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This book discusses performance in communities of practice, social criticism through song, and how folk song and language interact.
List of contents
Introduction; Part I. Creating Community and Identity through Song: 1. Language and music; 2. 'Breaking through' into performance'; 3. The communality of folk song; 4. Answering back: rebels with and without a cause; Part II. Variation in Language and Folk Song: 5. 'The times they are a-changing'; 6. Ideologies, authenticities and traditions; 7. 'Insects caught in amber'; Part III. Folk Song Performance and Linguistics: 8. Voices in the folk song; 9. The song: text and entextualisation in performance; 10. Going out there and doing your thing; 11. Enregisterment through song; 12. Whither folk song, whither sociolinguistics?; Appendix: overview of musical concepts.
About the author
Richard J. Watts is emeritus professor of Modern English Linguistics, retired from the Chair in that discipline at the University of Bern since 2008. He is one of the world's leading experts in linguistic politeness research and is author of five books including Politeness (2003) and Language Myths and the History of English (2011).Franz Andres Morrissey is a lecturer in Modern English Linguistics at the University of Bern, Switzerland. He has a background in TEFL, and has published language text books and several papers on teaching materials and language practice through games, music and creative writing, and sociolinguistics and the sociology of language.
Summary
Language and music have much in common, such as rhythm, structure, sound and metaphor. Drawing on ideas from linguistics, performance studies and musicology, this monograph proposes a sociolinguistic model for analysing song and performance. It addresses a readership of sociolinguists and scholars and students in musicology and performance studies.
