Kofi Agawu
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195370249
- eISBN:
- 9780199852161
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195370249.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Theory, Analysis, Composition
The question of whether music has meaning has been the subject of sustained debate ever since music became a subject of academic inquiry. Is music a language? Does it communicate specific ideas and ...
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The question of whether music has meaning has been the subject of sustained debate ever since music became a subject of academic inquiry. Is music a language? Does it communicate specific ideas and emotions? What does music mean, and how does this meaning manifest itself? Working at the nexus of musicology, ethnomusicology, and music philosophy and aesthetics, the book presents a synthetic and innovative approach to musical meaning which argues deftly for the thinking of music as a discourse in itself—composed not only of sequences of gestures, phrases, or progressions, but rather also of the very philosophical and linguistic props that enable the analytical formulations made about music as an object of study. The book provides demonstrations of the pertinence of a semiological approach to understanding the fully-freighted language of Romantic music, stresses the importance of a generative approach to tonal understanding, and provides further insight into the analogy between music and language.Less
The question of whether music has meaning has been the subject of sustained debate ever since music became a subject of academic inquiry. Is music a language? Does it communicate specific ideas and emotions? What does music mean, and how does this meaning manifest itself? Working at the nexus of musicology, ethnomusicology, and music philosophy and aesthetics, the book presents a synthetic and innovative approach to musical meaning which argues deftly for the thinking of music as a discourse in itself—composed not only of sequences of gestures, phrases, or progressions, but rather also of the very philosophical and linguistic props that enable the analytical formulations made about music as an object of study. The book provides demonstrations of the pertinence of a semiological approach to understanding the fully-freighted language of Romantic music, stresses the importance of a generative approach to tonal understanding, and provides further insight into the analogy between music and language.
Stephen Davies
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199608775
- eISBN:
- 9780191729669
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199608775.003.0007
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Aesthetics
We discuss several notions of musical meaning that do not accord with linguistic or semiological frameworks. Whereas accounts trying to reduce formal meaning to linguistic or semiological meaning are ...
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We discuss several notions of musical meaning that do not accord with linguistic or semiological frameworks. Whereas accounts trying to reduce formal meaning to linguistic or semiological meaning are flawed, musical structures can be said to have meaning in that they are amenable to explanations in terms of reasons similar to those that justify human actions. An even more fundamental kind of meaning in music is experiential formal meaning. This relates to the experiential potential the listener is able to realize when she responds to the music with understanding. Music also has subjective significance in human life. Meaning-for-the-subject deals with the idiosyncrasies of musical experience, while meaning-for-us concerns the meaning music has for all human beings, rather than solely for individuals.Less
We discuss several notions of musical meaning that do not accord with linguistic or semiological frameworks. Whereas accounts trying to reduce formal meaning to linguistic or semiological meaning are flawed, musical structures can be said to have meaning in that they are amenable to explanations in terms of reasons similar to those that justify human actions. An even more fundamental kind of meaning in music is experiential formal meaning. This relates to the experiential potential the listener is able to realize when she responds to the music with understanding. Music also has subjective significance in human life. Meaning-for-the-subject deals with the idiosyncrasies of musical experience, while meaning-for-us concerns the meaning music has for all human beings, rather than solely for individuals.
Roy Harris
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748613083
- eISBN:
- 9780748652334
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748613083.003.0005
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
This chapter analyses Louis Hjelmslev's interpretation of Ferdinand de Saussure's distinction between lange and parole. Hjelmslev believed that this distinction represented Saussure's teaching ...
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This chapter analyses Louis Hjelmslev's interpretation of Ferdinand de Saussure's distinction between lange and parole. Hjelmslev believed that this distinction represented Saussure's teaching ‘ramenée à son essence absolue’ and that Saussure's great achievement was the discovery or rediscovery of la lange, which had been neglected by linguistics preoccupied with la parole. The chapter describes Hjelmslev's approach in studying and documenting les langues, and his abstract analysis of semiological relations.Less
This chapter analyses Louis Hjelmslev's interpretation of Ferdinand de Saussure's distinction between lange and parole. Hjelmslev believed that this distinction represented Saussure's teaching ‘ramenée à son essence absolue’ and that Saussure's great achievement was the discovery or rediscovery of la lange, which had been neglected by linguistics preoccupied with la parole. The chapter describes Hjelmslev's approach in studying and documenting les langues, and his abstract analysis of semiological relations.
Alexander O'Hara
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- June 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780190858001
- eISBN:
- 9780190858032
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190858001.003.0007
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, European History: BCE to 500CE, Prose and Writers: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter provides a semiological interpretation of the reading of miracle accounts in Jonas’s hagiography in seeking to understand the function that these accounts played within the texts. It ...
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This chapter provides a semiological interpretation of the reading of miracle accounts in Jonas’s hagiography in seeking to understand the function that these accounts played within the texts. It argues that miracle accounts functioned differently with different texts and over time. It builds on the work of French historian Jean-Louis Derouet, who advanced a semiological interpretation of miracle accounts by contrasting them in two different hagiographical corpora from the seventh century. It categorizes miracles according to function, not type, following Pierre-André Sigal’s seminal methodological work on miracles in French saints’ Lives from the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Sigal’s classification system of miracles is applied with Derouet’s semiological interpretation to provide a new reading of the miracle accounts in Jonas’s hagiography.Less
This chapter provides a semiological interpretation of the reading of miracle accounts in Jonas’s hagiography in seeking to understand the function that these accounts played within the texts. It argues that miracle accounts functioned differently with different texts and over time. It builds on the work of French historian Jean-Louis Derouet, who advanced a semiological interpretation of miracle accounts by contrasting them in two different hagiographical corpora from the seventh century. It categorizes miracles according to function, not type, following Pierre-André Sigal’s seminal methodological work on miracles in French saints’ Lives from the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Sigal’s classification system of miracles is applied with Derouet’s semiological interpretation to provide a new reading of the miracle accounts in Jonas’s hagiography.
