An Analysis of Taboo Words in Rich Brian’s Song Lyrics

This research aimed at investigating taboo words in Rich Brian‟s song lyrics. The researcher described what kinds, functions, and meanings of taboo words used in Rich Brian‟s song lyrics. The sample of this research was five Rich Brian‟s song lyrics that collected by using simple random sampling. The researcher employed a theory from Batistella to describe the kinds of taboo words and a theory from Wardhaugh to describe the functions of taboo words. Then, in finding the meaning of taboo words in Rich Brian‟s song lyrics the researcher employed some dictionaries, internet and article as well to support the data. In addition, this research was completed assisted by co-researcher. The result showed that there were 89 taboo words found in those five song lyrics where obscenity was the highest kind of taboo words which mentioned 49 times (45%) and profanity was the least which mentioned 6 times (7%). Then, in functions of taboo words showing contempt became the commonly used while mocking authority became the least used. Furthermore, according to the sociolinguistic point of view this kind of music surely is not Indonesian culture but it is more to western culture where many rapper come from there and it usually spoken by specific class of people. Keyword: Taboo words, Rich Brian, Song Lyrics


INTRODUCTION
Language is a symbol of sound system which takes a role as an important aspect in human life as a means of communication to convey idea, message, intention, and opinion to other people, without language people will not be able to communicate each other.
The study of language is called Linguistic. According to Martinet (1987) linguistic is the study which takes language as an object, how it is put together and how it functions. There are various branches of linguistics, one of them is Sociolinguistic. Sociolinguistic is the study that talks about the correlation between society and language, it is about the use of language by individuals in its social context.
As we know that when we talk about language, it relates with the society, just like what have been said by Hickerson (1980) sociolinguistic is the developing subfield of linguistic which takes speech variation as its social context and Hudson (1980) said that sociolinguistic is the study of language in relation to society. In sociolinguistic we study language and society in order to find out as much as we can about what kind of thing language is. There are many parts of sociolinguistic subjects one of them is Taboo words.
Taboo is a cultural custom that does not allow people to do, use or talk about a particular thing as people find it as word which is offensive and embarrassing, and it also refers to the words that many people consider because they refer to sex, body or people"s race. Wardhaugh (2000) said that taboo is prohibition or avoidance that cannot be used by human being in any society because it will hurt its members and make them feel anxious, embarrassment, or shame.
Taboo words are always considered as inappropriate words to utter in daily conversation, because these taboo words are associated to harsh meaning. For Indonesian people taboo words are the same as reproach.
Therefore the use of taboo words is greatly avoided to be said, people who say taboo words are considered as people who are impolite and put aside the norms of polite behaviour and ethic applied in Indonesia.
However, there are still argumentations in defining the taboo words by human being. Some people think and believe that taboo is something that has negative meaning, and emotion to express the negative types of feeling towards the others, especially when it used in public areas or to someone who older than us. On the other hand, nowadays the attitude towards the function of taboo words has already changed. Based on Anggita (2015), she said that the changes happened because of the legal sanctions were getting more relaxed to accept taboo words.
As a result, taboo words are now commonly found when someone expresses the emotive feeling. Some people believe that by using taboo words is one of the ways that can be used to convey or to express their feeling and emotion. Sometimes it mostly happen when someone in emotional condition because that word unintentionally spoken and they cannot control the words or when someone speak and communicate with their close friend in order to express that they closely enough as a friend. For example the words like: bastard, shit, bitch, and fuck.
Many taboo words have been used in song especially in RAP songs.
Rap is a music genre that is spoken quickly than actual, songs usually with an electronic rhythm accompaniment. This kind of music is widely used and favoured by many people especially young people. One of the reasons why young people love this rap music is because Rap music is a lifestyle and covers all classes of young people and also many rapper use expressive and straightforward lyrics which are certainly suitable for those who are young and enthusiastic. So that is why many young people love this kind of music.
Rich Brian is one of famous rap singer. He is a rapper from Indonesia who recently got famous because of his single entitled Dat $tick which was first released in February 2016. Even though Rich Brian often puts taboo words his song lyrics in order to express his ideas, thoughts, and feeling but many people still like it. This is due to the fact that Rich Brian has his own characteristic which is bass-voice sound, excellence music and lyrics, fun drill-rap with catchy hook, and perfect English-American Pronunciation. Furthermore, Rich Brian became an inspiration for young people today because of his success at a young age.
Example of his song contained taboo words is "Dat $tick" which released in 2016 People be starvin' And people be killin' for food with that crack and that spoon But these rich mothafuckas, they stay eatin' good Droppin' wage livin' good. Holdin' steel Glocks, but you been a bitch, suck a thick cock Fuck a Crip walk, hit the strip like in Bangkok Never ever see me have a trip "bout a lil" broad See me on the TV screamin', "Bitch, you a damn fraud" Therefore, according to the explanation above, the researcher intends to identify and analyse kinds and functions of taboo words along with their meanings in Rich Brian"s song lyrics.

METHOD
This research employed a descriptive qualitative research.
Descriptive qualitative is method where the data will be described in form of words, clauses, phrases, and sentences. According to Crabtree and Miller (1999)  147 interrelated. Besides, this researcher was also done along with the help of co-researcher in analysing the data.

POPULATION
In this study, the population that will be selected by the researcher is all of Rich Brian"s song lyrics which consist of 24 songs.

Sample
Sample is a part of the population which taken by according to certain procedures that can be used to represent the population.
Because this research was classified as qualitative research, research sampling process was done by using random sampling technique.

RESULTS
The result showed that there were 89 taboo words found in Rich Brian"s song lyrics. Obscenity (f****ng, f**k, s**t) dominated the appearance. The second most frequently appearing kind of taboo word was epithet (m*****f**ker, n**ga, and p*g, b***h), the third was vulgarity (a**, p*ssy, d*ck n*ni) and the last was profanity (j*sus C*rist, g*ddamn, d*mn).

To English Student
The students especially English Education Student is not allowed to use taboo words. This is due to the fact that the use of taboo words is not Indonesian"s culture and it breaks the norms of polite behaviour and ethic applied in Indonesia. Then, it is suggested to English students for avoiding this kind of song because it is not recommended song to sing.

To English Teacher
It is suggested to English teacher who want to use song as the media of learning to not to take this kind of song, because it is not suitable to be the media of learning due to the number of taboo words existed in these song.

To other researcher
It is suggested to the next researcher who wanted to take the same subject as the researcher to conduct further research about taboo words in different context, for instance study about the use of taboo words in novel, and study about the relationship between the use of taboo words and gender issue.