Talk by Laura McPherson (Dartmouth College & Universität zu Köln)
We are happy to announce a talk by Laura McPherson (Dartmouth College & Universität zu Köln) in the Phonology Colloquium.
Room: IG 4.301.
If you wish to participate virtually via Zoom, please contact Alina Gregori for the link.
Date: June 5, 2024
Time: 4 pm – 6 pm ct
Title: Spoken rhythms and drummed speech: Bidirectional iconicity at the crossroads of language and music
Abstract:
Language and music share many of the same raw ingredients, including pitch, rhythm, prosodic grouping, and timbre. This talk focuses on an underexplored aspect of the language-music connection: the iconic representation of one modality using the other, through onomatopoeia (music encoded as speech) and musical surrogate languages (speech encoded as music). In particular, I focus on drums to probe the bidirectional nature of this iconicity, what differences exist in the two directions of encoding, and what this tells us about the language and music faculties.
All languages are capable of encoding percussive sounds through onomatopoeia, but certain linguistic and musical traditions...