CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background of The Analysis Language is an instrument for conveying meaning and communicating some ideas. People use language to interact to each other. They use it to express their feeling, message, knowledge and desire toward anyone. Sapir (1921:8) says that language is a purely human and non-instinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions, and desire by means of a system voluntary produced symbol. It means that language is used when we interact with other people socially or emotionally, to indicate corporation, friendliness, pain, or to express idea, desire, hope, and thought. In other word, language is a medium of communication which plays a vital role in human communication as once suggested by Palmer (1976:6), That linguistics is the scientific study of language. Linguistics has important role to components of language that include sound, the arrangement of words and meaning. There are four branches of linguistics study. They are phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics. Semantics is the technical term used refers to the study of meaning (Palmer: 1976:1). Semantics focuses on the meaning of words, phrases, or sentences in language. The understanding of meanings is really needed for the reader or hearer because it will be a problem if the hearer or reader can not understand what the speaker or the writer means. In other words, the hearer or the reader will get difficulties to understand or to know the meaning. In semantics, meaning can be divided into two parts. They are literal meaning and non-literal meaning. Literal meaning means what exactly someone
says or based on the real or lexical meaning of the utterance. Lexical meaning denotes what the speaker means according to the dictionary usage. We can find the meaning in the dictionary. Look at the examples below: 1) You are a good boy 2) He is a smart student. Both examples above have literal meaning as the real meaning according to the dictionary usage. The first sentence means that You is good, kind, or well-behaved. The second sentence means that He is smart, clever, and has good knowledge. Non-literal meaning always has different meaning from the literal one. It occurs when the sentence or word has hidden meaning besides the lexical meaning of the sentence or the word; when a speaker or a writer means something different from the lexical meaning of the word or the sentence. It is what we called as the non-literal meaning. We can find it in daily conversation when a speaker means something different from the lexical meaning of the utterance. Look at the examples of non-literal meaning below; 1) I loose my head. 2) I had no eye at the accident. Both sentences have non-literal in meaning. They express additional layer of meaning. At the first sentence, I loose my head implies that the subject I looses the logical sequence of thought. While in the second sentence implies that I did not see anything what happened at the accident. It is important to understand and distinguish literal and non-literal meaning because it may help people to avoid misunderstanding in daily
conversation. People with no understanding about non-literal meaning may have difficulty when they talk with people who has. So, in this thesis I try to analyze the non-literal meaning as the subject of analysis, because I think it is really important to understand it more and it is very useful for people to keep communication work well. If we talk about non-literal meaning, of course, we will be closely related to literary works, because most of them contain non-literal meaning. There are so many kinds of literary works that adopted the non-literal meaning, such as novel, prose, short story, or poem. It is effective to use non-literal meaning in a literary works to beautify the language and make its sounds elegant and give the magnificent words to attract the readers or audiences. Poem is defined as a piece of writing in verse (Oxford Advanced Learner s 1995: 890). There are many people like to read poem. They are also tried to express their feeling through the poem. The writers usually use non-literal expression to beautify the poem. We can see the difference between poem with non-literal expression and poem that use literal or direct way. It is more interesting for readers to read those with non-literal meaning. In this thesis, I am interested in analyzing the non-literal meaning found in poems. Poems convey something to the readers through the poem; sometimes it is very difficult to understand a poem for it may contain so many expressions with non-literal meaning. This thesis discusses non-literal meaning that found in poems and tries to interpret the meaning by using semantics theory. The poems I analyze are the once written by Emily Dickinson. I choose these poems because there are so many figurative expressions that could be
analyzed from semantics point of view. Emily Elizabeth Dickinson is one of the most popular poets in English literature. She was an American poet writer. She was born December 10, 1830 in Amherst, Massachusetts. One of her most famous poems is Hope is The Thing With Feathers. This title shows a non-literal meaning. the thing with feathers, is a kind of metaphor. Hope is compared with the thing with feathers. As we know, the thing with feathers is bird. So, hope is compared with a bird. 1.2 Problems of The Analysis In this thesis, I focus the analysis on the non-literal meaning that are found in poems. The problems of the analysis are formulated as follows: 1) What are the types of non-literal meaning found in Emily Dickinson s selected poems? 2) What is the meaning of each non-literal meaning found in Emily Dickinson s selected poems? 1.3 Objectives of The Analysis Based on the problems of the analysis as mentioned above, the objectives of this analysis are: 1) To find out the types of non-literal meaning in Emily Dickinson s selected poems. 2) To find out the meaning of each non-literal meaning found in Emily Dickinson s selected poems.
1.4 Scope of The Analysis There are so many non-literal expressions that could be found in any literary works. One of them is poem. In the process of analyzing the problems in this thesis, I limit the analysis on Emily Dickinson s selected poems. This analysis focuses on non-literal meaning by using semantics theory, i.e. Hyperbole, Metaphor, Euphemism, Personification, Synecdoche, Simile and Oxymoron (Tarigan: 1995: 114), that I used to analyze the poems. As the object of this analysis, I specifically choose ten poems of Emily Dickinson. They are: Hope Is The Thing With Feathers, There Is A Word, We Like March, There s A Certain Slant Of Light, A Wounded Deer Leaps Highest, This Is My Letter To The World, When Roses cease To Bloom, Dear, Death sets A Thing, Because I Could Not Stop For Death and T is So Much Joy. 1.5 Significances of The Analysis Theoretically, this thesis can enrich or add knowledge of students who are majoring in language in terms of semantics, especially in non-literal meaning. Practically, this thesis can be useful in learning poems, because we will not learn poem with non-literal meaning. It will help the process of teaching or learning poems. It will make people become easier in knowing the real meaning of the poems.
1.6 Review of Related Literature In completing this thesis, I use some theories which are relevant to the basic principle of semantic, to support the idea of the analysis. In addition, the focus is the kinds of non-literal meaning. A non-literal meaning is the opposite of the literal meaning. In nonliteral meaning, we do not mean exactly and completely what is stated or we say. In speech and writing, we are usually use non-literal meaning or figurative expression to add vividness or clarity of our ideas. In this thesis, I focus on seven component of non-literal meaning: Hyperbole, Metaphor, Personification, Synecdoche, Simile, Euphemism and Oxymoron. I also read some information from some previous research findings. They are some thesis which are relevant to the topic to support the idea of the analysis. Some of them are quoted as follows. Nasution (2005) in his thesis entitled An Analysis of Non Literal Meaning found in Guns N Roses Selected lyrics concluded that the songwriter uses four kinds of non-literal meaning that are figurative way (simile, metaphor, personification, oxymoron and euphemism, facetious way (irony), exaggerated way (hyperbole), and idiom. Husaini (2007) in his thesis entitled An Analysis of Non-Literal Meaning Found in Roxette Selected Lyrics concluded that the songwriter uses non-literal meaning in the lyrics; they are simile, metaphor, personification, euphemism, hyperbole, irony, and also idiom. Ambarita (2008) in his thesis entitled An Analysis of Non-Literal Meaning In Robert Frost Selected Poems, concluded that the writer uses non-
literal meaning in the poems; they are simile, metaphor, personification, euphemism, oxymoron, hyperbole, and idiom.