Sacred Languages of Pop: Rooted Practices in Globalized and Digital French Popular Music

Abstract

Nowadays, popular music artists from a wide range of cultures perform in English alongside other local languages. This phenomenon questions the coexistence of different languages within local music practices. In this article, I argue that we cannot fully understand this issue without addressing the sacred dimension of language in popular music, which entails two aspects: 1) the transitory experience of an ideal that challenges intelligibility, and 2) the entanglement with social norms and institutions. Further to which, I compare Latin hegemony during the Middle Ages and the contemporary French popular music, where English and French coexist in a context marked by globalisation and ubiquitous digital technologies. The case of the Middle Ages shows that religious control over Latin led to a massive unintelligible experience of ritual singing, which reflected a strong class divide and created a demand for music rituals in vernacular languages. In the case of contemporary French popular music, asemantical practices of language are employed by artists in order to explore alternative, sacred dimensions of language that challenge nationhood.

The consumption of live music in different languages: a quantitative approach

“…music in national language corresponds to a greater expectation towards lyrics than music in English, regardless of the level of understanding of the latter). Currently, we still do not know if this listening practice is a French specificity or relates to a broader sense of national belonging, but we can suggest that it relates to the typical “sacralisation” and institutionalisation of national languages that occurs in most nation states, as opposed to asemantical perceptions and practices of language that English as a foreign, hegemonic language and somehow “accessible” language fosters (Spanu, 2019b) [6]. Further studies should test if this difference towards lyrics not only exists between English and other national languages but also in other listening contexts.…”

English in Russian musical reviews

“…The studies of popular song lyrics in European countries reveal different forms of appropriation and localization of global musical genres (Hess, 2010; Simeziane, 2010) and focus on the meaning‐making potential of the globally prestigious English language in contact with national and regional, immigrant or minor languages, such as German, Turkish, and Greek in Germany (Androutsopoulos, 2010), Norwegian, Arabic, Kurdish, and Berber in Norway (Brunstad, Røyneland, & Opsahl, 2010), or French, Arabic, and Verlan in France (Hassa, 2010). Spanu (2019, p. 203) focuses, among other things, on how language choice in music is connected with such categories as social order and authenticity and shows that some artists try to make the French language sound English to accommodate the specificities of French to contemporary pop sounds generally sung in English.…”

Pour une approche critique de la diversité des langues chantées dans les musiques populaires à l’ère de la mondialisation numérique

“…Tout en étant centrales de par leur fonction d'incarnation, les langues chantées prennent place lors de rituels d'écoute où l'intelligibilité de la langue joue un rôle fondamentalement ambivalent (Wirtz, 2007 ;Briggs, 1996). Le régime d'existence de Pour une approche critique de la diversité des langues chantées dans les musiques populaires la langue chantée dépend d'un « débord perpétuel de la parole » et de ce qui serait une « économie » restreinte à l'intercompréhension (Bonnet, 2013 : 9 ;voir aussi Frith, 1989), induisant un rapport complexe et transnational entre pratique de la langue chantée et identification 4 (Spanu, 2019 ;Szego, 2003). Ce régime permet de repenser la coexistence de plusieurs langues sur un même territoire, ce que Renée Balibar (1985) nomme « colinguisme » et que nous développerons ici dans une perspective communicationnelle appliquée au domaine des musiques populaires.…”