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INTRODUCTION

1.1. Background of The Analysis

People as human beings have capabilities to communicate with each

other. They communicate among themselves, about their activities, and others. All

the words which they communicate are called language. Language organizes the

content of communication, what human beings want to talk about, into sounds that

are heard or written symbols that are read.

People have various ways to talk to each others, by using spoken

language, written language, or gesture. All of them have meaning and message to

be conveyed by speaker to hearer. Robert (1957:18) states that language is a

system of speech sounds by which human beings, communicate with one other.

The aim of speaker expresses his idea through language is to make the

hearer understand through the meaning in the language. Meaning is a part of

language and through language we give and take meaning. Linguistics as the

study of language is an interesting study because of development and changes of

language.

Semantics is one of the branches of linguistics that studies meaning,

Leech (1981:5) says, “The aim of semantics is to explain and describe meaning in

natural language”. The meaning of a word can be defined based on the particular

context and discipline; as example, yellow is the colour between orange to bright

red and green; while in the context of traffic light yellow means be careful. In

informal western community it may means easily frightened.

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meaning means exactly what the speaker says. Literal meaning is we mean what

our words mean, as example, you are brilliant, means you are clever. Non-literal

meaning is we mean something different from what our words mean. You are

brilliant literally means “you are clever” but when the speaker says to somebody

that has made a mistake “you are brilliant” means “you are stupid”. The goal of

speaker convey his idea through language is to make the hearer understand what

the speaker want to express or share. Sometimes the hearer gets the wrong

interpretation because the speaker utters a word that has other meaning from the

original meaning. That is called non-literal meaning.

In non-literal meaning, there are number of different ways one can speak

non-literally, that is by using figures of speeches. Richard (1985:105) says,

“figure of speech is a word or phrase which is used for special effect, and which

does not have its usual or literal meaning”.

There are some most common kinds of figurative speech namely

metaphor which compares two unlike objects and substitutes one for the other,

personification is an expression of giving in inhuman thing of human qualities,

hyperbole is an expression that exaggeration, simile is an expression of a

comparison of two unlike object things that show similarity, synecdoche is an

expression that show a part represent the whole object or idea, litotes mean saying

less than is actually the case.

For examples:

1. The moon runs away.

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3. Don’t want your hand this time, I will save my self.

4. He eats like a pig.

5. A glooming girl.

The first sentence is personification, the word moon is considered as having the

ability of an inanimate thing that is running away. It means that the night is very

dark since the moon does not shine brightly as if run away. The second sentence is

hyperbole, it means that she/he will give everything to her/his beloved one. The

third sentence is synecdoche. Hand here does not mean she/he does not want

somebody’s hand but here hand means/refers to somebody, the use of apart to

mean the whole thing. In simple the sentence means I don’t need you, I can do it

alone. The fourth sentence is simile, in the expression the way of he eats is

compared with a pig. A pig has a connotation with dirty, smell, and greedy. So the

expression above means he eats greedily. The fifth sentence is metaphor, the word

glooming means growing. The sentence means a girl which is growing adult.

Hornby (1995:1133) says that a song is a piece of music with words that

is sung. Song lyric is composed by a composer to expresses his feeling. The

composer also use non-literal meaning to beautify his song lyric. Song lyric is one

of interesting works that give the enjoyment by read or hear it, it also tells some

information that expressed a deep meaning.

The Corrs is a celtic folk rock group from Dundalk, Ireland. The Corrs,

an Irish quartet is composed of Andrea Jane, Caroline Georgine, Sharon Helga

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many interesting song lyrics that give non-literal expression in their works.

In this thesis, the writer adopted figurative expression that are found in

the selected song lyrics of The Corrs. The writer chooses the lyric as the object of

her analysis because there are many figurative/non-literal meaning found in the

selected song of The Corrs. The Corrs is one of the writer favorite group music.

1.2. Problem of The Analysis

In analyzing non-literal meaning in the selected song lyrics of The Corrs,

there are two problems namely, they are:

• What kind of non-literal meanings found in the selected song lyrics of The

Corrs?

• What is the meaning of each of non-literal meanings that found in the selected

song lyrics of The Corrs?

1.3. Objective of The Analysis

By doing this thesis, the writer wants to achieve some objective that

stated as follow:

• To find out the kinds of non-literal meanings that are found in the selected

song lyrics of The Corrs.

• To describe meaning of the each of non-literal meanings in the selected

songs lyrics of The Corrs.

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The writer limits the analysis only in the non-literal meaning from the

selected song lyrics of The Corrs based on some figurative meaning namely

personification, hyperbole, synecdoche, simile, metaphor (Kennedy (1982:584-

595)). The writer chooses 16 hit songs from 3 albums of The Corrs; In Blue

(2000), Best of The Corrs (2001), and Borrowed Heaven (2004) that contain many

non-literal meaning. The sixteen songs are All The Love in The World,

Breathless, Irresistable, One Night, Radio, Runaway, So Young, Summer

Sunshine, Would You Be Happier, The Hardest Day of My Life, Make You Mine,

Only When I Sleep, Black is The Colour, Forever May Not Be Long, Heart Like a

Wheel, and Looking Through Your Eyes. The sixteen songs are collected because

the writer assumes that they are represented enough to be the data.

1.5. Significance of The Analysis

The significances of this thesis are expected:

• To be one of the references for the students who are interested in this

subject.

• To give information and description about non-literal meanings that can be

found in The Corrs’ lyric.

1.6. Methods of the Analysis

In writing this thesis, the writer applies descriptive analysis and library

research. Nawawi (1991:63) says that “metode deskriptif dapat diartikan sebagai

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menggambarkan/melukiskan keadaan subyek/obyek penelitian (seseorang,

lembaga, masyarakat, dan lain-lain) pada saat sekarang berdasarkan fakta-fakta

yang tampak atau sebagaimana adanya”. The writer reads some books and

references that related to the subject matter, the writer collects and selects the

relevant data. In analyzing the data, the writer peels several kinds of non-literal

meaning which found in The Corrs selected song lyrics. The kind of datais

qualitative data. Nawawi (1991:97) says that “Data kualitatif dinyatakan dalam

bentuk kalimat atau uraian”. Besides that, some information are searched through

web sites.

1.7. Review of Related Literature

There are two kinds of meaning in semantic; they are literal and non-

literal meaning. This thesis deals with a semantic analysis, which is focused on

non-literal meaning.

Peregrine (2003) words literal expressions denote what they mean

according to common or dictionary usage, while words in non-literal expressions

(figurative) connote additional layers of meaning.

Miller and Greenberg (1986:66) state, “Non-literal language used a

means of indirect statement that says one thing in terms of another”. From the two

opinions above the writer infer that in literal meaning, speaker mean something

from what their words mean. In non-literal meaning, we mean something different

from what our words mean.

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whenever a speaker or writer for the sake of freshness or emphasis, depart from

the usual denotation of words”. He defined the figure of speech as follows:

• Metaphor is statement that one thing is something else, which in literal

sense, it is not.

• Personification is a figure of speech in which a thing, an animal or abstract

term(truth, nature) is made human.

• Hyperbole is a statement containing exaggeration to emphasized a point.

• Metonymy is the name of the thing is substituted for that another closely

associated with it.

• Synecdoche is the use of a part of thing to stand for the whole of it or vice

versa.

• Simile is a comparison of two things indicated by some connective, usually

like, as, than or such resembles.

In completing this thesis, the writer also refers to some related literature

from previous thesis, they are:

Idham (2003) in his thesis An Analysis of Non-literal Meaning in

Obscene Language Used in Slipknot’s Selected Song, he concluded that there are

32 cases of the using non-literal meaning in the song, they are 16 cases for

facetious way, 9 cases for sarcastic, 7 cases for ironic, 14 cases for exaggerated

way and 2 cases for figurative way.

Salim (2005) in his thesis An Analysis of Non-literal Meaning Found in

Gun’s ‘n Roses’ Lyrics, he founded there are 6 metaphors found in the song.

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analysis focuses on the non-literal meaning in The Corrs’ selected lyrics. Actually,

this analysis has same scope with theses above, that is the non-literal meaning but

with different objects.

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