Figurative Language Found in Selected Arctic Monkeys’ Songs

Abstract

Humans have many media to communicate and convey their emotions, one of which is through songs. Songwriter usually put their feelings into the songs they wrote. Using figurative language in song lyrics can give a song a more profound meaning and make song lyrics sound unique. This study identifies the types of figurative language employed in the lyrics of each Arctic Monkeys’ selected song. Arctic Monkeys is an alternative rock band from England that has hundreds of outstanding achievements in their music career. There are eleven songs selected as the primary data to identify; they are I Wanna Be Yours, Arabella, Do I Wanna Know, Body Paint, Old Yellow Bricks, Knee Socks, Why’d You Only Call Me When You’re High?, Stop the World I Wanna Get Off With You, Do Me A Favor, No.1 Party Anthem, and A Certain Romance. The leading theory used in this study is a theory of figurative language by Knickerbocker & Reninger (1985). To collect the data, documentation and note-taking techniques were used. Descriptive qualitative analysis was applied to analyze the selected songs. This study found ten types of figurative language in the selected song lyrics: simile, metaphor, personification, synecdoche, metonymy, hyperbole, irony, paradox, dead metaphor, and allusion.

Keywords: Song lyric, Meaning, Figurative language