Paremias in the discourse of English-language popular songs
The present paper explores different aspects of proverb use in the English-language popular music discourse. The examples have been drawn from music hits dated no earlier than 1980 (except for several duets popular in the 1960s). First, the author gives a brief characterization of the pop song discourse. As a segment of mass culture it can be described as having the following features: accessibility, intended mass audience, hedonism (entertaining function), commercial nature, emotionality, complex (synthetic) nature of the song, axiological and dialogical character. The thematic scope is limited to two broad zones: love and society. Second, the author presents the results of the theoretical overview of the existing research into the problem, which showed it needs further investigation. Third, the author explores various aspects of paremiological creativity. As the research demonstrates, modified paremias are predominant in the English-language popular music discourse, and can be considered its characteristic feature. Creative modification, predetermined by pragmatic and cognitive factors, enables the author of a song to adapt proverbs to any context. It occurs on the semantic and structural-semantic level of the popular music discourse. The author also looks at how modern proverbs are employed by song writers. It is shown that popular songs are one of the main sources that have given rise to numerous new paremias and serve as an efficient platform for making them known to masses. In addition, the author highlights the phenomenon of the multiple use of proverbs in pop music. The notions "proverb clusters" and "proverb collages" are introduced. Proverb collages may constitute the entire lyrics or their structural element(s). Thus, they can be regarded as a method of building the discourse. Fourth, the author studies the performance of proverbs on the structural level of popular music discourse with special focus on their role in song titles. They are employed in the formal sections of the song (title, verse, chorus, bridge) and its additional elements (pre-verse, pre-chorus, ad lib). In very few cases standard (non-transformed) paremias are used in the titles. Active modification of proverbs in the titling process is accounted for by the content and compositional features of popular songs. Truncation and the use of the elements of the traditional proverb imagery are singled out as the most frequently employed modification devices. Last, the author explores how paremias function in duets. It is noted that they contribute to the creation of the dialogical mode of the popular song. It is concluded that proverbs are one of the preferred tools for conveying a myriad of attitudes, emotions, opinions, beliefs and such in pop-music. When featured in song lyrics proverbs help support the topics treated in them. Profuse use of paremias is predetermined by the entertaining function of the popular music discourse and its main goal of affecting the emotions of the intended mass audience.
Keywords
duet,
multiple use of proverbs,
paremiological creativity,
function of structural organization,
pop music,
дуэт,
Anglo-American paremias,
popular song discourse,
множественное использование паремий,
паремиотворчество,
функция структурной организации,
поп-музыка,
дискурс популярной песни,
англо-американские паремииAuthors
| Konstantinova Anna A. | Kuban State University of Technology | constanna@mail.ru |
Всего: 1
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