Through a glass darkly
a critique of the influence of linguistics on theories of music
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/lhs.v1i3.463Keywords:
music; language; theory; musicology; linguistic structureAbstract
If music is treated as a kind of ‘language’, then it makes sense for musicology to borrow from linguistics in order to define exactly what sort of a ‘language’ music is. However, not only does this avoid the challenge of defining music on its own terms, it also brings across a whole lot of unnecessary historical baggage. Through a close analysis of selected texts, the current article critiques some recent work in musicology, showing how it is based on a far too narrow understanding of what constitutes linguistics, i.e. basically formal linguistics. It points out some of the dangers of interdisciplinary work such as Brown’s (2001) ‘musilanguage’ model, and shows how a less than careful borrowing of linguistic concepts can vitiate the usefulness of such system building. It then traces the source of much of this borrowing in Lerdahl and Jackendoff’s (1983) highly influential work drawing on generative linguistics, and shows how a framework that privileges structure over meaning, system over text, and the cognitive over the social, is unable to provide a broader understanding of music beyond pattern recognition. It calls for a greater methodological scepticism among musicologists towards linguistics, and a greater self consciousness about borrowings across disciplines.
References
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Sapir, E. (1949) Selected Writings on Language, Culture and Personality. (Edited by D. Mandelbaum.) Berkeley: University of California Press.
Saussure, F. de [1916] (1959) Course in General Linguistics. (Translated by W. Baskin.) New York: Philosophical Library.
Swain, J. P. (1997) Musical Languages. New York: Norton.
Thibault, P. (1997) Re-reading Saussure: the dynamics of signs in social life. London: Routledge.
Vachek, J. (1966) The Linguistic School of Prague: an introduction to its theory and practice. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
van Leeuwen, T. (1999) Speech, Music, Sound. London: Macmillan.
Wallin, N. L., Merker, B. and Brown, S. (2000) The Origins of Music. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Bernstein, L. (1976) The Unanswered Question. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Bickerton, D. (2000) Can biomusicology learn from language evolution studies? In N. L. Wallin, B. Merker and S. Brown (eds) The Origins of Music 153–63. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Bickerton D. and Calvin, W. H. (2000) Lingua ex Machina: reconciling Darwin and Chomsky with the human brain. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Bloomfield, L. (1933) Language. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
Brown, S. (2000) The ‘musilanguage’ model of music evolution. In N. L. Wallin, B. Merker and S. Brown (eds) The Origins of Music 271–300. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Buehler, K. [1934] (1990) Theory of Language: the representational function of language. (Translated by D. G. Goodwin.) Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Chanan, M. (1994) Musica Practica: the social practice of Western music from Gregorian chant to postmodernism. London: Verso.
Chomsky, N. (1957) Syntactic Structures. The Hague: Mouton.
Chomsky, N. (1965) Aspects of the Theory of Syntax. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Chomsky, N. (1980) Rules and Representations. Oxford: Blackwell.
Chomsky, N. (1981) Essays on Government and Binding. Dordrecht: Foris.
Chomsky, N. (1988) Language and Problems of Knowledge. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Cooke, D. (1959) The Language of Music. London: Oxford University Press.
Crystal, D. (1997) The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language. (Second edition.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Culler, J. (1986) Ferdinand de Saussure. (Revised edition.) Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Deacon, T. W. (1997) The Symbolic Species: language and the evolution of the human brain. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Ellis, J. (1993) Language, Thought and Logic. Evanston, ILL: Northwest University Press.
Elman, J. L., Bates, E. A., Johnson, M. H., Karmiloff-Smith, A., Parisi, D. and Plunket, K. (1997) Innateness: a connectionist perspective on development. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Firth, J. R. (1948) Sounds and prosodies. Transactions of the Philological Society 127–52.
Firth, J. R. (1950) Personality and language in society. Sociological Review 42: 37–52.
Firth, J. R. (1957) A synopsis of linguistic theory, 1930–55. Studies in Linguistic Analysis (Special Volume of the Philological Society, Oxford) 1–31.
Goldsmith, J. A. (1976) Autosegmental Phonology. Bloomington: Indiana University Linguistics Club.
Greenberg, J. (ed.) (1963) Universals of Language. The Hague: Mouton.
Halliday, M. A. K. [1964] (1976) English system networks. In G. Kress (ed.) System and Function in Language 101–35. London: Oxford University Press.
Halliday, M. A. K. (1978) Language as Social Semiotic. London: Arnold.
Halliday, M. A. K. (1985) An Introduction to Functional Grammar. (Second edition 1994.) London: Longmans.
Harris, R. (1987) Reading Saussure: a critical commentary on the Cours de Linguistique Generale. London: Duckworth.
Harris, Z. S. (1951) Methods in Structural Linguistics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Hjelmslev, L. [1943] (1953) Prolegomena to a Theory of Language. (Translated by F. Whitfield.) Baltimore: Indiana University Publications in Anthropology and Linguistics (IJAL Memoir 7). (1961) Second edition, slightly revised. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
Hockett, C. F. (1968) The State of the Art. The Hague: Mouton.
Hockett, C. F. (1987) Refurbishing our Foundations: elementary linguistics from an advanced point of view. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Imberty, M. (2000) The question of innate competencies in musical communication. In N. L. Wallin, B. Merker and S. Brown (eds) The Origins of Music 449–62. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Jakobson, R. [1942] (1990) Langue and parole: code and message. In L. R. Waugh and M. Monville-Burston (eds) On Language: Roman Jakobson. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Lamb, S. (1962) Outline of Stratificational Grammar. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Lamb, S. (1999) Pathways of the Brain: the neurocognitive basis of language. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Lerdahl, F. and Jackendoff, R. (1983) A Generative Theory of Tonal Music. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Matthews, P. H. (1981) Syntax. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
McDonald, E. (In preparation) Sound as embodied meaningful behaviour: towards a model of music as a social semiotic system.
Newmeyer, F. (1980) Linguistic Theory in America. New York: Academic Press.
Pinker, S. (1994) The Language Instinct. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Pinker, S. (1999) Words and Rules. New York: Basic Books.
Radford, A. (1997) Syntax: a minimalist introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Robins, R. H. (1957) Aspects of prosodic analysis. Proceedings of the University of Durham Philosophical Society, I, Series B (Arts) 1: 1–12.
Sampson, G. (1999) Educating Eve: the ‘language instinct’ debate. London: Cassell.
Sapir, E. (1949) Selected Writings on Language, Culture and Personality. (Edited by D. Mandelbaum.) Berkeley: University of California Press.
Saussure, F. de [1916] (1959) Course in General Linguistics. (Translated by W. Baskin.) New York: Philosophical Library.
Swain, J. P. (1997) Musical Languages. New York: Norton.
Thibault, P. (1997) Re-reading Saussure: the dynamics of signs in social life. London: Routledge.
Vachek, J. (1966) The Linguistic School of Prague: an introduction to its theory and practice. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
van Leeuwen, T. (1999) Speech, Music, Sound. London: Macmillan.
Wallin, N. L., Merker, B. and Brown, S. (2000) The Origins of Music. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
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Published
2007-02-18
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How to Cite
McDonald, E. (2007). Through a glass darkly: a critique of the influence of linguistics on theories of music. Linguistics and the Human Sciences, 1(3), 463-488. https://doi.org/10.1558/lhs.v1i3.463
