Uses of formulaic language in music

Formulaic Language

The Use of Formulaic Language in Today's Musical Genres: A Comparison of Country and Pop Lyrics

Music is a ubiquitous and universal feature in human culture. Though it can serve as a means of communication and of record keeping in pre-literate societies, this is not music's primary function in most societies or necessarily in any society -- there seems to be something intrinsic to music itself that makes it a necessary component of human culture and society. Something about the rhythms and the melodies of musical expression connect with the brains and/or could of individuals in a way that science is beginning to recognize but will likely never fully explain. Still, the interpretations and conclusions that have been arrived at in regards to music through scientific study are interesting to not, especially in the areas of the "soft" or human sciences that do not have the same rigid cause-and-effect structures of physics, for example.

Many attempts have been made to analyze music in terms of linguistic theory, with music equated to a language with discrete phrases similar in arrangement to sentences with their specific rules of syntax, and with a grammar of melodic and harmonic relationships that produces music that "makes sense" to the ear and the mind. Other scholars have noted that music truly resists this analysis and comparison when viewed objectively, and that it is a human phenomenon as independent and self-contained as any other complex cognitive process or achievement. Regardless of which view is true, the modern era has increasingly seen the mixture of language and music as a means of achieving combined meaning that is more strongly asserted than by either medium independently.

Words and music have long been paired together, of course, and the human voice is likely the oldest musical instrument ever used. From tribal chants that can still be observed in certain cultures in African and the Americas to the epic poems of the ancient Greeks that existed in song form long before they were ever written down, through the use of Hebrew and Latin passages in songs written for prayer -- a practice utilized by many cultures with many linguistic and religious backgrounds -- and the eventual emergence of the popular song that was unrelated to these higher motives and ideals, words and music have gone together in virtually limitless parings. It is not until the modern era, however, that truly different genres of music have competed for attention within a single culture at the same time.

The proliferation of musical styles is obvious to anyone living in a reasonable developed country today; especially in Europe and North America as well as the more "Westernized" countries of other continents, a simple glance around a record store or examination of the plethora of popular music magazines announces the large and diverse importance that individuals ascribe to various musical genres. Rap, Hip-Hop, RnB, Rock and Roll, Alternative, Punk, Funk, Emo, Techno, House, Reggae, Reggaeton…all of these different styles have different followings in different cultures and all also utilize the relationship between words and music in radically different ways, though with some notable similarities as well. This paper will examine the use of formulaic language patterns in the genres of country music and what is defined (for lack of a better term) as pop music.

Formulaic Language

The traditional view of language as comprised of generally discrete units of meaning marked off by specific phoneme combinations -- i.e. words -- still holds true in a majority of contexts and situations. Researchers have increasingly noted, however, the appearance and use of formulaic language or formulaic expressions, which are essentially strings of words that are used in their entirety and are recalled as discrete functional units in their own right (Wray & Perkins 2000). Though all formulaic language expressions are made up of intelligible words, and indeed their meanings of all such expressions is ultimately derived from their constituent words, formulaic language appears to work differently in the brain both when expressing and when observing language than do other word strings (Wray & Perkins 2000).

Though formulaic language expressions have been in regular use, in popular media forms, for at least the majority of the twentieth century if not indeed for centuries longer, their recognition and study is recent development (Van Lancker-Sidtis & Rallon 2004). Some texts have even been found to be comprised of a quarter or of formulaic expressions, demonstrating at once a reliance on collective cultural interpretations and a marked lack of originality in popular media language use (Van Lancker-Sidtis & Rallon 2004). These phrases make for interpretations that are both more colloquially colored and less symbolically imbued for their necessarily repetitive nature (thus their emergence as formulaic expressions) and their needed consistency in order to remain meaningful (Van Lancker-Sidtis & Rallon 2004).

Music and Language

The relationship between music and language is the subject of a great deal of debate, and ever researchers that support comparisons between the two uniquely human cognitive phenomena discern several different and offer contradictory approaches to such comparisons (Powers 1980). It is possible to see certain elements of linguistic construction in the construction of musical phrases, combinations, and pieces as a whole, and at times it is tempting to attempt pairing the explicit language meant to accompany a piece of music (i.e. The lyrics of a song) with the units of grammar and syntax or the notions of semantics inherent to the piece of music, but attempting to connect both at the same time has been deemed to be impossible by certain researchers (Powers 1980).

Other scholars take a far more pessimistic view of any attempt to equate music to language, whether this includes an attempt to tie the structures and features of a song's lyrics to the perceived "structures" of musical syntax or not (Jackendoff 2009). There are as many significant differences between music and language, according to this view, as there are between any other major cognitive creations, and thus any comparison of music and language must either highlight their differences or show how they parallel almost any other cognitive process of creation (Jackendoff 2009). Still, this des not preclude the study of lyrical choices within the framework of certain musical genres.