Lexical metaphors in Westlife's selected song lyrics

Abstract

The study aims to discover lexical metaphors in Westlife's selected song lyrics. Specifically, it was to reveal the types and source domains of the metaphors. Swear It Again, If I Let You Go, Flying Without Wings, I Have a Dream, and Fool Again, which are the legendary boy band's most popular songs according to TraxFM (2017), were selected as the data sources. The study applied the qualitative descriptive method, the study focused on exploring the nature of the study object as proposed by Kothari (2004). Since the phenomena investigated are metaphors in song lyrics, the study adapted Schmitt's (2005) concept of metaphor analysis. The study's data are all metaphors in the five songs of Westlife (Swear it Again, If I Let You Go, Flying Without Wings, I Have a Dream, and Fool Again), which TraxFM (2017) considers as the boy band's best songs ever. The data MIP-Praglejazz was employed to identify the metaphors in those selected song lyrics. The study found: (1) the selected song lyrics contained 15 structural, 24 ontological, and only two orientational metaphors; (2) Most of the metaphors have a concrete thing as their source domain, such as living thing, traveler, place, flame, sunrise, container, bird, and object. It can be inferred that: (1) the song lyrics are dominated by ontological and structural metaphors, and (2) the metaphors are mainly constructed of concrete concepts, which humankind are so familiar with in their daily life. Detailed findings will be presented, and their implications will be discussed.