Applying Figurative Tools to Seek Romanticism in American Lyrics Applying Figurative Tools to Seek Romanticism in American Lyrics
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Abstract
Semantics is an important linguistic branch for the system of communication. However, the meaning in figurative language cannot be always checked from dictionaries. The receivers need experiences and undertraining of the target culture to understand figurative language. The objective of this study is to examine figurative language in American love songs. As a pilot study, the data collection in this study is from American singers, Arina Grande, Post Malone and Talor Swift, whose songs were written with the theme of romanticism. Grande’s two successful albums, Position and Thank U, Next were gathered to examine figurative language. Malone’s songs come from his Hollywood’s Bleeding album. There were 119 extracted tokens of figurative language in this study. The data analysis of figurative language in this study follows Closton. The results in this study show that the frequent use of figurative devices in love songs are metaphor. For women, love relates to materialistic entities, such as Christian Louboutin shoes. The discussion in this study shows that love is abstract and women want to hear how much the men love them. Saying I love you is not as emotionally as saying that you are Chistian Louboutin high heels or Ferrari. The researcher expected that the results of this study will be useful for learners of English as a Foreign Language in order to use figurative language appropriately.
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