Metaphor in Music or Metaphor About Music: A Contribution to the Cooperation of Cognitive Linguistics and Cognitive Musicology

Abstract

This article offers an overview of a research program related to the metaphorization of music. In a short analysis, the omnipresence of metaphors in the written discourse about music is first highlighted. After this, the author defines several dichotomies whose clarification may be useful in the theoretical research of musical metaphoricity (intrinsic and extrinsic metaphors; musical conceptualization and metaphorization; absolute and referential musical metaphor; the problem of metaphor in music or metaphor about music). The third segment presents the main results of two empirical studies conducted with ten-year-old participants with different mother tongues, musical affinities and cognitive status, where claims are raised that metaphor in music is all-present, that there are differences in particular metaphorical statements, however that beneath those differences certain underlying similarities may be postulated. The final chapter uses these results as a basis for proposing an integrative theory of musical metaphor, based on the contributions of four separate semantic schools.