ABSTRACT
In a theoretical paper comparing the semiotics of language to those of music, the linguist Manfred Bierwisch (1979) discusses a number of similarities and some specific differences between the two. According to Bierwisch, music in general bears a “gestural form” (gestische Form), whereas language basically exhibits a logical form. And while it is essential for a writer using a language to be able to “say” (sagen) something, it is essential for a composer or musician to be able, by means of music, to “show” or “demonstrate” (zeigen) something. Condensing Bierwisch’s detailed considerations into a table, the relations between language and music could be shown thus:
Bierwisch, apparently influenced by Wittgenstein,1 by no means argues that language and music are mutually exclusive. Language, for example, often conveys emotional states; music, on the other hand, also includes cognitive processes. The idea, rather, is to distinguish both spheres in respect to characteristic features. A proposition, in this sense, is more or less abstract and, as a logical structure, neither directly linked to physiological processes, nor dependent on the dimension of time. A gesture, by contrast, is a temporal structure that, in most cases, comprises a sequence of parts, and that typically communicates emotional states (which in turn have their origins in physiological processes). For a number of reasons
(Bierwisch 1979, 52-56), music seems to be that part of human communication which best expresses emotional experiences through gestural form. It is this aspect that indicates that music, based on gestural behaviour and gestural forms, might be phylogenetically much older than language (see below). Though music in general may be addressed as a gestural form of expression, the types of gestures are manifold; in addition, the degree to which musical structures can be understood as gestures seems to vary according to practice in different genres of music and dance as well as with respect to cultural and historical context. It should be clear that the concept of gesture is by no means confined to European traditions yet figures prominently in, for example, music and dance of South, East, and Southeast Asia (see e.g. Matsumoto 1983).
