Conférence de R. Rodriguez-Vazquez le 5 mai à Saint-D enis

[jlaroui at UNIV-PARIS8.FR]

L'UMR 7023 a le plaisir de vous convier, dans le cadre des séances de son
séminaire,

le lundi 5 mai 2008
10h00-12h00, Université Paris VIII, 2, rue de la liberté, 93200
Saint-Denis (métro Saint-Denis Université, ligne 13), bâtiment D, salle D
143,

à une conférence de Rosalia Rodriguez-Vazquez Université de vigo)

intitulée

"A step back in time: Diachronic insights into text-setting"

Résumé :

In Rodríguez-Vázquez (2007), I carry out a comparative examination of the
basic prosodic characteristics of English and Spanish in order to then
explore the most relevant text-setting Optimality Theory constraints as
applied to a corpus of twentieth-century English and Spanish folk songs.
As will be shown in the first part of the seminar, Rodríguez-Vázquez
(2007) establishes the existence of clear mismatches between speech
prosody, on the one hand, and verse and music rhythm, on the other. These
inconsistencies work differently in a syllable-timed language like Spanish
than in a stress-timed language like English. While the former show a
natural counterpoint or dialogue between speech prosody and musical
rhythm, in the latter this counterpoint tends to be considered arhythmic.
As it stands, the current approach to text-setting is incomplete. In order
to check the universal validity of the theoretical assumptions and
empirical observations made in Rodríguez-Vázquez (2007) and devise a
comprehensive theory of text-setting – synchronic and diachronic –, it is
crucial to analyse songs dating from previous stages in the history of the
chosen language – in this case, English.
In the second part of the seminar, I engage in the exploration of
text-tune correspondences in a small sample of English broadside ballads
(seventeenth century). More, specifically, I focus on the correspondences
between verse prosody and text-setting in these songs, which are
characterised by the fact that the lyrics were written to pre-existing
tunes. I examine whether the constraints applied to twentieth-century
songs were at work – and ranked equally – in seventeenth-century songs. I
also raise specific questions related to the interaction between prosody,
text-setting and syntax in broadside ballads.


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