Musical Intimacies and Indigenous Imaginaries by Dueck Byron;

Author:Dueck, Byron;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oxford University Press, Incorporated
Published: 2013-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Pragmatics and Metapragmatics in Musical Performance

Silverstein’s metapragmatic theory of language and culture (see Silverstein 1993, 1997; Silverstein and Urban 1996) understands socially significant action to have a dual relationship to its context of occurrence: it is both appropriate to and effective in it.5 Human sign activity—which is to say, socially significant acts, whether the wave of a hand, the strumming of a guitar, or the utterance of words or sentences—both acknowledges its environment and accomplishes something within it.6 On the one hand, then, it is contingent, addressing or presuming other elements of its context; on the other, it is consequential, extending or transforming this context (see Figure P5.2).

Moreover, successful and coherent social activity is appropriate and effective at both micro and macro levels of interaction. On the micro level, it addresses its immediate “co-text.” It acknowledges the interactive goings-on that surround it—perhaps the preceding gesture in a musical performance or the last thing said in a rehearsal—and contributes something new. At the macro level, it takes into account the broader cultural context in which the interaction takes place—the likely presumptions of fellow musicians, for instance, or the broader expectations that surround a genre, such as when it should be performed and what it typically accomplishes. It also helps to extend them—typically affirming, but occasionally resisting or reshaping. In this way effective action also takes ideologies into account.7

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