Music as Multimodal Discourse

Semiotics, Power and Protest

Lyndon C. S. Way, Simon McKerrell, Lyndon C. S. Way, Simon McKerrell

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN:
  9781350079861
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781474264440
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Linguistics
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

We communicate multimodally. Everyday communication involves not only words, but gestures, images, videos, sounds and of course, music. Music has traditionally been viewed as a separate object that we can isolate, discuss, perform and listen to. However, much of music's power lies in its use as multimodal communication. It is not just lyrics which lend songs their meaning, but images and musical sounds as well. The music industry, governments and artists have always relied on posters, films and album covers to enhance music's semiotic meaning.


Music as Multimodal Discourse: Semiotics, Power and Protest considers musical sound as multimodal communication, examining the interacting meaning potential of sonic aspects such as rhythm, instrumentation, pitch, tonality, melody and their interrelationships with text, image and other modes, drawing upon, and extending the conceptual territory of social semiotics. In so doing, this book brings together research from scholars to explore questions around how we communicate through musical discourse, and in the discourses of music. Methods in this collection are drawn from Critical Discourse Analysis, Social Semiotics and Music Studies to expose both the function and semiotic potential of the various modes used in songs and other musical texts. These analyses reveal how each mode works in various contexts from around the world often articulating counter-hegemonic and subversive discourses of identity and belonging.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• List of Contributors
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• 1. Understanding Music as Multimodal Discourse
• 2. The Role of Music in Ridiculing the Working Classes in Reality Television
• 3. ‘Shame Makes the World Go Around’: Performed and Embodied (Gendered) Class Disgust in Morrissey’s ‘The Slum Mums’
• 4. Recontextualization and Fascist Music
• 5. Authenticity and Subversion: Articulations in Protest Music Videos’ Struggle with Countercultural Politics and Authenticity
• 6. Sonic Logos
• 7. ‘If You Have Nothing To Say – Sing It!’: On the Interplay of Music, Voice and Lyrics in the Advertising Jingle
• 8. When the Fairy Tale Is Over: An Analysis of Songs and Institutional Discourse against Domestic Violence in Spain
• 9. Indigenous Hip Hop as Anti - colonial Discourse in Guatemala
• 10. Song, Sonic Metaphor, and Countercultural Discourse in British Folk- Rock Recordings
• Index