A Study on Lexical Meaning Found on The Lyrics of Metallica Song

ABSTRACT

Even in the Holy Qur’an, the greatest literature, there are two verses, namely, muhkamaat and mutasyaabihaat verses which are used to understand the Holy Qur’an. Muhkamaat verse is the verse whose meaning is clearly understood, whereas the Mutasyaabihaat verse is the verse whose meaning cannot be understood except by Allah Himself. In literature, of course, it is written in figurative language. Figurative language can be found in the lyrics of song. To understand the lyrics, we have to determine the speakers who produce the utterances and the speaker’s or writer’s position in space and time.

This research examines the denotative and connotative meaning implied in Metallica lyrics. It uses descriptive qualitative method. The data are in the form of lyrics written by the Metallica. The data are selected from the Metallica cassette and from Haiklip magazine, published in 2003.

This research, found that there are positive and negative connotative meaning in the lyrics of Metallica. The positives connotative meanings are mostly used by Metallica because the sentences and utterances are constructed for daily expressions. The negatives connotative meanings are dominant because the lyrics of metallica are mostly written in the figurative language.