction of the

linguistic patterns of the text (ads and students’ recount) mainly includes the

types of processes (events and relation), the roles of participants and the lexical choice. Meanwhile, Huisman, (2002); Fraser, (1999); and Lock, (1996) mentioned that the natural human experiences which are constituted the

extended human’s environment that prove the theorizing of ideational meaning in SFL and, in particular, for the experiential meaning choices of the Transitivity system could be related to different narrative worlds in different social and historical contexts. They showed that the ideational meaning deal

with the ways the language represents the interlocutor’s experience.

There are different realizations of the ideational meaning processes that appear in those texts. However, it is also found that their studies mainly focused on the writer/author’s point of view, not on the reader’s. Based on this phenomenon, this study is focused on representation of represented text. More specifically, it examines the students’ comprehension of the song lyrics, the analysis of the students’ interpretation of the song lyrics represented in their writing, and the recognition of the meaning making through representational strategies. The analysis of transitivity and its application basically follows the

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1.2. The Research Problem

Since this study analyzes the experiential meaning from the students’ point of view to the song lyric, the questions proposed in the research are:

a. To what extent are the song lyric comprehended by the students?

b. How is the students’ interpretation of the song lyrics represented in their writing?

c. How do the representational strategies build the message?

1.3. The Purpose of the Study

This study is primarily focused on capturing the English as foreign

language learners’ experience in comprehension the song lyric, i.e. to what

extent the song lyrics are comprehended by the students, to analyze how the

students’ interpretation of the song lyrics is represented in their writing, and to recognize the meaning making through representational strategies. This study is also aimed to explore themes that are reflected in their broader experience while reading, listening, and interpreting the song lyrics.

1.4. The Scope and Limitation of the Study

This study focuses to examine the experiential meaning in the two

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This study was conducted at the second semester students of Art. The students are asked to represent their understanding of the song lyrics through the writing task. Since the ideational meaning consists of experiential meaning and logical meaning, in order to limit the research and detail research, this study focuses on the experiential meaning represented by transitivity system. This study also focuses on the major clauses in students’ texts due to only the major clauses which can be analyzed using transitivity system.

1.5. The sample of the study

The study was conducted at the third semester students of art who has taken the English subject and passed in this subject. The sample size of 8 male students and 7 female students were the total of subjects who were willing to participate in this study. These participants were grouped according to their grades in English subject, i.e. A, B, and C.

1.6. The Significance of the Study

The study is organized to describe the experiential meaning in the

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field of systemic functional grammar, particularly in the ideational meaning which is realized through transitivity and critical discourse analysis. Third, it is expected to be useful for improving the quality of critical thinking in written discourse. Finally it is hoped that through this study the students are able to explore the meaning of text in its context, to use the right process to represent the meaning accurately.

1.7. Methods of study

This study applied a qualitative method as a procedure to understand and to describe the world of human experience. As a qualitative study, this research describes the data to discover meanings by improving the comprehension of the whole and to explore the richness, depth, and complexity of phenomena (Strauss & Corbin, 1990). It reveals the story behind what quantitative results might show and will be much more conducive to finding answers to the research questions.The instrument to be used in analyzing the data was a systemic functional grammar (Halliday, 1994; Eggins, 2004)) with the transitivity system as a framework in analyzing the experiential meaning of the text.

Data of this study were selected by purposive sampling. The data were gathered from the students’ interpretation of the song lyrics through writing task. The theme song used here is focused on the songs about relationships i.e.,

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because these songs were popular among the students. Many students of art recognized these songs.

The students were later grouped according to their grades in English subject, i.e. A, B, and C. Each of the students wrote their interpretation of the song lyrics. There are 10 texts in each group, 5 texts for “Rolling in the deep”

and 5 texts for “Because of you”. These categorizing was attempted to simplify the analysis of this study.

In this study, data analysis was performed in four steps. The first step is to divide the texts into clauses, then to identify the transitivity that appears in the clauses by analyzing the components of transitivity (the processes (material, mental, behavioral, relational, verbal, existential), the participants (actor, senser, goal, behaver, token, and so on) and the circumstances (matter, manner, role, and so on) (Eggins, 2004). The third step is to identify the trends in the use of transitivity by looking at the distribution of use through the frequency and percentage. Finally, is to recognize how the representational strategies build the message.

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presumed that they have already memorized certain facts at the literal level and now they are attempting to see the implications of the author’s words.

For the flexibility of the study the respondents were required to write their responses in a piece of paper and were given a freedom to respond to the text. Then, their texts were compared with the song interpretation from the source. More details of the research methodology will be explained in Chapter III.

1.8. Clarification of Key Terms

Linguistics jargon is notorious for its ambiguity. Different terms mean different things to different people. So for clarification, some of the key terms used in this study are listed below, together with an explanation.

 Experiential meaning is the use of language that functions as an

instrument of thought to represent the people’s experience of what goes

around them and inside them in a clause as experiential construct (Halliday, 1994).

 Interpretation is the expression of a person conception of a subject

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 Comprehension is the capacity of the mind to perceive and to

understand the act or action of grasping with the intellect (Webster Dictionary). Webster also tells us that reading is “to receive or take in sense of (as letter or symbols) by scanning; to understand the meaning of written or printed matter; to learn from what one has seen or found

in writing or in print.”

 Representation is the process produced meaning and exchanged it

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CHAPTER V

CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS

This chapter is divided into two sub chapters. The first one is conclusion containing the results of the study. The second one is suggestion containing the recommendation for readers who are interested in the same subject.

5.1. CONCLUSIONS

This study examines the comprehension of the students to the song lyrics, the process of experiential meaning represented in their writing and the meaning making through representational strategies. Based on the findings discussed and presented in the previous chapter, there are a few conclusions could be drawn. They are mentioned in the following sections.

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The students’ interpretations of song lyrics represented in the writing task from

the transitivity point of view shows that there are different types of processes and their ways applied in the texts. The finding shows that the differences occur in the use of processes and their functions. There are three dominant processes that appear in the

students’ text in representing their interpretation of both songs, i.e. material, relational,

and mental processes. However, there are differences in the order of their occurrences.

The dominant process applied in the students’ texts of “Rolling in the deep”

interpretation is material process. Then it is followed by relational process and mental

process. Meanwhile, the dominant process applied in the students’ texts of “Because of you” interpretation is relational process. Then it is followed by material process and

mental process. The dominant use of material processes in “Rolling in the deep” interpretation functions to show that the students’ texts describe the material processes

that realized in the explicit physical action. Meanwhile, the dominant use of the

relational processes in “Because of you” functions to describe the experience happening to the singer. The use of mental processes in the students’ text of both song

interpretation functions to disclose mental state of the singer. Construction of interpretation in this case depends on clues from the text and probability, which is determined both by facts from texts and connotations.

In the context of the making of meaning (Meaning-Making) of the song lyrics is in the form of the process of the acquisition of knowledge. It is about “expressing

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and is internalized to give comprehension of the nuances, values and implication of knowledge.

In relation to the meaning making through representational strategies, the meaning making through the representational strategies shows that the students’ texts describe the material processes that realized in the explicit physical action, the relational processes that describe the experience happening to the singer, and the mental processes that disclose mental state of the singer. Construction of interpretation in this case depends on clues from the text and probability, which is determined both by facts from texts and connotations. The three processes dominated in the students’ text synergized to build the representation of the song meaning related to the meaning which was meant by the song writer.

The similarities occur in term of circumstances, the circumstances of matter

applied in both texts (students’ texts of Rolling in the deep and Because of you

interpretation). The similar circumstances are influenced by the topic of the songs. Both songs talk about the pain and the sadness.

5.2. SUGGESTIONS

Though this research has not yet revealed the whole problem covering in

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