AN ANALYSIS OF FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE IN AVENGED SEVENFOLD’S SELECTED SONG LYRICS

Abstract

This thesis deals with pragmatics. Pragmatics is a subfield of linguistics which studies the ways in which context contributes to meaning which deals with the study of varieties of language, its properties, and principles behind choice, dialogue, accent, length, and register. Meanwhile George Yule (1996) defines that Pragmatics is concerned with the study of meaning as communicated by a speaker (or writer) and interpreted by a listener (or reader). The writer is expected to find out the figurative language, such as simile, metaphor, metonymy, and synecdoche in the avenged sevenfold’s selected song lyrics. Avenged Sevenfold is an American rock band from Huntington Beach, California, formed in 1999. The band itself has received much credit for their worldwide mainstream success and was most notably proclaimed as one of the leaders and key bands in the New Wave of American Heavy Metal and was featured as second place on Ultimate Guitar's Top Ten Bands of the Decade. The band consists of vocalist Matthew Charles Sanders (M. Shadows), lead guitarist Brian Elwin Haner Jr. (Synyster Gates), rhythm guitarist Zachary James Baker (Zacky Vengeance) and bassist Jonathan Lewis Seward (Johnny Christ). The band continued to explore new sounds with their self titled release and enjoyed continued mainstream success before their drummer, James Owen Sullivan or The Rev died of a drug overdose in December 2009. Despite his death, the band continued on with help of then Dream Theater drummer Mike Portnoy. A song is a composition that contains vocal parts (lyrics) that are performed (sung), commonly accompanied by musical instruments, exception in the case of acappela songs. The lyrics of songs are typically of a poetic, rhyming nature, although they may be religious verses or free prose. This thesis applies the method of library research. Library research is done to find a specific theory used for theoretical framework of research. Library research means that the data and other information are taken from the books, because books are the main source to the elaboration of theoretical framework and problems that will be analyzed. The type of data in this thesis is qualitative. Qualitative research is a method of inquiry appropriated in many different academic disciplines, traditionally in the social sciences, but also in market research and further contexts. The data are stated in the form of verbal and written materials such as texts, books, magazines, newspapers, journals and the like. First of all, the writer will be looking for the original lyrics of the songs. Later, the writer will find out what kinds of figurative language (simile, metaphor, personification, antithesis, hyperbole, metonymy, and synecdoche) in song lyrics. Finally, those lyrics are analyzed to understand the intended meaning lies behind the expression made by the composer. After all of it is done, the writer expects that what the writer does in this thesis can give the readers more knowledge about an analysis of figurative language through the Avenged Sevenfold’s song.