Systemic Phonology - Recent Studies in English - Wendy L. Bowcher
Chapter 8: A comparative analysis of the rap and the sung voice: Perspectives from systemic phonology, social semiotics and music studies
Systemic Phonology - Recent Studies in English - Wendy L. Bowcher
David Caldwell [+]
English Language and Literature, National Institution of Education, Singapore
David Caldwell is an Assistant Professor at the National Institute of Education, Singapore. His major research interests include systemic functional linguistics, discourse analysis, systemic phonology and social semiotics. Within discourse analysis, David has applied appraisal theory to a range of language contexts, including post-match interviews with footballers, medical consultations with hospital patients suffering depression and popular rap music. Following in the tradition of social semiotics, he has also examined the meaning-making potential of sound, with a specific focus on the semiotics of performance voices in popular music.
Description
This chapter presents a comparative, semiotic analysis of two distinct vocal performances: rapping and singing. While scholars have investigated the differences between speech and singing in a performance context (e.g. Titze, 1995; Callaghan and McDonald, 2007), no research to date has compared the rap voice with the sung voice.