Metaphor of sexual crime in tabloid newspaper: an analysis using hybrid theory

The main purpose of this research is to find the implicit meaning of metaphor in sexual crime that hidden behind the tabloid newspaper text in Malaysia because media plays an important role to influence the reader‟s cognitive about the issue that being discussed. Basically, metaphor is the comparison between two different entities. Through this comparison, it will make it easier for reader to understand about the complex issues such as crime. On the other hand, the inaccurate metaphor in the newspaper can lead to wrong interpretation and understanding. So, this research examines the compilation of digital corpus that been published by News Strait Times Press (NSTP) which is News Image Bank (NIB). There are six types of crime sexual that had been discussed in this research which are pedophile, molested, rape, prostitution, sodomy, and incest. Overall, there are 269 articles had been collected from four newspapers which are Harian Metro, Metro Ahad, Berita Harian, and Berita Minggu. Next, all the collected data were analysed using the Hybrid Theory. This theory helps to analyse and interpret the actual meaning in specific and systematic way. Meanwhile, the usage of digital collected data base helps researcher to identify the meaning of metaphor that used by newspaper‟s author to construct the image of sexual crimes in Malaysia. Therefore, the interpretation of metaphor helps researcher to construct sexual crime that had been convey through implicit meaning (metaphor) in the newspaper. The interpreting of metaphor can help to increase the awareness on endanger of sexual crime in Malaysia. Hence, this research had proved that the accurate used of metaphor in sexual crime news are really important in attempt to spread the awareness about sexual crimes to society in order to prevent the crime.