EMOTIONAL LEXIS IN SONG LYRICS AND ITS PSYCHOLINGUISTIC EFFECT ON LISTENERS

Abstract

Music has always played a significant role in human emotional expression. One of the most powerful elements of music is song lyrics, especially emotional lexis, which includes words that directly or indirectly express feelings such as love, sadness, fear, happiness, loneliness, and hope. This study investigates how emotional vocabulary in song lyrics influences listeners from a psycholinguistic perspective. The research analyzes emotional words in selected English-language songs and examines how these words affect listeners’ emotional states, memory, and cognitive processing. The findings show that emotional lexis in song lyrics significantly affects listeners’ emotional perception and strengthens memory retention and emotional involvement. This study contributes to both psycholinguistics and discourse analysis by demonstrating how language in music can shape emotional reactions and psychological responses.