The Relationship Between Music and Language and Semiotics

The relationship between music and language is very complex and involves many parts of our cognitive systems. Music and language are present in every culture, history, and life around the world. Psychologists and musicologists see music and language as separate subjects of study. The discussion of music and language began with many scientists, such as Rousseau(1998), who was a big advocate for music and language being studied together. Darwin(1871) stated that music and language are both key parts of primitive social communication. He also believed modern music is a behavioral fossil of past human evolutionary systems. Fitch(2006) argued that music has semantic concepts, music is not all about pitches, and music is like a language because it has elements of poetry(isochronous). Music has a very important role in child development. Newborns do not understand the syntax and semantics of words, but the acoustics of voices are a key factor in language learning. In early infancy, parents use both music and speech to communicate emotions, and this allows the infants to create their own cries as an early version of communication. An article by Lutz Jancke, "demonstrates that professional musicians process unvoiced stimuli (irrespective of whether these stimuli are speech or non-speech stimuli) differently than controls, suggesting that early phonetic processing is differently organized depending on musical expertise (https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00123/full). Studying music and language perception can be divided into three categories. The first is functional interactions between cognitive processes. The second is an anatomical overlap, which is how brain activity is affected by music and language stimulation. Lastly, the transfer effects of musical training and tonal languages and music and language have a common evolutionary background. Ferdinand de Saussure(1857-1913) used the term semiology to help define the systematic approach to studying language. Semiotics is commonly linked to the influences of Charles S. Peirce(1839-1914), which brings in the study of logic and epistemology. Semiosis refers to the signs that are found in bio-semiosis(biological systems) and cultural or social semiosis. Musical semiotics are diverse and can be divided into two viewpoints: the structuralist and the semantic or referential viewpoints. Jean-Jacques Nattiez created three domains for musical activities: the neutral and aesthetic listener response, modes of creation, and the poetic domain. Eero Tarasti states, "Until recently, musical semiotics has followed the same path as general semiotics, trying to investigate musical signs using rules, norms, and generalizing theories. Now the research tends toward another direction, toward the study of unique, individual phenomena" (Tarasti, https://musicandmeaning.net/issues/showArticle.php?artID=1.5).  This further explains how semiotics in music is still being studied and that even with the signs and theory, there is still more to be defined and discovered. Lastly, music semiotics allows researchers to see further how music and language have a major relationship in how we as individuals develop.