In:Body Part Terms in Conceptualization and Language Usage
Edited by Iwona Kraska-Szlenk
[Cognitive Linguistic Studies in Cultural Contexts 12] 2020
► pp. 99–114
Body part terms in musical discourse
Published online: 23 March 2020
https://doi.org/10.1075/clscc.12.c05kis
https://doi.org/10.1075/clscc.12.c05kis
Abstract
This chapter is a corpus-based, cross-linguistic study of musical terms related to body parts in several European languages (Latin and seven modern European languages of different origin: Croatian, German, Italian, English, French, Russian and Polish). Special focus is placed on the role of embodiment, conceptualization and etymology in term formation processes. This rarely researched aspect of musical terminology includes three major thematic areas of musical discourse where body part terms seem to play an important role: organological terminology (terms denoting musical instruments and their parts), terminologies of the theories of musical form (terms denoting various types of musical forms as wholes and their individual parts) and notational terminology (terms denoting Western notational symbols and their parts). While organological and notational terms related to body parts seem to be easily and univocally determinable, the boundaries of the elements of musical form (such as the head, the body, or the tail of a theme or a musical piece) tend to be the subject of interpretation. Similarities between equivalent terms in the examined European languages, together with the restricted collocations in which they occur, reveal the underlying cross-cultural conceptualization processes and shed light on linguistic borrowing. This study, which is a part of a larger terminological project (http://www.muza.unizg.hr/conmusterm/english/), has no direct precedents in musicological literature and provides new avenues for further research.
Keywords: body part terms, conceptualization, music, musical instruments, musical form, notation
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Body part terms in organology
- 3.Body part terms in theories of musical form
- 4.Body part terms in Western notation practice
- 5.Conclusion
Notes References
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