12 Masruri
2012 analyzed the Letto‟s song lyrics in an album entitled Truth, Cry, and Lie. He was to find types of figurative language used in the ten songs
inside the album and also to find the type of figurative language that was mostly used in the lyrics. The approach which was used in the research was qualitative
descriptive analysis that meant that he gave the description of figurative language used in the song lyrics of Letto. Then, he found that there were some types of
figurative language used in the Letto ‟s song lyrics which were personification 9,
ellipsis 23, rhetoric 10, metaphor 3, synecdoche 1, anticlimax 1, and pleonasm 1. It could be seen that ellipsis was the figurative language type that
was the most frequently used in the songs. Different from the previous studies, this research focuses on figurative
meanings found in The Script‟s song lyrics. The researcher also tries to figure out
the figurative language types which predominate in The Script‟s album. The data
source of this research is the latest album of The Script No Sound without Silence that consists of eleven new songs. Furthermore, the lyrics of the eleven songs are
analyzed line by line based on the theories explained.
B. Theoretical Description
Figurative language refers to words or phrases which do not represent exactly what is written or spoken. Jay 2003, p. 313
confirms that “figurative speech is not intended to be interpreted l
iterally.” He further explains that “figurative language can describe something or compare two different things to
make the situation clearer and more interesting. ”
13 It is not easy to understand the meaning of the figurative language because
sometim es “the meaning can be ambiguous and it can be difficult to pin down out
of the context ” Jay, 2003, p. 313. People use figurative language in the daily
communication. If addressees cannot understand the figurative language ‟s
meaning expressed by the speaker, then the communication is not delivered well which means that “figurative language requires a special process that occurs only
after the litera l fails” Jay, 2003, p. 314. The figurative language usage is also
found in the song lyrics. The songwriters use the figurative language to attract the listeners and make the songs more interesting. Grice
1978 “assumes that the listener has to do extra cognitive work to figure out the meaning of figurative
language” as cited in Jay, 2003, p. 314. The listeners need to think harder and beyond the lyrics which are written in the songs.
The researcher analyses the types of figurative language applied in the lyrics of The Script‟s eleven new songs. Here, the researcher provides a synthesis
of the theories of the types of figurative language. Each type of figurative language is presented as follows.
1. Metaphor
According to Jay 2003, p. 315, metaphor is an implicit comparison between two concepts. The concepts are typically ideas and objects Lakoff
Johnson, 2003, p. 14. Ortony 1975 sates that in the metaphor; a simple idea can be expressed to be more complex as cited in Jay, 2003, p. 316. However, Jay
14 2003, p. 316 explains
that “through metaphor, the abstract and confusing can be made more concrete and meaningful.
” Glucksberg and
Keysar 1990 state that “metaphors are comprehensible because interlocutors share knowledge about categorical structures and
memberships” as cited in Colston, 2015, p. 106. Lakoff and Johnson 2003, p. 5 mention that the importance of metaphor is to understand the meaning of one
thing which is expressed by another thing. The metaphor is used “to compare
similarities, to provoke thought, to clarify, and add interest” Jay, 2003, p. 347. The following is the example of metaphor mentioned by Lakoff and Johnson
2003. The mind is a machine p. 28.
There is a comparison between the mind and a machine. The mind an abstract which is further represented by the machine that is more concrete. The
machine gives addressees understanding that the mind is “having an on-off state, a level of efficiency, a productive capacity, an internal mechanism, a source of
energy, and an operating condition ” Lakoff Johnson, 2003, p. 28.
2. Simile
Jay 2003 mentions that simile is an explicit comparison using like or as...as p. 315.
Preminger 1976 supports that “simile is a comparison of one thing with another, explicitly announced by the word „like‟ or „as‟” as cited in
Bethlehem, 1996, p. 210. Then, Abrams 1981 confirms that “in a simile a comparison between two distinctly di
fferent things is indicated by the word „like‟ PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
