SEMANTICS

Skripsi Bahasa Inggris: A SEMANTIC ANALYSIS ON THE
ENGLISH TRANSLATION OF SURAH AL-HADID
04.35 Skripsi, Skripsi Bahasa Inggris No comments
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the Study Semantics is a subfield of linguistics that is
traditionally defined as the study of meaning of (part of) words, phrases,
sentences, and texts. Semantics can be approached from a theoretical as well as
an empirical point of view. The decompositional perspective towards meaning
holds that the meaning of words can be analyzed by defining meaning atoms or
primitives, which establish a language of thought. An area of study is the
meaning of compounds, another is the study of relations between
differentlinguistics expression (homonymy, synonymy, antonymy, etc). Semantic
includes the study of thematic roles and its link to syntax. Semantics deals
withsense and reference, truth conditions,
and discourse analysis
(www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/semantic).
Grystal, (1991:310) states that semantics is one of the branches of
linguistics studying about the meaning and considered asa major branch of
linguistics devoted to study of meaning in language. According to what has long
been the most widely accepted as theory of semantic, meanings are ideas or
concepts that can be transferred from the mind of the speaker to the mind of the
hearer by embodying them , as it were, in the forms of one language or another
(Lyon, 1984:136).
Meaning is also found on language ofthe translation of Holy Qur’an.
Al-qur’an as the revelation from Allah to Prophet Muhammad S.A.W
that
consists of 77.439 words and 323.015 letter (Shihab, 1997:4) which
has beautiful language, carefulness of editorial and balance of words used. But
we have to be careful in reading and undestanding the meaning and message
stated in the Al-qur’an, because if we do nothave any experience and knowledge
we will misunderstand and misinterpret of meaning in the Al-qur’an. There are
114 surahs on the Holy Qur’an. The researcher chooses surah Al-Hadid as
his research object, as it has some uniqueness orsuperiorities. From the title of
this surah “the iron” it has special thing stated in this surah about the creation
of heavens and earth that created in six days only, and the creation of iron
with special useful qualities in peace time and in war. Moreover, there are
some words or sentences that are ambiguities or general and needed to be
analyzed using semantic theory that consists oftwo kinds of meaning: Lexical
meaning and Lexical cohesion. For instance, the word heavensand earth (verse 1)
and the word lifeand death(verse 2) and the word firstand last(verse 3) can
be categorized as lexical meaning since the words are antonym. Also the
words word “Lord"and “Allah” (verse 8) can be categorized as lexical
meaning because those words are synonymy. Surah Al-Hadid is the fifty seventh
Surah of Holy Qur’an that has twenty nine verses, surah Al-Hadid is categorized
as madinah surah that contains; The Establishment of the Kingdom of
God, Allah’s Knowledge, Power and Kingdom are limitless,
The Light and
Life given by the Prophet, The Truth shall be established and The Double Reward
for Believers. Generally, the theme of this Surah is to exhort the Muslims to
spend in the cause of Allah. At the most critical juncture of the history of Islam
when it was engaged in a life and death struggle against Arab paganism, this
Surah was revealed to persuade the Muslim's to make monetary sacrifices in
particular, and to make them realize that Islam did not merely consist in verbal
affirmation and someoutward practices but its essence and spirit is sincerity
towards Allah and His Religion. The faith of the one who was devoid of this
spirit and who regarded his own self and wealth as dearer to himself than Allah
and His Religion, was hollow and therefore of little worth in the sight of Allah.
The researcher does not research in Arabic language but he analyzes the English
translation of surah Al-Hadidby Taqi-ud-Din and Muhsin Khan using semantic
theory, because their explanatory translation considered one of the best
commentaries and explanation based on Shahih Al-bukhary, Shahih Muslim, and
other books with comment forTafsir At-Tabd, Tafsir Al-Qurtubi and Tafsir Ibn
Kathir,where necessary to elaborate upon the Qur’anic verse.
Also there are many English translators that have been popular such as: TaqiudDin and Muhsin Khan, Pickthall, Shakir, and Yusuf Ali. They have sometimes
favored archaic English words and contraction over their modern or conventional
equivalents; thus, for example, two wide-read translators,
Pickthall and Yusuf
Ali use “ye” and “thou” instead of the more common “you”. Another common
stylistic decision has been to refrain from translating “Allah’’-in Arabic, literally,
“The God”- into the common English word “God”.
These choices may differ in more recent translations. Nonetheless, the
most accurate English translation found today is from The Noble
Qur’an,tanslated by Taqi-ud-Din and Muhsin Khan. And their work is
recognized, approved and widely attributed throughout the world as the most
accurate, exact, authentic, real and original interpretation of the Noble Qur’an and
the Arabic text is taken from Mushaf al-Madinah. For the first time they use word
for word English translation to increase the awareness of the Arabic verses. To
understand the Qur’an it is necessary that one should know the translation of
every word of the verse. Therefore, to convey to the people, the more accurate
meaning of the Qur’anic verses, the word for word translation of the meanings of
the noble Qur’an is produced, because mere word for word translation itself does
not lead to the complete understanding, the idiomatic translation is also produced
on the same page to facilitate for the complete awareness.
Some previous study have already conducted similar in the same field, such
as Laily Nur (2002) in her research entitled “Semantic Analysis on the Lyrics of
Jon Bon Jovi’s Songs”. The result of her discussion shows that Bon Jovi’s
Songs frequently uses lexical meaning, sentential meaning, and discourse
meaning. Fauzi H Habib (2008), in her research entitled “A Semantic Analysis of
the English
Translation of “Surah Al Ra’d by Marmaduke Pickthall”
researched the kinds of meaning used on the language on the English translation
of “Surah Al Ra’d by marmaduke Pickthall.
Ahmadin Dimjati (2008), discussed the lexical, sentential, discoursal and speech
act meaning, the language styles and methods of translation used by A.
Yusuf Ali, T.B. Irving and N.J. Dawood follow in interpreting or translating
the Holy Qur’an from Arabic into English.
Based on the previous explanation, the researcher finds another area that is
not researched yet by the previous study namely “ A Semantic Analysis on
The English Translation of Surah Al-Hadid”.The present study focuses on the
kinds of lexical meanings, denotation, connotation, synonymy, antonymy,
hyponymy, homophony, and ambiguity. In addition the researcher investigates
about the kinds of lexical cohesion, theyare reiteration and collocation
1.2 Statement of the problem The problems of the study are formulated as
follow; 1. What kinds of lexical meaning found in the English translations of
“Surah AlHadid” by Taqi-ud-Din and Muhsin Khan? 2. What kinds of lexical
cohesion found in the English translation of “Surah AlHadid” by Taqi-ud-Din and
Muhsin Khan?
1.3 Objectives of the Study This study is intended to describe; 1. Lexical
meanings which are found in the English translation of “Surah AlHadid” by Taqiud-Din and Muhsin Khan.
2. Lexical cohesions which are found in the English translation of “Surah
AlHadid” by Taqi-ud-Din and Muhsin Khan.
1.4 Significance of the Study The findings of the study are expected tobe able to
give both theoretical and practical contribution. Theoretically, the results of this
study are expected to be useful and to give additional information to those who
intend to conduct the
semantic study especially about the kinds of lexical
meanings used in a certain text.
Practically, the result of this study is to fulfill one of the requirements to get S1 at
the English Letters and Language Department Faculty of Humanities and Culture,
State Islamic University Maulana Malik Ibrahim of Malang.
1.5 Scope and Limitation of the Study There are many aspects which can be
analyzed in the translation of Surah Alhadid by Taqi-ud-Din and Muhsin Khan,
but the researcher focuses only on analyzing the kinds of meaning found in the
English translation of “Surah AlHadid” by Taqi-ud-Din and Muhsin Khan.
For the meaning, the researcher tries to find out and discuss about the semantic
point of view which concerns two meanings, they are; lexical meaning and
lexical cohesion.
1.6 Definition of Key Terms To avoid misunderstanding, the researcher would
like to define the key terms as state as follows:
Semantics :is one of the
branches of linguistics studying about the meaning and considered as a major
branch of linguistics devoted to study of meaning in language.
Meanings :are the study of something by examining its parts or the process of
learning a matter to get knowledge.
Surah Al-Hadid :is the 57nd surah of the Qur’an that consists of 29 verses.
Semantic Analysis of the Word Have Using the
Natural Semantic Metalanguage
Januari 10, 2010 pondokskripsi
3 Votes
One of the Linguistic subfields is Semantics. It is usually understood to be the
study of meanings which are encoded in the structure of the language. In modern
Linguistics, the meaning is studied by making detailed analysis of way words and
sentences that are used in specific contexts. One of Semantic theories is Natural
Semantic Metalanguage (NSM), namely a Reductive paraphrase or Natural
Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) approach is founded on the principles of clarity
and simplicity. The basic idea is that we should try to describe complex meanings
in terms of simpler ones. The NSM is one of the semantic metalanguages used to
state semantic representation including English linguistic form such as “have”.
There are two essential problems for the study, namely (1) What is the meaning of
the word Have? and (2) In which context each meaning is used?
The design of this research is qualitative method since the data of this study
cannot be treated with statistical procedures as those in the quantitative research.
The source of the data is Oxford Learner’s Dictionary of Current English and
Oxford Advanced Learner’s Encyclopedic Dictionary. In this research, the
selected sentences are only the sentences that consist of the word Have.
Having conducted the analysis, I found that there are three different meanings of
the word Have, namely Have which roughly means possess or own, which applies
to whatever belongs to someone and part of someone or it is used in the context of
showing something belongs to someone. Have which roughly means cause or ask.
It applies to cause someone to do something or cause something to be done. Have
roughly means already. It applies to something which already happened or
something which has happened in the past. The context of each meaning of Have
is, first, Have roughly means possess or own is used in the context of present
tense. Second, Have roughly means cause or ask is used in the context of
causative. Third, Have roughly means already is used in the context of Present
Perfect Tense. In other words, it can be said that perfective aspect determines the
last meaning.
One of the Linguistic subfields is Semantics. It is a wide subject within the
general study of language. Semantics is usually understood to be the study of
meanings which are encoded in the structure of the language. It is also understood
to be the study of the more-or-less stable, conventionalized meanings of linguistic
signs. Roughly speaking, semantics deals with meanings which are encoded into
linguistic forms. Even more roughly, semantics deals with words and sentences
(Goddard, 1998: 15).
The word semantics came from Greek, Sematikos, the “significant meaning”
which is derived from Sema, Semeion the “sign, mark” [www.wikipedia.org].
According to Goddard, Semantics, the study of meaning stands at the very center
of the linguistic quest to understand the nature of language and human language
abilities (1998: 1). Learning and expressing the meaning of the words is what
languages are all about. In the past, Semantic debate was largely concerned with
discovering exactly the word meaning is. The enquires have undoubtedly
increased our understanding of the nature of the problem, but accepted definition
of meaning is still argued.
In modern Linguistics, then, the meaning is studied by making detailed analysis of
the way words and sentences that used in specific contexts. It is an approach
shared by some semanticists. Language without meaning is useless. When a
person hears someone speaking without knowing the meaning of the utterances,
for him those utterances are not a language. Linguists generally agree that, when
people communicate, they do more than just attend to what actually being said by
way of words, grammatical constructions and intonation patterns, they are also
alert to what is implied. Most words and morphemes in the language have their
own meanings. We shall talk about the meaning of words, even though we already
know that words may be composed of several morphemes (Fromkin, 1983: 164).
Not only do we know what the morpheme of the language are we also know the
meaning of it.
Whether we are interested in exploring the connection between meaning and
culture, or between meaning and grammar, or simply in exploring meaning for its
own sake, the first thing we need is consistent, reliable, and clear method of
stating meanings-a system of semantic representation. Not surprisingly, the main
theoretical controversies in semantics concern the nature of the optimal system of
semantics representation (Goddard, 1998: 3). Dictionaries are filled with words
and their meanings, we are a walking dictionary, we know the meaning of
thousands of words. But sometimes we still think what the meaning of certain
word is even though it is a familiar word for us. Meaning is not an easy thing to
get, it is more likely to be abstract. Therefore, the goal of semantic study is to
explain how sequences of languages are matched with their proper meanings and
placed in certain environments by speakers of the language.
The innovative tool of Natural Semantic Metalanguage analysis allows us to
formulate statements of meaning in terms of semantic universals drawn from
natural language, to pinpoint word meanings, grammatical meanings and
discourse meanings expressed in any language and cultural setting. The Reductive
Paraphrase or Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) approach is founded on the
principles of clarity and simplicity (Goddard, 1998: 56). The basic idea is that we
should try to describe complex meanings in terms of simpler ones. For example,
to state the meaning of a semantically complex word we should try to give a
paraphrase composed words which are simpler and easier to understand than the
original. This method of semantic description is called reductive paraphrase. NSM
starts with a very reasonable observation. We just know that our words and signs
have significance. Admittedly, we can not always define them precisely and we
are apt to misuse terms on occasion. Anyone who speaks a language has a truly
amazing capacity to reason about the meanings of texts. The meaning of a
sentence is not just an unordered heap of the meanings of its words, so we need to
think about arrangements of meanings.
The NSM approach accepts a stringent standard of descriptive adequacy-the test
of substitutability without change of meaning. This means that the ultimate test of
a good explication is that the native speakers agree that the explication and the
original expression say exactly the same thing (Goddard, 1998: 57). The NSM
enables us to examine what is meant by participants in a communication event and
hence to identify exactly what meaning are and are not successfully conveyed in
an intercultural communication. The NSM is one of the semantic metalanguage
used to state semantic representation including English linguistic forms such as
“have”.
Have is a general word, and is applied to whatever belongs to or is connected with
someone. Knowing the meaning of this word means knowing that it is the most
general word. Have generally means to own, to experience, or to posses. Consider,
for example, the word Have used in these two sentences: “I have finished” and “I
have pencils”. The first sentence means that Have done or have as used in forming
in the perfect tenses and the perfect infinitive, the second one is to own or to
posses. Have in English varies in terms of meaning depends on the grammar.
The semantic representation of have becomes confusing to English learners. Thus
research on semantic representation of have is essential to do. In order to know the
meaning of the word Have is, using the innovative tool of Natural Semantic
Metalanguage and knowing in which context each meaning is used, I was
motivated to conduct the study: Semantic Analysis of The Word Have Using The
Natural Semantic Metalanguage