DEIXIS ON THE SONG LYRICS OF FOLKLORE ALBUM BY TAYLOR SWIFT: A PRAGMATIC STUDY

Abstract

This paper deals with English Deixis on the song lyrics of Folklore album by Taylor Swift. Four folklore songs in the album are discussed: Cardigan, Exile, August and Betty. The objectives are two-folds: (1) describing the types of deixis applied in the song lyrics of folklore album and (2) analyzing pragmatically the reference meanings of deictic words in these selected songs of Folklore. This study is qualitatively descriptive in its method. Three steps are taken in the data collection: (a) listening to the selected songs, (b) quoting the detailed information word by word, and (c) coding the deictic expressions into types of deixis. The collected data are then analyzed into Levinson’s five types of deixis and reference meanings of deictic words in pragmatic contexts. The result shows that only two types of deixis (person and discourse) out of five in Levinson’s have distributed well and the person deixis is the most used      in the songs. In contrast, three types of deixis have been unequally dispersed (time, place and social). It is clear, the use of deixis allows contexts to play a part in comprehending the content of the songs and contributes to the aesthetic side of literary form. It also improves some unusual values on how song writer    portrays the story lines and the literary devices. Pragmatically, the four selected songs of Folklore have led to a description of reference meanings of deictic words as well.