An analysis of conceptual metaphors in green days songs

CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report entitled AN ANALYSIS OF CONCEPTUAL METAPHORS IN GREEN DAY’S SONGS submitted in part

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

DOAN THI MAI THANH

Field: English Language Code: 8.22.02.01 Supervisor: PhD Tran Thi Le Dung

Hanoi, 11/2020

CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY

I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report entitled AN ANALYSIS OF CONCEPTUAL METAPHORS IN GREEN DAY’S SONGS submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master

in English Language Except where the reference is indicated, no other person’s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the text of the thesis

Doan Thi Mai Thanh

Approved by SUPERVISOR

PhD Tran Thi Le Dung Date: ………

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This thesis could not have been completed without the help and support from several people Therefore, the author who conducted this research gratefully gives the acknowledgement to their support and motivation during the time of doing this research

First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to PhD Tran Thi Le Dung, my supervisor, who has patiently and constantly supported me through the stages of the study, and whose stimulating ideas, expertise, and suggestions have inspired me greatly through my growth as an academic researcher

My thanks also come to all the lecturers at the Faculty of English at Hanoi Open University for their enthusiasm and encouragement in this study

Finally, I am greatly indebted to my family and my friends for the sacrifice they have devoted to the fulfillment of this academic work

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Certificate of originality i

Acknowledgements ii

Table of contents iii

Abstract ivi

List of abbreviations vii

List of tables and figures viii

Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Rationale 1

1.2 Aims and objectives of the study 3

1.2.1 Aims of the study 3

1.2.2 Objectives of the study 4

1.3 Research questions 4

1.4 Methods of the study 4

1.5 Scope of the study 5

1.6 Significance of the study 5

1.7 Structure of the study 6

Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 7

2.1 Previous studies 7

2.2 Literature 9

2.3 Poem 9

2.4 The essence of stylistics 10

2.4.1 Definition of stylistics 10

2.4.2 Definition of figurative language 11

2.4.3 Definition of semantics 112

2.4.4 Kinds of figurative language 123

2.4.4.1 Hyperbole 133

2.4.4.2 Parallelism 133

2.4.4.3 Irony 13

2.4.4.4 Oxymoron 144

2.4.4.5 Metonymy 144

2.4.4.6 Personification 144

2.4.4.7 Sarcasm 145

2.4.4.8 Simile 155

2.4.4.9 Synecdoche 155

2.4.4.10 Antithesis 155

2.4.4.11 Euphemism 155

2.4.4.12 Alliteration 155

2.5 Music and metaphor 15

2.5.1 Music 15

2.5.2 Metaphor 18

2.5.3 Metaphor in music 20

2.5.4 Metaphor in cognitive semantics 21

2.6 Conceptual metaphor 23

2.6.1 Structural Metaphor 255

2.6.2 Orientational Metaphor 25

2.6.3 Ontological Metaphor Error! Bookmark not defined.6 2.7 Biography of Green Day 299

2.8 Summary 30

Chapter 3: CONCEPTUAL METAPHORS IN GREEN DAY’S SONGS 31

3.1 Types and frequencies of conceptual metaphors in GD’s selected songs 31

3.1.1 American Idiot 31

3.1.2 Jesus of Suburbia 322

3.1.3 Holiday 33

3.1.4 Boulevard of Broken Dreams 33

3.2 The meanings of conceptual metaphors in Green Day’s selected songs 35

3.2.1 American Idiot 35

3.2.2 Jesus of Suburbia 37

3.2.3 Holiday 42

3.2.4 Boulevard of broken dreams 44

3.3 Implications Error! Bookmark not defined.46 3.3.1 Teachers ……….……47

3.3.2 Learners ……….47

3.4 Summary 468

Chapter 4: CONCLUSION 4949

4.1 Recapitulation 4949

4.2 Concluding remarks 500

4.3 Limitation of the study 511

4.4 Recommendations and suggestions for further research 511 REFERENCES 512 APPENDIX

ABSTRACT

Conceptual metaphor has important role in literature Conceptual metaphor makes the literature works more appealing to the audience Song lyrics as language are full of figurative language in which conceptual metaphor holds a key part By using conceptual metaphor, song composers can create meaning through the abstract concepts The aims of this research are to analyze conceptual metaphors and their implicit meaning in Green Day’s songs On analyzing the data, the researcher used conceptual metaphor theory that was introduced by Lakoff and Johnson (1980) Based on the theory, conceptual metaphors were divided into three types: structural metaphor, orientational metaphor and ontological metaphor The meanings of conceptual metaphor of what cognitive semantics were analyzed In this research, the researcher only analyzed the implicit meaning of the metaphors found This research design was descriptive qualitative because the researcher applied the data in the terms words, phrases and sentences The researcher applied documentary technique to collect the data The primary data of this research was sentences that contain of metaphors in four Green Day’s songs taken from

American Idiots album The findings were conceptual metaphors, in which the number of ontological metaphor was dominated with 21 cases, structural and orientational metaphors were equally divided with six cases for each The meaning analysis shows that Green Day’s song lyrics were a loud voice to the social situation

at the time This research hopes to contribute to the local literature and raise an awareness of conceptual metaphors in song lyrics to the teachers and learners of English

LIST OF ABBREVIATION

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Figure 2.1: On music, meaning and language (adapted fromTarasti, 2006, p 397) 16

Figure 3.2: Conceptual metaphors in the song American Idiot 31

Figure 3.3: Conceptual metaphors in Jesus of Suburbia 32

Figure 3.4: Conceptual metaphors in Holiday 33

Figure 3.5: Conceptual metaphors in Boulevard of Broken Dreams 34

Figure 3.6: Frequencies of conceptual metaphors in GD’s song lyrics 35

Table 3.1: Shout is hysteria 36

Table 3.2: Comfortable is home 39

Table 3.3: Freedom is breath 40

Table 3.4: Freedom is run 41

Table 3.5: Anger is fire 42

Table 3.6: Healthy is alive 46

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale

This section begins with two big questions that have often been posed They are ‘is music a language?’ or in a reversing question ‘is language a music?’ Zbikowski (2008, p.520) commented that ‘the exploration of metaphor and music has much to say to both questions, as well as to the constituent of features of both of these uniquely human modes of expression.’

Firstly, language has several functions in daily life One of the functions of language is to express thoughts It means language is used to communicate wills or feelings with others As for Leech and Short (2007), a language is a means of communication whereby one individual passes on message to another for a scope of various purposes, for example, illuminating, requesting, convincing and consoling

In the interim, Rousseau and Herder (1966) said that language can be separated into two dimensions - normal language and scholarly language Common language alludes to the words and expressions we use in everyday correspondence and discussion It is intended to be effortlessly perceived, and it for the most part doesn't use complex structures Abstract language, in which music is important for, is utilized by the artists, scholars and authors; it is more imaginative from than normal language Besides, Tonner and Whitestone (2003) said that writing is a work of art, such as painting figure, music, show and the movie

Secondly, music is a rich and complex product of culture which touches on a huge range of human emotion (Zbikowski, 2008, p.519) It is like music in the sense that Gumperz (1976) argues language is a means of communication between members of the public and language is used to negotiate feelings Although the cultural practice of music is not largely linguistics, language can play a role in musical practice For Zbikowski (2008, p.519), ‘it is not surprising that language about music is often metaphorical, nor that the topic of metaphor.’ If we agree with Lakoff and Johnson (1980) that metaphor can shape human thoughts It is then language and music are the same Recent theories show us that mappings between language and music reply on image-schematic structures that are common to the two domains Music is to instantiate such structures dynamically, while language is

to call them up through reference

offer interesting possibilities for thinking about metaphorical processes (Zbikowski, 2008) It’s undeniable that metaphor is one of those figures of speech in language that should be interpreted figuratively It is a way of saying something by comparing things or making an analysis statement Most people choose metaphor to convey their ideas because it is an effective way to dispute something new to express certain feeling, even to entertain others In cognitive semantics, conceptual metaphors are also known as cognitive metaphors, refer to the understanding of one idea or conceptual domain in terms of another Conceptual metaphors are useful for understanding complex ideas in simple terms and therefore are frequently used to give insight to abstract theories and models According to Lakoff and Johnson (1980), metaphor consists of three types They are structural metaphor, orientational metaphor, and ontological metaphor The characterization of conceptual metaphor is

‘set of mappings’ (Kövecses, 2010), in which this set of mappings obtains between basic constituent elements of the source domain and basic constituent elements of the target

Song lyrics as a form of poetry are one of the oldest forms of literature According to Aristotle (Butcher, 1936) and Lynch-Brown, Tomlinson, and Short (2014), poetry is the expression of ideas and feelings through a rhythmical composition of imaginative and beautiful words selected for sonorous effects Poetry can be studied from its structure and its elements, given that the poem is a structured composed of various elements and means of allegory This is because the essence as works of art that always happen the tension between convention and innovation Besides, ‘the function of poetry is sometimes to be ugly rather than beautiful’ (Perrine & Arp, 1992, p.7) Thus, song lyrics as poetry is a branch of literature that uses language as a means of communication for delivery to produce the illusion and imagination; it is a combination of words in an attractive form which can contain implicit meaning both in an ugly and beautiful way needing to be revealed

The ‘American Idiot’ album lyrics by the rock band Green Day are of controversy, with allusion to the condition of the United States government at that time with the sub-line ‘Green Day dared to stare George W Bush in the eye’ (Winwood, 2012) Green Day is an American rock band formed in 1987 with three

members The band has won two Tony Awards for American Idiot Album (2004)

found popularity with a younger generation In this album, the band uses beautiful

lyrics to express thoughts and feelings about political and social conditions that happened in the United States (Spitz, 2006), which interests the author to carry this research as a case study to reveal expressive metaphorical devices in the album

It is obvious that not all the listeners can understand what the thoughts or the feelings conveyed by in the album, because in general not all lyrics in songs have primary meaning Many song lyrics have hidden meanings, so listeners may often get confused with the meaning of song lyrics In the Green Day song lyrics, DiPerna (2005, p 26) commented on the album that it ‘draws a casual connection between contemporary American social dysfunction […] and the Bush ascendancy’, this research seeks to find out the meaning and try to explain the meaning of this album

from conceptual metaphor theory For example, in the song American Idiot, they wrote ‘Don’t wanna a nation under the new media’ In this line, the conceptual metaphor under the new media belongs to the type of orientational metaphor that marked by the word under which shows negative nuance which means that a person

is controlled by other

As a senior high school teacher in Vietnam, the author knows that we can apply songs in learning, teaching and using English language It may be not bored if learners like to study English by songs and more specifically, if they can understand conceptual metaphors in song lyrics Empirically, for Weinrauch (2005), song is a kind of musical expression in the form of oral and written form as well as a tool for language teaching Weinrauch (2005) proves that students benefit a lot when they learn through musical metaphors in the classroom

With all these reasons, the writer of this research would like to carry out this

research named “An Analysis of Conceptual Metaphors in Green Day’s Songs”

Hopefully, the findings of this study would make some contributions to the process

of teaching and learning of conceptual metaphors in English songs as well as to enrich the local literature of conceptual metaphor in song lyrics

1.2 Aims and objectives of the study

1.2.1 Aims of the study

In this thesis the researcher will adopt the stance first introduced by Lakoff

and Johnson in their 1980 classic Metaphors We Live By in proposing that a major

way by which we understand and give meaning to complicated abstract concepts such as love through metaphor In other words, in our inability to produce a

comprehensive account of what exactly love is, we resort to explaining it by comparison to things we find easier to define, such as games (Lakoff & Johnson,

1980, p.60) Adopting such a view entails understanding metaphors as much more than simply playful uses of language Rather, metaphors reflect the way we think, more specifically the way we understand and conceptualize the world we live in From that point of view, this study aims at suggesting the teaching and learning conceptual metaphors in song lyrics to Vietnamese learners and teachers

1.2.2 Objectives of the study

The study is to fulfill the following objectives:

- To find out the types and the frequencies of conceptual metaphors used in the four

songs namely American Idiot, Jesus of Suburbia, Holiday, and Boulevard of Broken

Dreams taken from American Idiot album by Green Day

- To find out the meanings of conceptual metaphors used in selected songs taken

from American Idiot album by Green Day

- To suggest the teaching and learning of conceptual metaphors in English songs to Vietnamese teachers and learners

1.3 Research questions

Music and language are two cognitive systems that are uniquely humanly In reasoning or speaking about music, people make use of conceptual metaphors The core question addressed is how meaning is produced in music The understanding and interpretation are embedded in musical texts Accordingly, the question of meaning in music cannot be read off purely from the texts themselves, we need a mechanism, metaphor, which is essential to human understanding, to create new meaning and new realities in our lives (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, p.196) In this sense, this research seeks to answer the following research questions (RQ):

1 What are the types and the frequencies of conceptual metaphors found in the selected songs by Green Day?

2 What are the meanings of conceptual metaphors found in the selected songs by Green Day?

3 What are some suggestions to the teaching and learning of conceptual metaphors

in English songs to Vietnamese teachers and learners?

1.4 Methods of the study

The methods used in this study include:

Research method:

The descriptive method examines with a particular focus on information of songs The research uses qualitative method to gather the data, analyze and interpret the conceptual metaphors in the selected songs by Green Day

Data collection:

In this study, the researcher uses documentary technique in collecting the

data The data sources of the research are in four songs American Idiot, Jesus of

Suburbia, Holiday, and Boulevard of Broken Dreams taken from American Idiot

album by Green Day, 2004 The four song lyrics in the album were collected from the website Lyrics at https://www.lyrics.com/album/702202/American-Idiot for analysis

Data analysis:

In this research, the data are analyzed through following four steps Firstly, the researcher reads the lyrics carefully to get better understanding Secondly, the researcher identifies and classifies conceptual metaphors in the songs suggested by Lakoff and Johnson (1980) They are structural and ontological metaphors, orientational metaphors Thirdly, the researcher finds out the meaning semantically Therefore, the researcher grabs the meaning based on the dictionary – Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary (Deuter, Bradbery, & Turnbull, 2018) Fourthly, the interpretation process is carried out from cognitive semantic perspective

1.5 Scope of the study

In this research, the researcher chooses four Green Day’s songs in American

Idiot album, 2004, namely American Idiot, Jesus of Suburbia, Holiday, and Boulevard of Broken Dreams to analyze The analytical framework employed in

this research is based on Conceptual Metaphor Theory by Lakoff and Johnson (1980) This study mainly focuses on analyzing the types of conceptual metaphor and metaphorical meanings appeared in selected songs

1.6 Significance of the study

After completing all research activities, this study is expected to give significances presented as follow:

1.6.1 Theoretical significance

In the end of this research, the researcher hopes that this thesis can contribute

to the knowledge of developing a good insight into better understanding of conceptual metaphor in the future

1.6.2 Practical significance

1.6.2.1 For teachers

This study is hopefully able to give teachers an input concerned with the

advantages of using linguistic features related to literature study

1.6.2.2 For learners

Practically, the findings of this study are expected to give guidance and informative feedback to the learners to comprehend the meanings of conceptual metaphors in songs; they could be applied in translating to make the target reader

easily and clearly understand the figurative context

1.6.2.3 For readers

The readers can also apply their knowledge in using metaphors in the process

of recognizing conceptual metaphors in music

1.7 Structure of the study

The thesis begins with Certificate of originality, Acknowledgements, Table

of Contents and Abstract The content of the study is divided into four chapters, which are presented as follows:

Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION

This chapter gives the rationale for the study, the aims, the objectives, the research questions, the methods, the scope, the significance of the study as well as the structural organization of the study

Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter presents the brief review of the previous studies related to the study and the basic theoretical concepts for the study

Chapter 3: CONCEPTUAL METAPHORS IN GREEN DAY’S SONGS

Chapter 3 introduces the types and the frequencies of conceptual metaphors and the discussion of the meanings of conceptual metaphor used in the selected songs

Chapter 4: CONCLUSION

It gives the conclusion and suggestions

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Previous studies

Up to now, a lot of English and Vietnamese researchers have investigated metaphor Metaphors and especially conceptual metaphors (CM) have been investigated with regard to various semiotic resources CM has been applied to images like cartoons (Bounegru & Forceville, 2011) In their research, Bounegru and Forceville (2011) found that CMs play a crucial role in systemically structuring concepts in cartoons In addition, several researchers have investigated CM in new fields such as political texts (McEntee-Atalianis, 2011; Zinken, 2003) For instance, McEntee-Atalianis (2011) conducted a study to investigate on how CM shapes the speeches of the United Nations delivered by Secretary-General (SG) She found that the organization was considered as “family” and that ‘it is a desire to combat the forces of menace or evil which are argued to motivate and determine the organizational agenda as well as to drive the organization to work towards the common good (McEntee-Atalianis, 2011, p.339)

In music, some researchers investigated CM in song lyrics from different domains Cardoso and Vieira (2006) for instance, investigated CM in Dido’s song

White Flag lyrics The focus of their study was the process of co-construction of

meaning of metaphorical expression in the lyrics They found that students could identify CM underlying metaphorical expressions when they discussed the lyric in the group In the same domain, Weinrauch (2005) confirmed that conceptual metaphor can be a potential tool in the classroom

Gavelin (2016) investigated the conceptual metaphors of love in Mariah Carey’s pop songs in comparison with different stages of Carey’s career and she found out that although the songs were separated by approximately twenty years,

the love metaphors mainly reflected in her songs were the same Gavelin (2016)

also showed that the source concept, which was most typically used, was also

reflected to describe the target concept However, the variation of love metaphors

was greater in the later stage of Carey’s career

From Finland, Harpela (2015) investigated the conceptual metaphors of love

in pop songs by Kylie Minogue The data consisted of 33 song lyrics analyzed using the framework of orientational, structural and ontological metaphors proposed by

Lakoff and Johnson (1980) The findings show that the most frequent conceptual metaphor was LOVE IS A JOURNEY and the dominant types of metaphor was structural She concluded that ontological metaphors are also abundant in the data and these conceptual metaphors are enticing, seductive and witty suggestive Most

of the orientational metaphors were found in the data to be either the pair up-down

or here-there and some cases of overlapping in between types of metaphors

In another work, Kamaliah (2013) examined pop songs by Coldplay in the album Mylo Xyloto in a qualitative case study The study found out that the dominant conceptual metaphors used were about life, love, change and condition

such as life is JOURNEY, CHANGES ARE MOVEMENT, LOVE IS WAR, LESS

IS DOWN

More recently, Septiyana (2019) conducted an analysis of conceptual metaphors in Owl City Songs in the context of Indonesia From the 30 conceptual metaphors proposed by Lakoff and Johnson (1980), the researcher investigated 40 metaphors found in the Owl City songs The author concluded that these metaphorical expressions have their own meaning according the context draw by songwriter of Owl City Septivana (2019) also concluded that the most dominant types of metaphorical pattern in the Owl City song lyrics are “ANIMAL AS OBJECT” and “PEOPLE ARE OBJECT” In another study, Febriansyah (2020) investigated the conceptual metaphor of ANGER in Grunge Musician’s song lyrics The qualitative method was used and the study found out that the conceptual metaphor of ANGER mostly used by grunge musicians are ANGER IS FIRE, ANGER IS AN OPPONENT IN A STRUGGLE, ANGER IS A NATURAL FORCE, and ANGER IS A HOT FLUID IN CONTAINER The image schema that found in conceptual metaphor of ANGER was FORCE SCHEMA and CONTAINMENT SCHEMA

In Vietnamese context, At Hanoi Open University, Hà (2016) investigated the conceptual metaphors used in Carpenter’s love songs She argued that cognitive linguistics presents different views of CM in different situations of the daily life The study found out that the conceptual metaphors of love in Carpenter’s songs are diverse Nhung (2018) went further to study the conceptual metaphors of love in Ed Sheeran’s songs She claims that cognitive linguistics may serve as a basic theory to understand the conceptual metaphor of love She also confirmed that metaphor exists in every life She concluded that there are thirteen types of structural

metaphors which conceptualize love in Ed Sheeran’s songs She also found out that

there are six types of ontological metaphors in the songs However, she does not comment on orientational metaphors

In conclusion, this review shows that conceptual metaphor in song lyrics is carried out from different domains, from the classroom to politics, or from daily understanding These studies focused only on pop music In the local context, there were two studies into conceptual metaphors in music These studies were about pop

music and focused on the conceptual metaphor of love Thus, there is, still, a neglect

to study conceptual metaphor in rock music both locally and globally That is why

the study named: “An Analysis of Conceptual Metaphors in Green Day’s Songs”

The study hopes to be of some help for the teaching and learning English of Vietnamese teachers and learners and to enrich the local literature

2.2 Literature

Literature is considered as the expression of both ugly and beautiful thought (Lynch-Brown et al., 2014) Ideas in beautiful language will be appealing to the audience if they have some sense of sensitivity and imagination Literature is a possession of human expression about the life experience in language form Literature is concerned with all aspects of life and the universe According to Kennedy and Gioia (2007), literature is the criterion with either aesthetic worth alone or aesthetic worth in combination with the general intellectual distinction In another word, literature is simply another way we can experience the world around

us through our imagination Literature, in its broadest sense, includes all oral and written materials Bailey (1965) stated that literature is a creative activity and an art Gill (1995) agreed with Bailey on that basic and said that literature is an art form, like painting, sculpture, music, drama, and the dance Literary works are the result

of the expression of feelings and imagination of the writers

Literature has been proven an important part of education (Tuyên & Tiên, 2019) English literature can introduce students’ ability to foster critical reading, build valuable skills and expand student’s worldviews (Paran, 2008) Thus, literature is considered as a means of sharing experiences from generation to generation and plays a vital role in language teaching and learning

2.3 Poem

Poem is as universal as language and almost as ancient (Kennedy & Gioia,

cultivated it because it has given pleasure People have read it, listened to it, or recited it because they liked it and give them enjoyment Poem might be defined as

a kind of language that says more and says it more intensely than ordinary language

It means that poem certain language is not ordinary language that people use every day Meanwhile, Peck and Coyle (1993) defined poem as the spontaneous overflow

of powerful feeling It takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility The certain language used in the poems due to the beauty This is necessary because when the poems written in ordinary language, it will make no strong impression to the readers In the real life, death, pain and suffering are not pleasurable, but in poems, they may be For good readers, they will be enjoyable when transmitted through the medium of art For Kennedy and Gioia (2007, p.1), ‘poetry is not to be galloped over like the daily news: a poem differs from most prose in that it is to be read slowly, carefully, and attentively Not all poems are difficult, of course, and some can be understood and enjoyed on first seeing But good poems yield more if read twice; and the best poems – after ten, twenty, or a hundred readings – still go

Stylistic analysis is used to find a common aesthetic goal that appears in a literary work of the whole element Thus, the stylistic analysis can be directed to discuss the contents Stylistic research based on the assumption that literature has a great task In addition, the arrangements of the sentences also indicate the variation

and harmony to give a sense of aesthetics and not just certain shades of meaning That is why the issue of literary style in the end also closely related to the problem

of style in language itself

2.4.2 Definition of figurative language

Figurative language is not deviant – not a form of communication that requires special or additional cognitive processes to understand and that occurs only

in special circumstances Figurative language was used more often to express intense emotional states than to express milder ones (Ortony, Schallert, Reynolds, & Antos, 1978)

Figurative language is the language in which figures of speech such as metaphors freely occur Figure of speech is a rhetorical device using words in distinctive ways to achieve a special effect Kennedy and Gioia (2007) stated that a figure of speech may be said to occur whenever a speaker or writer, for the sake of freshness or emphasis, departs from the usual denotation of words For example, ‘I will speak daggers to her, but use none’ says Hamlet on preparing to confront his mother For Kennedy and Gioia (2007) this statement makes sense only because we realize that daggers is to be taken two ways: literally (denoting sharp, pointed weapons) and nonliterally (referring to something that can be used like weapons – namely, words)

Even though some linguists have different classifications of figures of speech, the concept and principle are almost the same Perrine and Arp (1992) defined figures of speech as a way of saying one thing and meaning another They argued that figures of speech should not be taken literally only and that they serve function of giving extended meanings to words, phrases or sentences from their literal expressions They also claimed that figures of speech can be more effective means of saying what we mean rather that direct statements They also state that figure of speech is any way of saying something other the ordinary way Further, they proposed seven classifications of figures of speech, namely metaphor, simile, personification, metonymy, paradox, overstatement, understatement, irony and allusion

Figurative language refers to words or phrases that do not have the same meaning as their literal meaning A variety of types of figurative language can be used in order to convey these messages These devices are most common in poetry, but can be used in other forms of writing, as well

With respect to analyze the song lyrics in which figurative expressions are intensively used, the analysis of the figurative expressions should necessarily be based on the song, since the use of figurative expressions is quite likely motivated

by the construction of the theme as the central force in the song

Figures are most commonly used when the writer emotionally moves and his imagination is stirred His language will be emotive, his words chosen for their color and melody, and figures will be frequent Figure of speech is a sort of the style Figure of speech serves a variety of purposes; they are used to clarify meaning

or word to emphasize, to stimulate association and emotions, to give, to inanimate objects, to amuse or to ornament, they have an essential aesthetic purpose, widening and deepening the range of perception response to the world of objects and ideas (Alm-Arvius, 2007) The purpose of figure of speech is more narrowly definable as

a way of saying one thing and meaning another

2.4.3 Definition of semantics

The word semantics derived from the Greek semaino, meaning, to signify or mean Semantics is a part of a larger study of signs, semiotics It is the part that deals with words as signs (symbol) and language as a system of sign (words as symbols) (Robert Dixon,2005:40 “A new approach to English grammar on semantic principles”)

Knowing a language is how to produce and understanding sentences with particular meanings The study of linguistic meaning, called semantics, is concerned with the meaning of words, morphemes, phrases and sentences The term meaning is, of course, much more familiar to us all although there are numerous different definitions of dictionaries

Palmer (Frank Robert,Palmer,1981:15 “Semantics.Cambridge University Press” ) suggested that semantics is a part of linguistics, a scientific study of language Therefore, learners should attempt to see what meaning is, or should be, within the framework of an academic or scientific discipline rather than take the simple looking at the common or even scholarly uses of the relevant terms

Semantics is a branch of language study dealing with word meaning Word meaning consists of grammatical meaning and lexical meaning Grammatical meaning unites all grammatical characteristics of a word and lexical meaning

is a realization of a concept or notion Lexical meaning includes denotative meaning and connotative meaning

Semantics studies also other spheres of word meaning such as polysemy, homonymy, synonymy, antonym, as well as development of meaning including some figures of speech, namely metaphor, metonymy, hyperbole and irony These units also relate to the formation of semantic structure of words in English

2.4.4 Kinds of figurative language

There are many types of figurative language which is very interesting to learning Authors of figurative language make comparison between one thin and another Oftentimes, the comparisons are made between an inanimate object and life

by pointing out similarities between two This type of language gives the reader a new way to look at things in the world that are difficult to describe Figurative language is language that is not to be taken literally It includes, to name a few, simile, metaphor, hyperbole, personification, etc

There are the kinds of figurative language, as follows:

2.4.4.1 Hyperbole

Hyperbole is exaggeration or overstatement The exaggeration is so great that others are not able to take the statement literally Hyperbole is an exaggeration or over statement, usually deliberate and not meant to be taken literally (Larson:

1998) For example: She rushed out of the room in floods of tears

2.4.4.2 Parallelism

Parallelism is the state of being parallel or of corresponding in some way,

and the use of successive verbal construction in poetry or prose that correspond in grammatical structure, sound, meter, meaning, etc According to McArthur (1992,

p 749), ‘parallelism is a rhetorical device in which a formula or structural pattern is

repeated.’ For example: We can’t hide to mean we can’t run away from the truth

2.4.4.3 Irony

Irony comes from the Greek word for hypocrisy, deception and ignorance and some form of negativity is involved Ironic comment may be humorous or mildly sarcastic Irony takes place when the opposite of what a person intended to

do, or expected to happen, occurs instead It is also an incongruity in expectation and actuality Irony can be dramatic (a play), verbal (a statement) or situational (an event) McArthur (1992,p 532) state that “Irony refers to words with an implication

opposite to their usual meaning.” For example: At a difficult moment, an act of

kindness makes things worse, and someone says, “Well, that’s a lot better, isn’t it?”

2.4.4.4 Oxymoron

Oxymoron is fusing together two contradictory words, ideas or concepts or

‘a term in rhetoric for bringing opposites together in a compact paradoxical word or

phrase: bitter- sweet; be cruel to be kind; a cheerful pessimist’ (McArthur, 1992, p

739) The term is often used for social comment, both humorously or cynically Look at this example, “silent voices” This is a contradictory idea between silent and voice, for silent means no voices at all

2.4.4.5 Metonymy

Metonymy is a figure of speech in which one thing is used to stand for itself

It is a word which is used for something related to that which it usually refers to An expression may be used to refer to anything that it is conventionally associated with (Glucksberg, 2001, p.6) More figurative, as when a part of something is used to refer to the whole, for example, wheels to refer to automobiles, as in she’s really proud of her new wheels These types of metonymy do not involve substitutions between levels of specificity but instead substitute a term that is associated in one or another way with the intended referent In such expressions, places can refer to their occupants, as in The White House is stone walling the special prosecutor; an object can refer to its user, as in the glove at shortstop made two errors in yesterday’s game; a part can refer to a whole, as in “the bigmouth went down in the first round”

For example: It won’t happen while I still breathe

2.4.4.6 Personification

Personification is a statement attributes human qualities to non-human entities, such as objects or animals People say the wind howls or opportunity knocks, for instance Neither the wind nor opportunity can do these things, but these personifications vividly convey a particular idea Lakoff and Johnson (1980) stated that personification is the assigning of human characteristics to non-humans For

example: The moon smiles at us

2.4.4.7 Sarcasm

Sarcasm is another term for verbal irony, it is the act of ostensibly saying one thing but another meaning Sarcasm is a term in rhetoric and general use for

sneeringly ironical remarks (McArthur, 1992, p.887) For example: Oh yes, we

know how clever you are

2.4.4.8 Simile

Similes are "like" or "as" comparisons between two subjects McArthur (1992, p 936) said that simile is a figure of speech, in which a more or less fanciful

or unrealistic comparison is made, using like or as For example: Rumors of his

death spread like wildfire

Antithesis is a construction in which words are opposed but balanced in

opposition (McArthur, 1992, p.72) For example: Good and beast

2.4.4.11 Euphemism

Euphemism is the substitution of an inoffensive term It is the use of a mild, comforting, or evasive expression that takes the place of one that is taboo, negative,

offensive, or too directs (McArthur, 1992, p 387) For example: Terminate – kill,

passed away – died

2.4.4.12 Alliteration

Alliteration is the repetition of an initial consonant sound Alliteration is the repetition of a single letter in the alphabet or a combination of letters It's just about the easiest form of repetition a poet can use The repetition of the same initial letter, sound, or group of sounds in a series of words Alliteration includes tongue twisters

For example: Peter Piper picked a peck of pickle peppers

2.5 Music and metaphor

ability to express emotions while remaining an abstract art in some sense

A song is a short piece of music, usually with words It combines words and

music Written words created especially for music or for which music is specially created are called lyrics In the Oxford Advanced Learner Dictionary, lyrics are understood as the words of a song while lyric in singular is understood to be a lyric

poem Etymologically, the term lyric came into English from French lyrique or Latin lyricus, from Greek lurikos, from lura ‘lyreʼ (Deuter et al., 2018)

Rock music is a broad genre of popular music that originated as "rock and roll" in the United States in the late 1940s and early 1950s, and developed into a range of different styles in the mid-1960s and later, it became popular in the United States and the United Kingdom Different from other genres of music, rock lyrics often stress romantic love but also address a wide variety of other themes that are frequently social or political (Studwell & Lonergan, 1999)

Music is considered a bridge to connect people together, and is the best way

to communicate Claude Levi-Strauss is a semiotician whose name is almost

synonymous with music (as cited in Tarasti, 2006) He introduced his famous model

on the relationship between music and meaning, in which language is a bridge which connects music and meaning On the other hand, both music and meaning derive from language (See Figure 1 below)

Figure 2.1: On music, meaning and language (adapted fromTarasti, 2006, p 397)

Language (sound+myth)

Meaning (myth) Music

(sound)

Approaches to meaning in music hold a variety of positions:

Music represents It is in the sense that music stands for something, for

musical signs This perspective is shared by scholars such as Karbusicky (1995) In music, the representation can be many things – the music itself, a movement, a melody, a beat, a genre, a music score, a performance, a recording, a sound effect, the environment of the listener, the stage design, the clothes the singers wear or among others This approach follows the work of C S Peirce who was known as a co-founder of semiotics (Peirce, 1991) Signs were interpreted as meaning-rich and held a certain historical moment

Music signifies It is in the sense that musical signs are their own special type

of language This approach follows the work of (Saussure, 1959) when he stated

that ‘similarly, a musical series do, re, mi can be treated only as a concrete series in

time, but if I select one of its irreducible elements, I can study it in the abstract’(Saussure, 1959, p 40) There are at least two levels of meaning in music: syntactic and semantic entities, phonemes and sememes, or first articulation units (words); and second articulation unites (phonemes) (Tarasti, 2006) Also for Tarasti (2006), most of the works done in musical semiotics during the previous decades has followed this approach

Music expresses This third approach is in connection with emotions It is

that music is a logical symbol of the emotions It is that music embodies meaning (Meyer, 1973) in an abstract concept For example, in the song called ‘American Idiot’ by Green Day, the word ‘alien’ is abstracted as ‘hysteria’ or ‘mind-fuck’

These three approaches are interrelated to one another Under an umbrella term of notation, Seeger (1977) differentiated prescriptive from descriptive notation

It is prescriptive when one can perform the music from the signs; it is descriptive when one describes music in some respect, but does not lead into performance It is when we can claim that this study is a descriptive one and Tarasti (2006) firmly stated that most of semiotic analyses of music belong to this category

On analysis of music, the early work of the musicologist Fred Lerdahl and

the American linguist Ray Jackendoff published A generative theory of tonal music

(1985) marked a milestone in music analysis It became obvious that metrical grid

as a capacity is shared by music and language in the rhythmic domain, but saw no

credible analogue in the use of pitch space, even in tone languages such as Chinese and many West African languages So, they concluded that the capacity of the use

of linguistic pitch is entirely different from that in music Their work is based largely on Chomsky’s ‘Tree Model’ in generative linguistics and it resembles the three levels of music: background, middle ground and foreground as in the ‘Tree Model’ However, Lerdahl and Jackendoff (1985) did not think that music has a counterpart to the linguistic syntactical structure Following this footstep, Asano and Boeckx (2015) pioneered to take ‘the grammar of action’ into account and developed a genera; syntactical framework for ‘action-related components’ in which the syntax of language and music meets

In conclusion to this section, linguistic methods might provide us with useful perspectives to understand music because they share many cognitive capacities But

we have to remember, music and language are two different symbolic systems with their own features It is that vocabulary of units with independent meanings and their laws are in some parts different from the linguistic syntax that governs language In the past few decades musical semiotics has its freedom from the control of general semiotics a single discipline but to an interrelated discipline According to Tarasti (2006), music has become a part of cognitive semantic research which investigates the counterparts of musical or lyrical processes in relation with the human brain From this perspective, the prominent place given to metaphor and metaphorical thinking in recent theories of language and music as literature has led to a fresh perspective on the nature of meaning The following section is going to discuss this perspective in details characterized by the work of Lakoff and Johnson (1980) For example, Weinrauch (2005) showed us that musical metaphors can serve as a creative and fun way to learn English because metaphors could shape the way students thought when they enjoy the assignment more

2.5.2 Metaphor

Metaphor is widely viewed as a poetic way of using language Writing guides define metaphor as “a kind of poetry” (Chakravarty, 2004) or a “figure of speech” (Johnson, 1991) The work of art is, then, considered a whole system of signs or structure of signs, serving a specific aesthetic purpose

Three and a half decades ago linguists began questioning the traditional view

of metaphor Linguistic researchers, most famously Lakoff and Johnson (1980), suggested that the metaphoric language in poetry and speech was in fact a by-

product of metaphoric thought On this view, a speaker calls a difficult project a

marathon not in order to be poetic, but because he or she actually think of the

project as a long, difficult race, for example

Metaphor, from French métaphore, via Latin from Greek metaphora, from

metapherein ‘to transfer’ (Deuter et al., 2018), is the use of language that designates

one thing to designate another in order to characterize the latter in terms of the

former Nominal metaphors use nouns in this way, as in “My daughter is an angel.”

Predicative metaphors use verbs, as in “The dog flew across the back yard.” In

addition to single words being used metaphorically, phrases, sentences, and more extended texts can also function as metaphors, as in the assertion “Bravely the troops carried on” to refer to tele-phone operators who continued to work during a natural disaster Sometimes a metaphor can be recognized because it is literally false (Kövecses, 2010) For example, when a proud father says, “My daughter is an

angel,” no one believes that she has wings But a metaphor need not be literally

false The opposite assertion – that one’s daughter is no angel – is literally true; she does not have wings Yet this is not likely to be the speaker’s intended meaning, nor

is it likely to be a listeners’ understanding In each of these two cases, listeners must

go beyond the literal meaning to arrive at the speaker’s intention – what the listener

is intended to understand

Metaphor is apt to flourish when people talk about everything they perceive But does one need to go beyond literal meanings to understand a thing or the literal meanings have unconditional priority? Glucksberg, Gildea, and Bookin (1982) commented that whenever metaphorical meanings are available, they are automatically processed, even when there is no apparent need to do so Ortony et al (1978) further argued that literal meanings do not have priority

Metaphor can also be understood more easily than similes, a word or phrase

that compares something to something else, using the words like or as (Deuter et al., 2018), because they are exactly what they seem to be For example, the metaphor

vehicle like Vietnam can now be used to characterize other ill-fated military actions

Figurative language has important role in literature Figurative language is the primary tool for poems to describe or confirm a thought or opinion because it is

‘imaginative (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, p 53) Particularly, figurative language is a tool that is used to express thoughts, feeling and ideas of the readers or audience

But is metaphor figurative? Lakoff and Johnson (1980, p 12) argued that

‘metaphorical concepts can be extended beyond the range of ordinary literal ways

of thinking and talking into the range of what is called figurative.’ They further argued that linguistic expressions can reflect the ‘unused’ part of a metaphor like

THEORIES ARE BUILDING His theory has thousands of little rooms and long, winding corridors His theories are Bauhaus in their pseudo-functional simplicity

He prefers massive Gothic theories covered with gargoyles

Complex theories usually have problems with the plumbing

They commented that these sentences are not normal literal language but they are part of ‘figurative’ or ‘imaginative’ language (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980,

p 53)

It’s undeniable that language style in a literary work is different from language style in daily conversation Literary work uses many figurative languages Language style in literary work is a special variety that is used to embellish by the poems Style of language in this case, is an art which is influenced by conscience Through the figurative language, the songs reveal their ideas It can be said that figurative language is the wrapper idea that will make the literary text smooth

When we understand even a simple thing, it cannot be the thing itself It comes to our understanding in a complex, dynamic, multifaceted, geographically complicated and contextually bound It is when metaphors come into the foreground

as a means to establish, clarify and help to analyze connections, comparisons and most importantly to create meaning However, in some circumstances, it seems easy

to lose sight of the metaphorical elements in understanding music The increased

importance of conceptual metaphors in the social life has been noted by several key writers and observers (Cameron & Low, 1999; Gibbs, 2017; Goatly, 2007; Kövecses, 2010; Lakoff & Johnson, 1980) These authors have opened up promising new avenues of research into the problems of linguistic and literary meaning when the other approaches we discussed above concerning meaning in term of lexicon of sound terms have not been completely satisfactory

Metaphor approach might be seen useful for researching musical meaning, not the meaning in technical sound terms but meaning in terms of lyrics The view that all musical expressive meaning (Meyer, 1973) as metaphorical is problematic because it could not demonstrate how the meaning is consistently cued by a particular structure or context in music Thus, there is a need for a conjunction of the two domains of music and meaning For this, (Hatten, 1995, p 375) stated ‘any meaning resulted from the conjunction of two different domains was by definition metaphorical.’ It is also important to note that expressive meaning is not extra musical simply because that meaning must be analyzed from lyrics as language It is that metaphor is a common mode of thinking and wording, an important part of artistic work, Hatten (1995, p 377) argued that ‘it would be worth salvaging the concept for those processes in music that most resemble it, rather than relegating it solely to the game between language and music or the problems associated with using language as a metalanguage for music.’ If language is intended to be literal, it

is not necessarily metalinguistic and then certain metaphorical uses of language can

be considered as involving a distinctive type of metaphors (See section 2.3 for more discussion of types of metaphor as a conceptual framework)

All in all, metaphor is one of the ways that composers creatively play upon established expressive meanings in music First, metaphor exists in the correlations between language and music, second, it is brought together in a single functional location or process of meaning making, third, functional locations exist as a result

of stylistic formal schema, or of the contextual ranges set up by the piece of music However, the collisions of meaning may be brought together from separated realms The next section is going to discuss the cognitive semantic realm of metaphor used

in this research

2.5.4 Metaphor in cognitive semantics

Cognitive semantics is part of the cognitive linguistics movement The main

tenets of cognitive semantics are: (1) the grammar is conceptualization; (2) that conceptual structure is embodied and motivated by usage; (3) that ability to use language draws up on general cognitive resources and not a special language module (Croft & Cruse, 2004) For Evans and Green (2006, p 48), “cognitive linguistics can be broadly divided into two main areas: cognitive semantics and cognitive (approaches to) grammar However, unlike formal approaches to linguistics, which often emphasize the role of grammar, cognitive linguistics emphasizes the role of meaning.”

From this perspective, model of meaning (a cognitive semantics) has to be delineated before an adequate cognitive model of grammar can be developed As part of the field of cognitive linguistics, the cognitive semantics approach rejects the formal traditions of modularization of linguistics into phonology, syntax, pragmatics, etc Instead it divides semantics (meaning) into meaning-construction and knowledge representation Therefore, cognitive semantics studies much of the area traditionally devoted to pragmatics as well as semantics

Cognitive semantic theories are typically built on the argument that lexical meaning is conceptual That is, the meaning of a lexeme is not reference to the entity or relation in the "real world" that the lexeme refers to, but to a concept in the mind based on experiences with that entity or relation An implication of this is that semantics is not objective and that semantic knowledge is not isolatable from encyclopedic knowledge

Moreover, cognitive semantic theories are also typically built upon the idea that semantics is emenable to the same mental processes as encyclopedic knowledge They thus involve many theories from cognitive psychology and cognitive anthropology such as prototypicality, which cognitive semanticists argue

is the basic cause of polysemy

Another trait of cognitive semantics is the recognition that lexical meaning is not fixed but a matter of construal and conventionalization The processes of linguistic construal, it is argued, are the same psychological processes involved in the processing of encyclopedic knowledge and in perception

Many cognitive semantic frameworks, such as the one that developed by Talmy (2000) take into account syntactic structures as well, while others focus mainly on lexical entities

The four tenets of cognitive semantics are:

1 Semantic structure is conceptual structure

2 Conceptual structure is embodied

3 Meaning representation is encyclopedic

4 Meaning-construction is conceptualization

Semantic theories on metaphor are divided into two types; comparison and interaction theory In the comparison theory, ontological metaphors are similes (like-form) with suppressed predications of similarity In the interaction theory, Levinson (1983, p 148) states ‘metaphor is special uses of linguistics expressions where on metaphorical expression (or focus) is embedded in another literal expression (or frame) such that the meaning of the focus interacts with and change the meaning of the frame and vice versa’ The statement from Levinson explain more about ontological metaphors and its useful in a process of changing meaning from literal meaning to metaphorical meaning

Ullmann (1962) proposed the definition of meaning as a reciprocal and reversible relationship between name and sense Meaning is a fundamental concept

to the study of language However, the definition of what exactly to be understood

by ‘meaning’ still remains a matter of concern to most scholars Not only linguists but also philosophers, psychologists, anthropologists and other theoreticians had and have been struggling to offer a plausible explanation of what this ambiguous and controversial term, as Ullmann (1962) puts it , actually means

Linguistic meaning is purely the meaning of an expression in some form of languages One can understand linguistic meaning provided that he or she possesses adequate knowledge about grammatical rules and vocabularies of a language There are a variety of ways in which language can be seen not simply a matter of providing information Language experts have classified meanings from many different point of views based on their deliberation But this research will be more focused on linguistic meaning as it analyzes the metaphor of song lyrics as a part of linguistic research

2.6 Conceptual metaphor

Metaphor is, for most people, a device of the poetic imagination and the rhetorical flourishment Metaphor was traditionally viewed as characteristic of

language alone, a matter of words rather than thought or action Conceptual

metaphor (CM) started with George Lakoff and Mark Johnson’s book Metaphors

We Live By (1980) The theory goes back a long way and builds on centuries of

scholarship that takes metaphor not simply as an ornamental device in language but

as a conceptual tool for structuring, restructuring and even creating reality Notable philosophers in this history include, for instance, Friedrich Nietzsche and, more recently, Max Black A recent overview of theories of metaphor can be found in Gibbs (2008), and one of CM in particular in Kövecses (2010)

According to Lakoff and Johnson (1980), metaphor is a way of conceiving of one thing with the other thing and its primary function is to understanding Metaphor is not only viewed as characteristics of language, it is pervasive in everyday life, not just in language but in thought and action Human conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature Concepts govern human mind and everyday functioning It means that concepts structure what people perceive, how they live and work in the world, and how they communicate and relate to other people The conceptual system, thus, plays a central role in defining everyday reality construction In other words, conceptual metaphor is a neural mapping that influences how people think, reason, and act in everyday life

If metaphor exists at a conceptual level, this explains why semantically related words often have similar metaphoric uses For instance, many words related

to self-propelled motion metaphorically describe projects A project can be a

marathon if it is difficult but a cakewalk if it is easy Because a project is a

marathon, then, a person can get moving on a project, then pick up speed, possibly get off course (not following the intended route) but be back on track in time to

cross the finish line If metaphor were just a matter of language itself, there would

be no reason for more than one word related to project, such as catwalk, to have a metaphoric sense related to it Instead, the general concept of project seems to be

connected to a variety of other motive concepts In other words, there is a conceptual metaphor that allows human beings to think about, and describe, projects

in terms of self-propelled motion

There is nothing unusual about the conceptual metaphor linking self- propelled motion to projects Human cognition seems to be full of metaphors, many

of which are apparent in sets of words related to one concept, such as motion, that can all be applied to another concept, such as projects To take another example, morality is metaphorically understood as cleanliness People with dirty minds have immoral thoughts and those with filthy minds are even worse

In conclusion, a standard definition adopted in this present research is that ‘A

conceptual metaphor is under- standing one domain of experience (that is typically abstract) in terms of another (that is typically concrete)’ (Kövecses, 2017#13) The

next section is going to discuss CM following Lakoff and Johnson’s (1980) categories Conceptual metaphors consist of three types such as structural, orientational, and ontological metaphor

2.6.1 Structural Metaphor

Lakoff and Johnson (1980, p 15) defined structural metaphors as ‘cases where one concept is metaphorically structured in terms of another.’ Structural metaphor often involves using a concept from one domain to structure a concept from another domain Structural metaphor bases on two domains, source domain and target domain and systematic correlation in daily experience For example: ARGUMENT IS WAR

We saw in the ARGUMENT IS WAR metaphor that expressions from the vocabulary of war, e.g., attack a position, indefensible, strategy, new line of attack, win, gain ground, etc., form a systematic way of talking about the battling aspects

of arguing It is no accident that these expressions mean what they mean when we use them to talk about arguments

Structural metaphors differ most obviously from orientational and ontological metaphors in that they do not have a physical basis – both the source concept and the

object concept are abstractions in structural metaphor

2.6.2 Orientational Metaphor

Lakoff and Johnson (1980) said that orientational metaphor deals with spatial orientations: up-down, front-back, on-off, deep-shallow and gives a concept a

spatial orientation For example: Happy is up

I’m feeling up

That boosted my spirits

My spirits rose

You’re in high spirits

Thinking about her always gives me a lift

The fact that the concept happy is oriented up leads to English expression like “I’m feeling up today” Such metaphorical orientations are not arbitrary They have a basis in our physical and cultural experience Though the polar opposition, up-down, in-out, is physical in nature, the orientational metaphor based on them can vary from culture to culture An interesting feature of such metaphorical conceptualizations, which contributes to the power of this type of linguistic analysis, is that these metaphors should be coherent with respect to related notions

For example, if happy is up then sad should be down—as is the case in English;

I'm feeling down

I'm depressed

He's really low these days

I fell into a depression

My spirits sank

2.6.3 Ontological Metaphor

Ontological metaphor provides the ways of viewing events, activities, emotion, ideas, as entities and substances Ontological metaphor assumes abstract noun as concrete noun According to Lakoff and Johnson (1980, p 25), ‘once we can identify our experiences as entities or substances, we can refer to them, categorize them, group them, and quantify them – and, by this means, reason about them.’ Or in other words, ontological metaphor is metaphor of physical objects and substances This type of metaphors serves various purposes

Take the experience of rising prices, which can be metaphorically viewed as

an entity via the noun inflation This gives us a way of referring to the experience

(Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, p 26):

INFLATION IS AN ENTITY

Inflation is lowering our standard of living

If there's much more inflation, we'll never survive

We need to combat inflation

Inflation is hacking us into a comer

Inflation is taking its toll at the checkout counter and the gas pump

Buying land is the best way of dealing with inflation

Inflation makes me sick

In such examples, if we view inflation as an entity, we then can refer to it, quantify it, identify an aspect of it, see it as a cause, act with respect to it, and in a way, we may believe that we can understand that abstract noun

Besides, Lakoff and Johnson (1980) proposed a list of purposes of

ontological metaphor: (1) referring (i.e., my fear of insects is driving my wife crazy); (2) quantifying (i.e., there is so much hatred in the world); (4) identifying aspects (i.e., his emotional health has deteriorated recently); (5) identifying causes (i.e., he did it out of anger); (6) setting goals and motivating actions (i.e., he went to New York to seek fame and fortune)

As a subtype of ontological metaphor, Lakoff and Johnson (1980, p 29)

proposed container metaphors To illustrate what we have in mind, recall Lakoff

and Johnson’s observation that ontological metaphors are used " to comprehend events, actions, activities, and states Events and actions are conceptualized metaphorically as objects, activities as substances, [and] states as containers" (p 30) In general, semantic terms such metaphorization means ascribing 1st-order features to higher order, in this case 2nd order, entities Lakoff and Johnson (1980) offered the example of a race being metaphorically structured as a container object

in English The situation in English is illustrated by Lakoff and Johnson's sentences below (p 31):

Are you in the race on Sunday? (race as CONTAINER OBJECT)

Are you going to the race? (race as OBJECT)

Did you see the race? (race as OBJECT)

The finish of the race was really exciting, (finish as EVENT OBJECT

within CONTAINER OBJECT)

There was a lot of good running in the race, (running as a SUBSTANCE in a

CONTAINER)

I couldn’t do much sprinting until the end (sprinting as SUBSTANCE)

Halfway into the race, I ran out of energy, (race as CONTAINER OBJECT)

He's out of the race now (race as CONTAINER OBJECT)

The second subtype of ontological metaphor is entity and substance metaphors Entity and substance metaphors are an ontological metaphor in which

an abstraction is represented as a concrete physical object (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980) Based on that definition, a metaphor experienced with physical objects by a person can give them the way of viewing event, emotion, action and idea as substances Viewing something as substances allows them to refer to it For

example, Time is money The term “time” here is assumed directly to be a substance

“money” Therefore this sentence is a substance metaphor In this metaphor, the sentence is cannot be translated word by word to be able to interpret the real meaning Because any feature of the money is cannot be seen in the concept of time and vice versa

Money is considered to be a valuable commodity in today’s society It is often said that money is the most important thing in the world For many people, however, money is as important as air These are not necessarily overly-materialistic people Rather, they simply understand the true value of money Money, in and of itself, is not very spectacular What money can do for you is what

is really important The phrase “time is money” is said to emphasize that people should not waste time, because they could be using it to earn money If they waste time, they will also waste money, because time is equal as money, which is very valuable

Another species of ontological metaphor, which Lakoff and Johnson (1980)

call “perhaps the most obvious metaphor” (p.33) is personification

Personification, in their words, “allows us to comprehend a wide variety of experiences with nonhuman entities in terms of human motivations, characteristics, and activities”(p 33) It seems as the most apparent ontological metaphor because the abstract concept is not only structured by using a physical object but also it is further set and specified as being a person This helps us comprehend a wide range and variety of experiences having non-human entities in terms of human

motivations, characteristics and activities as in this example, Covid 19 is killing a

lot of people Personification is seen as one category that covers a huge variety of

metaphors where each picks out various different aspects of a person or ways of

looking at a person As extensions of ontological metaphors, they allow us make sense of phenomena in human terms (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, p 34) For Charteris-Black (2011, p 61), personification is a “linguistic figure in which an abstract and inanimate entity is described or referred to using a word or phrase that

in other contexts would be used to describe a person” Personification is an important metaphorical device that would be broken down in this study into personification referring to human qualities, human actions and human abilities

2.7 Biography of Green Day

Green Day, American rock band that created the raw power of punk with a melodic pop sensibility and lyrics that captured the real feelings of American teenagers at the end of the 20th century and into the 21st The core members were Billie Joe Armstrong (born on February 17, 1972, Rodeo, California, U.S.), Mike Dirnt (goes by name of Michael Ryan Pritchard, b May 4, 1972, Berkeley), and Tré Cool (goes by name of Frank Edwin Wright III, b December 9, 1972, Willits, California) Other members were Al Sobrante (goes by name of John Kiffmeyer)

Armstrong and Dirnt met while they were at grade school in Crockett, California, and shared their love of classic punk groups such as the Ramones and the Dead Kennedys In 1987 they two and drummer Sean Hughes founded their first

band, a punk outfit called Sweet Children Hughes was later replaced by drummer Sobrante, a member of local group Isocracy Sweet Children became a popular live act in the San Francisco Bay area In 1989 the band recorded an album, 39/Smooth, which was released by local label Lookout Records and it was when the the new

band name Green Day was chosen Not long afterward, Sobrante was replaced by Tré Cool, a drummer from the mountains around Mendocino, California, who had

been playing in the punk band the Lookouts since he was in age of 12

The GD’s next album, Kerplunk (1992), was also released by Lookout

Records, but it drew attention from bigger labels, including Reprise, who later

released Green Day’s major-label debut, Dookie, in 1994 Dookie carried the

band’s catchy pop-punk sound and Armstrong’s apathetic lyrics into the mainstream American rock music, earning a Grammy Award for best alternative music performance and selling more than 15 million copies worldwide GD’s next

two albums, Insomniac and Nimrod (1997), were well sold but failed to match the success of Dookie, and the album Warning (2000) marked a return in the band’s

gamble album American Idiot (2004), a politically charged album with operatic

scope It was instantly a hugely successful release combined the large-scale political commentary of GD’s rock forebears with their charged intimate observations of the previous albums and in doing so, they achieved unexpected relevancy and acclaim The album sold more than 12 million copies worldwide and received the 2005 Grammy Award for best rock album Moreover, a single from the album, “Boulevard of Broken Dreams,” won the Grammy Award for record of the year in 2006

In 2009, a rock opera based on and scored with the songs from the album American Idiot was produced at a theatre in Berkeley, California The opera depicted the dead-end efforts of a trio of teenagers to escape the conventional life of their parents’ suburb, the musical American Idiot made a triumphant move to Broadway the next year The album soon gained rave reviews and two Tony Awards, for scenic design and lighting design of a musical Besides, the Broadway cast album was awarded a Grammy in 2011

Green Day received a second Grammy Award for best rock album for 21st

Century Breakdown in 2009 It was followed in 2012 by a three-song album: ¡Uno!,

¡Dos!, and ¡Tré! The songs found the band returning to the high-energy immediacy

of its punk roots while also drawing inspiration from its classic-rock forebears

GD’s next release, Revolution Radio (2016), was a more-focused return to basics

Father of All (2020) is going to go on air and win more awards

2.8 Summary

Chapter two briefly presents a literature review of literature, figurative language, music as language, metaphor in rock music and metaphor in cognitive semantics In addition, Linguistic theoretical backgrounds of conceptual metaphor were classified based on Lakoff and Johnson (1980) A bibliography of Green Day was discussed in this chapter to grab an overview of the birth of the American Idiot album To sum up, what has been discussed in this chapter will serve as the theoretical foundation for the analysis and interpretation of conceptual metaphors used in Green Day’s songs in the next chapter

CHAPTER 3 CONCEPTUAL METAPHORS IN GREEN DAY’S SONGS

This chapter breaks into two sections Section 1 answers the first RQ on the frequencies of conceptual metaphor found in the lyrics visually and descriptively The second section discusses the meanings of theses metaphors semantically and cognitively ………

3.1 Types and frequencies of conceptual metaphors in GD’s selected songs

3.1.1 American Idiot

American Idiot is one of the two explicitly political songs on the album (the

other is "Holiday"), American Idiot contends that mass media has orchestrated

paranoia and idiocy among the public Citing cable news coverage of the Iraq War, Billie Joe Armstrong, the lead singer, recalled, "They had all these Geraldo-like journalists in the tanks with the soldiers, getting the play-by-play." He felt that American news crossed the line from journalism to reality television, showcasing violent footage intercut with advertisements

This song consists of six stanzas with three repeated stanzas and three core stanzas used for analysis The findings show that in this song there are five conceptual metaphors with one structural metaphor, one orientational metaphor and three ontological metaphors as shown in the figure below:

Figure 3.2: Conceptual metaphors in the song American Idiot

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Conceptual metaphors in the song American Idiot

Structural metaphor Orientational metaphor Ontolotical metaphor