One of my good friends in high school was an exchange student from German named Julian. His English was passable. Anyways, one day he was telling me about how we was in a band and opened for one of Coldplay's concerts. I asked him about performing in English and if he really got into the songs despite not fully knowing the meaning of the words. His response reminded me a lot of the point Canagarajah made that despite not having a proficiency of the performing language just like the non-Tamils viewers of M.I.A. he was still able understand it just like Canagarajah said that, "I can confirm that non-Tamils are able to interpret her(M.I.A.) rhetorical intentions and social meanings quite well"(4). This comprehension is explainable through the underlying concept that, "communication transcends words and involves diverse semiotic resources and ecological affiances."(6) There is more to the performance of a song than just the words of the lyrics, and that is why even those without great proficiency of the performing language like my friend Juian and the viewers of M.I.A. can still understand and appreciate the performance.
1 Comment
I agree with you that even without truly knowing what the lyrics in the song means we can still appreciate it nonetheless. I know when I first started learning Spanish in high school my teacher would always play songs from Columbia or Mexico to start the class, but a lot of us did not know the lyrics. However, that did not stop our appreciation for the songs each day. But during my senior year when my teacher plaid some of the same songs again I was able to fully appreciate them not only for the fact that I understood the language but also the culture behind it because we had studied during my four years. This is where I would like say that each person has a level of "receptive competence"when it comes to communication in general, whether this is through a normal conversation or a song (Canagarajah , 2). But where does this competence begin and our years of acquiring knowledge on a language or native language begin?
Reply
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorThis is where I, a rising freshman at Emory University, blog about multilingualism. Archives
April 2015
Categories |