Monica Hanna

Professor Gonzalez

ENC 1102

February 23, 2024

Annotated Bibliography

Marzuki, Abdul Gafur. “A Critical Discourse Analysis of Song ‘Look What You Made Me Do’

by Taylor Swift.” Eralingua: Jurnal Pendidikan Bahasa Asing Dan Sastra, Universitas

Negeri Makassar, 26 Oct. 2022,

www.academia.edu/89239822/A_Critical_Discourse_Analysis_of_song_Look_What_You

_Made_Me_Do_by_Taylor_Swift. Abdul Gafur wrote this article to discuss the symbolic

message behind Taylor Swift’s music video “Look What You Made Me Do”, and how that

applies to the culture that surrounds popular music videos. The argument he used was to

analyze the symbolic signs and gestures Taylor Swift used in music videos to see its

implication for language learning. This means that teachers and researchers like to see how

they can utilize the song’s lyrics and background settings to help teach other subjects and

have student succeeds. The author sees this as an ongoing conversation that we can apply

to all music videos including ones that are meant for children and see what in them makes

them popular. The research method the author used was critical discourse analysis,

analyzing the lyrics through Fairclough’s Critical Discourse. This particular type of

discourse categorizes figurative expressions to find what its meaning is supposed to be.
 How he got to this method he took the video and analyzed every detail of the song

including its set, cues, and lyrics.

This source is relevant and useful for my research paper because while I am specifically

focusing on the social media post she sent out before the music video; I can gather

information about the symbolism in the video because almost all of the symbolism she

used in the social media post she utilized in the music video as well. It’s useful to other

researchers because the author does a good job of thoroughly analyzing how her song and

other songs have an effect on socio-culture, and how popular a song can become from its

lyrics and catchy tune.

Risher,Sydney. A Rhetorical Analysis of Taylor Swift’s Persona,

digitalcommons.acu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1625&context=etd. Accessed 23 Feb.

2024. In this dissertation Risher analyzed how Taylor Swift’s persona shifted over the

course of multiple year and albums. Throughout those years Taylor Swift relied on novelty,

meaning that she always had to become something new to keep herself relevant and in the

public’s eye. Risher then analyzed three of Taylor Swift’s albums and four songs to

conduct her research on how Taylor utilized novelty in the music industry. The author sees

this as an ongoing conversation because it can be applied to other musician and song

writers etc., because the whole premise of the music industry is keeping yourself relevant

while releasing new music that people will listen to. Risher, in the article focuses on the

“Reputation” album where Taylor Swift has the biggest shift in her persona and image.

I selected this dissertation because while it does cover a broad section of Taylor Swift’s

life it has a whole chapter that specifically focus on the Reputation era. It gives detail to the
 origin of why she erased her social media accounts. It also goes into the image Taylor

Swift was building for herself in this era, and the reason why she used a snake as her first

image on her social media accounts. Embodying this new image of a villain, liar and

manipulator.

Khalisah , Alya, and Harwintha Yuhria Anjarningsih. “‘Taking It for Granted’: The Utilization

of Pragmatic Aspects in Entertainment News Reporting on Instagram.”

INDONESIAN JOURNAL OF APPLIED LINGUISTICS, Jan. 2020,

ejournal.upi.edu/index.php/IJAL/article/view/23200. In this journal written by Khalisa and

Yuhria it focuses on how people use Instagram to announce something or give breaking

news. The journal then covers two questions what are the most common techniques used in

each post and how do these posts affect a person or company. The authors mainly focused

on E! News as there source of information. They analayzed different posts used by them

from celebrity break ups to surprise engagements. They specifically focused on three

aspects of each post such as, allusions, maxims and presuppositions. From their findings

they found that companies strategically use these pragmatics to keep their image clean and

unproblematic. They believe that this can be an ongoing conversation in the community by

applying it to different strategies marketing teams use to keep people wanting to back to

their website or store.

This article is useful for me because while it has nothing to do with Taylor Swift it

specifically talks about the utilization of Instagram. Taylor Swift during her Reputation era relied

heavily on Instagram to announce her upcoming album. She also used it repaint her image for the
world to know she was changing. The use of this journal can help me thoroughly analyze how

Taylor used Instagram to benefit her, and how it is a common occurrence for celebrities to do so.