CONCEPTUAL METAPHORS IN LYRICS BY MICHAEL JACKSON

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY M.A THESIS CONCEPTUAL METAPHORS IN LYRICS BY MICHAEL JACKSON (ẨN DỤ Ý NIỆM TRONG CA TỪ CỦA MICHAEL JACKSON) HA THI KIEU DIEM Field: English Language Code: 60220201 Hanoi, 2017 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY M.A THESIS CONCEPTUAL METAPHORS IN LYRICS BY MICHAEL JACKSON (ẨN DỤ Ý NIỆM TRONG CA TỪ CỦA MICHAEL JACKSON) HA THI KIEU DIEM Field: English Language Code: 60220201 Supervisor: DANG NGUYEN GIANG Hanoi, 2017 CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report entitled CONCEPTUAL METAPHOR IN LYRICS BY MICHAEL JACKSON submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master in English Language Except where the reference is indicated, no other person’s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the text of the thesis Hanoi, 2017 HA THI KIEU DIEM Approved by SUPERVISOR (Signature and full name) Date:…………… ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the following people for their great supports during my two-year time for the MA course First and foremost, I would like to express my deep gratitude to Dr Dang Nguyen Giang, my supervisor, for his clear guidance, insightful comments and dutiful supervision My deep thanks also go to all the lecturers at Hanoi Open University for their knowledge, experience and enthusiasm in their lectures, from which I have acquired valuable knowledge and inspiration to fulfill this minor thesis With the passion for literature and semantics, I am really interested in the lectures of Prof Dr Ho Ngoc Trung and Assoc Prof Dr Hoang Tuyet Minh which have inspired me to this study I also would like to express my sincere thanks to my family any many of my friends and colleagues for their valuable sharing and encouragements Finally, my sincere thanks are for the people who will give me the precious comments after reading the graduation thesis ABSTRACT Metaphor plays an impotant role in language It appears in literature, daily life and music Particularly, music is considered as bridge to connect people together It is the best way to communicate That is why studying metaphor is a great idea With the hope of highlighting the profound philosophy of human life in songs, this thesis would focus on the conceptual metaphors in lyrics by Micheal Jackson In this thesis, the orientational metaphor and structure metaphor will analysis clearly.Qualiitative analyzing and contrastive analyzing are used in this study The thesis is limited to the conceptual metaphors in the lyrics by of Michael Jackson, and the other issues related to cognitive linguistics are mentioned as a more convenient way to clarify the conceptual metaphor models within the scope of the subject Due to the limitation of time and the author’s ability, there are thirty songs investigated and analyzed in the present study LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS TABLE OF CONTENTS Certificate of originality i Acknowledgements ii Abstract iii Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale 1.2 Aims and objectives of the study 1.3 Research questions 1.4 Methods of the study 1.5 Scope of the study 1.6 Significance of the study 1.7 Design of the study Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 11 1.2 Previous studies 2.2 Review of the Theoretical Background Chapter 3: : ORIENTATIONAL AND STRUCTURAL METAPHORS IN LYRICS BY MICHAEL JACKSON 22 3.1 Orientational Metaphors in Lyrics by Michael Jackson 3.2 Structure metaphor Chapter : IMPLICATION OF THE STUDY 47 4.1 Reality of English Teaching and Learning throughthe songs 4.2 English Teaching and Learning through the songs by Micheal Jackson 4.2 English Teaching and Learning through the songs by Micheal Jackso Chapter 5: CONCLUSION 40 5.1 Concluding remarks 5.2 Limitation of the research 5.3 Suggestions for further research Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale Music plays an important part in our spiritual lives It is also able to show its own features in each culture Different cultures lead to the different languages; different languages lead to the difference in the cultural behavior, and metaphor is one part of the language According to cognitive view, language is a tool of human cognition, in which, the metaphor is one of the typical and effective tools Cognitive linguistics indicates the relationship between language and psychology Metaphors not appear in poetry, but also play an important role in every utterance In Vietnam, cognitive linguistics is a quite new research approach However, it has gained many achievements It can be said that cognitive linguistics in general, and the conceptual metaphors in particular are getting the attention of Vietnamese linguists and is a potential and promising direction However, among researches on cognitive linguistics, there have not been any individual studies about conceptual metaphor in lyrics by Michael Jackson Michael Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009) was an American singer, a songwriter, and a dancer He is called the "King of Pop", his contributions to music along with his publicized personal life His significant music videos include video "Beat it", "Billie Jean" and "Thriller" from his 1992 album Thriller, these were credited with breaking racial barriers and transforming the medium into an art form and promotional tool He continued to innovate people with videos such as "Black and White" and "Scream" throughout the 1990s, and forged a reputation as a touring solo artist Songs composed by Michael Jackson were significantly known by its message Which have big influence into the people around the world in general and Vietnamese people particular? His lyrics are influenced by love and compassion Especially, the songs "We are the world" and "Heal the World" Michael Jackson used metaphor to express the love and aspiration for a united fatherland Being a songwriter may be not as easy as we just see from afar It is difficult todetermine which one is more complicated, being songwriter or being a singer However Michael Jackson is like an expert of both He was the King of Pop because most of his songs achieved many awards Therefore he was one of the most-influential men in the world He has inspired people through 10 experiences of someone else's grass The belief that the grass would be greener on the other side is used to illustrate the notion of something else seeming better than what you are already in possession of The target of this colloquial saying is LOVE and the conception that there might be another better LOVE still waiting to be found elsewhere In this context where the rejected one tries to prove the mistake made by the person doing the rejecting, this phrase is a saying which is supposed to further demonstrate the attempt to show the strength of the one being rejected 3.3 Summary People often describe certain conceptual domains in terms of other conceptual domains in order to better understand them Although they are often so fully integrated in people's minds that they are used subconsciously, there are ways of distinguishing them in language Studies of conceptual metaphors regarding LOVE and how they are depicted and changes over time could be conducted by analysing song lyrics of a particular singer Analyses of particular songs can show the source concepts which can be used to describe the target concept LOVE, and similarly the number of instances can be analysed By using songs of the same artist separated by a particular amount of time it is also possible to analyse if these metaphors change in any particular way The singles of Mariah Carey's albums show that conceptual metaphors are frequently used, LOVE IS AN OBJECT being the most typically used metaphor The results also demonstrated that there are many possible source concepts for a target concept Carey's lyrics not only show that she used more source targets in her debut album, but also that many phrases can be connected to multiple source concepts The singles from Carey's 2014 album demonstrated a decrease in the use of conceptual metaphors, but the difference between this album and the 1990 album is not statistically significant The change in the usage of conceptual metaphors is difficult to explain since it can depend on many variables; the 37 changes of the music industry, the artist's personal growth, differences in opinion of what is and what is not a metaphorical expression and the songs' themes all affect how the metaphors are interpreted However, the analysis of Mariah Carey's song lyrics illustrates that she not only sings about various forms of LOVE, but also various ways of describing this particular conceptual domain via other conceptual domains Chapter : Implication of the study Most important, being aware of metaphors reminds us of the central role that poetic skills play in our thought Finding a metaphor plays a vital role in feeling and perceiving the value of literature After studying conceptual metaphors in lyrics by Micheal Jackson, the researcher has found out implications for using metaphors in general and metaphors of love in particular for learners, teachers and translators 4.1 Reality of English Teaching and Learning through the songs Once learners are able to have their own metaphors and use them to promote the ideas flexibly, they will become metaphor masters If the learners know to take advantages of the benefit of using metaphor, they can improve all the skills in learning a second language Conceptual metaphor provides students with the possibility of understanding one concept in terms of another From a domain, they can refer to many various domains by the metaphorical expressions As a result, they will broaden their vocabulary and make them more productive Learners should know what a metaphor is if they are studying examples of metaphors in text Simply knowing the definition, however, is not sufficient They should be able to identify examples of metaphors in the text on their 38 own They should be able to explain the purpose for the metaphor and analyze how it contributes to the theme of the work Thus, applying conceptual metaphors in learning language will help students improve their reading comprehension a lot When studying one language, it is necessary not only to study vocabulary, grammar, reading, writing, speaking or listening, but also to know how to use language in natural way Metaphor is specially used in daily life, in any languages and in many situations In both spoken language and literature language, metaphor can be frequently appeared As soon as understanding the message of each metaphor in songs and literal works, learners can easily communicate with native speakers naturally or use flexibly in their own writing So, metaphor plays an important role in improving reading and writing skills It is necessary to write paragraphs containing a metaphor appropriately as possible Learners should use metaphors in their own writing to train their language competence better As students become aware of their own metaphors for learning they can recognize how their language competence progresses In addition to the above skills, learning literature cannot lack using metaphor The use of metaphor in poetry is one of the most important aspects of poetic style that must be mastered Despite being the major students of English, they have few chances to practice using metaphor in writing They still get a lost to understand and analyze metaphor in song or literal works Therefore, when learning English literature, they must try their best to identify, analyze and use metaphor steps by steps from sentence to text Not many students understand metaphor clearly and dare use metaphor in communication as well as in literal works frequently Some can use metaphor in 39 their writing but illogically and inflexibly Hence, teachers must spend enough time and create appropriate methods to teach them to learn it in the best way Teachers should make their students aware of the applicability and significance of metaphors The students should understand the nature conceptual metaphor and how it can be applied in daily life Teachers can create the interesting lessons to inspire learner to be absorbed in metaphor with the easy and exciting activities such as sharing examples, brainstorming, trying composing short poems… Metaphor is an effective language tool for teachers to teach vocabulary in the collocation of word Metaphor is frequently used in poetry, as poets endeavor to find creative ways to express experience Encouraging students to use metaphors will help them improve their writing ability and produce interesting pieces that others will enjoy reading It can be difficult for students to create their own metaphors However, there are activities that teachers can use to help students understand metaphors and to inspire the use of these literary devices to help bring writing to life Students often limit their descriptive writing to what they see Teachers make students think about all five senses when they are writing For example: Write a short poem about love (Teachers can suggest making a list of love metaphors., "Love is a " and fill in the end with the first thing students think of that feels true: love is a race, love is a chocolate, love is a fight, Then Students can start to describe what they know and think about) The influence of a first language in metaphoric processing has been explained as the result of the cultural background and expectations of that language, which affects the way learners, conceptualize the target language and process metaphors in the target language (Boers, 2003; Kövecses, 2004) Thus, it 40 is important that learners discern the way figurative language is used in a particular culture because learning a language means learning about culture learners can gain linguistic and non-linguistic knowledge As a means of cultural transmission metaphors can raise learners‘ awareness of the relationship Consequently, teachers should provide students with knowledge of culture Specially, Metaphors are language, and language is culture Most metaphors are thereby culture-bound, and can only be understood in direct translation by those sharing the same language and/or culture However, metaphors can become a translation problem, since transferring them from one language and culture to another one may be hampered by linguistic and cultural differences or differences in metaphorical conceptual systems and the contexts in which they emerge For instance, metaphor ‗she is a fox‘ means ―she is attractiveǁ in English but implies ―she is evilǁ in VietNam Since metaphors are related to different cultural domains, this implies that the translator has to the job of conceptual mapping on behalf of the target language reader; he has to look for a target language similar cognitive equivalence in the target culture The more the source language and target language cultures in question conceptualize experience in a similar way, the easier the task of translation will be In order to have a good transitional equivalent of conceptual metaphors, the translators should be aware of cultural elements that have a great influence on using some expressions of metaphors If the translators fail to understand the conceptualization, misunderstanding of text and cross-cultural communication will certainly occur It is highly suggested that the translators are able to understand metaphors in order to have metaphorical expression equivalence in cross-cultural communication 4.2 English Teaching and Learning through the songs by Micheal Jackson Learning through the songs make great interesting for learner, the English learner can understand deeply meaning and translate the song easily This is an example 41 There’s a place in your heart and I know that it is love Có nơi tim bạn tơi biết tình u And this place could be much brighter than tomorrow Và nơi tươi sáng nhiều 4.3 Implications for Idiom Teaching Learning As stated by Lakoff and Johnson (1980), conceptual metaphors are not just literary devices They are prevalent in everyday language Since a large part of idioms and expressions in English are motivated by conceptual metaphors, language teachers can make those idioms and expressions easier by raising students’ awareness of how conceptual metaphors work in the meaning making Many learners of English develop the habit of learning by heart the equivalents of idioms in their mother tongue and then use those in communication Teachers also tend to avoid teaching English idioms although these expressions are important for developing language capability in learners Some teachers believe that idioms are too difficult for learners Evidence for this can be found in many language teaching textbooks which only show a list of idioms grouped by themes or key words and then come gap-filling exercises for learners That way of task designing only encourages students to learn by heart idioms’ meaning from the context in which they occur Students will not be able to understand how those idioms were formed or use them in real contexts when the contexts are different from what they have in the textbook Sometimes, textbook also tries to provide learners with synonyms but they are not quite equal and can be confusing The three types of conceptual metaphors discussed show that mental images grounded deeply in idioms can be activated by making learners understand the underlying conceptual metaphor and trace back to idioms’ origin Vu2006) showed that the meaning of many idioms, especially those of body part idioms 42 are motivated rather than abstract Consequently, in order to teach idioms effectively, teachers should not only ask students to learn by heart Instead, they should encourage students to predict the origins of idioms and then help them to find out the illiterate meaning based on that finding Besides, explicit explanation of conceptual metaphors can also help students infer idioms’ meaning to a great extent In a research on idioms containing ‘ears’ (Vu, 2008), it was found out that it was very hard for students to automatically identify the proper conceptual metaphor for decoding idioms’ meaning In order to help students that, teachers need to give students direct instruction on underlying conceptual metaphors or metonymies that motivate those idioms 4.4 Summary A large part of our everyday language expressions are motivated by conceptual metaphors that we take for granted Structural, orientational and ontological mexamples given, it is shown that explicit teaching of underlying conceptual metaetaphors all start from our bodily experience interacting with the outside world and shape the meaning of many idioms and language expressions From the phors that motivate idioms’ meaning not only leads to better learning but also makes learning idioms and other language expressions more interesting This new approach towards teaching vocabulary, language expressions and idioms should be encouraged in modern English classes Chapter 5: CONCLUSION 5.1 Concluding remarks 5.1.1 The typical metaphorical images in lyrics by Micheal Jackson In this section, the writer will summarize my findings on the data, compare them to my objectives mentioned and conclude the section in outlining points of interest for possible further study My thesis is to find the fresh figurative language metaphorical linguistic expressions of lyrics by Micheal Jackson from the 43 cognitive perspective mostly basing on theory of the famous writers such as Lakoff and Johnson, Kövecses The focus of my study is on metaphors of love, of which the data provided the ample amounts The metaphors of love found in the data often are utilized every day In this thesis, I analyze 10 sets of basic metaphors: Love is natural phenomena, war, light,closeness, heaven, religion, journey, living creature, magic, fire In each metaphorical system, there are various metaphorical images such as moon, mountain, star, ect Structural metaphors are the prevalent type of metaphors in the data and provide the richest source for elaborating concepts This can be seen in the analysis as well 5.1.2 How these metaphorical images are expressed in songs As analyzed above, the metaphors of this research are applied basing on mechanism of mapping built by Lakoff and Johnson, Kövecses A set of mappings across domains is used We try to understand the target domain by the use of the source domain Target domains are therefore believed to have relationships between entities, attributes and processes which mirror those found in the source domain At the level of language, entities, attributes and processes in the target domain are lexicalized using words and expressions from the source domain 5.2 Limitation of the research The data consists of 20 song lyrics and even though the amount of lyrics did not seem excessive in the beginning, the workload needed in finding and analyzing all the metaphorical expressions in the 86 data proved out to be suitable The number of song lyrics should have been reduced in order not to deviate from the typical extent of theses Organizing metaphorical expressions under the appropriate conceptual metaphors works well but I am not contented with the way each of them is analyzed With the love for literature, I could have analyzed every example elaborately and more interestingly but because of limitation of pages and time, I only mentioned them generally This research mainly focuses on semantic mechanism of metaphors used in English love songs by famous bands and writers 44 Thus, there are still some exciting aspects that need further studies: It would be a fascinating idea to widen the topic to other fields such as metaphors in folk songs, in poetry, novels… It would be better to analyze metaphor from the other perspectives 45 5.3 Suggestions for further research This thesis approaches uncharted territory and further research on the matter would be an intruguing idea indeed One focus point might be concentrating on only one of types of metaphors such as structure metaphors Furthermore, cases of container metaphors in conjunction with love would provide another, more specific topic for further study It would be a fascinating idea to approach the data from the perspective of gender or queer studies as well REFERENCES Boers, F (2000) Enhancing metaphorical awareness in specialised reading, English for Specific Purposes, vol 19, 137-147 Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M (1980) Metaphor We Live By Chicago: The University of Chicago Press Kovecses, Z.(1995/2007).Language and emotion concepts Inside A: General and Theoretical Paper No 350 Retrieved 7.April,2015 from http://www.linse.uni –due de/lauddowloadliste Wray, A (2002) Formulaic Language and the Lexicon Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Nguyễn Ngọc Vũ (2006) Về cách giải thích nghĩa thành ngữ từ góc độ ngơn ngữ học tri nhận Kỉ yếu hội thảo ngữ học trẻ (pp 504508) Hà Nội: NXB ĐHSP Trần Văn Cơ (2007) Ngôn ngữ học tri nhận Hà Nội: NXB Khoa học Xã hội APPENDIX Name of Songs Name of Writers WE are the world Micheal Jackson Heal the world Micheal Jackson I can't stop loving you Micheal Jackson You are not alone Micheal Jackson Keep your head up Micheal Jackson Thriller Micheal Jackson Earth song Micheal Jackson Black and White Micheal Jackson Beat it Micheal Jackson 10 Man in the mirror Micheal Jackson 11 The way you make me feel Micheal Jackson 12 Will you be there Micheal Jackson 13 They don't care about us Micheal Jackson 14 Childhood Micheal Jackson 15 Give me into Micheal Jackson 16 Fall again Micheal Jackson 17 Dangerous Micheal Jackson 18 Who is it Micheal Jackson 19 Unbreakable Micheal Jackson 20 Billie jean Micheal Jackson REFERENCES (This contains all citations within the thesis The references are ordered alphabetically and chronologically if there are several citations from one author.) a) Books Author’s name, Initials (year) Title Publisher, Publisher location, Edition b) Essays in Journals Author’s name, Initials (year) Title Journal’s name, Volume, pages c) Essays in Handbooks Author’s name, Initials (year) Title Name of Publisher, Initials, Editors, Title of Handbook Pages, Publisher, Publisher location, Edition d) Scientific Reports, Doctoral thesis Author’s name, Initials (year) Title Kind of Source, Location of Source e) Newspaper article Author’s name, Initials (year) Title Newspaper’s name, Date, pages f) Sources from the internet Author’s name, Initials (year) Title URL, Day on which the source was downloaded from the URL APPENDICES (For quick reference and clarity, appendices must be given titles and numbers) 10 ... metaphors employed in the lyrics by Michael Jackson; - Uncovering the structural metaphors implicitly indicated in the lyrics by Michael Jackson - Applying the conceptual metaphors employed in. .. orientational metaphors used in the lyrics by Michael Jackson? - What structural metaphors are employed in the lyrics by Michael Jackson? - How are the conceptual metaphors applied in English teaching... Metaphors and Structural Metaphors in Lyrics by Michael Jackson Chapter 4: Applying the Conceptual Metaphors in English teaching and learning through the songs Michael Jackson Chapter 5: Conclusion