A STUDY OF TABOO WORDS IN THE EMINEM’S SONGS LYRICS

This study focuses on types and functions of taboo words used by Eminem in his songs lyrics. It aims to explain the types of taboo words and the functions of taboo words in the Eminem’s songs lyrics. The writer used content analysis to collect the data which is the theory from Kothari (2004). The analysis was carried out by using qualitative design in which it is in line with the theory of Miles and Huberman (1994). The data of this study were collected from Eminem’s songs lyrics that were published in 2016. For analyzing the data, the writer applied interactive data analysis by Miles and Huberman (1994) as the method of data analysis. This study shows that there are 7 types from 8 types of taboo words in Eminem songs lyrics that contain taboo words. Those are sex (21 data), death (1 datum), excretion (11 data), bodily functions (14 data), religious matters (2 data), mother in law (4 data) and animal games (8 data). Meanwhile, there are 2 functions of taboo words in Eminem songs lyrics; personal and interpersonal in which both of them are divided be 3 parts. Those are positive, negative and inconsequential. Precisely, there are 22 data include positive personal functions, 1 datum includes negative personal functions, 5 data include inconsequential personal functions, 10 data include positive interpersonal functions, 22 data are included to negative interpersonal functions, and 1 datum includes inconsequential interpersonal functions.

Keywords: sociolinguistics, taboo words, Eminem