AN INTERDISCIPLINARY ANALYSIS OF TAYLOR SWIFT’S "FOLKLORE": LEXICAL PROFILING, THEMATIC COMPLEXITY, AND PEDAGOGICAL APPLICATIONS IN THE CREATIVE ECONOMY

Abstract

Integrating popular culture artifacts into applied linguistics and interdisciplinary arts research offers a useful way to examine language learning within the creative economy. This paper uses lexical profiling and qualitative thematic analysis to explore the pedagogical potential of Taylor Swift’s eighth studio album, folklore, in advanced English as a Second or Foreign Language (ESL/ EFL) contexts. Drawing on corpus linguistics methods through Lextutor VocabProfile, the study analyzes the lexical density and semantic richness of the 16-track corpus. The quantitative results show a Type-Token Ratio (TTR) of 0.19 and K1+K2 lexical coverage of 94.68%, indicating that the album closely approaches the minimum lexical coverage threshold, especially when Academic Word List (AWL) items are included. At the same time, the relatively high presence of AWL and off-list vocabulary adds to the album’s qualitative depth. The thematic analysis reveals layered patterns of meaning, including temporal distortion, relational rupture, moral ambiguity, and cinematic reflexivity. By bridging quantitative lexical profiling with interdisciplinary literary analysis, this study addresses an important research gap. It shows how culturally resonant music can serve as both a pedagogical resource and a knowledge asset in the global creative economy.