Chapter

Expression, content and meaning in language and music

Authors:
  • The Compleat Wordsmith / 老馬文通
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... The current paper derives from a longer empirical collaborative study between a voice expert and a linguist (McDonald 2002, 2007;McDonald 2011tentatively entitled The Singer's Text: towards a social semiotic model of embodied performative modalities, which aims to bring together current, disciplinarily divided, understandings of that complex semiotic object that is the ''singer's text'' Á linguistic, musical and embodied Á within a consistent theoretical and descriptive framework that does not privilege any of the semiotic systems involved, but rather allows them to be considered both in their own right and in terms of their contribution to the complex multimodal text that is the singer's performance. Through a series of empirical studies of language and music over more than a decade (Callaghan and McDonald 2002, 2003, 2007McDonald 2011), focusing specifically on spoken and sung voice, the conclusion we have come to is that any description of the meanings produced by both semiotic systems of language and music must ultimately be grounded in the signifying potential of the human body (Thibault 2004), and that any theory of language and music, and their interaction, must therefore be an embodied one. At the same time we would contend, complementing the cognitive focus of much work in this field (e.g.Cope 2005;Deutsch 1999;Lerdahl and Jackendoff 1996;Longuet-Higgins 1987;Patel 1999;Temperley 2001), that the most fruitful approach to the functioning of both systems is to understand this is terms of the social context of what, to adopt a dynamic, performative perspective, may be characterised as ''languaging'' and ''musicking'' (Small 1998). ...
Article
Full-text available
Social semiotic approaches to multimodality have tended to take language as the model for other modalities even when their professed aim is to move away from it. This kind of “linguistic imperialism” causes problems for theorising the relationship between the two basic semiotic planes of expression and interpretation in different modalities, and how the affordances of the expression plane relate to the meanings of the interpretation plane in each case, as well as in understanding the particular role of language in multimodal texts. The current paper brings together insights from semiotics, sociology of music and philosophy of language, as well as critiques of social semiotic approaches, in order to argue that the missing element in accounts of semiotic systems like language and music is the fundamental role played by embodiment in both these systems.
Article
Drawing on a social semiotic framework, this paper sets out to examine two different semiotic systems whose default mode of expression is the human voice – language and music. Through comparing how each system differentially employs the human voice, we can identify both their commonalities and differences, and go some way to treating both equally within de Saussure’s envisaged broader field of “semiology”, avoiding the common trap of “linguistic imperialism”, i.e. taking language as the model for all semiotic systems. Starting by conceptualising the key relationship between the text, or unified instance of meaning-making, and the social contexts in which it functions, the paper then examines the material affordances utilised by each system, and the kinds of social meanings they express.
Thesis
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THE ANALYSIS OF LANGUAGE AND VISUAL IMAGES – AN INTEGRATIVE MULTISEMIOTIC APPROACH The focus of my study is the analysis of the meanings made by language and visual images, insofar as these semiotic resources are co-deployed in a multisemiotic picture book. My dissertation proposes an Integrative Multisemiotic Model (IMM) as a framework to analyse the multimodal text. In the first chapter, I discuss the relationship between experience, culture, text and semiotic resources, thus situating my study as a contribution in the wider quest of understanding human experience. Further to that, I also introduce the picture book as a multisemiotic text and review some of the studies carried out on this genre of children’s fiction. I review some of the advances made in multimodal research as well as discuss some of the assumptions in Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) theory. In addition, the nature of a semiotic resource from the SFL perspective is discussed. In this chapter, I also construct a theory of visual images as a semiotic resource, comparing the latter with the modality of language. By adopting the SFL perspective with other useful theories derived from various disciplines and applying them to the study of a multimodal text, I formulate the IMM as a meta-model. This model brings together previous research efforts to analyse the total meanings made in a multisemiotic text that deploys the modalities of language and visual images. Due to the under-theorisations in this area, I propose systems on the expression plane for language and visual images, as well as on the discourse semantics stratum for visual images. This includes a theory of system-metafunction fidelity, conceptions such as the Space of Integration (SoI) as well as processes such as homospatiality and semiotic metaphors in operation on the SoI. I also explain the various structures that can be obtained in a picture book. This is exemplified with a Singaporean picture book, entitled Dominic Duck Goes to School (DDGS). The theories postulated are demonstrated with an analysis of DDGS. Due to space and time, however, only the first frame in DDGS is subjected to the visual grammar analysis. The purpose of this analysis is twofold. The first objective is to demonstrate the productivity of the proposed ideas formulated in Chapter 3 as well as the usefulness of the IMM in eliciting the total meanings made in the text. The second objective is to look at some of the ideologies embedded within the pedagogic text, and how Singaporean culture is reflected, reproduced and reconstructed in DDGS. I also look at the context stratum, which relates back to the discussion of meaning and experience. This provides the bridge between the work done in this study and its contribution to the understanding of semiosis as a reconstruction of experience.
Article
Following in the traditions of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) and social semiotics, this paper applies the linguistic system of appraisal to the mode of sound. More specifically, it aims to describe and compare the interpersonal properties of the rap and sung performance voices. In doing so, this paper also aims to provide analysts with a systematic, principled method by which to identifying interpersonal meanings in sound. Drawing on various aspects of the appraisal framework, and the respective sound features of the rap and sung voice, this paper offers three approaches. The first approach employs the grammatical frames used to classify the attitude sub-systems of affect, judgment, and appreciation. The second approach is more general in scope and analogizes from the sound systems of melody, time, and voice quality to the appraisal systems of attitude, engagement, and graduation, respectively. The third approach applies the concept of binding to the distinctive sounds of the rap and sung voice. The paper concludes by considering some future directions for this research.
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