Oral Presentations and Performances: Session III
Project Type
Presentation
Project Funding and Affiliations
N/A
Faculty Mentor’s Full Name
G.G. Weix
Faculty Mentor’s Department
Anthropology
Abstract / Artist's Statement
Ethnomusicology is a subfield within cultural ethnography that aims to provide detailed, descriptive analysis on contemporary music culture, applying cross cultural comparison to trace musical lineages and identify sounds significant to a select society. The field serves as an interdisciplinary measure to accurately index musical styles that serve as a cultural marker to the heritage to which they are ascribed. Linguistic analysis aspires to many of the same goals. It is one of the four major disciplines within anthropology, and has its sights focused critically on the examination of language in its spoken form. Linguists apply research methods such as comparative analysis with goals of identifying genetic markers within the language and reconstructing proto-languages, which aid in understanding how phonological change occurs and how similar languages came to develop. My research presents a comparative analysis of methods in musicology and linguistics. I consort experts in both fields to understand the histories of each practice, and the common research methods seen in the fields today. In providing description of the fields, and the researchers committed to either practice, I will examine the overlap in how each is performed, describing common analytical methods and goals of study. Finally, I will describe how the two fields do or do not interact, and what potential there is in applying methods of linguistic analysis to vocal music.
Category
Humanities
Dissecting Word and Song: Observing the Interplay between Linguistic Analysis and Ethnomusicology
UC 331
Ethnomusicology is a subfield within cultural ethnography that aims to provide detailed, descriptive analysis on contemporary music culture, applying cross cultural comparison to trace musical lineages and identify sounds significant to a select society. The field serves as an interdisciplinary measure to accurately index musical styles that serve as a cultural marker to the heritage to which they are ascribed. Linguistic analysis aspires to many of the same goals. It is one of the four major disciplines within anthropology, and has its sights focused critically on the examination of language in its spoken form. Linguists apply research methods such as comparative analysis with goals of identifying genetic markers within the language and reconstructing proto-languages, which aid in understanding how phonological change occurs and how similar languages came to develop. My research presents a comparative analysis of methods in musicology and linguistics. I consort experts in both fields to understand the histories of each practice, and the common research methods seen in the fields today. In providing description of the fields, and the researchers committed to either practice, I will examine the overlap in how each is performed, describing common analytical methods and goals of study. Finally, I will describe how the two fields do or do not interact, and what potential there is in applying methods of linguistic analysis to vocal music.