Language and music

This article explores how content conveyed by music can be unambiguous (or not). Like language, music is a predominantly acoustic phenomenon which is expressed by one party before being received and interpreted by another. How do we interpret the music we hear? How do musicians fill music with meaning? These questions will be explored in the context of the following topic areas: The biographical shaping of emotional associations with music; musical notation as an attempt to capture its structural content; the comparison of music /language acquisition and function; the unambiguity of music in cultural contexts; and techniques used in music for film and television to depict content which goes beyond music. Lastly, the central insights will be applied to the context of individual practices in music and pedagogy.

It is song in particular which brings together music and language. Taking the reception of vocal music as its point of departure, this article sets out to highlight two educational directions for learning music in connection with the sung repertoire. One of these is methods used by individuals working in cultural mediation while the other is methods which can be found in using musical scores as teaching material. The data employed in this study are educational dossiers supplied by teachers at a range of cultural institutions and the written notation of the respective works (which do not form part of the dossiers).
A content analysis of the dossier led us to identify two kinds of vocabulary which are not typically included, these being stage directions for singers in scores (but which are neither sung nor spoken) and descriptors for voice. Details given in such scores are intended to influence artistic interpretation, which led us to our initial research questions: Can directions in the scores and the descriptors for voice help learners interpret a piece? Our study led us to conclude that this is certainly the case and, as such, we can confirm our initial hypothesis that mediators and teachers can play complementary roles by attaching great importance to text and to musical content, and in particular to interpretation.

This article presents an interdisciplinary approach to languages and music. In it, we analyse a song-based scheme of work for a 7th class in German as a foreign language. The teaching concept forms part of an interdisciplinary research and development project carried out from 2019 to 2023. Our study explores the specific contribution made by individual subjects, the added value of a shared educational concept, and student learning types.

This article reports on ongoing research into the status of narratology in French teaching. We focus on the analysis of a series of semi-structured interviews conducted with nine teachers of 15-19 year olds (upper-secondary level) in the Swiss canton of Vaud. The goal of these interviews was to use narrative theory to shed light on practices listed by the teachers to facilitate reflection on goals and implementation of narratological tools. The data collected enable us to critically examine in our research the use of the term ‘tool’ in the interviews, its status in discourse, and the challenges it presents. Our analysis of the data also makes it possible for us to reflect on the status and the value of these interviews with regard to optimising the narratological toolbox, as well what we can learn for future data collection.

Multiple studies show that, by the time they have completed first class, multilingual speakers in German medium education read a great deal more slowly than their monolingual peers, a disparity which the predictors used in these studies cannot  explain. Being able to read quickly enough is the prerequisite for reading comprehension. This study sets out to identify predictors of reading speed in multilinguals and to determine when precursor competencies are seen in good readers, in order to develop an empirical basis for early literacy promotion in multilinguals.
Oral and written precursor competencies were therefore investigated in 72 multilingual five-year-olds from ten months prior to four months before starting primary school. Reading speed and spelling were measured at the end of the first class. The study showed that the central precursor competency at this first measurement time is phonetic initial sounds and this explains 38 percent of differences in reading speed. A longitudinal analysis showed that reading speed develops when children begin to recognise letters before continuing with writing initial and final sounds. It can be seen that only the group of children who could already write sounds ten months before starting school developed an above average reading speed by the end of the first class. Early recognition of letters was shown to be the most significant predictor of spelling competency.

This article explores the notion that rhythmicals link language and music. At its heart is the development of a spoken rhythmical with school pupils: I outline the process of planning a spoken word production to presenting and reflecting on it using a pedagogical model. The related acquisition of competencies is also discussed.

Words and music have things in common. How, though, to combine these? To what extent do they complement each other? How does a musician connect words – which are not his/her starting point – with notes played? This is what we set out to learn in this interview with musician Pierrejean Gaucher. In answering our questions, he offers us unique insights into the world of music and languages.

In 2017 a joint initiative by the central library in Dresden’s Kulturpalast and Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra sought to bring to life stories set to music for children aged 5 and upwards. The initiative goes by the name of ‘Wortbilder und Klangfarben’ (~ ‘Word pictures and musical tones’) and our motto, in line with our respective specialisations, is that everyone will strike a note – the musicians from the Dresden Philharmonic by playing a tone and the librarians from the Central Library by taking care of the words. We meet three times a year in the events room at Dresden Central Library and entry is free of charge.
In this article we share practical notes on the development and implementation of this series of events around literature and music education.

The project MusA (Composizioni MUSicali per gli Allievi di italiano lingua straniera) originated at the teacher education institutions of Schwyz, Graubünden and Tessin (SUPSI-DFA/ASP). The project set out both to raise awareness around and to raise the profile of popular and contemporary songs of Italian-speaking Switzerland. Ten new songs were collected together for use in foreign language lessons at German-Swiss primary schools. The first step was to identify suitable musical material and to establish a pedagogical framework for using songs in the foreign language classroom. The next phase of development saw the creation of a framework of reference for producing audio material and preparing songs for classroom work. In addition, workbooks with educational material for lessons integrating music, language and culture were put together. Every song was illustrated and linked with learning tasks according to the Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) model which adopts an embodiment approach to music education. Further, a website is currently in production which will grant access to the guiding principles, songs, musical notation, and further teaching materials.