Analysis of Figurative Language in Lady Gaga’s 'Born This Way' And Beyonce’s 'Run The World' (Girls): Empowering Women Through Song

Abstract

The title of this scientific paper is Analysis of Figurative Meaning in Lady Gaga's 'Born This Way' and Beyoncé's 'Run the World (Girls)': Empowering Women Through Song. This paper discusses the type of figurative meaning and the functions of the meaning. The theories applied to analyzed the data were taken from the book proposed by Perrine, entitled Sound and Sense published in 1982 a main theory, and supported by theories sourced from books entitled Semantic – The Study of Meaning by Leech published in 1981 and Meaning-based Translation by Larson published in 1998. Another supporting sources that are relevant to this topic, were taken from the internet. The data of this paper were taken from the song lyrics of the singers Lady Gaga and Beyoncé. The collected data was analyzed base on theoretical concepts and data was analyzed using the descriptive method. Then, the results are presented in a simple, non-formal narrative style to convey the findings. The analysis of the types of figurative meaning found in Lady Gaga's 'Born This Way' and Beyoncé's 'Run the World (Girls) include allusion, synecdoche, hyperbole, and metaphor. The functions conveyed by each of these figurative elements to reinforce themes of women empowerment and self-acceptance.