A semantic analysis on the English translation of surah Al-Muzammil by A. Yusuf Ali

ABSTRACT

Semantics is one of the branches of linguistics studying about meaning. This research is focused on analyzing the English translation of Surah Al- Muzammil by A. Yusuf Ali by using semantics theory. Al-Muzammil is one of the Holy Qur’an which consists of twenty verses.

Related to the background, the study aims at answering two following questions. What kinds of meaning are used in the English translation of “Surah Al-Muzammil” by A. Yusuf Ali and what messages are involved in this thesis.

This research was conducted using descriptive qualitative method, because the data of this study are in the form of the sentences or words of Surah Al- Muzammil. The steps of data collection are reading and understanding the translation of Surah Al-Muzammil by A. Yusuf Ali. Then, she selected the data related to the problems of the study. At last, the data were arranged systematically in accordance with the problems of the study. To analyze the data, she presented the data, interpreted the data and drew the conclusion.

Based on the result and discussion of the data, it can be concluded that there are two kinds of meaning involved in this Surah, namely lexical, and sentential meanings. Lexical meaning is concerned with the meanings of words and the meanings of relationship among words that contains denotation, connotation, synonymy, antonymy, polysemy, ambiguity, hyponymy, homophony, and homonymy. Sentential meaning can be defined as a group of words that form a statement, command, exclamation or question, and usually contain of subject and predicates, and in writing begins with a capital letter and ends of the mark (.?,!). Furthermore, the message is something that the author wants to convey to the readers. In many works, the message can be concluded as moral, religious, and social message. In this study, the messages found are dominated by religious messages.

The researcher hopes that this study can give a contribution for the readers, especially the students who are interested in semantic study. Furthermore, it is hoped for further researcher to conduct similar topic of this study, which does not only focuses on kinds of meaning but also on the other aspect of semantic.