Dance as Dialogue: Metaphorical Conceptualization and Semantic Domains

• Main Author: Line Brandt
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Université de liège 2015-12-01
• Series: Signata
• Subjects: semantics; metaphor; sound; practices
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/signata/1087

Music and language share the property of being rhythmic signifying behaviours. In singing, and in poetry, the musical beats and the metric units of the text, plus the prosodic accents, are coordinated to form often complex rhythms. However, dancing is probably even more fundamental than singing as an indicator of musical meaning. In the bodily behaviour of dancing, the rhythmic patterns are expressed through gestures that communicate from body to body and directly signify emotional states — gestures and states which are subsequently mirrored mentally by an audience. Dance is therefore determined by contexts, and as contexts are determined by the domains of meaning in the human lifeworld, different forms of dancing unfold in different semantic domains. This article discusses examples of such differences in the domain-dependent meaning of dance, in particular by comparing tango to capoeira. By analyzing current discourse on these genres, it furthermore examines the conceptual contents of a number of metaphors linking dance to dialogue, thereby highlighting the communicative role of the fundamental triad: music, language, and dance.