Contact Languages and Music - Softcover

Andrea Hollington (editor)|Joseph T. Farquharson (editor)|Byron M. Jones Jr. (editor)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 9766409234 ISBN 13: 9789766409234

Publisher: The University of the West Indies Press, 2022

Synopsis

Language and music are connected in many ways. As social and cultural practices, they have been intertwined in multiple ways. Musical and linguistic practices are often intertwined to express distinct and complex identities, attitudes, ideologies, social roles and political views. Spaces characterized by migration, contact, multilingualism, and colonial inequalities, are particularly interesting for the study of the intersections between language and music.

This volume is the first book-length account of contact languages and music. It offers a stimulating collection of contributions on different territories, multiple musical genres and topics, and various methodological approaches. The chapters address myriad topics such as nationality, ethnicity, identity, gender, migration and diaspora.

About this title

About the Author

Andrea Hollington is a postdoc researcher at the University of Mainz, Germany.

Joseph T. Farquharson is Senior Lecturer in Linguistics at The University of the West Indies, Mona, and Coordinator of the Jamaican Language Unit.

Byron M. Jones Jr. is a Lecturer in Linguistics in the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics at The University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, Trinidad.

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Introduction

Music and language have a manifold relationship: Language is acrucial part of many musical forms and practices, while musical features areseen in language as well. They share contexts, spaces and histories in manysociocultural expressive forms. Links between language and music have beenexplored by scholars in various contexts. For example, Jackendoff and Lehrdahladapted Noam Chomsky’s linguistic generative approach to music. While thisaimed at finding a common theoretical approach, studying “universal musicalgrammar” and a formal description of musical understanding, the approach doesnot seem to be very influential today. In recent decades, and especially sincethe beginning of the twenty-first century, sociolinguistic accounts of popularmusic have become quite common, such as hip-hop (Alim 2006; Alim, Ibrahim andPennycook 2009; Terkourafi 2010) or reggae and dancehall (Devonish 1996, 1998,2006; Devonish and Jones 2017; Farquharson 2005; Hollington 2016, 2018; Jones2019). Exploring various connections of language and music as social practicesopens up a large field of possibilities and perspectives.

This is where the present volume comprises and ties in chaptersthat seek to look at various intersections and connections of language andmusic. Different accounts shed light on language variation, the use of Creolelanguage in music, language ideologies, authenticity, language and identity,the ethnography of communication, multilingualism and language contact,language attitudes, linguistic creativity and transnational flows. Instead ofconcentrating on a specific music genre, this volume presents a colourfulcollection of different practices in various music genres and styles, as wellas in different parts of the world. The shared focus of this book is that eachcontribution sheds light on one or more aspects of (a) contact language(s) andthe ways linguistic practices feature in and impact on various music styles.

Numerous creolized cultures, as well as societies characterized bylinguistic pluralism and contact, have yielded rich musical practices in whichcontact languages are used. In many cases, music, as a social and cultural formof expression, has constituted a domain in which contact languages have gainedprestige, preserved historical linguistic forms and served as strong markers ofidentity. Especially in colonial and postcolonial contexts, contact languagesreferred to as Creole have usually been regarded as low prestige varieties withlittle power, especially in official and political domains. Here, music hasoffered spaces in which Creole languages could not only flourish but also becelebrated as cultural heritage. Despite these important aspects, nobook-length volume on the interplay of contact languages and music exists todate. This volume presents a number of original case studies from mainlyanglophone Caribbean and African contexts that have not been discussed inprevious works. It also explores some other contact varieties in francophoneand lusophone contexts. Additionally, this volume aims at filling theaforementioned research gap by providing insights into a number of Creolelanguage and musical practices from Jamaica to São Tomé, and from Louisiana toTrinidad and Tobago. Apart from documenting and analysing the use of contact languagesin music practices, the volume seeks to explore, in particular, questions ofidentity and authenticity, which are addressed by the various contributors intheir respective chapters with regard to methodological, theoretical andideological standpoints and perspectives:

1. How is the intersection between contact languages and music deployed by artistes to construct and negotiate various identities?
2. How do the intersectionalities between contact languages and notions of race, authenticity, class and nationality “play out” in music?
3. How are linguistic performances in music by second-language speakers of contact languages assessed and evaluated as authentic by first-language and second-language speakers?
4. What is the basis of the evaluations made by audiences at home and abroad about the authenticity of contact languages as second languages in music?

Edition details

• Publisher: The University of the West Indies Press
• Publication date: 2022
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 9766409234
• ISBN 13: 9789766409234
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 350