David Houston

Music and Language David Houston

This book proposes an interdisciplinary integration of empirically grounded musicological evidence into linguistic curricula. Phonological, syntactic, and neurological convergences between music and language are identified. However, differences in semantic content and the deliberateness ascribed to a musical or linguistic event inhibit the extent to which a music-language comparison can advance without qualification. Two experiments were conducted, the first presenting a unique music-linguistic phenomenon, suggesting that the major and minor modes in music are non-arbitrarily associated with certain linguistic stimuli ('kiki' and 'bouba', respectively) in accord with their phonetic characteristics (e.g. vowel and consonant quality). This topic is considered in the light of evidence from synaesthesia and sound symbolism. The second experiment explores the level of accord between the linguistic and musical academic communities on subjects relevant to an interdisciplinary discussion. A questionnaire form was administered, with results indicating that an insufficient amount of agreement exists between the two fields to facilitate a productive exchange and evaluation of ideas.