A semantic analysis on the lyrics of Cranberries Songs

ABSTRACT

Language is a main instrument of communication. It can not be separated from human being. We use language to express our feeling, response phenomena, share an idea, and criticize songs. Due to this fact, we realize that language has a big deal with human daily life; it will conduct US to understand the message of communication through the meaning, because meaning is a crucial aspect of language and a way to get the message of communication. In linguistics meaning is considered as a core study of semantics.

This study aims at analyzing the semantic analysis on the lyrics of cranberries’ song. According to the background, this research is conducted to answer the following research problem "what are the meanings involved in the lyrics of cranberries’ songs”. It uses descriptive qualitative method. The data are in the form of scripts of the songs. The data are selected from the albums ،،STARS” The best of 1992-2002, Every body else doing it so why can’t we, and To the faithful departed.

Data analysis shows some findings based on the formulated research question. According to semantic analysis the lyrics of Cranberries’ songs perfectly covered the three kinds of meaning: lexical meaning, sentence and utterance meaning^ and discourse meaning. On the other hand the dominant and undominant used of meaning has its own variation. In lexical meaning the use of connotative and figurative language are dominant, in figurative language the use of repetition is dominant, and in discourse meaning it is dominated by the use of substitution, ellipsis, reference, and conjunction. The minimal use of the meaning is stated on cranberries’ songs are the use of idiomatic.

Based on those finding, the researcher suggests to the next researcher in order to be able to make more wonderful and more complete analysis on the same field, because every literary work especially song has its own uniqueness in the side of meaning.