The Meanings of Metaphors Found in Taylor Swift’s Songs Entitled Mean and Sparks Fly
The Meanings of Metaphors Found in Taylor Swift’s Songs Entitled Mean and Sparks Fly
A Sarjana Pendidikan Thesis
Presented as Partial Fulfilment of the Requirement
To Obtain the Sarjana Pendidikan Degree
In English Language Education
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By
Putri Melati Tri Santoso
Student Number: 131214158
ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM
DEPARTMENT OF LANGUAGE AND ARTS EDUCATION
FACULTY OF TEACHERS TRAINING AND EDUCATION
SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY
2016
Chapter 1
INTRODUCTION
In this chapter, there are four things that will be presented. First is the background of the study. Second is research question. Third is significance of the study. Then, the last thing that will be discussed in this chapter is the definition of term.
- Background of the study
Music is known by people in the earth and it will be hard to separate music from them. It means that music cannot be separated from people daily life. People mostly listen to music during their activity such as when they are cooking, reading something, taking shower or even when they are having their meal. It is impossible that people do not love music. The main reason why they love music is because it represents human feelings. Each feeling and each state of mind has its own inherent sound and rhythm, and these have their objective counterpart in music. In addition, music contains several properties such as rhythm, melody, tone and song lyrics. Song lyrics are the most important things that can attract the listener to listen to the song.
Song lyric is one of poetry types which mean it also a literary work. Beautiful word which used in the song can affect the listener to imagine the story behind the song.
Like literature in general, song lyrics often reflect the times in which they were written. Sieber (2017) explained the culture of music and song in China during Marco Polo’s time. Although the melodies of many songs have been lost, most of the lyrics survived, but these lyrics can help understand diversity in a different time and give insight into a medieval diversity that is seemingly understated. By studying lyrics there is a distinct picture of the different people present and influential.
Every musician has different styles in writing a song and Taylor Swift is one of those musicians. Actually, she is an American singer and song writer from Pennsylvania, United States. She started her career when she was 14 years old in Nashville and carries country music in her existence. So, Taylor Swift is well-known for her country music genre but now she also puts pop and pop rock to her genre. After her long journey to the top surface level, she finally getting famous and now she has release 5 albums. Taylor swift is a famous musician; she has received many award and honours, including Gammy Awards, American Music Awards, Country Music Association Awards, Academy of Country Music Awards, Billboard Music Awards, Brit Awards and Amy. Taylor swift is also the second most awarded artist at the Teen Choice Awards, with 25 awards. As a songwriter, she has been honoured by the Nashville Songwriters Association and the Song Writers Hall of Fame.
As the one of famous musicians, she has her own strategies to attract her listener. One of her strategies is make an easy-listening melody and super attracting song lyrics on her song. She also uses many metaphors in her songs. Those metaphors help her to make the song and song lyrics become more poetic as a literary work.
As Taylor Swift used many metaphors in her songs, sometimes it creates confusion to define the meaning of the songs. It is true that her songs lyrics are very amazing and attracting people to listen to her song but somehow it is also confusing. This case leads the researcher to conduct this research study.
- Problem Formulation
Based to the background of the study, the researcher formulates the research questions as follows:
- What metaphors are found in Mean and Sparks Fly song lyrics by Taylor Swift?
- What are the meanings of those metaphors?
- Significance of the Studies
The aim of this study is to answer the questions formulated in problem formulation. The first research question is to identify the metaphor in selected Taylor Swift’s song lyrics. The answer will help the reader and the listener to recognize kinds of metaphor on those selected songs. The second research question is to understand the functions of connotation meaning in Taylor Swift’s metaphor. It will help the reader and the listener to understand how Taylor Swift’s metaphor. It will help the reader and the listener to understand how Taylor Swift applies the function of connotation meaning into her song lyrics. In addition, this study can also be used as a reference for those who are going to make a thesis about poetry.