An analysis of figurative language in the text of film advertisement posters found in mandala theater

ABSTRACT

Communication is a part of our life. By communication, we can socialize with another people. Advertising present communication between the advertiser and the audience directly. By the advertisement, the advertiser sends his message to the people as the audience. For the advertisers itself, they have to be careful in using the language and giving the context in their advertisement in order to bring the purposes of advertisement into the reality. The advertiser does not only use ordinary language to express their purpose but also use figurative language. Figurative language is a deviation from what speaker of language apprehend as ordinary, or standard, significance or sequence of words, as order to achieve some special meaning or effect. This research is conducted to describe the figurative language used in the text of film advertisement posters found in Mandala Theater.

The research design used in this study is descriptive qualitative, because the data of this study are in the form of utterances or words of text in the film poster. The researcher uses qualitative one to analyze the data and uses textual analysis theory as stated by Silverman because the data in the form of words or texts rather than number. The data source of this study are thirteen film posters shown in Mandala Theater during November until January 2005. The researcher directly observes to obtain the data. In doing the observation, the researcher uses the note in helping in transcribe the data. Fo analyze the figurative language used in the texts of film advertisement posters, the researcher used the theory of figurative language based on theory stated by Abram, Reaske and Macmillan. The data were then analyzed in the following way. Firstly, identifying and categorizing the texts of the film posters that contain of figurative language. Secondly, the data of each category are presented and analyzed. Thirdly, finding the message of each of the texts of film advertisement posters based on the film title. Finally, conclusions are made.

Furthermore, to derive the valid data, the researcher used triangulation. In this research there are two research problems they are; what kinds of figurative language are used in texts of film advertisement posters and what are the messages of the texts of the film advertisement posters. Based on the problems mentioned above, the objectives of this study are to provide descriptive knowledge on kinds of figurative language and the messages that found in texts of film advertisement posters.

Based on those findings, it is suggested for the advertisers to comprehend and consider the figurative language types when they write the advertisements. In addition, it is also recommended for the future researchers to conduct the research using figurative language in other fields, it can be in the other printed media such as magazines, newspaper, tabloid, etc.