Metaphor Review of Related Theories

somehow. In this metaphoric expression, a prison which means a building to which people are legally committed as a punishment for a crime or while awaiting trial based on Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, is used to symbolize a home where it is usually described as permanent place to stay peacefully with families. The symbolization in metaphoric expression is used in order to create image beyond what an expression is said lexically. As stated by Jay Parini in An Invitation to Poetry, symbol is simply the extension of a metaphor to include things beyond its immediate field or scope. Besides, a symbol also controls reader’s imagination to define metaphor meaning based on the context of the story they heard or read. On the other hand, there is also classifications of metaphor. In her book entitled Meaning-Based Translation: A Guide to Cross-Language Equivalence, Larson distinguished metaphor into two classifications, they are dead metaphor and live metaphor. Dead metaphor is a figurative language which its usage has already been popular. People are already familiar with the expressions because it is a kind of conventional and it is also used as daily expression. The point why dead metaphor expressions were formed or their comparison do not longer become the main concern because they are used in daily usage. When a dead metaphor is used, the person listening or reading does not thing about the primary sense of the words, but only about the idiomatic sense directly Larson, 1998: 274. The simple way to understand the explanation above is by providing example. In the clause leg of the table, there is no relation between leg and table, but how come the bottom part of a table which has function as prop can be called as leg? This famous expression is the example of the common usage of dead metaphor and people use it easily without thinking how the expression was formed because its familiarity in daily life. On the other hand, dead metaphor is also used to call idioms. Idiom is also a common figurative expression which its usage is found daily. That is why dead metaphor is considered the same as idioms. An idiom is a dead metaphor. That is, the person using it no longer thinks of the comparison on which it was based Larson, 1998: 274. Besides, Larson also said that dead metaphor is a part of idiomatic constructions of the lexicon of the language. Another figure who said that a dead metaphor is an idiom is Weston W. Fields in his study entitled The Translation of Biblical Live and Dead Metaphor and Similes and Other Idioms. A dead metaphor may be defined simply as a fixed idiom, a metaphor which has become so much part of the language that the original impetus for its usage may even forgotten http:biblicalstudies.org.ukpdfgtj02-2_191.pdf Live metaphor is a new figurative language which is made in a certain occasion and is able to be understood without any further information. A live metaphor is made by the author in order to teach or to give illustration of an expression. As a live metaphor is made freely without any bond to certain familiar expressions, it is often used to create readers or listeners’ imagination in reading poems or listening to music. Live metaphors, on the other hand, are those which are constructed on the spot by the author or speaker to teach or illustrate Larson, 1998: 274. As live metaphor is made based on creativity of an author, readers or listeners sometimes are forced to think harder in defining the meaning of the expressions. Authors use certain image or symbol to add aesthetic value in describing something. For example, the expressions of ‘You are my rainbow’, ‘Her skin is silk’, and ‘I love you to the moon and back’. Live metaphor also takes role in song lyrics which mostly similar to poems. In this study, live metaphor exists in song lyrics in order to create listeners’ imagination about the song’s meaning by related it to the context of the songs. A live metaphor, on the other hand, is one which is understood only after paying special attention to the comparison which is being made Larson, 1998: 274.

C. Theoretical Framework

The theoretical reviews applied in this undergraduate thesis are theory on the definition of lexical semantics and metaphor. They are the basic understanding of the topic which is discussed in this study. The first problem can be answered by the classification of metaphor by Mildred L. Larson. This study also uses the theory of signifier and signified by Ferdinand de Saussure to describe the process of defining the lexical meaning and metaphor definition by Palmer to describe the process of defining the metaphorical meaning of the expressions. The semantic properties are also used in order to answer the second problem completely by strengthen the characteristics of lexical and metaphorical meaning found. 19

CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY

A. Object of the Study

This part presents the description of the object of the study which includes what data is going to be analyzed and what linguistic elements contained. The object of this study is the metaphoric expressions found in the song lyrics. The data are taken from 19 parts of lyrics which taken from 15 different Coldplay’s songs. The data are presented as follow: No. Song Titles Song Lyrics 1. Magic You’re such a precious jewel 2. A Sky Full of Stars You’re such a heavenly view 3. A Sky Full of Stars Cause you’re a sky full of stars 4. True Love The fire would sparkle in your eyes 5. A Message And I’m on fire for you, clearly 6. True Love When I was yours and you were blind 7. Warning Sign And you were an island to discover 8. Clocks You are home where I wanted to go 9. Till Kingdom Comes For you I’d wait till kingdom comes 10. Sparks My heart is yours 11. Swallowed in the Sea You put me in a shelf and kept me for yourself 12. Christmas Lights Tears, we cried a flood 13. Yes But night makes a fool of us in daylight 14. Christmas Lights Got all kinds of poison in my blood 15. Yes Yeah, we were dying of frustration 16. Miracles I blossom and die 17. Trouble A spider web it’s tangled up with me 18. Lost You might be a big fish in a little pond 19. Us Against the World In my heart, she left a hole

B. Approach of the Study

In order to analyze meaning, this undergraduate thesis uses semantics approach. The approach is also used to answer the problems which are formulated in the first chapter. Semantics approach is the scientific study of language and a part of linguistics which focuses on the meaning of the sentences, phrases, or words Palmer, 1976:1. It explains the process of the metaphor states other meanings besides what is written literally. This undergraduate thesis also uses lexical semantics to define the literal meaning of the metaphoric expressions and uses metaphor to define the metaphorical meaning itself. The last term, the semantic properties are used to compare the characteristic between the lexical meaning and the metaphorical one in order to strengthen the meaning.

C. Method of the Study

In order to make the analyzing process better, the method which is used to conduct this study is distinguished into two other parts. Those method are described as follow: 1. Data Collection The data is taken from Coldplay’s song lyrics. First, this study chooses several parts of lyrics from different titles which contain metaphoric expressions. After that, those metaphoric expressions which had been collected are made into a list. To make it structured better, the data are put into different classifications of metaphor where they are suitted on. 2. Data Analysis The classification of metaphor based on the data should be determined first. This section is done in order to see its influence to the metaphorical meaning seen through the classification. After the classification is made, this present study continues to analyze the metaphorical meaning of each metaphoric expression. The steps start from defining lexical meaning of the metaphoric expression. After that, it continues to define metaphorical meaning by seeing the relation of the context of the song and characteristics of each lexical and metaphorical meaning.