GRAMMATICAL METAPHOR IN

BRUNO MARS’ SONGS

*Joynet Tabita Niarta Manurung

**Busmin Gurning

ABSTRACT

This study deals with the types of ideational metaphor in Bruno Mars’ Songs.
The objectives of study are find out the metaphorical codes applied in Bruno Mars’
songs and find out the reason of the writer to use metaphorical code in the songs. The
data are the song lyrics of Doo-Wops & Hooligans taken from internet. This research is
conducted by using descriptive qualitative design to explain the grammatical metaphor
coding. The finding show that there aresix types of Ideational Metaphor occur in the
album. The six types are: Material Process, Mental Process, Relational Process, Verbal
Process, Behavioral Process and Existential Process. The study show that Material
Process as the dominant use in this album to present the message is about action;
activity, things that are doing or happening physically, bodily, and materially to tell
about Bruno Mars’ experiences.

Keywords:Grammatical Metaphor, Linguistics, Descriptive Qualitative Design

*Graduate Status
**Lecturer Status

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 INTRODUCTION

In daily life, metaphors form an important component of our conversation.

Metaphor is a concept of understanding one thing in terms of another. Metaphor
inherently implies two points; those are comparison and uncommon representation.
Metaphors are found not only in daily language but also in songs. According to River
(1987), song is an expression of human feelings sung and listened to people as well as
symbol of joy and sadness. The lyrics of songs show the feeling or experience of the
songwriter. Because of that, everybody loves to listen and sing a song to evoke their
emotions. In writing a song, the songwriters consciously or unconsciously use
metaphors to convey ideas, thoughts and feelings to the listeners, so they are able to
illustrate the experiences of the song. Based on Riffature (1978), the literature is
ungrammaticality. This concept is applied because songwriters are free to use language
or they had a purpose to convey the experiences of the song. But, sometimes they use
metaphor because they do not find the right words to describe the feeling. Therefore,
songwriters often inadvertently create new words in their songs to give new meaning in
expressing the experiences.

The research questions of the present study are; what metaphorical codes are
applied in Bruno Mars’ songs? And, why the writer used metaphorical code as in the
songs?

Grammatical Metaphor
Grammatical metaphor as a part of metaphor is a subfield of systemic
functional grammar which studies about representing or interpreting meaning from two
sides. Metaphor inherently implies two points; those are comparison and uncommon
representation. Leezenberg (2001:33) states that according to Aristotle who generally
defines metaphor as a transfer of a name belonging elsewhere. Halliday (1994:340)
stated that metaphor is a word used for something resembling that which it usually
refers to. There are two codes in metaphor; they are the unmarked or congruent and
marked or incongruent coding. The congruent coding is also known as a common, usual
or literal representation whereas the incongruent one is called uncommon, unusual, or
metaphorical representation. Metaphor could be divided into lexical and grammatical
metaphors. Lexical metaphor is a usual, common, or congruent coding of meaning in

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language. Grammatical metaphor is defined as relocation or shift in the wording of
meaning from its usual representation to another usual realization. Grammatical
metaphor is divided into two types; they are interpersonal and ideational metaphors.
Interpersonal metaphor accommodates metaphor of an interpersonal kind in the
expression of mood and modality. Ideational metaphor accommodates metaphor in its
ideational function as the representation of a process. Ideational metaphor includes
process type, configuration of transitivity, and sequence of group classes.

Ideational Metaphor and Its Types

Ideational Metaphor
Ideational Metaphor is the representation of experience and its relationship
among logical meaning. An experiential unit which is realized in a clause congruently
consists of three elements, namely; process, participant and circumstance. Grammatical
metaphor leads to denser language, maybe “adult language” or language of writing.
Ideational metaphor is often found in teacher talk, for example, when a command is
phrased as a friendly question. Such language emphasizes teacher authority while hiding
teacher identity. The using of metaphor reflects the transition from early childhood
classroom talk (congruent in the ideational sense) to more metaphorical, both in the
ideational and interpersonal senses.

Types of Ideational Metaphor

Ideational Metaphor includes process type, configuration of transitivity, and
sequence of group classes. Transitivity system has functions of language. One of those
functions is to construe or represent experience (Halliday, 1994: 106). Saragih (2010: 7)
also stated that transitivity system construes the world of experience. According to
Halliday, the process itself is divided into six types, they are:
1. Material: material clauses construe doings and happenings.
2. Mental: mental clauses construe a person involved in conscious processing,
including processes of perception, recognition and affection.
3. Relational: relational clauses construe being and do this in two different modes,
attribution and identification.
4. Behavioral: behavioral clauses construe human behavior
5. Verbal: verbal clauses represent processes of saying

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 6. Existential: existential clauses resemble relational clauses in that they construe
the participant involved in a process of being, but differ from the relational ones
in that there is only one participant.

Song
Song is a composition for voice or voices, performed by singing. A song may
be accompanied by musical instruments, or it may be unaccompanied, as in the case of a
cappella songs. A song may be for a solo singer, a duet, trio, or larger ensemble
involving more voices. Songs with more than one voice to a part are considered choral
works. Songs can be broadly divided into many different forms, depending on the
criteria used. For human being, song is a kind of entertainment that really needed. It
influences mood and feeling. According to River (1987), song is an expression of
human feelings sung and listened to people as well as symbol of joy and sadness. Song
can make someone getting sad, happy, cheer up, and so many others. That is why some
people have their song of life. It brings memory and removes memory also. Human is
an art that God create and music, which is improved become song, is also an art that
human create. Lyrics are the words to a song. The lyrics of a song will usually have a
meaning. Sometimes the meaning is easy to find but other times it can be very difficult
to know what the lyrics mean. Some lyrics are strange that it is nearly impossible to
understand them. In such cases, people tend to look more at the form, articulation,
meter, and symmetries of the lyrics instead of looking at their meaning.

Bruno Mars’ Song

Bruno Mars was born on October 8, 1985. He is an American singer,

songwriter and producer. Peter Gene Hernandez, Bruno Mars’ original name, was raised
in the Waikiki neighborhood of Honolulu, Hawaii, by parents Pete Hernandez of Puerto
Rican descent and Bernadette "Bernie" of Filipino descent. At the age of two, he was
nicknamed "Bruno" by his father, because of his resemblance to legendary professional
wrestler Bruno Sammartino. He adopted his stage name from the nickname his father
gave him, adding "Mars" at the end because "I felt like I didn't have [any] pizzazz, and a
lot of girls say I’m out of this world, so I was like I guess I'm from Mars." His debut
studio album ‘Doo-Wops & Hooligans’ released on October 4, 2010 charted at number
three on the Billboard 200 and in the top ten of music charts in Australia, Canada,

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Ireland, and New Zealand. The album received generally mixed to positive reviews
from music critics. The usage of a wide variety of influences was noted by critics, with
musical comparisons made to Michael Jackson, Jason Mraz and Little Richard. The
album received a total of seven nominations for the Grammy Awards in 2011 and 2012
including Album of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Album. Mars embarked on a US
headlining tour throughout November and December 2010 to promote the album. Doo-
Wops & Hooligans was announced the third biggest-selling album of 2011 in the UK,
selling approximately 1,214,420 copies. The album has sold over 6 million copies
worldwide.

Methodology
This study was conducted by applying descriptive qualitative design that
studied about song lyric and coded them by using grammatical metaphor. The source of
data was original website of Bruno Mars, Doo-Wops & Hooligans album. There are 10
songs in the album and every repetition in each song will not be analyzed. To collect the
data, the researcher browsed official website of Bruno Mars to look for the song lyrics
on the internet. After that the lyrics were printed out. The data were analyzed by using a
scheme which showed the sentence and the grammatical codes.
The data were analyzed to find out the ideational metaphorical code in Bruno
Mars’ The Doo-Wops & Hooligans album, by identifying the types of ideational
metaphor in the Bruno Mars’ song lyrics, and classifying the data based on the
Ideational Metaphor’s types. After that, the writer interpreted the real meaning of
grammatical metaphor uses in the lyrics of Bruno Mars’ song.

RESULT AND DISCUSSION

Result
After identifying and classifying the data into the six types, the writer tabulated
and calculated the total usage and the percentage of each type of grammatical code used
in the album. All grammatical codes of the Bruno Mars’ Album were presented in the
table1:

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 Table1. The Total of Grammatical Metaphor of Bruno Mars Songs
Ideational Metaphor Code
No. Songs
Mat Men Rel Ver Beh Ext
1 Talking To The Moon 7 6 2 8 1 1
2 Just The Way You Are 7 8 12 6 3 0
3 The Lazy Songs 13 2 4 3 3 0
4 Grenade 15 8 3 3 4 0
5 Our First Time 5 6 13 0 1 0
6 Runaway Baby 13 4 9 3 1 0
7 Marry You 6 4 9 6 0 0
8 Liquor Store Blues 9 2 5 0 1 0
9 Count On Me 6 2 5 3 1 0
10 The Other Side. 13 3 8 2 1 0
94 45 70 34 16 1
Total of TOTAL
the use 260
all 36.1 17.3
ideationa TOTAL (%) 26.92 13.08 6.15 0.40
l 5 0
metaphor 100%

Table1 shows that Bruno Mars’ songs in “Doo-Wops & Hooligans” album use
all the processes, those are; Material, Mental, Relational, Verbal, Behavioral and
Existential to convey the message in the song. The metaphorical codes used mostly are
Material and Relational Process. The total using of Ideational Metaphor in this song is
260 clauses dominantly Material Process (36,15 % ) that is used to describe the
experiences and actions of the actors in this album. It is also followed by Relational
Process (26,92 %) to construe relation in their love experience through attribution,
identification and possession. Then, Mental Process (17,3 %) describes the affections,
desires, cognitions and perceptions about the experiences that happened in this album,
Verbal Process (13,08 %) shows activities related to information such as saying,
commanding, asking, and offering. Behavioral Process (6,15%) shows the actor’s
physiological behaviors and attitudes in the song and Existential Process (0.4 %) tells
the existence of the girl.

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 Discussion

The analysis of data above shows that the most dominant process used in the
album is Material Process. The songwriter uses the material process in the songs to tell
the story or describe events or situations that occur. Relational process in used to
describe the experiences of the album to the listener. The using of mental process is to
express their feelings while verbal process is used to describe how the conversation ever
happened in their life. Then, behavioral and existential tend to be less used in each song
because the songwriters only wanted to show the attitude or the presence of other
people on the situation. Due to the using of ideational metaphor is often to give a clearer
picture that the listeners can understand what is perceived by the songwriters. Halliday
(1985) said that a word is to be used with transferred meaning. In line with Burke
(1945) who states that the metaphor is a device for seeing something terms of something
else. Thus, the frequency using of metaphor in the song or daily conversation can create
a new word. Usually, metaphor is figured only as a sweetener but even more in terms of
the language, metaphor can give new meanings to human perception.
By using the metaphor, anyone can describe something explicitly and the
listeners can also understand the intention of the speaker.
Example:
If you ever find yourself lost in the dark and you cannot see I'll be the light to guide you
(Bruno Mars: Count on Me)
Literally, meaning captured is you are in the darkness and I will come as a
light. However, the intended meaning is 'when you are desperate, I will come to give
help'. This sentence is a metaphor sentence which its meaning and experience compare
one thing to another.
Example:
If you ever find yourself stuck in the middle of the sea
This clause uses ‘find’ to describe you ‘see’ yourself lost in the middle of the
sea but, in the metaphorical meaning, the lyric means that you know you have not any
solution for your problem.
In addition, in the song” just the way you are” by Bruno Mars, he uses a
metaphor meaning. In the line “Her eyes make the stars look like they`re not shining”, a
metaphor is used. He means that her eyes are so beautiful, even brighter than the stars.

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Bruno mars used this metaphor because he wants to let the people know what the girl
looks like. So, the song has a deeper meaning than the actual meaning which makes
listeners being more enjoy the feeling of the song.
As found by Wiradani (2006) in “Metafora Dalam Injil Matius” and Aisah
(2010) in “Metafora dalam lagu Iwan Fals Yang Bertemakan Kritik Sosial” that the
metaphor is used to give an idea of the abstract things that cannot be seen clearly then
the person can receive the mandate or messages from the speaker more easily. The
songwriters often use metaphors to express what he has imagined about a story in that
song. So when we are listening a song, we have to imagine the explicit meaning of a
story in that song and we will understand what the core of a song. Therefore, we must
be careful to classify the use of metaphors in the song. The using of language in the
song has similarity with the language of our everyday conversation, but song uses
rhythm to express feelings. The songwriters sometimes use some ways to make it looks
real. However, sometimes metaphor is also used because the songwriters may not find
the appropiate words to describe the events or feelings.

CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS

Conclusions
After analyzing the data of the Bruno Mars’ album called Doo-Wops &
Hooligans, it can be concluded that: First, Bruno Mars used the whole process that is
Material, Mental, Relational, Verbal, Behavioral and Existential to convey the message
in the song. The total using of Ideational Metaphor in this song is 260 clauses
dominantly Material Process (36,15 % ) that is used to describe the experiences and
actions of the actors in this album. It is also followed by Relational Process (26,92 %) to
construe relation in their love experience through attribution, identification and
possession. Then, Mental Process (17,3 %) describes the affections, desires, cognitions
and perceptions about the experiences that happened in this album, Verbal Process
(13,08 %) shows activities related to information such as saying, commanding, asking,
and offering. Behavioral Process (6,15%) shows the actor’s physiological behaviors and
attitudes in the song and Existential Process (0.4 %) tells the existence of the girl.
Second, the songwriter has reasons to use different types of Ideational
Metaphor in the development of this album. The songwriter uses the material process in

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the songs to tell the story or describe events or situations that occur. Relational process
in used to describe the experiences of the album to the listener. The using of mental
process is to express their feelings while verbal process is used to describe how the
conversation ever happened in their life. Then, behavioral and existential tend to be less
used in each song because the songwriters only wanted to show the attitude or the
presence of other people on the situation.

Suggestions

In relation to the conclusions, there are some suggestions needed to be

considered. For the students of English Department to understand the using of
Ideational Metaphor in song lyrics in order to get the real understanding and meaning of
the songs that are listened. For the readers who are interested to listen the music, they
are expected to understand the types of Metaphor of Transitivity (Ideational Metaphor)
that is used in song lyrics as a complement to decorate a new meaning (words) and to
produce certain word. And also for the next researchers who use Ideational Metaphor
(Metaphor of Transitivity) theory on doing the further research in order to get an
understanding of other functions of language is to construe or to represent experiences.

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