THE ANALYSIS OF FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE USED IN MARIAH CAREY'S SONGS LYRICS FROM 1990 UP TO 1999

Abstract

This research was intended to know and describe the figurative language used in Mariah Carey's songs lyrics from 1990 up to 1999. Since the research data were in the form of words and phrases, the research data were collected by document analysis. There were 108 songs regarded as the population of this research. Since the number of the population was more than 100 songs, 10 % of the population or 11 songs were taken as the data. Furthermore, the data were selected using simple random sampling by lottery since all the songs in the population have an equal chance for being selected as the sample. Moreover, the data were identified by using coding to separate the lyrics in one song that used figurative language with the other song lyrics that did not use the figurative language. The lyrics that used figurative words or phrases were analyzed using sub components of instruments based on Hymes's theory of ethnography of communication which were separated into language form and language meaning. Then, the figurative words or phrases were classified into the types of figures of speech based on Kennedy's classification. As a result, there were 66 words and 42 phrases of the data which represented the use of figurative language. However, not all the types of figures of speech based on Kennedy's classification had been used. There were only 8 types of 11 types of figures of speech, namely: metaphor, simile, metonymy, synecdoche, transferred epithet, personification, hyperbole, and paradox.