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Curtis PrichardMUS-E619 Spring 2014

Examining the Relationship between Language and Music

Abstract

Though music and language are typically associated with one another, cognitive

research remains inconclusive on the nature of connections between the two. Despite this

disparity, a rich body of studies has been conducted on the effects of both language

learning on music (Chen-Hafteck et al, 1999), music learning on language

(Chandrasekaran and Kraus, 2010), cross-domain effects (Bidelman et al, 2011) and

cognitive inquiries of various types, from broad comparisons between language and

music (Besson and Schon, 2001; Rebuschat, 2012), to neurological processing of music

and language (Fedorenko et al, 2009; Patel et al, 1998), to developmental comparisons

(McMullen and Saffran, 2004). From these research studies emerges the idea that music

and language are somehow linked, and the systems used to process both of them are

simultaneously alike and disparate. Researchers have also delved into the processes

involved in both music and language acquisition, including studies on enculturation

(Hannon and Trainor, 2007; Morrison et al, 2008), and music acquisition and its effects

on broader student experiences (Trainor and Corrigall, 2010). However, comparatively

little research exists in the realm of educational effects of utilizing language learning

techniques to teach music. The few studies that exist have favored showing music

learning occurring in constructivist environments, such as children teaching themselves

in social settings (Koops, 2010), using holistic approaches to teaching music (Whitaker,

1994), and making sense of student motivation to learn music through Gardner’s Socio-

Educational model (MacIntyre et al, 2012). From the impact that the Suzuki method has

had on musical training, it seems safe to assume that more research into cognitive

benefits of learning music without notation would be an excellent addition to the current

body of works. Additionally, a broadening of cognitive topics to include studies of jazz

musicians’ improvisation and poets’ ambiguities of language could shed further light on

the systems used by the human brain to interpret and create works of art in these

mediums.

Music – a language or not?

The universal language – could there be a better-known descriptive phrase about music

used by music advocates, educators, politicians, and even laymen? Yet despite its

ubiquity, we rarely take the time to examine what exactly we mean by the phrase. The

word language implies that meaning is exchanged, and “universal” would seem to

indicate that this language, unlike others, can have its meaning understood by everyone.

It also brings up an interesting point – why are paintings not the universal language? Why

not all art, rather than simply just music? These questions get at the point that the quote is

really trying to express, that there is something unique about music that makes it a

universal language, where other mediums of art fall short.

What could this uniqueness be? To arrive at any sort of answer, the words

themselves must first be defined in a more rigorous manner. Language can be defined in

a number of ways from a philosophical standpoint, with the broadest being, “the interplay

of sound and meaning” (Jakobson, 1942). From that perspective, no argument is needed

to make music into a language, for by its nature music fits into this definition with no

difficulty. For the purposes of pursuing cognitive studies, however, more useful scientific

definitions are needed. It is not easy to find a single, concise definition of what language


is within the psycholinguistic community. The most basic definition is that language is

any human-based, complex system of communication. Of course, from this definition

arise a number of possible inquiries, the first being on the importance of semantics in any

language. Semantics are the ways in which languages attempt to use logic in order to

overcome ambiguity in favor of precise communication. This is where music and

language often delineate in function, for whatever music’s expressive qualities may be,

they are far from precise in their expression. Ambiguity exists in all art forms,

summarized by Nietzsche, “When you stare long into the abyss, the abyss stares back into

you,” meaning here that music interpretations are heavily dependent on the one doing the

interpreting. Music and language do share this ambiguity in common at times, such as

when poets write in a manner that is far from clear. A cursory reading of anything by E.E.

Cummings, Virginia Woolf, or William Faulkner, to name a few, makes it clear that

despite its proclivity for precision, language can be manipulated in many ways.

Then we must define music. Again we can easily state a broad definition, perhaps

no more specific than the same as for language: “the interplay of sound and meaning”

(Jakobson, 1942). For clarification, we might turn to Jackendoff’s broad comparative

definitions of language and music: “… language conveys propositional thought, and

music enhances affect” (Jackendoff, 2009). While neither of these definitions is perfect,

they provide a good starting point for further study. As the aphorism of music’s

universality is examined, it is important to remember that musical syntax, content, and

structure depends upon cultural elements. The concept of music being the universal

language is decidedly false, then, as cultural forces affect understanding of music in

much the same way that they affect the understanding of languages. Music itself may be

universal in that it appears in all human cultures, but the same may be said of language as

a broad concept.

Confronted with these contradictions and misunderstandings about the nature of

language and music, psycholinguists and music cognition researchers have used many

methodologies to examine these two fields. In this article, research done on the cognitive

processes involved in perception, understanding, and performance of language and music

will be examined, followed by a survey of literature on educational studies involving

acquisition and brain plasticity. Each of these topics contains a diverse body of research,

with the cognitive aspects being the most thoroughly explored, while educational

implications are still being treated with caution. The complexity of the phenomena

involved in language and music alike make the task of fully understanding their

relationship a difficult one.

COGNITION

Ray Jackendoff has written extensively on the subject of similarities and

dissimilarities between music and language (Jackendoff, 2009). For Jackendoff, the key

to understanding these two uniquely human activities is in identifying aspects of

cognition that belong to both music and language, and not to any other activities.

Jackendoff spends time debunking the idea that music and language can convey anything

close to similar meanings, mostly through qualitative and philosophical means. He argues

that the specificity of language is what defines it, while music’s defining quality is its

ability to enhance affect. From this and other points Jackendoff concludes that music and


language do not share enough unique cognitive processes to be considered linked with

anything other than extreme caution.

Jackendoff concludes his article by saying that he and Patel examine similar

evidence but arrive at different conclusions. One of Patel’s studies, a study of event-

related potential, revealed similarities in syntactic prediction for both language and music

(Patel et al, 1998). While language syntax may be processed via obligatory dependencies

of certain parts of speech (i.e., verb follows noun), musical syntax is processed through

expectation of musical development. According to Patel, “… it seems quite plausible to

assume that music perception involves continuous prediction and integration of events

into a perceived relational structure in working memory.” Music and language are both

processes of syntactic integration, where incoming stimuli are integrated with working

memory to cognitively process the whole. Nevertheless, the syntactic relationships

between parts of speech are much more rigid than those in elements of music. For this

study, Patel used the P600 brain potential, which elicits event-related potential from

words that are hard to integrate into sentence structure. In utilizing the P600 to measure

ERP, Patel played chord progressions that at one point contained three options for a

chord: a chord within the key, a somewhat related key, and a distantly-related key. To

control, he also ran similar tests with grammatical examples. Although the grammatical

examples gave the highest P600 response, the musical ones also generated responses of a

similar magnitude. Patel argues that this demonstrates the fact that music and language

draw on similar neurological resources for syntactical integration.

To bridge these two arguments, McMullen and Saffran focused on music and

language development, arguing that children encounter both fields aurally and, initially,

without any connection to meaning (McMullen and Saffran, 2004). Humans seem

programmed to respond to sound in all its various forms, and the brain is left to parse out

which sounds are more or less important, based on frequency of repetition. In addition to

children learning how to speak by this type of repetition, musical structures are learned

through it. From as young as six months, infants have shown preference to consonant

sounds versus dissonant ones. McMullen and Saffran suggest that a more beneficial way

to study music and language is to examine them from a perspective of modularity. This

field is young and as such prone to disagreements – the authors state that despite

modularity typically indicating music and language exist in separate cognitive domains,

there are a number of issues that remain unresolved. A perplexing one is whether humans

are born with separate cognitive domains for music and language, or if this separation

occurs through experience.

A theme that recurs throughout these three studies is the recognition of music and

language both containing rhythmic elements. Even Jackendoff somewhat reluctantly

acknowledges this point. McMullen and Saffran emphasize the similarities of

development of prosody in language and music, and of course Patel goes even further in

his argument for the similarities of underlying neural structures.

Another area that has enticed researchers concerns brain plasticity and language

and music’s impact on it. Studies have shown that speakers of tonal languages and

musicians have greater ability to track pitch accuracy than non-musicians and speakers of

non-tonal languages (Bidelman et al, 2010). Researchers found that musicians and

speakers of Chinese outperformed non-musicians both in ability to track pitches across

whole melodic contours. Musicians faired better than all non-musicians in identifying


discrepancies in intervallic content, while Mandarin speakers outperformed musicians

and non-musicians in identifying lexical tone content. The authors infer that both

language development and music acquisition play an important role in promoting brain

plasticity in terms of pitch representation.

Cognitive studies have long shown that music acquisition increases brain

plasticity, and researchers offer a variety of uses for this phenomenon. Chandrasekaran

and Kraus argue that another effect of brain plasticity caused by music learning is the

improvement to perception of speech in children with language-based learning disorders

(Chandrasekaran and Kraus, 2010). Specifically, the researchers argue that musical

training can aid in recognition of speech-in-noise. The children with these learning

disabilities (such as dyslexia) suffer from what the authors refer to as noise-exclusion

deficits, where noise-based stimuli often overwhelm their senses. The authors cite a

number of sources indicating that musical learning enhances not only musical hearing,

but also auditory processing of speech and other language skills. They theorize that

because of the brain plasticity encouraged by music learning, patients with language-

based disabilities would benefit from musical training. The exact training needed to

combat such neurological problems remains unclear at this time.

Strait and Kraus wrote an excellent review of the research that has been done on

brain plasticity and musical training as it relates to enhancing speech processing (Kraus

and Strait, 2011). In it, the authors argue that music training strengthens the underlying

cognitive processes involved in music and language perception, in addition to enhancing

auditory discrimination.

The effect of native language on musical compositions presents another potential

window into the brain’s efforts to encode both systems effectively. Studies have shown

that composers of nationalities whose language differs often write rhythms that resemble

prosodic patterns of speech (Patel, 2003; Huron and Oillen, 2003). Both studies sample a

wide array of French, British, and other music, with Patel examining nearly two hundred

melodies from each country, and Huron and Oillen using over two thousand. This realm

of subconscious effects that cognitive processes of different systems have on each other

remains largely unexplored, and could provide clues as to the uniqueness of music and

language. It would be illuminating to examine whether there are other faculties that

influence one another subconsciously in this manner.

EDUCATION

The research that has been done indicates a great deal of interest in the neurological,

cognitive aspects of language and music processing. While this field holds a great deal of

interest in its own right, the study of music acquisition and education from a linguistic

perspective could provide great insights for educators. Music educators who teach

beginning band and other early instrumental ensembles might be able to benefit the most.

Teaching music as a language could transform the way that school music programs

attempt to engage learners. Currently a trend exists in band pedagogy to teach reading

music and performing music simultaneously. Based on research of infant language

cognition, greater emphasis should likely be placed on listening and performing in the

initial stages, adding reading at a later time. This is of course recognizable to any string

player as resembling the Suzuki method at least superficially.


It is beneficial to make the distinction between knowledge or comprehension of

language and performance of it, a distinction that is seen in musical cognition as well.

Infants are able to recognize the meaning behind words much earlier than they are able to

perform the act of speaking on their own. Even as normal childhood development of

language continues on from mere comprehension to performance, so too do most people

perform music in the loosest sense of the word. Music performances may be altogether

private (singing in the shower, humming while working), and they are typically only

recreations of musical memories, unlike speech, which may be improvised more freely.

Quotes such as the following could use much more clarification of the

comprehension-performance dimensions: “If opportunities for practicing music (and

speech) are provided to children before the learning window closes the child seems to

learn the necessary implicit rules for music and language” (Heller and Athanasulis,

2002). In this study, Heller and Athanasulis used tests to examine whether a leveling off

of learning growth appears in students aged six to ten. Though they began the research

with firm ideas about learning window theory’s application to music and its relations to

language acquisition, research indicated that music and language may have different

critical periods. Compared to language, music seems to have a larger critical period than

was previously thought, and Heller and Athanasulis suggest that a revision of the learning

window theory associated with both language and music may be in order.

Music and language learning seem to exist on a spectrum of influence, wherein

either can have positive transfer to the other. In all inquiries of language and music

acquisition, studies of children are most illuminating. Chen-Hafteck et al (1999) found

that by studying performances of children singing songs whose native language is either

Sotho or English yielded evidence that native language affects approach to singing. The

findings support past research that has shown native speakers of tonal languages tend to

sing in a detached manner.

Lucrative research into diverse methods of teaching music can be found. Of

particular interest is a qualitative study by Koops (2010), conducted in the Gambia. The

title of the article, “They teach themselves,” is drawn from an interview conducted with a

master drummer in Baatiikunda. By that he means that the children acquire musical skills

through self-directed practice and by helping each other learn, rather than having a master

teacher oversee the process. Koops breaks down the learning she observed among the

children into three stages – listening, observing, and doing. The listening referred to aural

activities alone, while observing meant watching other associated behaviors, such as

clapping or dancing, which went along with the music. The final stage was doing the

activities – always approached in a holistic manner – and involved trial and error. Koops

says that the process was immersive, and rarely broken down into smaller, more

manageable chunks. Activities were learned holistically.

An article that does an excellent job highlighting the importance of having

student-driven learning in music education is Whole Language and Music Education by

Whitaker (1994). Whole Language is a type of language teaching that resembles

constructivism: Students help direct the learning, which takes place in a social

environment, and greater emphasis is placed on authenticity of experience. For example,

students in whole language classrooms do not use basal texts to facilitate learning reading

and writing – instead they utilize “real literature,” meaning writing outside the realm of

the strictly pedagogical.


Another take on musical learning and language learning comes from MacIntyre,

Potter, and Burns (2012), who discuss the application of Gardner’s socio-economic

theory of second-language acquisition to music learning motivation. MacIntyre et al

argue that similar motivations occur in the two disciplines, which Gardner divided into

four categories: situational context, the social milieu, individual differences, and

outcomes.

DISCUSSION AND FUTURE DIRECTION

The notion of a linkage between music and language is one of the most ingrained ones in

society at large. Research done thus far indicates that while differences do exist, it is

likely that there are underlying neural structures facilitating the cognition of each (Patel

et al, 2009). From a cognitive standpoint, future research looking into the similarities of

rhythm in poetry and music, as well as rhythmic variation across cultures with different

languages, might be worth exploring. Poetry and music studies and articles typically

relate to composers choosing libretti (Salmon, 1919), or to aesthetics between the two

(Welleck, 1962), or to difficulties of translation (Raffel, 1964-5). Aside from being more

philosophical than scientific, another trait these articles share is that they are dated.

Modern studies could include elements of cognitive involvement in both poetry and

music in ways that could not have been imagined fifty years ago. The fact is that some

poetry shares many of the same qualities as music, as can be seen in twentieth century

poetry, particularly its ambiguity in regards to meaning. The poet T.S. Eliot comes to

mind as a reference point, whose writings contain allusions, imagery, and almost stream-

of-consciousness at times, all of which deliberately obfuscate meaning – a tactic that goes

against Jackendoff’s explicit definition of language. Searching for commonalities in

practice could guide researchers to spotting more of the underlying structures that music

and language might have in common. Patel’s inquiry into syntactic processing holds

much promise, as he does an excellent job of showing that the dissimilarities between

language and music are often superficial (Patel, 2009).

More focus could be directed towards practical studies that examine the effects of

Suzuki method and other such enculturation methodologies on musical acquisition. It

would also be of benefit to study students who begin music studies later than preschool

and elementary school, as this area has not been fully explored. Early development and

the critical window are well-documented and studied, but the effects of motivation on a

student’s musical achievement are worth pursuing. Such studies would have to be long-

term and would require a tremendous amount of resources to do properly, but they may

help further delineate the concepts of achievement and ability.

In addition to researching the connections between linguistic pedagogy and

musical pedagogy at the beginning stage, studying the nature of jazz improvisation would

be an excellent line of inquiry. Jazz musicians frequently refer to jazz as a language, and

most musicians, whether jazz performers or not, would agree that improvisation requires

a mastery of the hierarchical systems at play in a piece of music. Improvisation is

frequently regarded as a most difficult task within music, and yet as performers of

language, we improvise much of the time. Jazz players refer to the commonalities of a

particular performer’s improv as his or her “vocabulary,” and a great deal of time is spent

learning patterns. The uniqueness of an improvised solo then comes from pairing together

previously separated patterns. This process on the surface seems different from language

performance. However, within language we also see a gravitational pull towards using


colloquialisms and familiar phrases, suggesting that what we call speaking in language

and what we call improvisation in jazz and classical music may be more linked than we

realize.

Several other topics related to pedagogy may lead to greater understanding of the

interaction between language and musical expression. While mediocre music teachers

may overuse the simplistic urging, “Play with more expression,” most pedagogues utilize

a wide range of vocabulary to convey to students what the expression ought to be.

Conductors in particular offer many linguistic representations of musical ideas, usually

through symbolic imagery. It would be fascinating to study areas of brain activity while

performing, first without any sort of linguistic prompt, then with prompts that vary in

nature. Once again, this type of research might lead to greater insight into the use of

language as a tool to teach music.

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