A semantic analysis implied in Bob Marley’s lyrics

ABSTRACT

Semantics deals with the meaning of language used by people in order to convey their intended meaning of speaking, or message of a language used، If people did not know the real meaning or the exact meaning, they would have difficulty to understand what they want. Although it may relate to the some matters of which we posses to the scientific knowledge (according to referential or denotational theory describes that the meaning of utterance is what it shows), ideational theory and also behaviorist theory that describes that the meaning of an expression is either the stimulus that cause it or response it cause. So we have to know more about what semantics itself is and what the content of it. In addition we will know what the writer means with his writing, which theory he used and how he expresses his mind in writing. Based on that background, the research on semantics study implied in bob Marley’s legend album published in 1981 is conducted with the proposed problem; what are the meanings implied on Bob Marley’s lyrics and what are the themes found in Bob Marley’s Lyrics.

In order to avoid the data out of the topic that is discussed, the writer limits his discussion on the meaning that categorized into three levels, and they are lexical meaning, sentential meaning and discourse meaning and theme only.

This study is classified as a descriptive qualitative method, because the use of the language will result descriptive data, which contain the written word. Therefore this study is included into descriptive qualitative one. The writer used Bob Marley’s Lyrics which is relevant with the data sources. After getting data from the lyrics, then he read, listened, analyzed and made record of data obtained.

The meanings that involved in Bob Marley’s lyrics are lexical, sentential, and discourse meaning. Deals with lexical meaning, meaning some of the words of the songs use denotation and connotation, figurative meaning, synonymy, hyponymy, and also antonymy. Deals with sentential meaning, the analytic and synthetic are happened in some lyrics. Meanwhile, related to discourse meaning the words of the song using conjunction and pronoun form to create cohesion. The themes of Bob Marley’s Lyrics are described about social critics, political criticism, and also talking about life.

Data analysis revealed the findings covering the proposed problem.