Chapter published in:
Perception Metaphors
Edited by Laura J. Speed, Carolyn O'Meara, Lila San Roque and Asifa Majid
[Converging Evidence in Language and Communication Research 19] 2019
► pp. 165–184

Why do we understand music as moving?

The metaphorical basis of musical motion revisited

Although musical structure is commonly perceived as moving, its motivation remains a debated issue. Conceptual Metaphor Theory approaches assume that musical motion is motivated by conceptual metaphors like time is motion and change is motion. The current study aims to investigate whether these conceptual metaphors successfully describe musical motion. For the analysis, a corpus of 10,000 words taken from the genre of music criticism (academic musicology journals and newspaper concert reviews of classical music) was compiled and exhaustively analysed with respect to metaphorical expressions. The results suggest that whereas many motion expressions for music seem to be motivated by time is motion as well as change is motion, a number of instances may instead present cases of fictive motion.
Keywords: conceptual metaphor, musical motion, fictive motion, time is motion, change is motion, Event Structure Metaphor, music criticism
Published online: 21 February 2019
https://doi.org/10.1075/celcr.19.09jul
References

References

Adlington, R.
(2003) Moving beyond motion: Metaphors for changing sound. Journal of the Royal Musical Association, 128(2), 297–318.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Aksnes, H.
(2002) Music and its resonating body. Danish Yearbook for Music Research, 29, 81–101.Google Scholar
Antović, M.
(2014) Metaphor about music or metaphor in music: A contribution to the cooperation of cognitive linguistics and cognitive musicology [Metafora o muzici ili metafora u muzici: jedan prilog za saradnju kognitivne lingvistike i kognitivne muzikologije]. In M. Stanojević (Ed.), Metaphors We Study: Contemporary Insights into Conceptual Metaphor [Metafore koje istražujemo: suvremeni uvidi u konceptualnu metaforu] (pp. 233–254). Zagreb, Croatia: Srednja Europa. https://​papers​.ssrn​.com​/sol3​/papers​.cfm​?abstract​_id​=2566258
Bonds, M. E.
(2010) The spatial representation of musical form. Journal of Musicology, 27(3), 265–303.Crossref
Brower, C.
(2000) A cognitive theory of musical meaning. Journal of Music Theory, 44(2), 323–379.Crossref
Caballero, R.
(2007) Manner-of-motion verbs in wine description. Journal of Pragmatics, 39(12), 2095–2114.Crossref
Caballero, R. & Ibarretxe-Antuñano, I.
(2015) From physical to metaphorical motion: A cross-genre approach. In V. Pirrelli, C. Marzi, M. Ferro (Eds.), NetwordS 2015. Word knowledge and word usage. Representations and processes in the mental lexicon, Conference Proceedings, Pisa, Italy, 155–157.Google Scholar
Clarke, E.
(2001) Meaning and the specification of motion in music. Musicae Scientiae, 5(2), 213–234.Crossref
Cox, A.
(1999) The metaphoric logic of musical motion and space. PhD Dissertation, University of Oregon.Google Scholar
(2016) Music and embodied cognition. Listening, moving, feeling, and thinking. Bloomington, In: Indiana University Press.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Eitan, Z. & Timmers, R.
(2010) Beethoven’s last piano sonata and those who follow crocodiles: Cross-domain mappings of auditory pitch in a musical context. Cognition, 114(3), 405–422.Crossref
Evans, V.
(2003) The structure of time: Language, meaning, and temporal cognition. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
(2010) Figurative language understanding in LCCM Theory. Cognitive Linguistics, 21(4), 601–662.Crossref
(2013) Language and time. A cognitive linguistics approach. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Gibbs, R. W., Jr.
(2006) Embodiment and cognitive science. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Grady, J. E.
(1997) Foundations of meaning. Primary metaphors and primary scenes. PhD Dissertation, University of California, Berkeley.Google Scholar
Guck, M.
(1991) Two types of metaphoric transfer. In J. Kassler (Ed.), Metaphor. A Musical Dimension (pp. 1–12). Sydney: Currency Press.Google Scholar
Jandausch, A.
(2012) Conceptual metaphor theory and the conceptualization of music. Proceedings of the 5th International Conference of Students of Systematic Musicology, Montreal, Canada.Google Scholar
Johnson, M., & Larson, S.
(2003) Something in the way she moves. Metaphors of musical motion. Metaphor and Symbol, 18(2), 63–84.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Kövecses, Z.
(2000) Metaphor and emotion. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
(2015) Where metaphors come from: Reconsidering context in metaphor. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Lakoff, G. & Johnson, M.
(1980) Metaphors we live by. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
(1999) Philosophy in the flesh: The embodied mind and its challenge to Western thought. New York, NY: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Lakoff, G. & Turner, M.
(1989) More than cool reason. A field guide to poetic metaphor. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Marghetis, T. & Núñez, R.
(2013) The motion behind the symbols: A vital role for dynamism in the conceptualization of limits and continuity in expert mathematics. Topics in Cognitive Science, 5(2), 299–316.Crossref
Matlock, T.
(2004) The conceptual motivation of fictive motion. In G. Radden & K. U. Panther (Eds.), Studies in Linguistic Motivation (pp. 221–247). Berlin: Mouton De Gruyter.Google Scholar
Moore, K. E.
(2014) The spatial language of time. Metaphor, metonymy, and frames of reference. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Pérez-Sobrino, P. & Julich, N.
(2014) Let’s talk music: A corpus-based account of musical motion. Metaphor and Symbol, 29(4), 298–315.Crossref
Pragglejaz Group
(2007) MIP: A method for identifying metaphorically used words in discourse. Metaphor and Symbol, 22(1), 1–39.Crossref
Scruton, R.
(1997) The aesthetics of music. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Shove, P. & Repp, B. H.
(1995) Musical motion and performance: Theoretical and empirical perspectives. In J. Rink (Ed.), The Practice of Performance (pp. 55–83). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Spitzer, M.
(2004) Metaphor and musical thought. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Steen, G. J., Dorst, A. G., Herrmann, J. B., Kaal, A. A., Krennmayr, T. & Pasma, T.
(2010) A method for linguistic metaphor identification: From MIP to MIPVU. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Störel, T.
(1997) Metaphorik im Fach. Bildfelder in der musikwissenschaftlichen Kommunikation. Tübingen, Germany: Gunter Narr Verlag.Google Scholar
Talmy, L.
(2000) Toward a cognitive semantics (Vol. 1). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Zbikowski, L. M.
(2002) Conceptualizing music: Cognitive structure, theory, and analysis. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Zuckerkandl, V.
(1969) Sound and symbol. Music and the external world. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar