Communication

Communication: Action and Coordination

To discuss the communicative aspect of music, one must first have some definition of communication. Communication is defined here as action that brings about an alignment or coordination of states among individuals. This definition, though not novel, is broader than those that take communication to be the transmission of information by one individual and its reception by another, with language being the paradigmatic case. Communication as the alignment of states among individuals has been explored at length by a variety of scholars, including those working in the area of pragmatics of language. Pragmatics can be thought of as the study of how language is used in a given context to communicate a speaker's intent to a hearer. Pragmatics considers aspects of meaning that are not explicitly a part of a speaker's utterance but that are inferred by a hearer and looks at many types of language beyond statements and questions. These include speech acts such as performatives (e.g., “I dub thee knight”), irony, and humor. Pragmatics also deals with nonverbal, ostensive communication, as when a man stands before an open window and breathes in deeply, communicating to his partner things not explicitly stated (relaxation, enjoyment of the sea air, and the like). Such expressive acts are common and effective, and the evocative power of human [Page 204]communication owes much to their use. Musical activities share much in common with these expressive linguistic and nonlinguistic behaviors in that they are overt displays inviting listeners to engage in interpretive, inferential activities beyond, and even in the absence of, a specific, unambiguous meaning. This floating intentionality of music is central to its breadth of applicability and its sense of meaningfulness—those aspects that bring forth the opinion that music is a universal language.

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