Faculteit Letteren & Wijsbegeerte Sofie Busschop From Piano Man to Dancing Queen A Comparative Stylistic Study of Singer-Songwriter, Grunge and Disco Music Masterproef voorgelegd tot het behalen van de graad van Master in de taal- en letterkunde twee talen: Engels - Spaans 2016 Promotor Prof. dr. Stef Slembrouck Vakgroep Taalkunde i Acknowledgements I would like to thank the people who supported me in the process of writing this thesis. Firstly, I would like to thank my supervisor, prof. dr. Stef Slembrouck, for the many hours he has invested in this investigation. His guidance and valuable insights have been an incredible help in the creation of this work. I would also like to thank Prof. Ludovic De Cuypere for his much appreciated assistance in the statistical analysis of the corpus. I would also like to thank my friends and family, and especially Aurelie and Hanne, for the emotional support that they have given me throughout the process of writing this thesis. I would like to dedicate this work to my mother, who would have been very happy to know that I am close to completing my Masters Degree. ii List of Abbreviations D – Disco ABB ABBA – Dancing Queen BeG Bee Gees – Stayin’ Alive BoM Boney M. – Daddy Cool Chi Chic – Le Freak DiR Diana Ross – Upside Down DoS Donna Summer – Hot Stuff EWF Earth, Wind and Fire - September KSB KC and the Sunshine Band – Get Down Tonight SiS Sister Sledge – We Are Family Tra The Trammps – Disco Inferno G- Grunge AIC Alice in Chains – Would? Bus Bush - Glycerine Hol Hole – Celebrity Skin Mud Mudhoney – Touch Me I’m Sick Nir Nirvana – Smells Like Teen Spirit PeJ Pearl Jam – Alive ScT Screaming Trees – Nearly Lost You Sou Soundgarden – Black Hole Sun STP Stone Temple Pilots – Interstate Love Song TeD Temple of the Dog – Hunger Strike S- Singer-Songwriter BiJ Billy Joel – Piano Man BoD Bob Dylan – Like a Rolling Stone CaK Carole King – It’s Too Late iii JaT James Taylor – Fire and Rain JoB Joan Baez – Diamonds and Rust JoM Joni Mitchell – A Case of You LeC Leonard Cohen - Suzanne NeY Neil Young – Heart of Gold SiG Simon and Garfunkel – The Sound of Silence VaM Van Morrison – Brown Eyed Girl iv List of Tables Table 1 Songs disco ..................................................................................................................... 4 Table 2 Songs grunge .................................................................................................................. 5 Table 3 Songs singer-songwriter ................................................................................................. 5 Table 4 attribution of stress by trial subjects ............................................................................. 30 Table 5 Dominant text idiom per song per genre ...................................................................... 50 Table 6 General percentage of text idioms per genre ................................................................ 51 Table 7 Types of pronouns per genre ........................................................................................ 56 Table 8 Lexical variation by means of type-token ratio per genre ............................................ 64 Table 9 Lexical density per genre .............................................................................................. 66 v List of Figures Figure 1 Word cloud grunge ....................................................................................................... 71 Figure 2 Word cloud singer-songwriter ...................................................................................... 72 Figure 3 Word cloud disco .......................................................................................................... 73 vi Table of Contents Introduction 1 Chapter 1 Introduction to the corpus ........................................................................................ 3 1.1 Composition of the corpus ....................................................................................................... 3 1.2 Musical genres ......................................................................................................................... 6 1.2.1 Singer-Songwriter ....................................................................................................... 7 1.2.2 Disco ........................................................................................................................... 8 1.2.3 Grunge ........................................................................................................................ 9 1.3 Poetic language and performance .......................................................................................... 11 1.3.1 Song lyrics as poetic language .................................................................................. 11 1.3.2 Songs as performances .............................................................................................. 14 1.3.3 Conclusion ................................................................................................................ 17 Chapter 2 Phonological analysis .............................................................................................. 18 2.1 Introduction to English Prosody ............................................................................................ 18 2.1.1 Stress ......................................................................................................................... 18 2.1.2 Rhythm ...................................................................................................................... 20 2.1.3 Intonation .................................................................................................................. 21 2.1.4 Meter ......................................................................................................................... 23 2.2 Phonological analysis of the corpus ....................................................................................... 25 2.2.1 General phonological analysis .................................................................................. 25 2.2.2 Comparison of the three genres ................................................................................ 31 2.2.3 Conclusion ................................................................................................................ 35 Chapter 3 Text-typological analysis ........................................................................................ 37 3.1 What is a text type? ................................................................................................................ 37 3.2 Text-typological theories ....................................................................................................... 39 3.2.1 James L. Kinneavy .................................................................................................... 40 3.2.2 Egon Werlich ............................................................................................................ 40 3.2.3 Robert E. Longacre ................................................................................................... 43 3.2.4 Comparison ............................................................................................................... 45 3.3 Text-typological analysis of the corpus ................................................................................. 48 3.3.1 General text-typological analysis .............................................................................. 48 3.3.2 Pronouns ................................................................................................................... 55 3.3.3 Conclusion ................................................................................................................ 58 Chapter 4 Lexical analysis........................................................................................................ 60 4.1 Lexical richness ..................................................................................................................... 60 4.1.1 Theoretical discussion of lexical variation and lexical density ................................. 61 4.1.2 Analysis of lexical richness in the corpus ................................................................. 64 4.1.3 Conclusion ................................................................................................................ 67 vii 4.2 Content analysis ..................................................................................................................... 68 4.2.1 Theoretical discussion of word count ....................................................................... 69 4.2.2 Content analysis of the corpus .................................................................................. 70 4.2.3 Conclusion ................................................................................................................ 75 Conclusion for word counts and word clouds .................................................................................. 76 Conclusion 78 Bibliography 80 Appendix 86 Word count: 29986 viii Introduction Pop music can be considered quite a recent phenomenon, rising in society during the course of the twentieth century (Danesi, 2003: 76). Therefore, the study of popular music did not receive much attention of scholars until the last couple of decades. As Bértoli-Dutra (2014: 149) notes, over the last 20 years, pop music has become a more prominent topic within sociological and