Anatomizing Taylor Swift’s ‘1989 (Taylor’s Version)’ Album
Abstract
This qualitative study examines the parallelism in 21 songs from Taylor Swift's '1989 (Taylor's Version)' album at the morphological-lexical and phonological levels, as well as the figurative languages used. The study has two research questions: (1) What are the occurring parallelisms in the album in terms of Morphological–Lexical level and Phonological Level? (2) What are the different types of figurative languages employed? Content analysis was used to determine morpheme, word, and phrase repetition, while Cambridge Dictionary was used to identify assonance, alliteration, and consonance repetition. Inter-coding was also used. The study is grounded in Leech and Short's Foregrounding Theory and Perrine's Figurative Language Theory. Word repetition was the most frequent, followed by morpheme repetition. The findings revealed that Taylor Swift employed parallelisms in the said album such as morpheme, word, and phrase repetition. The word repetition got the highest frequency number with two hundred fifty-one (251), followed by morpheme repetition with one hundred sixty-seven (167) frequency number. The top five most prevalent figurative languages in the songs were metaphor, hyperbole, paradox, simile, and personification. The current study is presented using a formalist perspective, the study suggests using a different lens of analysis—the functionalist approach.
References
Abdullah, M., Mahmood, A., Ali, S. (2022). Formalism as a Linguistic Theory: A Comparative Stylistic Analysis of poetic literature. Journal of Positive School Psychology.
Adi, W. T. (2020). Symbol and Theme on Robert Frost’ Poem by Using Biographical Perspective. LINGUA : Jurnal Bahasa, Sastra, dan Pengajarannya, 17(1), 15-24. https://doi.org/10.30957/lingua.v17i1.621
Ahmad, A., & Ali, A. (2023). A Stylistic analysis of Coke Studio’s selected English Songs. JELLL, 1(1), 1-20.
Alasta, K. (2021). An Analysis of Major Formalist Approach Terms in Short Story Everyday Use by Alice Walker. ICOTEL Proceeding MPBING, 2(1), 182-188.
Album Phonetics and IPA. (2023, February 6). Neography. https://neography.info/phonetics-and-ipa/
Amjad, M., Ajmal, M., Rubab, I., & Naseer, A. (2020). Teaching English poetry through parallelism and deviation for improving students’ interpretative skills. Journal of Critical Reviews, 7(13), 2077-2090.
Arifin, M. B., & Rahayu, F. E. S. (2021). An Analysis of Repetition Used in Shawn Mendes' Selected Song Lyrics. Ilmu Budaya, 5(4), 827-846.
Baro, H., & Dwivedi, P. (2020). Stylistic analysis of sound devices using parallelism on the selected Tigrina poems. Humanities & Social Sciences Reviews, 8(2), 61-68.
Bogt, T., Mulder, J., Raaijmakers, Q.A.W., & Gabhainn, S.N. (2011). Moved by music: A typology of music listeners. Psychology of Music, 39 (2), pp. 147–163.
Cambridge Dictionary https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/pronunciation/english
Candria, M. (2019). Stylistics: Towards a linguistic analysis of literature. Culturalistics: Journal of Cultural, Literary, and Linguistic Studies, 3(1), 29-34.
Delve, Ho, L., & Limpaecher, A. (2023). Inter-coder reliability https://delvetool.com/blog/intercoder
Dewi, E. N. F., Hidayat, D. N., & Alek, A. (2020). Investigating figurative language in “Lose You to Love Me” song lyric. Loquen: English Studies Journal, 13(1), 6-16.
Dewi, L. A. (2020). Figurative language in Maher Zain's song lyrics (Doctoral dissertation, IAIN Ponorogo).
Fadlilah, U., Ulya, M., & Rofiqoh, M. (2021). An analysis of language style in the song lyrics of" Manusia Kuat" Tulus: A stylistic study. Lintang Songo: Jurnal Pendidikan, 4(2), 12-18.
Fajardo, D. F. B. (2023). Deconstructing Taylor Swift’s 1989 (Taylor’s Version): A stylistic analysis. Metholangue, 8(2), 8–17. ISSN 2528-7370.
Fogarty, M., & Arnold, G. (2021). Are you ready for it? Re-evaluating Taylor Swift. Contemporary music review, 40(1), 1-10..
Gonzáles, M. G. S. (2021). The importance of song lyrics in perceptions and the sense of identity of young people. ResearchGate. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/351773776
IPA consonant chart. (n.d.). https://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~krussll/phonetics/ipa/ipa-consonants.html
Jeffries, L., & McIntyre, D. (2010). Stylistics. Cambridge University Press.
Latif, A., Ajmal, M., & Maqbool, S. (2022). A stylistic analysis of Robert Frost’s selected poems. Journal of Development and Social Sciences, 3(2), 71-81.
Leech, G.N. and Short M. H. (2007). Style in fiction: A linguistic introduction to English fictional prose. Second Edition. Edinburg: Longman.
Linneberg, M. S., & Korsgaard, S. (2019). Coding qualitative data: A synthesis guiding the novice. Qualitative research journal, 19(3), 259-270.
Lubis, T., & Purba, A. (2020). Metaphor and parallelism in political advertisements. Cogency, 12(2), 71-88.
Masroor, Farzana (2021). Introduction to Stylistics. Stylistics: Study Guide. Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Allama Iqbal Open University, Islamabad.
Nursolihat, S., & Kareviati, E. (2020). An analysis of figurative language used in the lyrics of “a whole new world” by Zayn Malik and Zhavia Ward. Professional Journal of English Education), 3(4), 477-482.
Short, M. H. (1996). Exploring the Language of Poems, Plays and Prose. London: Longman.
Yastanti, U., & Safitri, D. (2016). Imagery in Songs Lyrics of Alicia Keys. IJOLTL-TL (Indonesian Journal of Language Teaching and Linguistics), 1(1), 49-66. https://doi.org/10.30957/ijoltl.v1i1.169.
Yastanti, U., & Susilawati, S. (2020). Imagery in Song Lyrics of Taylor Swift. LINGUA: Jurnal Bahasa, Sastra, dan Pengajarannya, 17(2), 135-156.
Younas, A., Shahzad, W., Naveed, A., Aziz, S., & Younas, A. (2024). An Analysis of Figurative Language in Taufiq Rafat’s Poem “The Time to Love''. Qlantic Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities, 5(1), 399-412.
