Singing in tone: Text-setting constraints in Southeast Asia

This project will study how it is possible to sing in a tone language like Thai or Chinese. In Thai, for example, the syllable 'khaa' can mean one of five different things depending on whether it is spoken with high, medium, low, rising, or falling pitch. Since music is made up of notes with different pitches, how is it possible for speakers of a language like Thai to understand song lyrics at all?

This kind of problem is actually very similar to one familiar to anyone who speaks a Western language like English. For example, most native speakers of English will share the intuition that 'There once was a lady from Dallas' is a much better start to a limerick than 'There once was an old woman from Inverness'. Why do we think that the first line 'sounds better' than the second? This intuition reflects the shared knowledge that English speakers have about the rhythmic structure of English words, as well as about structure imposed by the form of a limerick. The trick in coming up with a suitable limerick is in figuring out how to match up one to the other.

It is clear that speakers of at least some tone languages have similarly strong intuitions about whether certain words are well-matched to a particular melody. My goal in this project is to understand and explain the musical and linguistic factors that underlie these intuitions. In order to understand how speakers accomplish this task, we first need a good understanding of whether tone languages differ in how words are set to music, and if so, how. Second, it is necessary to understand the role that musical style or genre plays in this process. Just as a limerick differs from a roundelay, different styles of song may impose different constraints on the relationship between linguistic tone and musical melody. In this project, I will focus on two particular tone languages, Thai and Vietnamese. These languages have different types of tone systems, providing a chance to see how tone languages differ in terms of text-setting, but also have rich and varied musical traditions, making them ideal languages in which to examine the role of genre.

Part of my project aims to make the findings of my research accessible to a non-academic audience. Musical structure is perhaps more widely appreciated, and possibly more intuitive to appreciate, than linguistic structure; by emphasising the close parallels between language and music, I hope to increase general public awareness of and stimulate interest in linguistics more broadly. Furthermore, both of the languages I propose to look at have musical traditions stretching back thousands of years, but also vibrant modern music scenes that have been profoundly influenced by modern Western idioms. Globalisation is having an obvious impact on music and language throughout Southeast Asia, and this has sparked debate throughout the region about the value of different forms of musical expression based on their adherence to traditional constraints on artistic language. The results of this project can inform these conversations by showing how differences in the way that language is used in music can reflect different artistic goals. This will both inform my future research and provide potentially useful new frameworks and concepts for those working with language and music outside academia.

There are two primary non-academic audiences that stand to benefit from this project: the Vietnamese and Thai communities (both in the UK and in Southeast Asia) and the general public in the UK and abroad.

The study of how language and melody interact in tone languages provides a striking example of why artistic language is not simply 'singing while talking', but that there exists a delicate interplay between musical and linguistic structure, with implications for our understanding of the cultural value of musical expression from both internal and external perspectives. This is a particularly timely issue both in modern Southeast Asia as well as in Southeast Asian diaspora communities in the UK, involving the cultural expression of authenticity, heritage, and belonging. The influence of Western music has had a profound impact on the music produced in modern Southeast Asia, causing some observers (both within and beyond the region) to fear for the loss of traditional musical knowledge and styles. This project addresses these issues by laying bare the hidden linguistic threads that tie together diverse musical forms within and across languages. Demonstrating that different forms of music, modern as well as traditional, share fundamental qualities of 'Thai-ness' or 'Vietnamese-ness' can contribute to this ongoing conversation about changing norms and values in art and music, as well as provide a powerful demonstration of how linguistics can aid in the understanding of cultural expression.

Similarly, the findings of this project stand to benefit the general public by providing an intuitive and accessible example of what linguistic research consists of, why it is interesting and valuable, and how it is carried out. While few members of the general public have much experience with the finer points of linguistic structure, there is a much wider appreciation of differences in music. This topic can thus provide a unique 'hook' by which to educate the public about the value of linguistic research. In particular, this project can provide an introduction to issues of language variation ('some languages are tonal?'), structural similarities ('I know what limericks are!'), and the ways in which languages balance conflict constraints on form and meaning ('now that I know Chinese is tonal, I can see how singing could be a problem...so how *do* people understand the lyrics?') I intended to communicate these ideas in a series of free public events at locations outside the traditional classroom setting (see "Pathways to impact").