FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE IN MANDAILINGNESE
SONG LYRICS
A THESIS
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of
Sarjana Sastra
ANNISA LATIFAH LUBIS
Registration Number: 2103220005
ENGLISH AND LITERATURE DEPARTEMENT
FACULTY OF LANGUAGES AND ARTS
DECLARATION
Except where appropriately acknowledged, this thesis in my own work, has been
expressed on my own words and has not previously been submitted for
assessment. I understand that this thesis may be screened electronically or
otherwise for plagiarism.
Medan, Agustus 2015
Annisa Latifah Lubis
Reg. No 2103220005
ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
First of all, the writer like to dedicate her special gratitude to Allah SWT, Rabb who has Ar-Rahman and Ar-Rahim who always guide and protect the writer in accomplishing this thesis.
This thesis has been written to fulfill the requirements for the degree of Sarjana Sastra at English and Literature Department of Faculty of Language and Arts the State University of Medan.
During the process of writing this thesis, the writer is indebted to many people for their guidance, helps, comments and suggestion. The writer also would like to dedicate her special gratitude to :
1. Prof. Dr. Syawal Gultom, M.Pd., the Rector of State University of
4. Syamsul Bahri, S.S, M.Hum., the Head of Applied Linguistics Program.
5. Dra. Masitowarni Siregar, M.Ed., her Thesis Advisor, for her advices,
suggestion, correction, motivation, support, ideas and for precioustime that she had given during completing this thesis.
6. Dra. Sri Juriati Ownie, M.A., her Academic Counselor.
7. Drs. Willem Saragih, Dipl.Appl., M.Pd., her reviewer, thanks for the
suggestions, idea, especially giving a time for discussing the thesis.
8. Dr. Rahmad Husein, M.Ed., the Writer’s Reviewer, thanks for the suggestions, idea, especially giving a time for discussing the thesis.
9. Eis Sri Wahyuningsih, S.Pd, M.Pd and Pantes, administrations staff of
English and Literature Departement who always helped the writer during her academic year.
10.Great thanks for The Writer Family, especially her beloved parents,
Denggan Lubis and Maimunah Nasution who never give up to support,
pray, sacrifices, their endless love, giving spritual, financial, and always patient to help the writer. The writer realizes that without their love, she may never have overcome this amazing and long adventure. They always give support to the writer in facing all complications happened in her life. Her beloved sisters, Yumna Alifah Lubis, Mutia Mardiyah Lubis,
Nurul Hidayah Lubis, Halimatus Syakdiah Lubis and her beloved, Waladi Hasan for his support, cares, prays, ideas, and for precioustime
that He had given during completing this thesis.
11.Thanks to all her beloved friends in Aplied Linguistics, especially Nur
Huda and Sumarni Parapat thank you for the suggestion, advices, and
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Finally, the writer would like to invite the readers to give suggestions and responses for the improvement of this thesis in the future because she admits that this thesis is still far from being complete and perfect.
Medan, September 2015
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ABSTRACT
Lubis, Annisa Latifah. 2103220005. Figurative Language in Mandailingnese Song Lyrics. A Thesis. English Department. Faculty of Languages and Arts. State University of Medan. 2015.
This study deals with the use of figurative language in Mandailingnese song lyrics. The objectives of this study are to find out the types and the dominant types of figurative language in Mandailingnese song lyrics. This research is conducted by descriptive qualitative design, which makes a description of the situation or event/occurance. The data of this study is derived from the lyrics of Mandailingnese songs by downloading from internet. The results shows that there are 40 figurative languages. The findings indicated that Mandailingnese song lyrics used eight types of figurative language : Simile, Metaphor, Symbol, Metonymy, Synecdoche, Personification, Hyperbole, and Irony. The total calculations and percentages of figurative language in each types are Simile 8 (20.00%), Metaphor 4 (10.00%), Symbol 2 (5.00%), Metonymy 2 (5.00%), Synecdoche 1 (2.50%), Hyperbole 6 (15.00%), Irony 8 (20.00%). And the dominant types of figurative language is Personification 9 (22.50%).
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LIST OF APPENDICES ... vii
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION ... 1
A. The Background of the Study ... 1
B. The Problem of the Study ... 3
C. The Objective of the Study ... 4
D. The Scope of the Study ... 4
E. The Significances of the Study ... 4
CHAPTER II REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE ... 6
A. Theoretical Framework... 6
B. Figurative Language ... 6
1. Simile ... 8
C. Mandailingnese Song Lyrics ... 19
1. Mandailingnese ... 20
2. Song Lyrics ... 20
D. Conceptual Framework ... 22
CHAPTER III RESEARCH METHOD ... 24
A. Research Method ... 24
B. The Source of Data ... 24
C. The Technique of Collecting Data... 26
v
CHAPTER IV DATA AND DATA ANALYSIS ... 29
A. Data ... 29
B. Data Analysis ... 29
C. Research Findings ... 36
CHAPTER V CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION ... 38
A. Conclusion ... 38
B. Suggestion ... 39
REFERENCES ... 41
vi
LIST OF TABLES
Table Page
Table 3.1 The Source and Title of Song ... 25
Table 4.1 The Explanation of Figurative Language of Each
Lyrics ... 30
vii
LIST OF APPENDICES
Page
Appendix A The Lyrics that Consist of Figurative Language in
Mandailingnese Song Lyrics ... 43
1
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
1.1Background of The Study
Humans are social creature. Because of that, there is no one in this world
that can live without the others. Human have to build a relationship with others to
show their opinion, ideas and feelings. Every human being needs language to
communicate with other societies. They use language in their daily
communication. They can express everything in their mind by using language to
follow every human's activities. In other words, without language they cannot
communicate each other and they will get difficulty in communication, because
language is the most important media of human being to express their ideas.
Walija (1996) said that language is the most complete and effective
communication way to convey ideas, messages, intentions, feelings and opinions.
Language is very important for human not only for expressing ideas, but
also is very important in entertainment world. The example of most creative using
of language in entertainment is song writing. Song is the media for people to
express their feelings, emotions, ideas and opinions. Almost everyone in this
world likes songs because by listening or singing the songs, it will make people
entertained. Listening or singing the songs is the simplest way for entertaining
people.
2
In song writing, the songwriters know that they have to catch listener’s
attention. They have to do this, for instance by using figurative language on the
song’s lyric. Figurative language uses "figures of speech" - a way of saying
something other than the literal meaning of the words. It is a mode of expression
which is used in order to add beauty or emotional intensity of something. Some
examples of figurative language:
- Broken heart. (Her heart is not literally broken into pieces; She just felt hurt
and sad) → Metaphor
- He takes Marlboro from his bag (Marlboro means cigarette) → Metonymy
- Indonesia won the match last year. (Indonesian people who won the match)
→ Synecdoche
There are so many kinds of songs that should be known, for instance
vernacular songs. As the country which has so many cultures and tribes, Indonesia
has many vernaculars automatically. The Mandailingnese is one of the
vernaculars in North Sumatera. Mandailingnese is important part of Mandailing
people because the using of Mandailingnese in their daily communication shows
the identity of Mandailing people. Because there is no previous research that
study about figurative language in Mandailingnese, the writer as Mandailingnese
is interested in analyzing “Figurative Language in Mandailingnese Song Lyrics”.
Some examples of figurative language in Mandailingnese song lyrics are as
3
- Loja pe au paitte janji (I was tired of waiting for your promise)
In “Gabus Do Sude” song lyric. → Personification
- Ulang ma di rasoi ho hatcit na songonon (You should not feel the pain like
this)
In “Asoma Songonon Jadina” song lyric. → Simile
- Bumi dohot langit jadi saksi (The earth and the sky are our witnesses)
In “ParahuCinta” song lyric. → Metaphor
Talking about songs, the songwriters usually use figurative language to
make the listener is interested in listening their songs. But, some people cannot
understand the meaning which is implicit in the song. Because of that, the writer
will explain about figurative language in Mandailingnese song lyrics. There are
two previous researchers as references for this study. Those are: Hutajulu (2012)
The Figurative Language In Mata NajwaTalkshow’s Notes and Berutu (2013) An
Analysis of Figurative Language in Langston Hughes’ Poetry.
1.2The Problems of the Study
Related to the background of the study above, the problems of the research
4
1. What are the types of figurative language used in Mandailingnese
songs?
2. What type of figurative language is dominantly used in the
Mandailingnese songs?
1.3The Objective of the Study
The objectives of this study related of the problems are:
1. To find out the types of figurative language used in Mandailingnese
song.
2. To find out the type of figurative language which is dominantly used
in the song.
1.4The Scope of the Study
This research is limited to the figurative language used in Mandailingnese
song lyrics.
1.5The Significance of the Study
The significance of this study are expected:
1. To provide information to the readers, especially the students of
English Department to increase the knowledge in figurative meaning
5
2. To help those who are interested in making research related to this
study and as a comparison for the research on the same topic or as the
resources for their research.
3. To help the students who want to get many examples of figurative
language from the song lyrics.
4. To help those who do not understand the Mandailingnese, by reading
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CHAPTER V
CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTIONS
A. Conclusion
After analyzing the 40 sentences that contain types of figurative language,
this study makes the conclusion as follows:
1. From the fifteen song lyrics, there were 40 sentences providing the types
of figurative language. There are eight types of figurative language that
used in Mandailingnese song lyrics. They are Simile, Metaphor, Symbol,
Metonymy, Synecdoche, Personification, Hyperbole and Irony. There are
five types of figurative language that not used in Mandailingnese selected
song lyrics, they are Apostrophe, Allegory, Paradox, Understatement, and
Litotes.
2. The total calculations and percentages of figurative language in each types
are Simile 8 (20.00%), Metaphor 4 (10.00%), Symbol 2 (5.00%),
Metonymy 2 (5.00%), Synecdoche 1 (2.50%), Hyperbole 6 (15.00%),
Irony 8 (20.00%). And the dominant type of figurative language is
Personification 9 (22.50%).
3. The dominant type of figurative language that used in Mandailingnese
song lyrics was Personification, which is 9 sentences from 40 sentences or
22.50%. Personification becomes the dominant type of figurative language
37
in Mandailingnese selected songs and it leads us to a statement that the
Mandailingnese songwriter uses personification in Mandailingese song
lyrics to beautify, to make the lyrics more flowery so it can interest the
listener to hear the song because of the used of expressive meaning from
the song lyrics.
Therefore, Personification gives human characteristics to inanimate
objects, animals, or ideas. This can really affect the way the song’s listener
imagines things.
B. Suggestion
Based on the conclusion above, the writer would like to purpose some
suggestions as follows:
1. the listeners of Mandailingnese Songs are suggested to have
background knowledge about figurative language, since it has been
found that there are many lyrics containing of figurative language in
Mandailingnese Song lyrics.
2. the students who want to learn about writing songs lyrics should study
about the use of figurative language to see that the figurative language
can give vigor and style of language in communication between the
writers and the listeners of song.
38
3. English teachers should make the students interested in learning
figurative language in order that the students be easier to understand
what the writer’s message in their songs.
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pp
pppppppp
ollll00llooolloo
ooo
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