Examining the Linguistic Ideology Throaty Sounds Are Bad for Performers : The History of Negative Attitudes Towards Glottal Stops and Laryngealization in English

This thesis analyzes explicit metadiscourse (Johnstone et al 2006) on throaty sounds, primarily focused on glottal segments and non-modal constricted voice quality in English. Authors contributing to this metadiscourse are argued to be an offshoot of the speech chain network which valorized and circulated the English accent known as RP or Received Pronunciation, studied by Agha (2003). The evaluated texts center on English-speaking elocution, singing training, voice, speech, and voice care. The analysis shows glottal and guttural articulations are framed negatively and often discouraged by appeals to both health and aesthetics. Many authors in this performance speech chain network assert a linguistic ideology in the form of a belief mediating between language use and social structure: throaty sounds are bad for performers. However, as glottal stops and other laryngeal sounds are basic and naturally occurring consonants in many of the world’s languages, there is counter evidence to the view of them as problematic, injurious, or aberrant. Instead, it is theorized here that the negative outlook on throaty sounds is more deeply tied to historical and current-day social evaluation of stigmatized speakers of English who use salient throaty sounds, notably via associations with class, gender, and racialization. Negative material effects stem from this linguistic ideology. This research raises questions about the cultural framing of vocal health and the iconicity of voice quality

Interprétation, phrasé et rhétorique vocale dans la chanson française depuis 1950 : expliciter l’indicible de la voix

The present thesis focuses on the study of the song not in its word and music dialectic but through the acquisition of a third entity : the vocal rendition. The point is to reveal its critical importance and richness and make it legitimate as a subject of study as the result of the implementation of a specific methodological and lexical protocol that allows the analysis – as with the composition – although its changeable nature is not conducive to theorizing. Considered as a complex object (according to Edgar Morin’s terminology), vocal rendition is submitted to the crossfire of various disciplines (musicology, linguistics, rhetoric, acoustics) in order to favour as far as it is possible its objectivization. Within the framework of musicology, the use of computer tools makes it possible to establish a complementarity between the perspectives of social sciences and exact sciences, to catch and analyse the peculiarities of the performances both in their dominant or agogic characters, their connexions to the score, their combinatorial complexity within the meta-parameters (timbre, rhythm, phrasing), as well as the dialogical tensions which run through them (variation and repetition, melodicity and noise integration, singing and speaking parts). Thanks to the existence of a large body of French-speaking singers (from Rive Gauche style to Nouvelle chanson française) it is possible by studying studio and concert recordings to grasp the irreducible specificity of everyone (what is issued from a unique body) as well as the great underlying networks of stylistic relationships. Disclosed by the semeiological perspective, around the notions of strategy and performance designs, vocal rhetoric, the way to induce pathos and to express ethos, there emerges a typology of performing styles that is open to considering the intrinsic originality of each performer and integrating further generic developments.L’enjeu de cette thèse est d’étudier la chanson non dans sa dialectique parole/musique, mais par la saisie d’une troisième entité : l’interprétation vocale. Il s’agit à la fois d’en faire émerger l’importance fondamentale et la richesse et de lui conférer sa légitimité d’objet d’étude par la mise en place d’un protocole méthodologique et lexical spécifique qui en autorise l’analyse – au même titre que la composition – malgré son caractère mouvant et réputé réfractaire à la théorisation. Abordée comme objet complexe (selon la terminologie d’Edgar Morin), elle est soumise au feu croisé des disciplines (musicologie, linguistique, rhétorique, acoustique) pour pousser autant qu’il est possible son objectivation. Sous l’égide de la musicologie, l’utilisation d’outils informatiques permet d’établir une complémentarité entre les perspectives des sciences humaines et des sciences exactes, de capter et d’analyser les spécificités interprétatives, aussi bien dans leurs caractères dominants qu’agogiques, leurs rapports à la partition, leur complexité combinatoire au sein des méta-paramètres (timbre, rythme, phrasé) et les tensions dialogiques qui les parcourent (variation/répétition, mélodicité/insertion du bruit, chanté/parlé). Le large corpus de chanteurs d’expression française (du style Rive gauche à la Nouvelle chanson française) permet d’appréhender, au travers d’analyses d’enregistrements en studio ou en concert, la spécificité irréductible de chacun, émanation d’un corps unique, mais aussi de grands réseaux tendanciels de parentés stylistiques. Mise en avant par la perspective sémiologique, autour des notions de stratégie et de visées interprétatives, de rhétorique vocale, de suscitation du pathos et d’expression de l’ethos, se fait jour une typologie des styles interprétatifs, ouverte sur la prise en compte de l’originalité intrinsèque de chaque interprète et sur l’intégration des évolutions génériques ultérieures