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Let’s Talk Music: A Corpus-Based

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Metaphor and Symbol, 29: 298–315, 2014
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ISSN: 1092-6488 print / 1532-7868 online
DOI: 10.1080/10926488.2014.948800
Let’s Talk Music: A Corpus-Based Account of Musical

Motion
Paula Pérez-Sobrino
University of La Rioja
Nina Julich
Downloaded by [145.108.72.125] at 10:08 29 September 2014
University of Applied Sciences Zwickau
This article aims to provide a corpus-based evidence of (a) the ubiquitous presence of metaphors in
verbal discourse about classical music and (b) the embodied basis of metaphors for musical motion.
We analyzed authentic examples extracted from a 5,000-word corpus of texts taken from peer-re-
viewed music academic journals. We applied a systematic method to identify metaphor-related words
(Metaphor Identification Procedure Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam [MIPVU]; Steen, Dorst, Herrmann,
Kaal, Krennmayer, & Pasma, 2010) and to label conceptual metaphors (Babarczy, Bencze, Fekele,
& Simon, 2010) that reduces the analyst’s bias in the identification of metaphors. Our main findings
are: (a) the presence of metaphors in academic discourse on music (29%) is significantly higher than
in academic discourse in general (19%; Steen, Dorst, Herrmann, Kaal, Krennmayer, & Pasma, 2010);
(b) most of the identified metaphors to describe musical motion are correlational metaphors (Grady,
1999); and (c) metaphors for musical motion are structured in the same way as the metaphors that
make up Lakoff’s (1993) Event Structure Metaphor, thus giving rise to the Musical Event Structure
Metaphor.
Music is a human, artistic phenomenon that is ubiquitous across cultures. In spite of its perva-
siveness, people may encounter difficulties when it comes to describing a certain musical work or
what a specific musical piece sounds like. This is the case even in the most specialized contexts,
such as music criticism and academic texts on music. However, it still seems natural to talk about
“ascending notes” or “progressing harmonies.”
In this regard, Johnson and Larson (2003) made a compelling argument for the bodily basis of
musical understanding: we map our knowledge as moving or movable bodies through physical
space onto musical objects, musical motion and musical space (e.g. “The violins enter in measure
5”). This article takes a common stance with Johnson and Larson’s (2003) claim that the way we
talk about music is essentially metaphorical. Our analysis is driven by the following research
questions: (a) how widespread is the use of metaphor in verbal descriptions of music and for
music in terms of motion in particular? (b) what types of metaphors are employed to describe
Address correspondence to Paula Pérez-Sobrino, Department of Modern Languages, University of La Rioja, c/ San
José de Calasanz 33, 26004 Logroño, La Rioja, Spain. E-mail: paula.perezs@unirioja.es
A CORPUS-BASED ACCOUNT OF MUSICAL MOTION 299
musical motion and how are they conceptually motivated? (c) to what extent is it possible to
relate metaphors for musical motion to existing metaphorical systems in literature? and (d) to
what extent do our findings mirror or expand the existent body of research on metaphors?
The results of our analysis expand Johnson and Larson’s (2003) account in three significant
ways. First, our study was based on the analysis of authentic examples extracted from a corpus of
5,000 words from academic articles published in music journals. Second, we applied a systematic
method to identify metaphor-related words (Metaphor Identification Procedure Vrije Universiteit
Amsterdam [MIPVU]; Steen, Dorst, Herrmann, Kaal, Krennmayer, & Pasma, 2010) and to label
conceptual metaphors (inspired in Babarczy et al., 2010) which renders metaphor identification
less subjective. Our findings provide empirical evidence in favor of the ubiquity of correlational
metaphor (Grady, 1999) in verbal descriptions of music. Third, we show that metaphors for musi-
cal motion heavily rely on the Event Structure Metaphor (ESM; Lakoff, 1993), thus giving rise to
a specific sub-case: the Musical Event Structure Metaphor MESM). We provide linguist evidence
of each of the sub-metaphors that make up this specific metaphorical system. We believe that it
is by means of the combination of quantitative and qualitative approaches that we can improve
existent accounts of the role of metaphor in the understanding of musical motion. We briefly
overview some basic theoretical notions to account for the description of musical motion in
“Musical Motion Within Cognitive Linguistics.” In “Methodology,” we discuss some method-
ological issues and we present quantitative and qualitative results arising from our corpus-based
survey in “Analysis.” Finally, in “Conclusion,” we return to the main proposals of our study and
suggest some promising topics for further research.
MUSICAL MOTION WITHIN COGNITIVE LINGUISTICS
Musical Motion and Embodiment
The conception of music in terms of motion lies at the heart of the way we speak about music.
According to Guck (1991),
We resort to it [the notion of musical movement], and to notions of change, to connect musical objects
and to describe their succession. Thus, pitch sequences are transformed into lines moving through the
space defined by pitch location, responding to tendencies perceived as inherent in the pitch and chord
relations. (p. 2)
Recent research from the field of cognitive linguistics and cognitive sciences has initiated an
interesting foray into the roots of the understanding of musical motion. There is increasing evi-
dence suggesting that musical understanding stems directly from embodied experience (Brower,
2000; Johnson, 1997), with musical entities being conceived of as objects in motion along a path
(cf. Johnson, 2007; Johnson & Larson, 2003; Pérez-Sobrino, 2014b; Saslaw, 1996; Spitzer, 2004).
The source domain of motion in space especially seems to play a central role in musical under-
standing. Johnson and Larson (2003) have detected three major conceptual metaphors underlying
verbal accounts of music. The “MOVING MUSIC” metaphor (2003, p. 70) entails that musical
units are conceptualized as objects that move along a path (i.e., “musical passages”) in a cer-
tain manner (i.e., “musical tempo”). A second basic experience of physical motion is our ability
to move our bodies through a spatial landscape. A musical piece can be understood in terms of
300 PÉREZ-SOBRINO AND JULICH
a landscape on the basis of this experience, thus giving rise to the “MUSICAL LANDSCAPE”
metaphor (Johnson & Larson, 2003, p. 72) through which the listener may move (e.g., “We’re
coming to the coda”). Finally, by means of a third major metaphor, “MUSIC AS MOVING
FORCE” (p. 75), we perceive music as having effects on us in the same way as physical forces
(such as wind, water, large objects, etc.) move us from one point to another (e.g., “the music leads
you to the recapitulation”).
Conceptual Motivation: Correlational Metaphor Versus Resemblance Metaphor
In consonance with Johnson and Larson (2003), our findings suggest that metaphorical mappings
for the target domain of music are deeply based on embodied knowledge of physical motion
through space. The notion of embodiment is closely related to the phenomenon of correlational
metaphor introduced by Grady (1997a, 1999). Correlational metaphors are motivated by the con-
flation of two events that tend to co-occur in experience. For instance, a particular state often
correlates with a specific location, which can be bound in space (e.g. “He is in love”). The
systematic co-occurrence of events is also present in the discourse about music. Consider the
example, “Lohengrin’s A major stands the furthest away in the circle of fifths.” As will be seen
in “Analysis,” musical key is usually structured as a location in which the opera character, the
interpreter, or the melody can stay. By contrast, resemblance metaphors are based on a compari-
son motivated by perceived similarity. The utterance “[. . .] the pianist‘s driving left hand, which
for the first six bars is described as mechanical” highlights the perceptual resemblance between
the strict rhythm and monotony of the playing and the rhythmic strokes of a machine.
The distinction between correlational and resemblance has consequences for the number of
available correspondences. Grady (1999, p. 95) notes that many aspects of the source can be
mapped onto the target in correlation-based metaphorical mappings, whereas resemblance-based
metaphors count on limited conceptual projection. Expressions such as “Lohengrin’s A major
stands the furthest away in the circle of fifths,” which are the focus of this article, require the
global activation of the whole domain of physical space and motion (such as the understanding
of locations as bounded regions in space, which can be the origin of the motion of a vehicle along
a path towards other location) to reason about the target domain. It is then when the addressee
shifts his attention to the specific correspondence necessary for the utterance to make sense along
a path) located (i.e. the understanding of musical keys as physical containers than can be closer
or farther away. In turn, resemblance metaphors do not require the activation of the whole source
domain, but just of a “quintessential” feature to map onto the target (Ruiz de Mendoza & Pérez,
2011, p. 18). Note that “the pianist’s driving left hand [. . .] is [. . .] mechanical” highlights one
conspicuous central attribute to machines and people, which is ultimately behavior (in a way that
human behavior is understood as machine behavior).
The ESM
Correlational metaphors can interact with one another to form larger metaphorical complexes.
An example for that is the ESM (Lakoff, 1993, p. 219ff.; further elaborated in Lakoff & Johnson,
1999, p. 179ff.). The target domain of this metaphorical system comprises a whole range of
abstract events (including notions like states, changes, processes, actions, causes, purposes, and
TABLE 1
Sub-mappings of the ESM
ESM Metaphors Examples
“STATES ARE LOCATIONS” “I‘m in love.”

“PURPOSEFUL ACTION IS SELF-PROPELLED “I haven‘t yet reached my goal of losing to
MOTION TO A DESTINATION” stone.”
“CAUSES ARE FORCES; CAUSATION IS FORCED “FDR‘s leadership brought the country out of
MOTION” depression.”
“CHANGES IS MOTION” “He went crazy.”
“DIFFICULTIES ARE IMPEDIMENTS TO MOTION” “Harry got over his divorce.”
“EXTERNAL EVENTS ARE LARGE, MOVING “Things took a turn for the worse.”
OBJECTS”
means) that are understood metaphorically in terms of the source domain motion-in-space (Lakoff
& Johnson, 1999, p. 179). Table 1 shows a selection of the sub-mappings of the ESM with
examples that will be applied to the specific case of music in the section of the analysis.
The structure of the ESM is relevant to our study because, as several scholars (Özçalişkan,
2003; Polley, 2012) have recently shown, many abstract domains are structured in terms of the
ESM complex, such as emotional states (“I’m in love”). As will be evidenced throughout the
analysis, the concept of music can also be conceptualized in terms of the ESM, thereby bringing
about a specific metaphorical complex: the MESM (see “Analysis”).
METHODOLOGY
Cognitive linguistics has witnessed an increasing interest in conceptual metaphor over the last
forty years. However, the lack of a specific methodology to deal with metaphor identification and
analysis remains one of the greatest weaknesses of Conceptual Metaphor Theory. Several scholars
(cf. Gibbs, 2007, 2011; Haser, 2005; Ritchie, 2003, 2004; Vervaeke & Kennedy, 1996) have
voiced their concerns with regard to the lack of specific criteria to conduct metaphor research.
In particular, Gibbs (2011, p. 533) points out four major operational necessities in CMT:
a. A specific set of explicit criteria for metaphor identification

b. A systematic way to label metaphorical domains referring to the same abstract concept
(e.g., love)
c. A systematic way to refer to one metaphor (as opposed to another) when finding recurrent
expressions at the linguistic level
d. A representative corpus of real examples to make generalizations about metaphorical
behavior in discourse.
Indeed, conceptual metaphor (like other phenomena in the humanities) has been mainly iden-
tified by intuition and introspection. The reason for that might be that conceptual mappings are
not linked to particular linguistic forms, a fact that poses a problem for the empirical analysis of
authentic data (cf. Stefanowitsch, 2006, p. 2).
However, we believe that these limitations and concerns may be overcome by the adoption of
certain methodological decisions. Our approach is a usage-based one, given that we rely on real
data to make our claims. However, we also rely on introspection and argumentation to analyze
metaphor in naturally occurring data. As mentioned above, metaphors are not readily identifiable
by automatized corpus searches (yet) and, in the end, the analyst must resort to a manual and
intuitive handling of the data (cf. Ruiz de Mendoza & Galera, 2014, p. 11).
With regards to metaphor identification (a), we make use of a systematic method to iden-
tify metaphor-related items: MIPVU (cf. Steen, Dorst, Herrmann, Kaal, Krennmayer, & Pasma,
2010). In tune with the protocol of the procedure, every word in our corpus was looked up in a dic-
tionary in order to find out whether there was a more basic, concrete and human-oriented meaning
on which the contextual meaning might be based. If a basic meaning could be identified for a par-
ticular lexical unit and, if the contextual and the basic meaning were sufficiently distinct and
related by some form of similarity, the unit was marked as being related to metaphor (for further
information on the procedure see Steen, Dorst, Herrmann, Kaal, Krennmayer, & Pasma, 2010,
pp. 25–26).1 The dictionaries employed were the Macmillan Dictionary for Advanced Learners,
the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, and the Oxford English Dictionary. For spe-
cific music terminology that could not be found in the dictionaries, we consulted the Virginia
Tech Multimedia Music Dictionary (http://www.music.vt.edu/musicdictionary/).
A word of caution is valid here regarding the objectivity of MIPVU. Even though the method
was created as an analytical tool to achieve reliability in the identification of metaphor-related
words, it has to be noted that MIPVU will never be completely free of intuition. For instance, the
analyst must subscribe to the distinctions in the dictionary, which rely on the individual judgment
of the lexicographers. The same remark holds true for deciding on relatedness by similarity, which
is also subjective to some extent as long as the decision is fully dependent on the analyst’s criteria.
In order to reduce the analyst’s bias, each of us have analyzed the corpus individually and then
contrasted our results. Those examples for which we have reached similar analyses have been
included in the next section. In turn, we have taken away cases that presented some conflict and
lead to different conclusions, because we understand that they could be problematic in subsequent
replications of our analysis. We expect that the application of this procedure will render our study
more transparent and reliable.
The identification of conceptual metaphors (b, c) is far more challenging. We have devised a
method for conceptual metaphor identification (inspired by Babarczy et al., 2010, p. 32) which
involves several steps. First, we have extracted all those terms that belong to the ESM source
domain or motion whose metaphorical existence we want to demonstrate (cf. Deignan, 2008),
e.g., motion along space. We have subsequently looked at the surrounding context for musical
target domains onto which those source domains, previously identified, were projected. The terms
that do not coincide with the source domains of motion and/or space included in our initial
hypothesis are reanalyzed in order to look for alternative source domains not included in our
1 Metaphor-related item is a MIPVU technical term which subsumes cases of direct metaphor (for example simile),
indirect metaphor (conventional metaphor), metaphor signals, metonymies that can be understood as personifications
(e.g., “The essay says that . . .”), implicit metaphor where a pronoun stands for a metaphorically used lexical item,
and unclear cases in which the analysts could not agree (Steen, Dorst, Herrmann, Kaal, Krennmayer, & Pasma, 2010,
pp. 25–26).
initial hypothesis. By embedding our research within existent literature, we further hold that our
findings can also be applicable in a reverse way and enrich metaphor research in general.
Finally, with respect to the object of study (d), we have compiled a corpus of analyses and
reviews of classical music pieces. We have retrieved a 5,000-word sample of 19 extracts of con-
tinuous text taken from 19 peer-reviewed music journal articles. Each extract is about 260 words
long and was published between 1995 and 2011. In order to examine the complexity of concep-
tual metaphor for the conceptualization of music, we annotated and analyzed the whole sample
exhaustively. We claim that it is precisely by looking at authentic linguistic data that we may gain
relevant insights into how humans structure the complex phenomenon of music, and understand
music in terms of motion through space in particular.
ANALYSIS
Quantitative Results
Our first research question sought to find out how often metaphor was used in verbal descriptions
of music. Table 2 shows the frequency of appearance of metaphor-related words in our corpus.
It is worth mentioning that some items had to be discarded for metaphor analysis from our initial
sample of texts. Following Steen, Dorst, Herrmann, Kaal, and Krennmayr (2010, p. 776), we
disregarded all instances of the prepositions of and for because their basic meaning was unclear.
Hence, the total number of analyzed lexical items was 4,607.
Table 2 shows that metaphor is a central conceptual mechanism for understanding music
in academic musical analyses. 25% of all the analyzed items were marked as being related to
metaphor, which means that every fourth word in the sample is involved in a metaphorical pro-
jection. The high amount of metaphorical expressions supports our initial claim that the technical
vocabulary in Western classical music is deeply rooted in metaphor (in consonance with Guck,
1991, p. 2; Johnson & Larson, 2003; Larson & Johnson, 2004).
In order to emphasize the outstanding frequency of metaphorical items in academic musical
analyses, we compared our results with those collected in a study conducted by Steen, Dorst,
Herrmann, Kaal, Krennmayer, and Pasma (2010). They applied the same methodology to a
100,000-word sample from the BNC-Baby corpus across four registers (academic, news, fiction,
and conversation). Table 3 presents the overall findings from that study, both for the entire corpus
and for the academic sub-corpus.
TABLE 2
Metaphor-related Words in Academic Discourse About Music
N %
Lexical items related to metaphor 1,142 25

Lexical items not related to metaphor 3,465 75
Total 4,607 100
TABLE 3
Metaphor-related Words in General Discourse and in the Academic Register (Steen, Dorst, Herrmann, Kaal,
Krennmayer, & Pasma, 2010)
N %
Metaphor across the whole corpus

Total amount of lexical items 186,688 100
Metaphor in the academic sub-corpus

Total amount of lexical items 49,314 100
As evidenced from the comparison between Table 2 and Table 3, the presence of metaphor-
related words is significantly more frequent (p < .0001) in academic music analyses compared
to texts in general and to academic texts in particular. In the light of the data presented here, our
corpus-based analysis reveals that metaphor is highly prominent in the language we use to talk or
write about music. This fact lends support to our working hypothesis that understanding music
heavily relies on the projection of other domains like motion in space onto it.
Metaphors for Music
Regarding our research questions, i.e. the types of metaphors for musical motion, Table 4 shows
the most frequent mappings for the target domain under scrutiny identified in our corpus (per-
centages are given in relation to the overall amount of metaphors that refer to the target domain
music). The total amount of metaphors related to music (833) is slightly lower than that initially
shown in Table 2 (1,142) given that we disregarded metaphors that do not refer to music (such as
metaphors for time; e.g., when the texts refer to when a musical work was created or performed,
or metaphors that structure discourse in terms of space).
Table 4 sheds light on the use of metaphor when talking about music. The mappings
which are the object of this study (highlighted in gray), such as “MUSICAL ENTITIES
ARE LOCATIONS ON A LANDSCAPE,” “MUSICAL ENTITIES ARE CONTAINERS,” and
“MUSICAL PROGRESSION IS MOTION ON A LANDSCAPE” make up 52% of all the iden-
tified metaphorical mappings for music. We provide a fine-grained analysis of these metaphors
in the next subsection.
Unfortunately, the examination of the rest of metaphors falls out of the scope of this work.
However, before moving on to analysis of musical motion, we briefly consider the metaphor
“MUSIC IS AN OBJECT” because of its relation to the issue under scrutiny. This label sub-
sumes a heterogeneous group of metaphors that structure the understanding of music in terms
of an object that might be able to move or be moved by another entity. We have included the
event-structure mapping “ATTRIBUTES ARE POSSESSIONS” in which a musical entity is con-
ceptualized as an object that someone or something can have (see Table 4). Apart from that,
music can also be understood as an object that a composer or an interpreter manipulates. This
metaphor is based on the notion that a composer deliberately sets the notes and that an interpreter
deliberately chooses how to play a note to create a particular effect. Contrary to “MUSICAL
TABLE 4
Specific Mappings for the Target Domain “Music”
Conceptual Metaphor Linguistic Manifestation N %
“MUSICAL ENTITIES ARE “from the tenor‘s entrance on the word ‘Gratias‘ 190 23
LOCATIONS ON A up to and including ‘filius patris’ ”
LANDSCAPE”a
”PITCH IS ORGANIZED IN “the left hand likes that space between E and C”
(VERTICAL) SPACE”a
”KEYS ARE LOCATIONS ON A “Lohengrin‘s A major yet stands the furthest
LANDSCAPE”a away in the circle of fifths”
“MUSICAL ENTITIES ARE “melodic and harmonic construction” 145 17
PHYSICAL STRUCTURES”
“MUSICAL ENTITIES ARE “in the opera,” “in bars 12–13,” “Aliette‘s folk 123 15
CONTAINERS” a song in B minor”
“MUSICAL PROGRESSION IS “a series of chromatically ascending tritones” 114 14
MOTION ON A LANDSCAPE” a
“MUSIC IS AN OBJECT” 74 9
“ATTRIBUTES ARE “the downbeat of bar 7 receives this accented
POSSESSIONS” embellishment, the passage has a heightened
chaotic effect”
“MUSIC IS AN OBJECT THAT CAN “motive x is here replaced with its inversion,
BE MANIPULATED” Prokofiev inserts a varied repetition of bars
13–17”
“CONDUIT METAPHOR” “the settings present and interesting hybrid of
styles, two choruses in A major reflecting
Lohengrin‘s power”
“MUSIC IS LANGUAGE” the melody appears to contain a reciting tone 43 5
“MUSICAL QUALITIES ARE “the character of a piece, the mature concertos of 41 5
HUMAN QUALITIES” Hummel”
“SYNAESTHETIC METAPHORS” “F-sharp minor,” “the instrument gains a 17 2
(E.G. “MUSIC IS COLOR”) broader range of colors”
Other 86 10
“MUSIC IS A LIVING ORGANISM” “a hybrid vocal genre”
“CONSONANCE IS GOOD” “the arcadian purity of triadic folkish melodies”
Total 833 100
a Metaphors that are focused on in this article.
PROGRESSION IS MOTION ON THE MUSICAL LANDSCAPE,” in “MUSIC IS AN OBJECT

THAT CAN BE MANIPULATED,” music does not have the power to move freely on its own but
it is subjected to the will of its “creator” (we suspect that this specific metaphor is typical for the
genre of music criticism). A third sub-case of the “MUSIC IS AN OBJECT” metaphor refers to a
specification of the “CONDUIT” metaphor (Reddy, 1993) in which musical ideas are understood
as objects that may convey a particular meaning or content.
The MESM
The results shown previously indicate that we extensively use vocabulary from the domain of
motion in space in order to talk about music. Furthermore, more than half of the identified
TABLE 5
Comparison Between the Main Mappings of the ESM and the MESM
ESM MESM
“STATES ARE LOCATIONS” “MUSICAL ENTITIES ARE LOCATIONS ON A

LANDSCAPE”
“PURPOSEFUL ACTION IS “MUSICAL PROGRESSION IS MOTION ON A
SELF-PROPELLED MOTION TO A LANDSCAPE/MUSIC IS A JOURNEY”
DESTINATION”
“CAUSES ARE FORCES, CAUSATION IS “MUSICAL CHANGE IS FORCED MOTION (DUE TO
FORCED MOTION” MUSICAL CAUSES)”
“DIFFICULTIES ARE IMPEDIMENTS TO “UNEXPECTED HARMONIES ARE IMPEDIMENTS TO
MOTION” MOTION ALONG A PATH”
“EXTERNAL EVENTS ARE LARGE MOVING “MUSIC EXTERNAL INFLUENCES ARE LARGE MOVING
OBJECTS” OBJECTS”
metaphorical manifestations of music relate to the understanding of music in terms of motion

in space. For that reason, and in line with our third research question, it is reasonable to look
(if possible) for parallels in the existent body of literature on metaphor. In this regard, we have
detected that the mappings we have identified in our corpus reflect a strong consistency with the
mappings included in the ESM (Lakoff, 1993). Giving the high schematicity of the ESM, the
conceptual enrichment with compatible musical material gives rise to a more specific ESM (cf.
Jandausch, 2012), or what we term the MESM. As can be seen in Table 5, the rather general target
domains of the ESM are enriched by more specific but compatible conceptual content (such as
basic musical subdomains like pitch, melodic structure, or harmonic progression)2 , thus giving
rise to five major metaphors for musical motion.
Recalling our fourth research question, the discussion of the MESM actually elaborates on
current accounts of compound metaphors. As can be seen in Table 5, the MESM presents a
case of metaphorical compounding by means of specification (i.e. conceptual enrichment of the
metaphorical source and/or target), and not just by means of the combination of independently
motivated primary metaphors (as postulated by Grady, 1997b). An example of specification
(also labeled parametrization in this article) is the metaphor “MUSICAL PROGRESSION IS
MOVEMENT IN A LANDSCAPE” (e.g., “the Leper theme ends on an F dominant seventh
chord”), by which we structure the development from one harmonic arrangement to another in
terms of physical motion in space. This metaphor stems from the direct incorporation of compat-
ible conceptual material from the domain of music into the target domain of the original ESM
metaphor “PROGRESS IS MOTION,” and the subsequent specification of that material via the
metonymy “GENERIC FOR SPECIFIC.” The possibility of generating complex metaphors with-
out compounding has already been mentioned (yet in passing) in Lakoff and Johnson (1999) and
preliminary accounted for in Ruiz de Mendoza and Pérez (2011). The ensuing analysis takes up
2 The MESM also mirrors the phenomenon of duality present in the ESM. Thus, we can either understand change
in music as motion of a musical entity from one location to another or we can understand the change as a future that a
musical entity receives (this is the case of the metaphor “ATTRIBUTES ARE POSSESSIONS,” as in “Ervoanik sings with
Alitette’s folk song”).
their claims and elaborates on the notion of complex non-compounding by providing systematic
linguistic evidence for this alternative way of metaphorical complexity.
Another interesting phenomenon that emerges from our analysis is the strong interdepen-
dence between the metaphors making up this hierarchy. Obviously, motion necessarily requires
an object that moves. Furthermore, it naturally opens up a space in which the motion can take
place; within this space, there might be passages in the music that are construed as locations at
which the music “arrives” or along which it “passes.” These locations in turn have the potential to
be conceptualized as containers that may nest smaller musical units (e.g. “in the first two bars”).
Hence, it is not surprising that we find many metaphors recruited from the domains of motion,
object, and container because they are all tightly connected to one another. Recalling the example
of the “Leper motif” shown above, a logical entailment of having previously structured a musi-
cal development as an object in motion is that music can modulate or evolve at different speeds,
as in “the repetition of the opening follows an even more accelerated and complicated course.”
We thus incorporate into our analysis of the MESM the notion of entailment (Lakoff & Johnson,
1999, p. 201) in order to clearly highlight the strong interdependence of some of the metaphors
arisen in our corpus-based search.
METAPHORS FOR MUSICAL MOTION WITHIN THE MESM
“MUSICAL ENTITIES ARE LOCATIONS ON A LANDSCAPE”
The first major metaphor of the MESM has its origins in the more schematic “STATES ARE
LOCATIONS” metaphor as well as the Time’s Landscape and Time Orientation metaphor (cf.
Lakoff & Johnson, 1999, pp. 140–141). Johnson and Larson (2003, p. 71) have already identified
this metaphor as the “MUSICAL LANDSCAPE METAPHOR,” by which the musical work is a
two-dimensional space through which the hearer moves. As will be shown, this metaphor struc-
tures the spatial relations between musical entities (conceptualized as locations on a landscape)
and also between the musical entities and the listener (who is conceptualized here as a traveler).
With respect to the target domain, “MUSICAL ENTITIES” can be specified in more concrete
entities, such as melody (“The melody appears to contain a reciting tone”), bar (“In bars 12–13”),
section (“In a passage of eighth notes”), key (“In A minor”), meter (“In 4/4 time”), musical form
(“In unison singing”), musical parameter (“the tone more readily becomes strained in fortissimo“)
and musical work (“in the opera”). These items are conceptualized as locations on the landscape
that may contain musical meaning and are therefore structured as containers.
There is a series of metaphors that seem to be logically entailed by the “MUSICAL ENTITIES
ARE CONTAINERS” metaphor. If, for example, a musical entity like a melody is understood in
terms of a container, then its pitches are its contents (“the Leper motif, which Lazzari fragments
and sequences, altering its pitch content”), and if a musical piece is a container then its elements
are its contents as well (“the work is determined by its content rather by an external notion
or principle”). In addition to this, it is reasonable to derive that the accumulation of musical
elements comprised in a musical entity may result in a compact full musical entity. Consider the
following examples: “A full statement of her folksong,” “The sequential treatment of this theme
from bar 55 abandons the full tetrachord almost entirely,” “The new thematic material [. . .] is
nonetheless replete with references to motive X,” “The extent to which its motive saturates the
thematic material.”
We now consider possible parametrizations or specifications of the metaphorical source
domain “LOCATION ON A LANDSCAPE.” We have identified two possible specifications for
the idea of musical space: music as a horizontal dimension (“the longer sound structures”) and
as a vertical dimension (“the melody remains grounded on the A in spite of the repeated ascent to
the B natural above”). The former refers to the temporal length of the respective musical phrase.
This linguistic manifestation is motivated by our general understanding of time in terms of a
landscape through which the listener or the music moves. In contrast, the latter points toward the
conceptualization of musical pitches as being organized along a vertical scale. The two exam-
ples indicate the complexity of our conceptualization of music in terms of space by showing that
different aspects of music are understood in terms of different kinds of space.3
Based on the understanding of musical entities as being spatially organized, musical relations
can be conceptualized in terms of spatial relations, which applies to both kinds of orientations:
horizontal (“the interplay between the parts suggests a lively conversation among three animated
speakers”) and vertical (“the left hand likes the space between E and C”).
Furthermore, locations on the musical landscape can be part of a musical path. Thus, the
musical entities can be conceptualized in terms of different parts of the musical path: source
(“The Allegro of the first concerto begins with a reworking of the opening measures followed by
fragments of Mozart’s symphony”), any point along path (“This is the point at which we might
expect critical changes that would alter the course of the S theme”), and the end (“The Leper
theme [. . .] ends on an F dominant seventh chord”). More specifically, the end of this musical
path can be conceptualized in terms of a harmonic goal (“we can hear the D measure of 3 as a
passing tone, the origin of which is the E of measure 1 and the consonant goal of which is the C
of measure 4”).
Johnson and Larson (2003, p. 71) have already shed some light on the vast array of infer-
ences that can be drawn from the conceptualization of a musical work as a path along which the
listener travels. The point at which the traveler is, refers to what is being heard at the moment
(“Motive X is here replaced by its inversion”); as a consequence, what has not already been heard
is conceptualized as a point on the path which will be reached in the future (“If, following each
passage of rests, the tenor simply skips ahead to the next phrase or text”); the repetition of certain
musical material is understood as coming back to the already known path (“when the bass regis-
ter returns,” “Lohengrin will return to a flat key area”) and vice versa, namely, not repeating a
piece of musical material is structured in terms of abandoning the path (“The rest of the theme is
abandoned,” “The music unfolds as a dynamic interplay between sound and events interrupted
by pitch or disappearing in shadows”). These mappings provide a basic orientation for musical
space in the same way as the Time Orientation metaphor provides a basic orientation for temporal
space (cf. Lakoff & Johnson, 1999, pp. 140–141).
3 The way we understand music is actually based on three different types of space: temporal space (horizontal), pitch
space (vertical), and key space (cyclic; cf. Julich, 2013).
“MUSICAL PROGRESSION IS MOTION ON THE MUSICAL LANDSCAPE”
This second major metaphor allows the speaker to conceive of music in terms of an object that
moves through a musical landscape. Being closely related to the previous metaphor here the
emphasis is on the ability of musical entities to move past other musical entities within the musi-
cal landscape. According to this orientation, musical events inherit experiential knowledge from
moving our own bodies within space. Therefore, musical entities are conceptualized as moving
objects that move backward and forward, that go past other musical entities leaving behind what
has already been heard and that move at different speeds.
By way of illustration, consider this description of a sonata by the Russian composer Sergei
Prokofiev: “Instead, Prokofiev inserts a varied repetition of bars 13–17 of the P theme, which
recalls the very first instance in which the movement went ‘astray’ from traditional expectations.”
As can be inferred from the example, musical progression (in terms of harmonic development of a
sonata) is structured as physical motion along a path. This conception is highly entrenched in the
(Western) musical mind and has been particularly productive since the Classical and Romantic
era. Hence, in musical jargon, we speak of a sonata form that follows a strict harmonic path,
from tonic to dominant and from dominant to tonic, across its three major parts, exposition,
development, and recapitulation.
Similar to our examination of the metaphor “MUSICAL ENTITIES ARE LOCATIONS ON A
LANDSCAPE,” we have found linguistic evidence for several parametrizations of the metaphori-
cal target MUSICAL PROGRESSION,” which additionally yield more specific yet non-compound
metaphors. Let us now discuss some of these cases. Musical progression can be further realized in
terms of change of key (“Ervoanik sings with Aliette’s folk song in B minor, which then transforms
into a B-major declaration”), harmonic progression (“If we look at the first half of the Prelude, we
can trace the general harmonic motion from tonic to dominant”), and melodic progression (“The
sequential treatment of this theme from bar 55 onwards abandons the full tetrachord almost
entirely”). In addition to this, we have identified even more specific metaphors for harmonic and
melodic progression that originate from the different ontology of the source domain: for instance,
“the repetition of the opening follows an even more accelerated and complicated course” high-
lights musical progression as motion that takes place along a specific path. A case in point in
the specification of musical motion is the conceptualization of musical development as a flowing
river (“Another schema for the listener’s navigation could be likened to a floating down a river,”
“In this metaphor, the listener’s journey is propelled by the current of the river”).
If we characterized musical progression in terms of motion along a path it is subsequently
entailed that the end of the path can be understood in terms of a destination of the musical motion.
In accordance with that, we found cases in our sample where the source domain of motion (both
harmonic and melodic) is specified as motion to a destination. As evidenced in “Harmonically, the
music has arrived at the dominant seventh chord,” harmonic closure is conceptualized as arriving
at a destination. In turn, “As the melody strains but fails to ascend in the opening bar” presents
a case in which the melodic motion fails to arrive at its expected destination. The motivation for
perceiving goals in music relies on the listener’s expectations about what is to happen next in the
music (Levitin, 2006, pp. 72–73). From the very first days in life we experience being cradled
rhythmically and listening to our parents singing lullabies. People form expectations about the
direction where the music harmonically and melodically goes, from the beginning to the end.
The notion of music as having goals, harmonic ones and/or melodic ones, is the basis for our
understanding of music in terms of a purposeful event.
The conceptualization of melodic progression as physical motion through space additionally
triggers a whole cluster of entailments. In this case, we find metaphorical expressions such as “the
dependence of the rendering speed (fast or slow) on the character of a piece,” whereby the tempo
at which a musical work is executed is made to correspond to the speed at which an object moves;
“The tenor’s entrance on the word Gratias up to and including Filius patris” draws attention
to the moment at which both motion and the musical piece begin; “measures 3–4 traverse the
same space as measures 1–2” highlights the melody‘s intervallic structure, i.e. the pitches that
the melodic line passes; “following each passage of rests, the tenor simply skips ahead to the
next phrase of text” points out that the absence of music is structured in terms of the absence of
motion; “these pieces are based on a ground or a repeating melodic pattern that typically suggest
a harmonic pattern and corresponding phrase direction and length” indicates that what is to be
heard in a musical piece is located ahead on the path; finally, “a particularly satisfying arch-like
shape that also hints at an underlying suggestion of retrograde structural methods” highlights the
correspondence between turning a melody upside-down (e.g., if the original melody has a rising
major third, the inverted melody has a falling minor third) and moving backwards on a path.
“MUSICAL CHANGE IS FORCED MOTION (DUE TO MUSICAL CAUSES)”
According to the third major metaphor of the MESM, which originates from “CAUSES ARE
FORCES,” a change in the music is understood in terms of a caused motion situation. This map-
ping was already addressed by Johnson and Larson (2003, p. 75) under the name of the “MUSIC
AS MOVING FORCE” metaphor. According to Johnson and Larson, this kind of conceptualiza-
tion steers us to think of musical events as forces acting on the listener. In fact, we have identified
metaphorical expressions of this kind in our corpus (e.g. “the listener’s journey is propelled by
the current of the river”).
We have also found instances in which musical units are structured in terms of forces that
do not act on the listener but cause other musical units to change. As can be seen in “Lohengrin
briefly adopts Elsa’s key up to the Frageverbot, which brings him back to A” and in “The continual
reiteration of the idea almost turns this section into a little passacaglia,” the musical entity which
marks the change is understood as causing motion from musical state A to musical state B. The
former example shows a passage in which the listener notices a change of key in Lohengrin‘s
part (who metonymically stands for the text he sings). In this description, the repetition of the
text “Frageverbot” is construed as the causer of motion bringing Lohengrin from one key back
to A. Here, Lohengrin is the moved entity that undergoes the change from the source key to the
target key. In the latter example, the repetition of certain musical passages causes the listener
to understand the passage in terms of a passacaglia (i.e. a musical form with a bass motive that
is continually repeated). This situation is once again conceptualized in terms of forced motion,
where the “continual reiteration of the idea“ is conceptualized as the agent that forces the section
to change (here metaphorically expressed by the verb “turn“) from a musical state A to a musical
state B (a little passacaglia).
“UNEXPECTED HARMONIES ARE IMPEDIMENTS TO MOTION ALONG A PATH”
By means of MESM’s fourth metaphor, startling chords and unexpected harmonic developments
are understood as impediments to a smooth motion along the expected musical path. The
appearance of keys that go against this expectation is conceptualized here as an obstacle which,
in turn, leads to a deviation from the original path. By way of illustration, let us explore once
again Prokofiev’s example in the light of this metaphor: “Instead, Prokofiev inserts a varied rep-
etition of bars 13–17 of the P theme, which recalls the very first instance in which the movement
went ‘astray’ from traditional expectations. Bars 13–17 were the aftermath of the P theme’s first
swerve to B minor”.
By employing B minor, Prokofiev takes a harmonic path that does not follow the usual sonata
route. Prokofiev‘s “swerve to B minor” is a harmonic turn that was not expected on the journey
through the sonata path. His swerve to an unexpected location is furthermore conceptualized as a
rupture on the harmonic path and hence understood as causing a detour from the expected course
(highlighted by the word “aftermath,” which usually refers to states after severe catastrophes).
We found similar passages in which the use of unconventional harmonies is also understood
in terms of abrupt interruptions or fractures in the path: “This is the point at which we might
expect critical changes that would alter the course of the S theme form its expositional path of
disintegration into a fractured chaos towards transformative fulfillment of a G tonic”.
Consider now a similar passage later on in the same text which points towards a specific type of
musical catastrophe, i.e., the eruption of a volcano: “Whereas key relationships and tonal closure
are paramount in a traditional sonata, here Prokofiev eschews those values in favor of present-
ing a final, dramatic, modernist eruption.” The example illustrates how the effect of a natural
catastrophe is metaphorically matched to the huge impact that Prokofiev‘s unconventional han-
dling of harmony has on the listener‘s expectations. A metonymic “EFFECT” (the catastrophe)
“FOR CAUSE” (the impediment to motion and the deviation from the expected path) mapping
within the metaphorical source domain establishes continuity between the two metaphors seen
above (in which difficulties are conceived of as impediments to motion and in which the use of
unconventional harmonies is structured as a deviation from the path, respectively) and the more
specific metaphorical expressions by which unexpected changes are seen as catastrophes, thereby
providing consistency to the whole text.
“MUSIC EXTERNAL INFLUENCES ARE LARGE MOVING OBJECTS”
The fifth relevant metaphorical mapping of the MESM refers to the conceptualization of music
and external events. This metaphor paves the way for the understanding of external phenomena
as large, moving objects or substances that can exert a force, help to reach a destination or impede
motion of the listener. The focus here is on the musical piece as a whole, which can be subjected
to external forces that exert some kind of influence on the piece. In “The spirit of Mozart hovers
over these concertos,” for example, the mentioned concertos are highly influenced by Mozart‘s
work, which is conceptualized as a large moving object. Note that the specific mapping of the
influencer (the composer) hovering over the influenced (the concertos) brought up by this example
is additionally motivated by the workings of primary metaphors, such as “IMPORTANT IS UP“
and “CONTROL IS UP.”
CONCLUSION
The present article addresses some crucial issues on how we make sense of musical motion. Our
primary claim reaffirms Johnson and Larson’s (2003) insights on the pervasiveness of metaphor
in musical discourse. We provide confirming evidence of the three major metaphors they identi-
fied (“MOVING MUSIC,” “MUSICAL LANDSCAPE,” and “MUSIC AS MOVING FORCE”) by
relying on authentic corpus data.
Additionally, we have expanded their preliminary account in three complementary ways: First,
we have put their claims to the empirical test by applying a corpus-based approach to motion
metaphors in analyses of classical pieces published in academic music journals. The consider-
ably high percentage of metaphor-related words in texts about music (25%) in comparison to
general academic texts (19%) supports our thesis in favor of the centrality of metaphor to musical
understanding. We have also found that the description of music irremediably needs to recur to
metaphors of musical motion (52% in our corpus). We believe that it is by means of the combi-
nation of a qualitative and a quantitative approach that we can properly delve into the workings
of metaphors for the domain of music.
Second, we have followed a systematic method to reduce subjectivity in metaphor identifica-
tion. The use of MIPVU’s instructions (Steen, Dorst, Herrmann, Kaal, Krennmayer, & Pasma,
2010) to identify metaphor-related words and the elucidation of a method to detect and label
conceptual metaphors (inspired in Babarczy et al., 2010) have allowed us to make general-
izations about metaphorical behavior in musical analyses. We believe that our methodological
approach produces more transparent and replicable results, given that it comprises a set of explicit
instructions that are systematically applied to a representative corpus of authentic examples.
Third, we have identified a specific metaphorical complex, the MESM, which (in the same
line as Lakoff’s ESM) organizes a whole array of metaphors involved in the conceptualiza-
tion of music. We have identified five major metaphors to render musical motion: “MUSICAL
ENTITIES ARE LOCATIONS ON A LANDSCAPE,” “MUSICAL PROGRESSION IS MOTION
ON A LANDSCAPE,” “MUSICAL PROGRESSION IS FORCED MOTION (DUE TO MUSICAL
FORCES),” “UNEXPECTED HARMONIES ARE IMPEDIMENTS TO MOTION ALONG A
PATH,” and “MUSIC EXTERNAL INFLUENCES ARE LARGE MOVING OBJECTS.” We have
singled out even more specific sub-mappings for each of these metaphors, as well as entail-
ments derived from the internal logic of the source and/or the target domain. Additionally, we
have provided linguistic evidence for all the identified metaphors. We also expect to have con-
tributed to shedding light on the issue of metaphorical compounding. According to Grady (1999),
complex metaphors arise exclusively from the combination of primary metaphors. However, we
have shown that the MESM, a complex non-compound metaphorical complex, stems from the
enrichment of the schematic structure of the ESM with conceptually compatible material (in this
case, from the domain of music) and the subsequent specification of that material. Although
this idea has only been theoretically tackled in passing (for the best of our knowledge, it has
only been mentioned in Lakoff & Johnson, 1999, p. 201, and preliminarily developed in Ruiz
de Mendoza & Pérez, 2011, p. 16), we are convinced that it is an interesting topic that deserves
further exploration.
Apart from that, this research should, however, be completed with multimodal metaphor stud-
ies, which will bring into the analysis the actual musical scores and other non-linguistic elements
that also belong to the realm of music (in the same way as Forceville, 2009; Pérez-Sobrino,
2014a; Zbikowski, 1998). The interaction between linguistic meaning and musical meaning is
also a worthy topic of discussion; in this respect, there is some preliminary work in progress in
Julich & Pérez-Sobrino (2014). Moreover, converging evidence from experimental studies is also
needed to support our claims (in line with the experiments undertaken by the psycholinguists
and neurolinguists in Peretz and Zatorre, 2003, and references therein). Complementarily, we
hope that other areas such as musicology or art criticism can incorporate and benefit from our
combined quantitative-quantitative approach.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We are grateful to the editor of Metaphor and Symbol, Raymond Gibbs, and to Lorena Pérez,
Doris Schönefeld, and an anonymous reviewer for helpful comments on earlier drafts of this
paper. We also wish to thank Tristan Lodge for taking care of the style of this article.
FUNDING
Part of the research on which this article is based has been funded by a FPU grant (Ministry of
Education, Spain).
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Let’s Talk Music: A Corpus-Based Account of Musical Motion (co-

Article in Metaphor and Symbol · October 2014

Paula Pérez-Sobrino Nina Julich-Warpakowski

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Let’s Talk Music: A Corpus-Based

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Let’s Talk Music: A Corpus-Based Account of Musical

University of Applied Sciences Zwickau

MUSICAL MOTION WITHIN COGNITIVE LINGUISTICS

Musical Motion and Embodiment

Conceptual Motivation: Correlational Metaphor Versus Resemblance Metaphor

ESM Metaphors Examples

“STATES ARE LOCATIONS” “I‘m in love.”

a. A specific set of explicit criteria for metaphor identification

Lexical items related to metaphor 1,142 25

Metaphor across the whole corpus

Metaphor in the academic sub-corpus

Metaphors for Music

Conceptual Metaphor Linguistic Manifestation N %

PROGRESSION IS MOTION ON THE MUSICAL LANDSCAPE,” in “MUSIC IS AN OBJECT

“STATES ARE LOCATIONS” “MUSICAL ENTITIES ARE LOCATIONS ON A

metaphorical manifestations of music relate to the understanding of music in terms of motion

METAPHORS FOR MUSICAL MOTION WITHIN THE MESM

“MUSICAL ENTITIES ARE LOCATIONS ON A LANDSCAPE”

“MUSICAL PROGRESSION IS MOTION ON THE MUSICAL LANDSCAPE”

“MUSICAL CHANGE IS FORCED MOTION (DUE TO MUSICAL CAUSES)”

“UNEXPECTED HARMONIES ARE IMPEDIMENTS TO MOTION ALONG A PATH”

“MUSIC EXTERNAL INFLUENCES ARE LARGE MOVING OBJECTS”

APPENDIX: CORPUS FILES

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