To See the Concept: The Term in the Mirror of Mental Representations

The article proves the thesis that the image is the presupposition of the music theory terms (modulalion and anharmonicily). Hence, the term is a hidden iconic sign. This refutes the stereotyped idea about scientific terms as encoding uniquely encoded their concepts. The main issues are the identification of the image scheme, which is used by musicians to explain the processes of transition to another tonality and anharmonic substitutions. The work is carried out within the cognitive theory of language and the cognitive semiotics of music. Schemes as mental constructs are the result of an analogous representation of spatial displacements of objects: object's actions are similar to movements of the human body. Image schemes serve as a bridge between the sensory perception of the world and its formatting in the text. The image-scheme is a representative mechanism of the term and at the same time a hidden semantic trail, which is actualised in the etymological biography of the word and in associative analysis. The research part of the work begins with a musicological definition of the terms modulalion and anharmonicily. Then the author systematised the associations for these stimuli obtained in the course of a directed associative experiment. The reactions were the result of answering the questions: how to explain what modulation and anharmonicity are to a person who did not study music theory, and whether these processes can be imagined as visual images or images of a different modality. The list of associations includes reactions in the form of separate lexemes, word-combinations and text fragments that clarify the concepts “modulation” and “anharmonicity”. Among the reactions to the first term are: “wandering of the soul”, “movement of thought”, “How to drive from C-moll to C-dur” (A. Batagov), etc. A schematic image (“going beyond the boundary of the original locus”) as a presupposition of the term modulalion arises in the “cognitive tango” (L. Zbikowski) of the languages of culture, in which the verbal system is given in actual modus, while the visual component in the form of a mental picture. This conclusion correlates with the general semiotic axiom about man's polylingualism. Visual images are a kind of a mirror, in which we begin to “see” a verbalised concept. These images are extremely important in teaching the theory of music. The system of associations (the “linguistic work” of the teacher) puts the concept in visual kinetic pictures, matching the theory of music with the space of a widely understood life. The creative process itself is conditioned by the variability of associations. The author concludes that the effects of synaesthesia occur in the representation of not only objects in the physical world, but also abstract concepts. This means that terms like signs with hidden iconism (icon schemes) retain their connection with the physical dimension of a person.

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