Cohesion Analysis in Jessie J Song’s Lyric of Price Tag

By:

Diana Chen 0911110022

Kamala Wibisono 0911113021

ENGLISH DEPARTMENT

FACULTY OF CULTURE STUDIES

BRAWIJAYA UNIVERSITY MALANG

2012

CHAPTER I

1.1 Background of Study

People need to build a communication in their social life, because they feel

important to make an interaction with other people. Communication is a process of

transferring a message from a sender (the speaker) to the receiver (the hearer). They

usually use a language in direct communication to communicate what they want to say.

But, some people use a song as a tool of transferring a message to other people in the

world.

According to Frederick (1988: 1), song can be classified as a literature because it

deals with every human activity and human experience. This material can express the

composer’s feeling. The words and ideas built in a song have a specific story. Moreover,

the sentences in the lyrics contain the strong emotion, thought, and imagination of the

composer.

Because language is both a product and a reflection of the values and beliefs of the

society that employs (Cobley, 2001: 134), song reflected the value of social facts and

human nature. The construction of any message in the song represents the reality of life

such as love, violence, friendship, sadness, happiness and etc. The composer makes a

beautiful lyric by putting the nuance and harmony that are supported by music in order to

entertain people in the world. Beside that, the message in the lyrics itself can show

human’s existence and capability. Furthermore, it can influence other people to feel what

the composer felt, and to imagine what the composer wrote in the lyrics. Then, song can

be an effective way to send a message to other people in the world.

In this study, the writer takes the song lyrics from the Jessie J’s album that the singer

was born on March 27, 1988 in London, England. Jessie knew that she had art running

through her blood. After attending Colins Performing Arts, Jessie was cast at Andrew

Lloyd Webber's West End play "Whistle Down the Wind" at the age of 11. The success

was followed by a greater one with the release of "Price Tag" in which Jessie

collaborated with hot new rapper, B.o.B.. It became her first number one single.

To build the lyrics, the song writers wrote the words in ordinary or simple language

in order to be understood on the first hearing. By using word repetitions, the song writer

gives the intention to the content to communicate and to deliver the message, thought,

and personal feeling more intensely. Then, cohesion is the basic element, besides

coherence that connected each word in each sentences.

According to Halliday and Hasan (1976:5), cohesion is a part of the system of a

language. It is the connection which exists between elements in the text where the

interpretation of the elements is dependent on that another. All the functions that are

applied to create relationship between surface elements are categorized as cohesion.

Cohesion, which is used to combine the sentence, consists of lexical and grammatical

cohesion. It is the formal links that mark various type of inter-clause and inter-sentence

relationship within discourse. Grammatical cohesion is a combination of terms between

sentences that form grammatical aspect and it consists of reference, substitution, ellipsis

and conjunction. Whereas lexical cohesion, as stated by Nunan (1993: 28), is a

combination of terms between sentences that form lexical components and it can be

divided into two types. There are reiterations which consist of repetition, synonym,

antonym, and metonym, and then collocation.

1.2 Problem of StudyBased on the background, the formulation of the problems are :

1. What Cohesion types and elements are used in Jessie J song’s Lyric : “Price Tag”?

2. What are the usage of cohesive devices used In Jessie J song’s Lyric : “Price Tag”?

1.3 Objectives of studyBased on the problems stated above, the objectives of the study are :

1. Describing cohesion type and element used in Jessie J song’s Lyric : “Price Tag”

2. Describing the usage of cohesive devices used in Jessie J song’s Lyric : “Price Tag”

1.4 Significance of the studyThe result of the study is expected to give valuable contribution to:

1) Develop the researcher’s perception about Analysing Cohesive Devices.

2) The result of this study can show how linguistics can be employed successively in

interpreting literary works, particularly short story through cohesion analysis in Jessie

J song’s Lyric : “Price Tag”

3) In Discourse Teaching, the result of this study can be an example for teacher in

teaching cohesive devices as useful tools to enable students to make logical

connections and coherent stretches of both written and spoken discourse.

4) A guidance and a reference for another researcher who is interested to analyze and describe

the used of cohesive devices in another written or spoken discourse.

1.5 Scope and Limitation

In this study, the researcher merely focuses on the analysis of cohesion. Those are

cohesive devices used in Jessie J song’s Lyric : “Price Tag”.

Cohesion is included on discourse analysis study. In addition, the researcher uses

Halliday’s and Hassan’s Cohesion in English theory.

1.6 Definition of the Key Terms

In order to avoid misinterpretation in this study, the researcher gives brief definitions

for certain terms which have big significance to the study that written on the title: “An

Analysis Of Cohesive Devices in Jessie J song’s Lyric : “Price Tag”, those are:

Cohesive Devices:

The components of cohesion to create a text unity of meaning within a text. It can be

in form of words or phrases.

Price Tag

A lyric has written by Bobby Ray Jr. Simmon. This is tell about life isn’t all about the

glamour, money, fame and fortune. And over time everyone has forgotten about the true

meaning of life. How we should celebrate each other, and our differences. We always go

back to classifying each other as rich and poor, black or white, but at the end of the day it

doesn’t mater. The artist is trying to tell us that we put a price on everything, and we

forget about what really matters, we worry to much about what other people think and

we get carried away, so we don’t enjoy life anymore, we put our selves through this

misery and we can choose to stop right now forget about the past.

Jessie J

Jessie was a regular name at awards events. She won 2011 BRIT Awards' Critics'

Choice and was nominated for BBC's Sound of 2011 list. Her debut album, called

"Who You Are", is ready to be released in the U.S. on February 25, 2011.

CHAPTER IISUMMARY OF RELATED LITERATURE

In this chapter the researcher will discuss some variables related to the study they are;

De Beaugrande and Dressler in Titscher (2000:21) define text as a communicative

event that must satisfy several conditions. Text can be defined in many ways. Text is defined

as linguistic communication (either spoken or written) seem simply as a message coded in its

auditory or visual medium (Leech and Short, 1981:209). Furthermore, Halliday and Hasan

(1976: 1), state: “The word text is used in linguistics to refer to any passage, spoken or

written, of whatever length, that does form a unified whole.” Besides that, they also said that

a text may be spoken or written, prose or verse, dialogue or monologue. It may be anything

from a single proverb to a whole play, from a momentary cry for help to an all-day discussion

on a committee (Halliday and Hasan: 1976).

Halliday and Hassan (1976) state that cohesion refers to semantic/meaning relations

that exist between two or more elements within a text. In addition, Halliday and Hasan note

That Cohesion occurs where the interpretation of some element in the text is dependent on

that of another. In other words, one element presupposes the other element, in the sense that

in cannot be effectively decoded except by resource to it. When this happens, a relation of

cohesion is established, and the two elements, the presupposing and the presupposed, are

thereby integrated into a text (1976: 4) While, Renkema (1976) proposes that cohesion is the

connection which results when the interpretation of a textual element depends on another

element in the text. Moreover, Widdowson in Musiin, (1994: 9) states that “cohesion is a

matter of contextual appropriacy of linguistic forms-sentences or in other words, there is a

meaning relation between sentences to others in the text. This relation is realized in the form

of formal linguistics devices”, it means that the text can be realized by formal linguistic

devices. Furthermore, concerning with the forms of formal linguistic devices, Halliday and

Hasan (1975:5) states hat cohesion is part of the system of the language which is expressed

partly through the grammar and partly through the vocabulary. Therefore, cohesion can be

divided into two types, grammatical cohesion and lexical cohesion.

Grammatical Cohesion

Grammatical cohesions are forms of cohesion realized through grammar (Halliday and

Hassan, 1976: 6). In addition, grammatical cohesion involves reference, substitution, ellipsis,

and conjunction, in that they involved closed system such as simple options of presence or

absence, and systems such as those of person, number, proximity and degree of comparison”.

Based on the statement above, grammatical cohesion is divided into three categories. Those

are: (1) Substitution, (2) Ellipsis, (3) Reference, and (4) Conjunction.

Substitution

A word is substituted by the other word is regarded as substitution. It is as Halliday

and Hassan (1976: 88) was argued “substitution is the replacement of one item by

another.” The kinds of dummy words are like ‘one’, ‘do’, ‘does’, ‘so not’, ‘some’ or

‘think so’. Substitution, therefore, is used within a text by the addressor to avoid

continually repeating words or clauses.

Ellipsis

Ellipsis defined as the omission of a word or part of a sentence. Ellipsis can be

described as ‘substitution by zero’ (Halliday and Hassan, 1976: 142).

Reference

Reference is the specific nature of information that is signaled for retrieval in which

the information to be retrieved is the referential meaning” (Halliday and Hassan,

1976: 31)

Conjunction

Conjunction is the relationship which indicates how the subsequent sentences or

clauses should be linked to the preceding or the following (parts of the) sentences

(Renkema, 1993: 38).

Lexical Cohesion

Lexical cohesion is forms of cohesion which deal with the connections based on the words

used (Renkema, 1993: 39). In general, lexical cohesion is divided into the following five

types, those are:

Repetition (often involving reference)

Repetition is when a word in first sentence is repeated in the next sentence within a

text

Synonym (often involving reference)

Synonyms are two or more forms, with very closely related meanings, which are

often, but not always, intersubstitutable in sentences (Yule, 1985: 95).

Hyponym

Hyponym is when the meaning of one form is included in the meaning of another

(Yule, 1985: 95).

Metonym

Fromkin, Blair, and Collins (1999:161) defined “metonym is a word used in place of

another word or expression to convey the same meaning”.

Antonym

Antonyms are two forms with opposite meaning (Yule, 1985: 95). It means that there

are two different words which their meanings oppose each other.

The Usage of Cohesive Devices

Substitution is used to substitute the noun, verb, or clause with the dummy words.

Ellipsis is used to indicate the omission of noun, verb, or clause which is similar to the

preceding noun, verb, or clause.

Reference is used to indicate the reference of personal pronoun, to indicate the

reference of demonstrative pronoun or the specificity of something, and to indicate

comparison.

Conjunction; its function is to relate clause with clause, and sentence with sentence,

even paragraph with paragraph within a text or discourse .

Lyric

According to Abram (1985: 108) a lyric is any fairly short poem, consisting of the utterance

by a single singer, or it can in the group (band) who expresses a state of mind on a process of

perception, thought, and feeling.

Previous Studies

Andhi Novita Sari (2010) focused on Discourse Analysis on Lexical and Grammatical

cohesion in Dido’s song. She found four kinds of grammatical cohesion there are: reference,

substitution, ellipsis, and conjunction. She also found two kinds of lexical cohesion there are:

repetition and collocation. The relationship between previous study and this study is both of

previous study and this study used Halliday and Hasan theory, moreover all those research

investigated about lexical cohesion. The significant difference in previous study with this

study is the researcher uses Halliday and Hasan’s theory to classify lexical cohesion in the

lyric of Jessie J’s song.

CHAPTER IIIRESEARCH METHOD

3.1 Research Design

In this research, the researcher uses descriptive qualitative research method. Qualitative research

is used due to the researcher analyzes the data which are in the form of words, phrases, clauses,

and sentences to get more understanding about something. In addition, in describing the results of

the study to the reader are also in the form of words or phrases not in numbers form or statistical

data.

Therefore, the researcher uses descriptive method because she does not try to examine a

hypothesis but to elaborate deeply about something. In this case, that is a deep understanding

about cohesion. Cohesion is a part of discourse analysis deals with the textual connection which

are expressed by the relation of meaning which resulted when the meaning of textual element is

dependent on another element in text.

3.2 Subject of the Study

The subject of this study is Jessie J’s Lyric : “Price Tag”. The researcher analyzes the kinds of

cohesive devices which relate the meaning of one sentence to the other sentences in this lyric to

become a unity of meaning and also the functions of those cohesive devices.

3.3 Data Sources

The data are taken from the text of Jessie J’s Lyric : “Price Tag”. This lyric is included in

descriptive lyric poetry and consist of more than twenty lines. Further, those several lines in short

poetries are included in some sentences. This lyric have been gotten from several website such as

www.elyrics.net and www.lyricsmode.com

3.4 Research Instruments

In this research, the research instrument is the researcher themselve. They are the one who

collects and analyzes the data. It is under the reason that in qualitative research it is more

effective and efficient for the researcher to get the data. It is as stated by Moleong (2005: 9) that

in qualitative research the human investigation is the primary instrument for gathering and

analyzing the data.

3.5 Data Collection

There are three steps in collecting the data. The first thing that is done by the researchers are the

researchers read the lyris to find the sentences which consist of cohesive devices by giving

numbers. The last is the researcher does check and recheck the data whether the data were correct

or not.

3.6 Data analysis

In analyzing the data, there are five steps. Firstly, the researchers read and understands the data

one by one while highlighting words or phrases are considered as cohesive devices and try to find

which one the presupposing items and which one the presupposed items. Secondly, they

categorizes cohesive devices which have been found into their appropriate types. Cohesive

devices of grammatical cohesion are classified into its types; those references are pronoun

reference, demonstrative reference, or comparative reference, substitutions and ellipsis are

nominal, verbal, or clausal. They categorize the lexical cohesion into its types, those are,

reiteration or collocation. In reiteration, they included on repetition, synonym, metonym,

hyponym, or antonym, and or collocation. Then they classify the conjunctions whether additive,

adversative, clausal, or temporal. Thirdly, the researcher determines the functions of each

cohesive devices that found on all the poetries, whether they substitute or omit noun, verb, clause,

to indicate reference pronoun, to relate two ideas, etc. Fourthly, the researchers describe the

findings in form of description by using words, phrases, clauses, and sentences. Fifthly, the

researchers make a conclusion of the discussion.

CHAPTER IVFINDINGS AND CONCLUSION

This chapter presents the analysis of data finding. In this chapter, the researchers

discusses Cohesion types, elements and usage of cohesive used in Jessie J song’s Lyric,

“Price Tag”

Verse 1

Seems like everybody's got a price (1)

I wonder how they sleep at night (2)

When the sale comes first and the truth comes second (3)

Just stop for a minute and smile (4)

In the first verse above, the researcher find reference (cataphoric), conjunction, and

repetition. Reference is expressed in the form of phrase. The word “they” in line (2) are refers

to “everybody” in line (1), because the word “they” explaining about “everybody” who got a

price. Conjunction is expressed in line (3) and (4), represented by the word “And” to connect the

words. Repetition is expressed in the form of phrase. The words “comes” in line (3) are

categorized as repetition, because those words are expressed twice in the same line, those words

represent that comes are sequence.

Verse 2

Why is everybody so serious? (5)

Acting so damn mysterious (6)

You got your shades on your eyes and your heels so high (7)

That you can't even have a good time (8)

In the second verse above, the researcher find repetition. Repetition is expressed in the form of

phrase. The words “so” in line (5), (6), (7) are categorized as repetition, because those words are

expressed three times in the same verse.

Verse 3

Everybody look to their left (9)

Everybody look to their right (10)

Can you feel that? Yeah (11)

We'll pay them with love tonight (12)

In the third verse above, the researcher find repetition, reference (cataphoric) and antonymy.

Repetition is expressed in the form of phrase. The words “everybody look to their” in line (9),

(10) are categorized as repetition, because those words are expressed twice in the same verse.

Reference is expressed in the form of phrase. The word “their” in line (9) and (10) are refers

to “everybody sight” in line (9) and (10). Antonym is expressed in the word “left” in

line (9) and in the word “right” in line (10). Furthermore, the function of antonym in this verse is

to indicate an opposite meaning between words “left” and “right”.

Verse 4

It's not about the money, money, money (13)

We don't need your money, money, money (14)

We just wanna make the world dance (15)

Forget about the price tag (16)

In the 4th verse above, the researcher find repetition. The words “money” in line (13) and (14)

are categorized as repetition, because those words are expressed sixth times in the same verse.

The function of repetition is to make the message of the word stonger that they don’t need money

anymore.

Verse 5

Ain't about the cha-ching, cha-ching (17)

Ain't about the ba-bling, ba-bling (18)

Wanna make the world dance (19)

Forget about the price tag (20)

In the 5th verse above, the researcher find repetition. The words “Ain’t about the” in line (17) are

categorized as repetition, because that words are repeated in line (18). Its also repetition in word

“ca-ching” in line (17) and “ba-bling” in line (18).

Verse 6

We need to take it back in time (21)

When music made us all unite (22)

And it wasn't low blows and video hoes (23)

Am I the only one gettin' tired? (24)

In the 6th verse above, the researcher finds reference and conjunction. Reference expressed in line

(21) and (23) by the word “it”. That word refers to time when the world dance. Reference used to

indicate as pronoun. Conjunction is expressed in line (23) by word “and” to connect between line

(22) and (23) and in line (23) to connect word to the other words in the same line.

Verse 7

Why is everybody so obsessed? (25)

Money can't buy us happiness (26)

Can we all slow down and enjoy right now (27)

Guarantee we'll be feelin' alright (28)

In the 7th verse above, the researcher finds conjunction. Conjunction is expressed in line (27),

represented by the word “And” to connect the words.

Verse 8

Yeah, well, keep the price tag and take the cash back (29)

Just give me six strings and a half stack (30)

And you can keep the cars, leave me the garage (31)

And all I, yes, all I need are keys and guitars (32)

In the 8th verse above, the researcher finds repetition, antonymy and conjuction. Repetition is

expressed in the word “keep” in line (29) and (31) it is stated twice in the same verse. So, it is

classified as repetition. Furthermore, the function of repetition in this word is to express that she

must keep that kinds of things. Its also expressed in the word ”all I” in line (32), it is stated twice

in the same line. Antonym is expressed in the word “keep” and in the word “take” in line (29).

Those words have an opposite meaning so they belong to antonym. Its also antonymy between

“give” and “keep” in line (30) and (31), those words have an opposite meaning. Conjunction is

expressed 1st in line (29), (30), (31) by word “and” to connect between line (30) and (31) and 2nd

in line (32) to connect between line (31) and (32).

Verse 9

And guess what, in 30 seconds I'm leaving to Mars (33)

Yes, we leaving across these undefeatable odds (34)

It's like this man, you can't put a price on life (35)

We do this for the love, so we fight and sacrifice every night (36)

In 9th verse above, the researcher finds conjunction and repetition. Conjunction is expressed 1st in

line (33) by word “and” to connect between the verse before and line (33). Its also expressed in

line (36) by word “so” and “and”. The function are to connet word to has a good meaning.

Repetition is expressed in the words “leaving” in line (33) and in line (34). Its categorized as

repetition, because that words are repeated.

Verse 10

So we ain't gon' stumble and fall, never (37)

Waiting to see, a sign of defeat, uh uh (38)

So we gon' keep everyone moving their feet (39)

So bring back the beat and then everybody sing, it's not about (40)

In the 10th verse above, the researcher finds repetition and conjunction. Conjunction is

expressed in the word “so” in line (37) and (39). Repetition is expressed in the word “so we” in

line (37) and (39) it is stated twice in the same verse. So, it is classified as repetition. Its also

expressed in the word ”gon’” in line (37) and (39), it is stated twice in the same verse.

Verse 11

It's not about the money, money, money (41)

We don't need your money, money, money (42)

We just wanna make the world dance (43)

Forget about the price tag (44)

The 11th verse above has the same lyric with the 4th verse, the researcher find repetition. The

words “money” in line (41) and (42) are categorized as repetition, because those words are

expressed sixth times in the same verse. The function of repetition is to make the message of the

word stonger that they don’t need money anymore.

Verse 12

Ain't about the cha-ching, cha-ching (45)

Ain't about the ba-bling, ba-bling (46)

Wanna make the world dance (47)

Forget about the price tag (48)

The 12th verse above has the same lyric with the 5th verse, the researcher find repetition. The

words “Ain’t about the” in line (45) are categorized as repetition, because that words are repeated

in line (45). Its also repetition in word “ca-ching” in line (45) and “ba-bling” in line (46).

CONCLUSION

Jessie J’s lyric “Price Tag” is a lyric that has a good meaning. She try to make the lyric with a

simple words but its content the function of cohesive devices and the usage of cohesive itself.

The conclusion is drawn from the analysis shows that cohesive devices used in this lyric are

repetition, synonym, conjunction, and antonym.

In the pattern of lexical cohesion, this research finds repetition; such as come, so, everybody look

to their, money, ca-ching, ba-bling. conjunction; such as and and so. Reference; such as their.

and antonym; such as left and right, take and give, keep and take.

The usage of cohesive devices within the verse in Jessie J’s lyric of “Price Tag” is to inform, to

describe, to strengthen, to connect, to convince, to express the narrator’s idea. Furthermore, the

general function of cohesive devices is to collaborate paternal links of the text in order to produce

a good coherence in presenting the text, and the text will be interesting and not monotonous.

REFERENCES

Chojimah, Nurul. 2012. Discourse Analysis. English Language Department, Faculty of Culture Studies, Brawijaya University, Malang.

Halliday, M.A.K. and Ruqaiya Hassan. 1976. Cohesion in English. London and New York: Longman

Novita, Andhi. 2010. An Analysis of lexical and Grammatical cohesion in Dido’s song, an Unpublished Thesis. Surakarta: Muhammadiyah Surakarta

Yule, George. 1985. The Study of Language: An Introduction. USA: Cambridge University Press