A Semantic Analysis of The English Translation of Surah Al-Fath by T. B. Irving

ABSTRACT

In the process of communication with other person, there will be many possibilities of misunderstanding and misinterpreting of the meaning from the language we use. So that, understanding meaning is very crucial. To get successful interaction we have to understand both explicit and implicit meaning of the word. Meaning is idea or concept that can be transferred from the speaker’s mind to the hearer by embodying them, as it were, in the form of one language or another.

In linguistics, we can explore our knowledge about meaning by studying semantics.

This study is focused on analyzing the English translation of surah Al-Fath by T. B. Irving by using semantics theory. Semantic is one of branches of linguistics studying about meaning. “Surah Al-Fath” is one of surahs in the Holy Qur’an which consist of twenty nine verses and discuss generally about the victory of muslimun after the truce made at the tree of Hudaibiyya in the sixth year following the Hijra . Based on that background, the study about semantics of the English translation of surah Al-Fath by T. B. Irving was conducted with the problems “What kinds of meaning involved in this surah, and “What messages found in it”.

This research was conducted using descriptive qualitative method, because the data of this study are in the forms of sentences or words of surah Al-Fath.

The result of this study shows three kinds of meaning involved in this surah, namely lexical, sentential and discoursal meaning. Lexical meaning is concerned with the meanings of words and the meaning relationships among words. Lexical meaning is not only dealing with the obvious or literal meaning but also with denotation, connotation, synonymy, antonymy, ambiguity, polisemy, hyponymy, homophony, and homonymy. Sentential meaning can be defined as a group of words that forms a statement, command, exclamation or question, and usually contains a subject and predicates, and in writing begins with a capital letter and ends of the mark (., !, ?). While, discoursal meaning is a term used in linguistics to refer to a continuous stretch of language larger than a sentence dealt with discussion.

Furthermore, 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 messages. In this study, the messages found are dominated by moral and religious messages.

Based on the findings of this study described previously, the researcher also suggests that the future researchers conduct similar theme of study with more complete data and discussion.