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 JUSTIN LONDON
Musical and Linguistic Speech Acts
Haydn's String Quartet in E-flat, op. 33, no. 2,
ends with a musical joke, giving it its familiar
nickname:
m. 153
A I
P~~~~~~~~~GP
1 161
GP.
1I66 ( N .
G.P.
Why is this ending funny? What makes it a
"Joke"? Bonds correctly and concisely notes
that in this ending:
Haydn violates the conventionsof musical closure in
such a way that only the initiated listener can be cer-
tain at just what moment the piece actually ends....
What had first functioned as an opening antecedent
phrase now serves as the final cadence of the work,
and the rhythmicplay on the conventions of closure
makes the listener all the more conscious of those
very conventions.I
Yet something is missing from this account. For
The Journalof Aesthetics and Art Criticism54:1 Winter 1996
while Bonds rightly describes what is anom-
alous aboutthis ending, he does not explain the
source of its humor. Why is this ending funny?
For the fact that there is an unexpected adagio,
followed by a rhythmically fragmented repe-
tition of the opening theme, and then the open-
ing two measuresyet again, mightjust as easily
be regarded as a compositional flaw, or per-
haps even as a printing error,ratherthan as a
joke.
In this paper I hope to show not only that a
speech act analysis of Haydn'squartetcan allow
G.P.
us a betterunderstandingof how its joke works,
but also that such an analysis is essential if we
wish to understandwhy the ending is funny. In-
deed, it is precisely by focusing on a particular
level of analysis-the speech act-and by ig-
noring other potential parallels (real or imag-
172
ined) between musical and linguistic structure
thatsignificantrelationshipsbetweenmusic and
languagemay become apparent.
But I have a largerpurposehere as well. For
I want to startby arguingthat, as a resultof our
enculturatedbelief that music is a kind of lan-
guage, we can and often do treatmusic as a lin-
guistic phenomenon. That is, we acquire our
mechanisms for dealing with intentional com-
municativebehaviorthroughour acquisitionof
a linguistic framework. Languagebecomes the
prototypical framework for dealing with all
other kinds of meaningful communicative be-
havior which we encounter. I will explore the
roots of this frameworkin the next section of
this paper, where, drawing upon the work of
Lakoff, Johnson,and Turner,I propose that we
often employ a MUSIC IS LANGUAGE metaphorin
our understandingof music.2If this metaphoris
present, it then follows that we have good rea-
sons for treating a composer and his or her
50
works in the same fashion as we treata speaker
and his or her utterances.
In claiming that music and language are meta-
phorically related, I am not using a traditional
definition/conceptionof metaphor.Johnsonsum-
marizesthe traditionalapproachto metaphoras
follows:
A metaphoris an elliptical simile used for stylistic,
rhetorical,and didactic purposes, but which can be
translatedinto a literalparaphrasewithoutany loss of
cognitive content.3
and later,more precisely:
(1) The human conceptual system is essentially lit-
eral-literal language ("words proper') is the
only adequate vehicle for (a) expressing one's
meaning precisely, and (b) making truth claims,
which together make possible correct reasoning
by the philosopher.
(2) Metaphoris a deviant use of words in other than
their proper senses, which accounts for its ten-
dency to confuse and deceive.
(3) The meaning and truth claims of a metaphor(if
there are any) are just those of its literal para-
phrase.4
Thus, accordingto the traditionalmodel, meta-
phors are essentially abbreviated similes and
hence represent a special use of language,
though they often become conventionalized.5
While metaphorsoften hinge upon similarities
between the entities which are being metaphor-
ically connected, metaphorsdo not make these
connections. Rather, they merely reflect the
structural similarities which already exist in
theirreferents. So, for example, one often finds
that there are striking similarities between the
pattern of voices in a conversation-their rhy-
thm, turn taking, interjections and non se-
quiturs,and so forth-and the dispositionof the
instrumentalparts in classical chambermusic.
Nonetheless, these striking similarities do not
then requirethat we understandthe music as a
conversation-just as if we say that a cloud
looks like a horse, we do not then, on the basis
of this similarity,believe thatthe cloud is a horse.
However,not all metaphorsare alike, and re-
The Journalof Aesthetics and Art Criticism
cent work in the philosophy of language and
metaphor has challenged the traditional model.
As Lakoff and Johnson have noted:
Metaphoris for most people a device of the poetic
imaginationand the rhetoricalflourish-a matterof
extraordinaryratherthan ordinary language. More-
over,metaphoris typicallyviewed as characteristicof
languagealone, a matterof wordsratherthanthought
or action. For this reason,most people thinkthey can
get along perfectly well without metaphor. We have
found, on the contrary,that metaphoris pervasive in
everydaylife, not just in language,but in thoughtand
action. Ourordinaryconceptualsystem, in terms of
which we both think and act, is fundamentally
metaphoricalin nature.6
According to Lakoff and Johnson, metaphors do
much more than point out hidden or fanciful
pre-existing similarities between, for example,
music and language. At the heart of this theory
of metaphor is the thesis that metaphor is not
merely linguistic, but rather a basic aspect of
human thought. Linguistic metaphors are a re-
flection of our innate propensity for metaphori-
cal understanding. Lakoff and Johnson, through
copious examples, show how metaphors are not
extraordinary in language, but rather are part
and parcel of ordinary usage. The words we use,
even in ordinary discourse, are usually linked to
larger, overarching metaphors which structure
our understanding of the topic in question.
Lakoff and Johnson ask us to consider the fol-
lowing examples:
Yourclaims are indefensible.
He attackedevery weakpoint in my argument.
His criticismswere righton target.
I demolishedhis argument.7
These examples are instances of a larger
metaphor, the ARGUMENT IS WAR metaphor (x is
Y [all in capitals] is Lakoff and Johnson's nota-
tion for metaphors, and I will use it here as
well). In our culture this metaphor informs and
underlies our understanding of arguments as
well as the way we behave when we participate
in an argument. Lakoff and Johnson go on to
note that:
It is importantto see that we don't just talk aboutar-
gumentsin termsof war. We can actuallywin or lose
London Musical and LinguisticSpeechActs
arguments.Wesee thepersonwe arearguingwithas
an opponent.Weattackhis positionsanddefendour
own. ... Though there is no physical battle, there is a
verbalbattle,andthe structureof an argument-at-
tack,defense,counterattack,
etc.-reflects this. It is
in this sensethattheARGUMENT IS WAR metaphoris
onewe liveby in thisculture;it structures
theactions
we performin arguing.8
ARGUMENT IS WAR functions as a cognitive
framework for the understanding of certain
kinds of linguistic exchanges. Once we start
using this framework it subsequently has the
ability to influence our understandingof the
structuralelements of a conversation-certain
moves are attacks, others are retreats, and so
forth. ARGUMENT IS WAR plays what Johnson
calls a "constitutiverole in the structuringof our
experience."9
Considerthen the following rathertypical de-
scriptionsof music:
Theprincipalthemeis statedby thefirstviolins.
Thebassesrejectthemotiveprofferedby thecellos.
The flute answers the questioningoboe.
These sentences were not culled from program
notes (though they easily could have been) but
were constructed using terms from a list of
speech act categories given by Bach and Har-
nish.10 Kivy similarly remarksthat we have a
naturaltendency to "animate"musical sounds
as humangestures.1I1 Tellingly,most of Kivy's
examples of animation are linguistic gestures:
questions, answers, singing voices, speaking,
and so forth. Why are we so ready to describe
musical structures in terms of language and
linguistic behavior?The descriptionsof music
given above are remarkablylike the sentences
proffered by Lakoff and Johnson in their pre-
sentation of the ARGUMENT IS WAR metaphor.
Thus I would claim that, in a profoundlysimilar
way, a MUSIC IS LANGUAGE metaphorstructures
the actions we perform in listening. To para-
phraseLakoff and Johnson,it is not thatwe hear
"aflute phrasefollowed by an oboe phrase,"but
ratherthat we "really hear the oboe answering
the flute." To extend the paraphrase:
"Wedon'tjusttalkaboutmusicalgesturesin termsof
linguisticspeechacts. Rather,we can actuallyhear
thesegesturesas greetings,questions,jokes,answers.
51
It is in this sense that the MUSIC IS LANGUAGE
metaphoris one we live by in this culture;it struc-
turesthe actions we performin listening."12
And considering that we usually acquire the
MUSIC IS LANGUAGE frameworkin our musical
childhood, it is well entrenchedand hence quite
powerful. Since the MUSIC IS LANGUAGE frame-
work is so well establishedin our musical train-
ing and the language we use to describemusic,
it becomes wholly transparent-for many lis-
teners music becomes a subclass of linguistic
phenomena. Conversely,to be able to describe
musical structure in nonlinguistic terms is
deemed a mark of musical (and not to mention
musicological) erudition and sophistication.
The musicologist,though,is not free from meta-
phor, as other frameworksfor musical analysis
and criticismthat are profferedcan also be con-
struedas constitutivemetaphors:MUSIC IS TONAL
PROLONGATION; MUSIC IS MOTIVIC GROWTH;
MUSIC IS COMPOSITIONAL PROBLEM-SOLVING,
and so forth. These otherframeworksare rarely
seen in metaphoricterms. Instead, we feel that
we have moved towarda truer(if not a perfectly
true) account of musical structure,one which
goes beyond linguistic analogy.
In orderto accountfor the transparencyof the
MUSIC IS LANGUAGE metaphor,it is worth ex-
amining the structureof metaphoricalmapping
in general and the mapping from language to
music in particular.First, as Lakoff and Turner
have noted, "a metaphorwith the name A IS B iS
a mappingof partof the structureof our knowl-
edge of the sourcedomain B onto targetdomain
A."13 Thus, in the MUSIC IS LANGUAGE meta-
phor, language is the source-we take our
knowledge structureof language-and map it
onto a musical target (e.g., a particularchord,
motive, phrase,etc.). Thereis a particularstruc-
ture to this mappingin the case of the MUSIC IS
LANGUAGE metaphorbecause it is in the class of
what Lakoff and Turnercall a "basicconceptual
metaphor,"a category of metaphors that "are
partof the commonconceptualapparatusshared
by members of a culture."14Basic metaphors
are used conventionally, unconsciously, auto-
matically, and usually without notice. Not all
basic metaphorsare alike, however. Lakoff and
Turner illustrate the differences between two
kinds of basic metaphors with their examples
EVENTS ARE ACTIONS and LIFE IS A JOURNEY:
52
In a metaphorlike LIFE IS A JOURNEY there is a desig-
nated ontological mapping: a certain list of slots in
the JOURNEY schema maps in exactly one way onto a
correspondinglist of slots in the LIFE schema (e.g.,
DESTINATIONS correspondto LIFE GOALS). But in the
EVENTS ARE ACTIONS metaphor,the mappingconsists
not in a list of fixed correspondences,but ratherin
higher-order constraints on what is an appropriate
mapping and what is not. ... We will refer to meta-
phors like EVENTS ARE ACTIONS as "generic-level
metaphors"since they lack specificity in two respects:
they do not havefixed sourceand targetdomains,and
they do not have fixed lists of entriesspecified in the
mapping. We will refer to metaphorslike LIFE IS A
JOURNEY as "specific-levelmetaphors"since they are
specified in these two ways. We will continueto refer
to conventionalizedspecific-level metaphorsas "basic
metaphors"when we are not interestedin contrasting
themwith generic-levelmetaphors.15
The MUSIC IS LANGUAGE metaphor is not
generic, but is another example of a specific-
level metaphor which has fixed aspects between
its source and target domains. 16 Here is a list of
some of the ways in which slots in the LAN-
GUAGE schema map onto corresponding slots in
the MUSIC schema:
LANGUAGE onto MUSIC
SPEAKERS COMPOSERS
HEARERS LISTENERS/AUDIENCE
UTTERANCES MELODIES
(notes, chords, motives)
SPEECHES MOVEMENTS
(extendeddiscourse) (i.e., large musical structures)
And more specifically:
CONVERSATION PARTS IN A CLASSICAL
STRING QUARTET
DEBATE CONCERTO
(rhetoricalcontest) (soloist vs. orchestra)
Of course, there are some nonspecific aspects to
this mapping as well. For example, while in
some cases the mapping consists of correspon-
dences between "slots" which exist indepen-
dently in each domain (for example, the com-
POSERS ARE SPEAKERS metaphor), in other cases
the target slot is wholly or partially created in
the process of map-making. Thus, when one de-
The Journalof Aesthetics and Art Criticism
scribesthe end of a piece of music as a "perora-
tion," one is creatinga sense of musical "topic"
(and a summation thereof), which, given that
music lacks the ability to predicateor refer,can-
not be said to come from the music itself. Sim-
ilarly, more generalpropertiesin the source do-
main often are mapped onto properties in the
target domain. For example, in language one
may use the term "voice" to refer to those fea-
tures which distinguish one speaker from an-
other ("I could recognize her voice"), and then
use the same term in a musical context to de-
scribe a composer who creates his or her own
idiosyncratic style or idiom (as in "Beethoven
found his own voice in his op. 18 quartets").17
One final caution regardingmappingfrom lan-
guage onto music: metaphoricalmappings are
not complete, and thus we should not expect
every aspect of language to map onto every as-
pect of music. Rather,many aspects of each re-
main outside the domain of the metaphor.
Metaphoricalmapping has a great power to
structureour knowledge and understandingof
one thing in terms of another-or rather,of one
thing as another. For the MUSIC IS LANGUAGE
metaphorthis mappingis especially useful in at
least two respects. First, it allows us "to borrow
patternsof inferencefrom the source domain to
use in reasoning about the target domain."'8
Thus we can, for example, regardcontrapuntal
alternationsbetween instrumentsas analogs to
turn-takingin conversationor argument,musi-
cal discontinuitiesas parenthesis,and so forth.
Second, MUSIC IS LANGUAGE allows us to evalu-
ate musical gestures as we would linguistic ut-
terances;a specific instance of this is discussed
below where anomalous musical structuresare
consideredas a species of Griceanflouting. If
the MUSIC IS LANGUAGE metaphoris present,we
may then assume that listeners, to the best of
their abilities, will regard musical structures
as compositional utterances made by a com-
poser/speakerand employ the same discursive
strategiesin musical as they would in linguistic
contexts in order to recover the composer's in-
tent in choosing a particularmusical gesture in
a particularmusical context.
II
Let us now returnto the compositional choices
Haydnmade at the end of his quartet,and what
London Musical and LinguisticSpeechActs
allows us to regard them as a joke. An account
of the ending of op. 33, no. 2 cast only in terms
of its nonconformance to conventions of me-
lodic, harmonic, and formal closure will not re-
veal the source of its humor, nor the means by
which the listener is able to recognize it as hu-
morous. To recognize in what sense the ending
is conventionally anomalous is important and
necessary. But it is only the first step toward an
analysis of the joke. Here is a fuller account of
the ending and of the musical context in which
it occurs:
1. The movement conforms to the conventions of a
rondo finale until m. 148. Indeed, listeners with a
knowledge of the typical ABACArondo scriptmay
well recognize m. 140 as a potential "beginningof
the end" for the movement; that is, having heard
the previousA, B, A, and C sections, we anticipate
another A section (though perhaps with some al-
terationsto create a greatersense of overallfinality
and closure).19
2. Ratherthan continuing with a well-formed A sec-
tion (one which would roughly parallel mm. 1-36
or mm. 72-107), we get the following:
a) An adagio "insert"startingat m. 149, which in
some sense replacesmm. 9-28;
b) A fragmented repeat of the opening theme,
parallelto mm. 29-36 (at mm. 153-156);
c) - PAUSE- (mm. 167-170), and then, sud-
denly, mm. 1-2 (!).
It should be pointed out that the anomaly does
not stem from the adagio passage, but rather
from what follows it. For notice how the fol-
lowing ending, composed by the author, could
have brought the movement to a predictable and
satisfactory close following the adagio:
[2.d
. A..tIz P G.t~^7 P.P~ 1I~
p
53
14 r
This, of course, does not happen, but example
two does help to explain the formal function of
the adagio:it sets up the dismemberedpresenta-
tion of the main theme and final "!". Example
two also shows us that the real joke lies in the
last two measures.
Following the stutteringpresentationof the
rondo theme we have a wholly implausiblepre-
sentation of mm. 1-2. Yet we do not write off
these measuresas a mistake on the partof either
Haydn or the performers. Instead, we believe
that Haydn composed the end of the quartet,
with its dismemberedtheme of mm. 153-166
(which correspond to mm. 29-36) and repeat
of mm. 1-2, with some aesthetic purpose in
mind-and thus we will try to make sense of
the seeming nonsense of Haydn'sending. Fur-
thermore,we believe that Haydn himself knew
that his listeners would try to do so, and we be-
lieve thathe gives us creditfor our abilityto find
meaning and coherencein his music.20
We can find meaning and coherence in the
closing bars of the quartetin the following way.
The stutteringpresentationof the theme (in con-
trastto the continuouspresentationof the same
materialat mm. 29-36 and analogouspassages)
arreststhe rhythmicmomentumof movement;if
the adagio passage was the musical equivalent
of slammingon the brakes,mm. 153-166 are a
few final taps of the brakepedal which bringthe
slowing quartet to a stop. The discontinuous
manner of thematic presentationhere serves a
larger formal function, for as a result of the
rhythmicfragmentation,thereis a clear sense of
arrivalat m. 166 (note how m. 166 is a variantof
m. 36 in the original presentationof the rondo
theme, a variant with strongercadential struc-
ture). Measures 171-172 are the exclamation
point to this arrival-and these measures are
the realjoke. For Haydnrealizes that following
the adagio and fragmentationwe need some sort
of closural confirmation,some additionalmark
of rhythmic punctuation. But rather than an
echo of mm. 165-166, as in example two
54
(which would be the most conventionaland pre-
dictable sort of confirmation),we get mm. 1-2.
And so we are forced to recognize the latentca-
dential potential of this gesture:
st
v 1in
2nd vin, via
cell.o
In example three the notes circled in the melody
are the structuralbackboneof the melody, a de-
scent which goes "mi-re-do."This descent, cou-
pled with the I-V-Iharmonizationunderneath,is
a common cadential pattern-indeed, the ar-
rivalon "do"in the melody coupled with the mo-
tion from V-I in the bass creates what is referred
to in music-theory nomenclatureas a "perfect
authenticcadence." However,we do not regard
this as a cadence at the beginning of the piece
for two reasons, (a) it occurs too early in the
phrase-not every V-I motion coupled with "re-
do" creates a cadence, after all, and more im-
portantly,(b) the "structural" melodic descent is
obscured by the ornamentationwhich reaches
upward, creating a sense of beginning rather
thanending. But at the end of the quartetHaydn
forces us to attend to the structural descent
which underliesthe surfaceornamentation.
The crux of the matteris our realizationthat
at the end of this quartetHaydndoes not simply
"mean what he says," for that would be "hereis
the beginning again," which would be musical
nonsense. The problemcreatedby this musical
non sequituris twofold, for (a) we have to admit
that Haydn means somethingby concluding the
quartetin this fashion, and (b) having admitted
this, we then need a means of figuring out what
his meaning might be. The situation we have
here at the end of this quartetis precisely analo-
gous to a situation in which a speaker does not
literally mean what he says in a certain context,
and thus the hearer is forced to pursue the
speaker'smeaning (or at least a possible/plausi-
ble meaning) in orderto make sense of the situ-
ation. Given the presence of the MUSIC IS LAN-
GUAGE metaphor,however, we are readily able
to do so. That is, because we think of composers
The Journalof Aesthetics and Art Criticism
as speakers,we are unencumberedin pondering
Haydn's meaning in using a beginning motive
as an ending cadence. MUSIC IS LANGUAGE al-
lows us, withouthesitation,to treatHaydn'send-
ing as an illocutionaryact, and by treatingit as
an illocutionary act, we are able both to make
sense of the ending and to get Haydn'sjoke.21 I
hasten to add that what I am not saying here is
that we are justified in employing our knowl-
edge of speech acts wheneverwe encounterpur-
poseful behavior of any sort. Nor do I wish to
imply that artistic intentionsare wholly, or even
primarily,communicative;composerswrite mu-
sic for all sorts of reasons (e.g., treatinga piece
as an instance of compositional problem-solv-
ing, or as a play with favoritenumbersor notes,
or as an attemptto create a near-as-possible-to-
perfect sonata form, and so forth). What I am
saying is that cultural artifacts (like pieces of
music) are at least in some sense a manifestation
of meaningful public behavior on the part of
their composers. As such, listenersarejustified
in approachinga musical structureas productof
this behavior,as the carrierof "some meaning"
between them and its composer.
III
In How To Do Things With WordsJ. L. Austin
develops the thesis that languageis not just used
for the exchange of information, but rather-
and perhapsprimarily-that languageis used as
the modus operandiof social interaction.22 In
describing and analyzing this process, Austin
considersthree aspects of each speech act: locu-
tion, allocution, and perlocution. An example
will make these threeaspects clear.SupposeI go
into a record shop and ask the proprietor"How
much is that recordingof Haydn's 'Joke' Quar-
tet thatis displayedin the window?"Heremy lo-
cutionaryact is the utteranceof a question,which
involves the productionof a set of phonemes in
a particularlanguage, with a particularsyntac-
tic arrangement,such that the utteranceis rec-
ognized as a question. Here my utterancehas
both the semantic (the "How much" marker)
and phonologicalform (spoken with rising into-
nation) of a question. In hearing this locution,
and inferringfrom my very presencein the shop
that I am a potential customer, the proprietor
recognizes that my illocutionaryact is a request
for information. My perlocutionaryact is to af-
London Musical and LinguisticSpeechActs
fect the proprietorby making this request, and
so in her desire to sell me the recording(as well
as to keep my esteem as a potentialand/orfuture
customer)the proprietorresponds,perlocution-
arily,with the price of the CD. That is, after the
proprietorrecognizes my illocutionary intent,
(i.e., what is sometimes called illocutionaryup-
take), she then producesa linguistic response-
though this perlocutionaryeffect could also be
some otherbehavioralresponse(i.e., pointing to
a sign with the priceof the CD, shakingher head
as if to indicate that the CD is not for sale, and
so forth).
Asking a question in the manner described
above is an example of a direct speech act-
where the semantic content of the locution is in
direct accordwith the illocutionaryintentof the
utterance. But one can also proceed indirectly.
For example, if a colleague says, "Gee, I don't
know how I'm going to get to the concert on
Wednesday,"the locutionary act is ostensibly a
statementof bewilderment,but we do not regard
it as such-rather, it is a polite requestfor a ride.
The illocutionaryintentof this locution is not to
give me informationaboutthe speaker'sstate of
mind, but, in making the requestin this fashion,
my colleague allows me some latitude in my
reply. So while the locutionary act is one of a
statement/assertion,the illocutionaryact is one
of making a request. The perlocutionaryeffect
wouldbe for me to altermy plans so thatmy col-
league gets a ride to the concert.23
In the first example the speakeruses an utter-
ance in the form of a questionto ask a question,
moreover,the speakeruses a questionthat is se-
manticallypertinentto the illocutionaryact she
wishes to perform. By contrast,in the "fishing
for a ride"example my hypothetical colleague
uses an assertion to make her request, and in-
deed, if I knew we were both trying to go to the
concert she could have made an even more
oblique remark,"Oh no, my car just died, and
won't be fixed for a week," which I could just
as readily recognize as a request. Thus there is
more than one way to perform a given illocu-
tionary act. This many-to-one connection be-
tween variouslocutions and a given illocution is
mirrored by a many-to-one relationship be-
tween a single locution and the potential for its
use in different illocutionary acts. As a result,
locution and illocution are separable, and this
separabilityallows for a mappingbetween mu-
55
sical gestures and linguistic illocutions under
the MUSIC IS LANGUAGE metaphor.
To demonstratethis separabilitySearle gives
a particularlyelegant (and oft-cited) exampleof
a complex speech act:
Suppose that I am an Americansoldier in the Second
WorldWarand that I am capturedby Italian troops.
And suppose also thatI wish to get these troopsto be-
lieve that I am a Germansoldier in orderto get them
to release me. ... So I, as it were, attemptto put on a
show of telling them that I am a German soldier by
reciting those few bits of German I know, trusting
that they don't know enough Germanto see through
my plan. Let us suppose I know only one line of Ger-
man which I rememberfrom a poem I had to memo-
rize in a high school Germancourse. ThereforeI, a
capturedAmerican, address my Italian captors with
the following sentence: Kennst du das Land wo die
Zitronenbliihen?24
Here the locutionary act is the quotation from
WilhelmMeister;its literal meaning is that of a
geographicalquestion. Yethere we see how this
same utterancecan be used to perform a wide
variety of illocutionary acts: "Kennstdu das
Land..." can function as a literal question, as a
poetic reminiscencewithin a workof fiction, or
as a tactical ruse on a battlefield (as well as an
example in a philosophypaper). As Searle him-
self has succinctly noted:
We thus detach the notions of referringand predicat-
ing from the notions of such complete speech acts as
asserting, questioning, commanding, etc., and the
justificationfor this separationlies in the fact thatthe
same referenceand predicationcan occur in the per-
formanceof differentcomplete speech acts.25
Locution and illocution may be regardedas in-
dependentvariablesin the locution, illocution,
and perlocutionschema.The same locutionmay
mapinto severaldifferentillocutionaryacts, and
likewise, the same illocutionary intent may be
fulfilled by severaldifferentlocutionaryacts.
The American soldier's illocutionary act is
far more complex, however,than Searle's own
analysis would admit. The soldier wants his
would-becaptorsto take his illocutionaryintent
to be an assertionof his Germanness. That this
illocutionaryact is a false assertionhas nothing
to do with the effectiveness of the speech act.
56
Indeed, the desired perlocutionary effect de-
pends on the Italian captors making justifiable
(but false) inferences about this illocution.
Searle treats this example as if the American's
principalruse is to utter"Ich bin ein Deutscher
Soldat," and that the Italians also assume that
what the Americanis trying to utter is "Ich bin
ein DeutscherSoldat." But since our soldier is
quite clever,he realizes thatif the Italiansdo not
know German, then any string of German will
do, since they will regardit, at the very least, as
an assertionof his "Germanness"whetheror not
the Italians believe that our hero is actually as-
serting that he is a Germansoldier (in German
or any other language). And it is at this point
thatthe soldier and I partcompanywith Profes-
sor Searle, for simply by the Italians' recogni-
tion of the soldier's utteranceas a vague asser-
tion of Germanness,a series of perlocutionary
effects should follow, which, with a bit of luck,
will allow the Americansoldierto escape. For it
is not just that a single instance of predication
and reference can work in different illocution-
ary contexts-the "Germansoldier" example
points to a conclusion far more bold. Without
any predication or reference the illocutionary
act can still be successful, since if the Italians
really do not know German, then any string of
German-sounding gibberish will work. Thus
while it is importantthatthe Americansoldier's
utterance have the appropriate phonological
form (both in its phonetic content and in its
overallintonation),it need not have any particu-
lar syntactic or semantic form.
The next move is to investigate various cate-
gories of speech acts to see how both linguistic
and nonlinguistic locutionary acts may be
mapped onto the same illocutionaryact; by ex-
aminingthese categorieswe shall come to a bet-
ter understandingof the way(s) in which speech
acts may be usefully mappedonto music. Austin
lists five broad categories of speech acts: ver-
dictives, exercitives, commissives, behabitives,
and expositives.26 In laying out his taxonomy
Austin gives several illustrations for each
speech act category, some of which can be per-
formed both with and without language. Thus,
for example, as an instance of a verdictive
Austin cites an umpire's ruling ("out" versus
"safe")as a case where the utteranceof the um-
pire, empoweredby his position as referee and
by the rules of the game, counts as a ruling
The Journalof Aesthetics and Art Criticism
whereby the state of affairs in the game is
changed. Trueenough, but in baseball the um-
pire need not say a word, for by making certain
hand gestures he or she can convey a ruling
of "safe"or "out." Similarly,in the class of ex-
ercitives, which includes such acts as appoint-
ing, dismissing, dedicating, sentencing, and so
forth, one can imagine a king granting knight-
hood to a soldier in his service by touching his
sword to the knight's shoulders, with nary a
word spoken. And of course, under Austin's
class of behabitives,which includes greetings,
farewells,challenges,andso forth,therearemany
kinds of gestures (hand-waving,clapping,rais-
ing certain fingers, etc.) which can signify our
feelings and/orintuitionswithoutlanguage.27
On the other hand, some classes of speech
acts are wholly dependenton language, for one
of two reasons. Austin's category of commis-
sives, which includes promises and other cov-
enants,declarationsof intentor consent, as well
as declarationsof opposition, would seem to re-
quirethe capacityfor making tensed statements
(a promise is a future obligation; a declaration
of purposemay include the presentand past, but
also impinges upon one's futureactions;a retro-
diction may involve a recasting of the under-
standingof past events, and so forth),and hence
would requirea linguistic vehicle for their exe-
cution. Similarly,expositives, all of which in-
clude a propositionalcomponent"thatp" (e.g.,
affirmations, mentions, rejoinders, postulates,
declarations, illustrations, etc.), would also
seem to requirea linguistic vehicle for their ex-
pression. Thus the capacity for making tensed
and/or predicate statements is necessary for
these two classes of speech acts, as well as for
some types of speech acts which fall into other
categories. As such, these sorts of speech acts
can be regardedas "purely"linguistic, and thus
we would not expect to find (nor in fact do we
find) any musical corollaries of these sorts of
speech acts. But other classes (verdictives,ex-
ercitives, and [especially] behabitives) are less
pure, and it is here that we may find musical in-
stances of speech acts.
On the basis of this distinction between lin-
guistically pure versus impure speech acts we
can refine the ways in which the MUSIC IS LAN-
GUAGE metaphorwill map propertiesof linguis-
tic discourseonto music. In the case of specific
mappings,we requirea reasonablyfixed corre-
London Musical and LinguisticSpeechActs
spondence between the source and target do-
mains. Therefore,theremust be some necessary
set of characteristicswhich defines the structure
of the source domain, and these characteristics
are then mapped onto the target. If this is the
case, then we can see which classes of speech
acts will map in a more or less "direct"fashion
onto music. First, and most obviously, commis-
sives and expositives simply cannot map di-
rectly onto music since music cannot fulfill the
requirementsof tense and/or predication that
these classes of speech acts require. Similarly,
since verdictives and exercitives require a
specifically-defined institutional role for the
speaker (e.g., speaker-as-umpire,speaker-as-
king, speaker-as-priest,etc.) which gives au-
thorityand force to their words, and since com-
posers do not fulfill such institutionally-defined
roles, it follows that musical gestures could not
count as these types of speech acts either.28
This leaves the category of behabitives(a cate-
gory which Austin himself labeled "a shocker
this").29 Accordingto Austin, behabitives"are
a very miscellaneousgroup, and have to do with
attitudesand social behaviour[Austin'sempha-
sis]. Examples of behabitives are apologizing,
congratulating,commending, condoling, curs-
ing, and challenging."30Since behabitivesoften
involve little or no propositional content, and
since as the coins of social exchange they are all
performed in the present tense (or indeed in a
tenseless fashion), the mapping of a speech act
slot such as greeting onto a musical motive can
proceed in a straightforwardfashion.
Furthermore, behabitives are speech acts
which are stronglymarkedby intonationas well
as other paralinguisticfeatures. As Haverkate
has pointed out:
At the articulatorylevel, it is particularlyintonation
contour and intensity accent which serve to bring
about specific perlocutionaryeffects. Thus, for ex-
ample, an emphaticintonationpatternis a character-
istic device for utteringa warning, a threator an au-
thoritarianorder.31
Thus behabitives such as warnings, threats,
greetings, etc., requirethe listener to attend to
the "musical" qualities (pitch, tone of voice,
loudness, rhythm,and articulation)of the locu-
tion in order to comprehend the illocutionary
act. Now, as some may have alreadynoted, while
57
warnings or threatsare behabitives,authoritar-
ian ordersare verdictives.Even thoughthereare
various phonological features to orders and
other verdictives (e.g., an umpire usually yells
"out"or "safe," and hence relative loudness is
part of its "emphaticintonation'),these musical
qualities do not in and of themselvesengendera
mapping from these linguistic speech act cate-
gories onto language. Rather,under the MUSIC
IS LANGUAGE metaphor,in orderto define slots
for COMPOSITIONAL GESTURES ARE SPEECH ACTS,
we would want to restrict SPEECH ACTS to BE-
HABITIVE SPEECH ACTS for purely instrumental
music. However, in the case of music which
involves a text, either as a sung lyric or as a pro-
grammatictitle or discourse (e.g., Beethoven's
"Pastoral"Symphonyor the more detailedstory
which accompanies Berlioz's SymphonieFan-
tastique), we may loosen this restriction and
thus attend to the match (or mismatch) of mu-
sical and phonological qualities in judging
the appropriateness(or inappropriateness)of
the musical setting of the particular lyric or
program.
One may also consider the ways in which
nonspecific mappings may occur from SPEECH
ACTS to COMPOSITIONAL GESTURES. In these
cases, we may countenancethose mappingseven
where certain essential features of the source
domain are lost in mapping to the target do-
main. We may loosen the behabitiverestriction
on musical speech acts in those cases where
nonbehabitivespeech acts are strongly implied
by parallels between the musical structureand
the phonologicalform of the speech act. I have
in mind the relatively common characterization
of a passage which involves an interplay be-
tween two (or more) discernibleinstrumentsor
musicallines as an argument.An argumentmay
be describedas an imbricatedseries of exposi-
tives-an assertion"P"followed by a rejoinder
"not P" then followed by "Well, of course P"
and then topped with "Well,all right,but P only
if Q," and so forth. For in the case of argu-
ments, whose phonological form is so distinc-
tive and so ripe for musical abstraction,even
without a knowledge of what the P in question
is, one may nonetheless be justified in charac-
terizing an exchange as an argument. For ex-
ample, I am able to know that my neighbors in
the adjacentapartmentare having an argument,
and even an argument in a foreign language,
58
without a knowledge of the substance of their
disagreement. In the musical analogto this case
(as well as others, e.g., when we regarda series
of musical phrases as a question followed by an
answer),the overarchingpresence of the MUSIC
IS LANGUAGE metaphor,coupled with the mor-
phological parallels between the linguistic and
musical sounds, engendersa speech act analysis
based on general properties of the source and
targetdomains.
We have seen that some (but not all) types of
linguistic speech acts can be mapped onto in-
strumentalmusic. With regard to those types
which are mappable,we can find clear parallels
in music to the locutionary, illocutionary, and
perlocutionary aspects of a linguistic speech
act; what might be termedtonary, intonary,and
pertonary aspects of a musical phrase.32
A i~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
16 tonic chord with ii6 (supertonic chord
3rd in bass) built on "ret"also
with 3rd in bass)
We can describethe tonaryaspect(s) of this mu-
sical "utterance"in terms of its harmonicstruc-
ture(16-ii6-V-I); in Westerntonal music in gen-
eral, and in the late-eighteenth-centuryViennese
style in particular,this progressionis a stock ca-
dential progression, signifying the close of a
musical periodor section (indeed, this is a more
elaborateinstance of the same cadential arche-
type discussed in example three). The intonary
function-and one would assume, the intonary
intention of the composer in putting this pro-
gression at a particularplace within a piece-is
to bring the period or section to a close (a sort
of "topic-closing function" in the musical dis-
course). If I recognize the composer's intonary
intent in making this declaration of closure I
have succeeded at the intonary uptake of the
gesture, and indeed, if I feel that the music has
come to a close, then the composerhas achieved
his or her desired pertonaryeffect.
As in language, to understandany given in-
tonaryact requiresan understandingof the con-
text in which it is made. Considerthe tonaryact
from example three when it is placed in the fol-
lowing context:
The Journalof Aesthetics and Art Criticism
2.d f~~~~~I
vl~l,vl~l
cce i1 f
Pp f
These are the opening measures of Haydn's
StringQuartet,op. 33, no. 5 (G major). The first
two measures are, of course, the close of an ar-
chetypal cadence-yet the piece begins with
this gesture.33 It is ratherlike a preacherbe-
ginning a prayerwith the 'Amen."Clearlysome-
thing peculiar is going on, as this putative ca-
dence cannot be the ending of any phrase,
period,or section. Crucialto our subsequentun-
derstandingof these measuresas well as the rest
of the movementis to acknowledgethat Haydn
had some "intonaryintent"in startinghis quar-
tet this way-whether it was to unsettle the lis-
tener by starting the quartetin this fashion, to
V (chord built on I (tonic again, but
5th note of scale) with root of
chord in the
set up a formalproblem(i.e., if this is an ending,
bass)
where is the real beginning, since the following
measurebegins a phrasewhich smacksoffs pas-
sage in medias res), to set a less serioustone for
the movement and for the quartet as a whole,
and so forth.
IV
Speech act analysesareoften appliedto music as
a means of explaining infelicitiesin the musical
discourse, and these infelicities are often de-
tailed in surprisinglyGriceanterms. In his sem-
inal paper"Logic and Conversation,"Grice de-
veloped his cooperativeprinciple as a basis for
linguistic exchanges:
Make your conversationalcontributionsuch as it is
required, at the stage at which it occurs by the ac-
cepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in
which you are engaged.34
Grice then suggests four (though there may be
more) maxims of cooperation: quantity-give
the amountof informationthat is required,nei-
thermore nor less; quality-do not give false in-
formation;relation-be relevant;and manner-
be perspicuous. The first three maxims pertain
to what is being said, while mannerpertains to
London Musical and LinguisticSpeechActs
how something is said. To furtherdefine man-
ner, Grice notes that one should avoid obscurity, VI..
avoid ambiguity,be brief, and be orderly.35
If these maxims were perfectly fulfilled, then
all of the elements in a conversationwould fol-
low in a logical order,but, of course, they usu-
ally do not. Gricenotes thatthere are four ways
in which the cooperative principle may be vio-
lated: (1) a speaker may unconsciously or un-
knowingly mislead and thus inadvertentlyvio-
late a maxim, (2) a speaker may opt out of the
conversation,(3) a speakermay be faced with a
clash between conflicting maxims, e.g., when
the subject broachedmay requirea detailed ex-
planationbut time does not allow for it (quantity
here clashes with manner),or (4) a speakermay
knowingly and purposefully flout a maxim.
Grice gives the following example: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~7ff7?z~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A is writinga testimonialabouta pupilwhois a can-
didatefora philosophyjob,andhis letterreadsas fol-
lows:"DearSir,Mr.X's commandof Englishis ex-
cellent, and his attendanceat tutorialshas been
regular. Yours,etc."36
Here,by damningwith faint praise,A, thoughhe
knows a great deal abouthis pupil, intentionally
withholds information in his response. The
maxim of quantity is only apparentlyviolated
here, for by appeal to the cooperative principle
we realize that not enough has been said, and
thus we are able to recover the conversational
implicature,namely,that A has tactfully told us
that Mr.X is not very good at philosophy.
Pieces of music are not conversations but
thoughtfully composed artworks (even when
they imitate conversations). Nonetheless, when
we find in them violations of the cooperative
principle, we tend to assume that these viola-
tions are intentionalfloutings of one (or more)
of the principle'smaxims. Indeed, we often en-
counter musical descriptions precisely along
these lines: themes thatare too long or too short
are described in terms of overstatementor un-
derstatement, i.e., violations of quantity; me-
lodic and harmonicnon sequiturs(for example,
a "deceptive"cadence) are violations of rela-
tion; ambiguous (especially tonally ambiguous),
rhythmically chaotic, or overly dense musical
textures are violations of manner.37 Consider
the following example, taken from Beethoven's
"Pastoral"Symphony:
59
I &0 j 000 J 0il; Rio fioNo
2$a
VI. ejah
P
1 pf P~~~~~~~~P
VI. .O I . .
!i. 4_.al.J4
P~~~~~~~~~P
PP
S -7 ~~~~~i _i _1 __I ___
bJ:S~~~~~~F
_ _ _ JE f
The tenfold repetitionof this motive cannot be
explained in termsof any normativethematicor
phrase-buildingprocedure. Rather,the effect is
precisely the opposite: the overabundantrepeti-
tion serves to obliterateany sense of phrasethis
passage might have. The repetitionof this mo-
tive is a violationof the maximof quantity.
Moreover, over the course of the passage the
motive which initially served a melodic func-
tion is transformedinto an accompaniment-it
changes from a figure to a ground, so to speak.
By failing to fulfill the melodic promise of the
motive, Beethoven also violates the maxim of
manner, as the melodydoes not continueas it
has done in previous presentations.Once this
transformationhas occurred,we normallywould
expect a new melodic figure to enter; this does
not happen, and we are now faced with another
violationof manner(and perhapsof relation
as well). The great tension and expectation
this passage achieves stems in large part from
these violations of the cooperative principle-
Beethovenis stubbornlyrefusingto give us what
we want to hear in the way we wish to hear it.38
60
V eating the chilies) which is causing me a modest
The end of the "Joke" Quartet can be seen as a
similar exercise in flouting, a particularly out-
rageous violation of the maxims of manner and
relation. The informal analysis of Haydn's joke
given above was in fact based upon a seven-step
model for the analysis of nonliteral speech acts
proposed by Bach and Harnish. Nonliteral
speech acts are those "where it would not be rea-
sonable to suppose that the speaker is F*-ing
that p" (that is, literally asserting some proposi-
tion p with a particular illocutionary intent in
some particular linguistic context).39 For exam-
ple, suppose I am having some spicy salsa with
a companion, and after swallowing a mouthful
of green chilies I say "My mouth is on fire!"
The analysis of this speech act would take the
following form:
LI. S is utteringe.
L2. S means ... by e.
L3. S is saying that *( ... p ...).
L4. S, if speaking literally,is F*-ing thatp.
L5. S could not (underthe circumstances)be F*-ing
thatp.
L6. Under the circumstancesthere is a certain recog-
nizable relationR between saying that *( ... p ... )
and some F-ing thatP, such thatS could be F-ing
thatP.
L7. S is F-ing thatP.40
In the case of this particular speech act my illo-
cution would map to their schema as follows:
LI. I utter"My mouth is on fire."
L2. By this, H assumes that I mean "S's mouth is on
fire."
L3. I am saying that my mouth is on fire.
L4. If I am speaking literally,I am asserting that my
mouth is aflame, burning,etc.
L5. However, I could not (under the circumstances)
really be asserting that my mouth is undergoing
some form of combustion.
L6. Under the circumstances, however, there is an-
other way of construingmy remarks,namely that
the chilies are very spicy/hot (spicierperhapsthan
I had anticipated), and as a result I am suffering
from a minor physical discomfort.
L7. I am really asserting that there is a certain acid
chemical sensation in my mouth (as a result of
The Journalof Aesthetics and Art Criticism
discomfort.41
Though they may at first seem redundant, note
that L2 and L3 are the ways by which we recog-
nize the presence of the reflexive intentions of
the speaker. In L2 the semantic content of the
utterance is recovered, and in L3 this content is
recognized as the content of the speaker's locu-
tion. L4 is our first attempt at illocutionary up-
take, in which we construe the speaker's re-
marks literally. This attempt fails in L5, and
thus we try again in L6. L6 is in some sense a
"trap door" in the speech act schema that allows
us to return to L2 and reinterpret the meaning of
the speaker's utterance. Once this reinterpreta-
tion takes place, then L3 and L4 again follow
(which we could designate as L3' and L4'), with
L7 = L4', so to speak.
Our understanding of the last two measures of
the "Joke" Quartet may also be fitted into this
schema:
LI. At the very end of the quartet,Haydnpresentsus
with a repeatof mm. 1-2.
L2. These measureshave previouslymarkedthe start
of the 8 mm. rondotheme;thusHaydnmustmean
thatthese two measuresareyet anotherbeginning.
L3. Haydn is stating "hereis the beginning of rondo
theme."
L4. If Haydnis "speakingliterally,"then he would be
asserting that the music is continuing/beginning
yet again.
L5. As nothing else follows these measures, Haydn
cannot really be telling us thatthe rondotheme is
beginning again.
L6. In this context, we are forced to consideralterna-
tive interpretationsfor these measures, and thus
find the weak cadence embedded within the
phrase.
L7. Haydnis telling us thatthe beginning was an end-
ing all along.
The goodness-of-fit between the linguistic
model and the musical analysis is suggestive, to
say the least. For every step in the analysis/re-
covery of the illocutionary act of a speaker, we
can map a clear corollary in recovering the com-
positional intentions of the composer. What is
especially useful is to see that we may use the
same pattern of inference here as in its linguis-
tic analog, whereby we reject an initial interpre-
London Musical and LinguisticSpeechActs
tationof Haydn'smusicalutterance,and then re-
place it with a more suitableanalysis.
Furthermore,consider for a moment what an
analysis of the "Joke"Quartet's ending would
look like if we do not consider Haydn's illocu-
tionary intent (and flouting)-viz., what would
our analysis would then look like if we assume
that Haydn did not wish to have his listener re-
gard the ending of the "Joke"Quartetas a pun.
In that case, the final two measuresof the quar-
tet become a musical pratfall, a faux pas. As a
result, our laughteris now at Haydn'sexpense,
as we should have to claim that the manipula-
tions of the ending which elaboratelyset up the
ending-as-punwere accidental,and thatthe pun
itself is a matterof dumb luck. It is more plau-
sible and prudent to admit into the analysis
Haydn'spurposefulviolationof a Griceanmaxim
than to exclude it.
VI
While the accountsof our metaphoricalmotiva-
tion for a speech act analysis of music, of the ap-
plication of Gricean analysis to musical dis-
course, and the relativeease with which a model
for illocutionary acts in language may be em-
ployed in musical contexts that I have given in
the previous sections may provide an accurate
account of how some (perhaps most) listeners
treat musical structure,some philosophers will
nonetheless regard it as a case of the tail wag-
ging the dog. That is, even though it is possible
to regardmusical structuresas speech acts, and
even if it is easy to do, and even if everybody
seems to be doing it, we cannotvalidly conclude
that music is like language in some essential
way(s). For the problem, as some readersmay
have already noted, is this: what exactly does
Haydn say in the first two measuresof his quar-
tet? (And a corollary: how is this utterance at
odds with what he ought to say at the end of the
quartet?) My explanationof whatHaydnmeans
(and hence what he says) is wholly contextual:I
relate later occurrences of the "beginning mo-
tive" to its initial presentation,and it is this pre-
sentation which "defines" the meaning of the
utterance.But I would be at a loss to say what
Haydn means (in the sense of meaning/saying
"thatp") at the beginning of the quartet,or if I
were to hear this phrase played out of context.
61
What essential linguistic communicationis in-
volved here? The answermust be: none.
In this case, the MUSIC IS LANGUAGE meta-
phor which drives my speech act analysis of
music, while perhapsan interestingculturalcri-
tique, does not pass muster as an adequateac-
countof ourunderstandingof musicalstructures
and their relationshipwith the composers who
create them and the listeners who interpret
them. Similarly, if one believes in a relatively
strictform of musicalautonomy,then no form of
musical representation,other than a purelymu-
sical one, will suffice, and the MUSIC IS LAN-
GUAGE metaphor(like all othermetaphors)must
be rejectedout of hand. On the otherhand, if one
admits that our representationsof music need
not be (and perhapscannot be) purely musical,
then MUSIC IS LANGUAGE iS not only a possible
representationfor music, but a ratherattractive
one for what it buys us in our understandingof
musical structure.
Recall again Searle's "Germansoldier" ex-
ample, which, as noted above, does not require
any sense of referenceor predicationin orderto
function as a successful illocutionaryact. Now,
many readersmay be quick to observe thateven
if there is no precise predicationor referencein
Searle's soldier's utterance,there is nonetheless
at least a crude sense of meaning (i.e., "I am
German")which follows from the American's
use of (putatively) Germanphonemes, and that
the speech act analysis given above depends
upon the recoverabilityof this rough meaning.
This is quite true. However, there is not any
sense of "reference"involved in the American's
Germanbabbling,but there is a sense of signifi-
cation: when the American produces German-
sounding language (in the given context) this
expression counts as a sign of his German-
ness.42 Note that the disclaimer "in the given
context" is crucial to the sense of significance
my Americansoldier is trying to achieve, for if
he were to attemptthis ruse with two fluent Ger-
man speakers, it would quickly fail. Therefore,
the fact that the significance of an utterance
is context-dependent for its recognition need
not disarmits illocutionarypotential.And what,
indeed, is the illocutionary intention that our
soldier has? He intends (reflexively) that his
potential captors believe that he is German
(perlocutionaryeffect #1) and then also, on ac-
count of thatbelief, release him (perlocutionary
62
effect #2). What does Haydn intend? He in-
tends to tell a joke. Telling a joke would not
seem to involve any "real"propositionalcontent
(as the assertions that occur within the story-
world of the joke are regardedas fictional). Yet
joketellers and punstershave reasons for telling
their tales: they wish to demonstratetheir lin-
guistic cleverness;they wish to affirm a sense of
community(between those who get thejoke and
those who do not); they wish to entertainand to
be seen as witty and entertaining,and so forth.
These intentionsentail variousillocutionaryas-
pects; by telling a particularlywittyjoke a joke-
ster asserts his cleverness and sophistication;
he invitesmembershipinto a certain social com-
munity;and so forth. I would argue that Haydn
reflexively intends many of these same things:
to demonstratehis musical cleverness, to enter-
tain us, to affirm a sense of communitywith the
musically sophisticated(and to make fun of the
musically unsophisticated). And of course, he
does make us smile, laugh, or groan.
Perhapsthe key to the linguistic groundingof
music in general (and Haydn's"Joke"in partic-
ular) lies with our knowledge and understand-
ing of indirectspeech acts. The point here is that
the prototypicalcase of "not meaning what you
say" (or, perhapsbetter,"not meaning what you
signify") is a linguistic case, for language pro-
vides a rich enough context for disambiguation
and decoding of discursiveinfelicities.43 Thus,
when we come to the end of the "Joke"Quartet,
we realize thatHaydncannotreally "meanwhat
he says," musically speaking-we are then
thrust into a situation analogous to an indirect
speech act. As was noted above, withoutan ap-
peal to Griceanconcerns we may just as easily
regardthe joke as a pratfallthan as a sort of mu-
sical bon mot;this situationis just like the prob-
lem we have when trying to distinguishbetween
a malapropismand a pun. That is, the hearer
cannotdeterminewhethershe shouldlaughat or
with the speaker-or, in this case, with Haydn.
Thus the invocationof speech act theory for mu-
sical analysis has serious implications for our
aestheticjudgmentof Haydn'smusical work: Is
he in control of his material? Is he marshaling
his musical gestures in an interesting and con-
vincing fashion? Is the resulting work well
formed? And so forth.
Of course, stringquartetsare not literallycon-
versations. But language is a pervasive aspect
The Journalof Aesthetics and Art Criticism
of our lives-most of our interactionswith an-
otherpersonare linguistic interactions.It is thus
not surprisingthat if and when we acknowledge
that some sort of communicationbetween com-
poser and listener occurs, it follows that in such
instances we often rely upon our linguistic com-
petence. This competence is a powerful tool
which we reflexively employ to understandmu-
sical structure(s)in terms of linguistic interac-
tion. And, of course, speech acts are not the
whole story in musical analysis and criticism
(recall the other constitutive metaphors for
music given above). But MUSIC IS LANGUAGE iS
a large part (and for some listeners perhapsthe
centralpart) of the story. It is a part which de-
serves to be moved out of the musicological
shadows and into the light of philosophicaland
musicologicalscrutinyso thatwe may betterun-
derstand its workings, its benefits, its weak-
nesses, and its dangers. One can admitthe pres-
ence of a substantial"linguisticoverlap"without
negating music's aesthetic and cognitive inde-
pendence. For withoutinvoking conversational
analysis, all we can do is commenton the degree
of closure (or lack thereof) in Haydn'squartet
and the degree of its conformance (or noncon-
formance) to cadentialarchetypes. To deny the
linguistic presencein this music both disenfran-
chises the listener and greatly impoverishesthe
skill and power of the composer's voice. With-
out referenceto language, Haydn'smusic is di-
vested of much, perhapsmost, of the composi-
tional richnessand skill for which we value both
him and his art.44
JUSTIN LONDON
Departmentof Music
CarletonCollege
Northfield, Minnesota 55057
INTERNET: JLONDON@CARLETON.EDU
1. Mark Evan Bonds, "Haydn,LaurenceSterne, and the
Originsof Musical Irony,"Journalof the AmericanMusico-
logical Society 44 (1991): 70-7 1.
2. Mark Johnson, ed., Philosophical Perspectives on
Metaphor (University of Minnesota Press, 1981); Mark
Johnson, The Body in the Mind (University of Chicago
Press, 1987); George Lakoff, Women,Fire, and Dangerous
Things:WhatCategoriesRevealAboutthe Mind (University
of Chicago Press, 1987); George Lakoff and MarkJohnson,
London Musical and LinguisticSpeechActs
MetaphorsWeLive By (University of Chicago Press, 1980);
George Lakoff and MarkTurner,MoreThanCool Reason:A
Field Guide to Poetic Metaphor (University of Chicago
Press, 1989).
3. Johnson,PhilosophicalPerspectiveson Metaphor,p. 4.
4. Ibid., p. 12.
5. For a thorough critique of the traditional model of
metaphorsee Lakoff and Turner,More Than Cool Reason,
pp. 110-135.
6. Lakoff and Johnson,MetaphorsWeLive By, p. 3.
7. Ibid., p. 4.
8. Ibid., p. 4.
9. Johnson,TheBody in the Mind, p. 73.
10. Kent Bach and Robert M. Harnish, Linguistic Com-
municationand SpeechActs (MIT Press, 1979).
11. Peter Kivy, Sound Sentiment (Temple University
Press, 1989), p. 58.
12. Here I am pursuing an interpretationof musical
metaphorthat runs counter to that proposed by Daniel Put-
nam (in "Some Distinctions on the Role of Metaphor in
Music," The Journal of Aesthetic Education 23 [19891:
103-104), who argues that metaphoricalinterpretationsof
music are primarily"orientational"(using Lakoff and John-
son's terminology-see theirMetaphorsWeLiveBy, pp. 14-
24), i.e., thatmost metaphoricalaccountsof musicalstructure
are cast in spatial terms (up, down, movement, and motion,
etc.). The MUSIC IS LANGUAGE metaphormoves beyond a
spatialization of music, and transforms the perception of
music into language. Hence it is precisely an example of
what Lakoff and Johnson have called an "ontological"
metaphor(ibid., pp. 25-32).
13. Lakoff and Turner,MoreThanCool Reason, p. 59.
14. Ibid., p. 51.
15. Ibid., pp. 80-81.
16. It is also quite possible to considera genericmetaphor
thatcould (and probablydoes) impingeon the MUSIC IS LAN-
GUAGE metaphor,and that would be a COMMUNICATION IS
SPEECH (or some similar) metaphoricstructure. This is an-
other way of saying what I said before-that our under-
standing of semiotic and other purposively communicative
behavior is grounded in our understandingof language,
since it is the most pervasive and familiar form of human
communication. One may accept this generic-level meta-
phorbut rejectthe specific MUSIC IS LANGUAGE metaphor-
in which case my subsequentdiscussion of linguistic to mu-
sical correspondenceswould not be viewed as structuresper
se, but ratheras constraintsupon the frameworksone would
make in orderto comprehendmusic. As such, this still would
allow for a speech act analysis of music (for example),but it
would necessarily be a weaker analysis, with correspond-
ingly weaker ontological claims.
17. For a complete account of the process of metaphoric
mapping see Lakoff and Turner,More Than Cool Reason,
pp. 61-65. The discussion in this and the next paragraphis
modeled after their analysis of the structureof the LIFE IS A
JOURNEY metaphor.
18. Lakoff and Turner,More ThanCool Reason, p. 65.
19.The events which follow m. 148 are not withoutclever
foreshadowingon Haydn'spart, i.e., in the quirkyuse of the
opening materialin the B and C sections of the rondo (mm.
37-71 and mm. 108-140, respectively). Both of these epi-
sodic sections end with rhythmic and melodic fragmenta-
tion (mm. 66-73 and mm. 130-142).
63
20. It is worth mentioning that our willingness to go to
such lengths in making sense of Haydn'snon-sense is pre-
cisely because it is Haydn'snonsense; were this the work of
a lesser (or student)composer,we might well reject it out of
hand. The humor of this ending depends on Haydn's au-
thorityas a mastercomposerand the trustsuch authorityen-
genders.
21. I also would note that speech act analysis provides a
useful articulationof how the MUSIC IS LANGUAGE metaphor
is used for just this purpose. First and foremost, the pres-
ence of this metaphorinvokes severalpresuppositionswhich
are crucial to the successful execution of illocutionaryacts.
As Bach and Harnish point out, speech acts depend on a
communicativepresumption,"themutualbelief prevailingin
a linguistic communityto the effect that wheneversomeone
says something to somebody, he intends to be performing
some identifiableillocutionaryact"(LinguisticCommunica-
tion and Speech Acts, p. 12). Furthermore,speakers and
hearers are both aware of these intentions in a particular
fashion: "These intentions are reflexive, and their fulfill-
ment consists in theirrecognition"(ibid., p. 15). It is notjust
that hearersknow that speakershave certain intentions,and
that it is theirjob in a linguistic exchange to figure out what
those intentions may be; it is also that speakers know that
hearers know that they (the speakers) have certain inten-
tions. Speakers may then depend upon the hearer'saccep-
tance of the communicativepresumptionwhen they choose
to speak indirectly and/or nonliterally, for speakers may
then assume that their interlocutorswill attemptto construe
their utterancesin the most relevantand meaningful fashion
relativeto theirimmediatelinguisticcontexts.Similarly,com-
posers may assume that listeners will attempt to construe
their compositionalgesturesin the most relevantand mean-
ingful fashion relative to their immediatemusical contexts.
22. J. L. Austin, How ToDo ThingsWithWords(Harvard
UniversityPress, 1962).
23. The causal distinction between illocutionaryand per-
locutionaryacts is problematic(see Bach and Harnish,Lin-
guistic Communicationand Speech Acts, pp. 12-18). For
while it is true that in some sense my colleague "got me to
give hera ride"in this case, it is also truethatI am not wholly
at her linguistic mercy in respondingto her illocution. For,
of course, the perlocutionaryresponseto a request(or other
illocutionaryact) may not always be the responsedesiredby
the speaker. If I reply to my colleague "Sorry,but our car is
in the shop," I have denied her requestfor a ride. In which
case, I have recognized the illocutionary act performedby
my colleague-my "illocutionary uptake" has been suc-
cessful-but my responsedid not yield the desired perlocu-
tionary effect. For the purposes of this paper, I will not
speak of perlocutionaryacts, but simply of perlocutionary
effects that are the resultof successful illocutionaryuptake.
24. JohnR. Searle, SpeechActs:An Essay in the Philoso-
phy of Language (London: Cambridge University Press,
1969), p. 44.
25. Ibid., p. 23.
26. Austin.,How ToDo ThingsWithWords,p. 151. Subse-
quent authorsexpand upon the numberof classes of speech
acts and/orgive a more fine-grainedaccountof varioussub-
classes within each of Austin'scategories(indeed, one could
say thata largepartof the debateoverspeech acts subsequent
to Austin'sseminalworkhas been overtheirtaxonomy-see,
for example, Bach and Harnish,LinguisticCommunication
64
and Speech Acts, p. 40 and passim). However,for our pur-
poses an examinationof Austin'scategorieswill suffice.
27. It is worth noting thatunderthe legal doctrineof "reli-
ance" there are whole areas of contractlaw which deal with
nonlinguistic undertakingsand exchanges. I am grateful to
my colleague MatthewKramerfor pointing this out to me.
28. However,since verdictivesand exercitives are, for the
most part, highly arbitraryand formulaiclocutions, it would
be quite possible to have musical substitutesfor these utter-
ances. For example, if some branchof the Catholic Church
decided that whenever a priest, hearing a confession,
hummedthe musical motive "mi-sol-do"this would countas
a sign of absolution, then by humming "mi-sol-do" in the
propercontext the priestcould absolve me of my sins.
29. Austin, How ToDo Things WithWords,p. 151.
30. Ibid., p. 152.
31. Henk Haverkate,'A Speech-Act Analysis of Irony,"
Journalof Pragmatics 14 (1990): 77.
32. I wish to acknowledgethe contributionof my colleague,
GaryIseminger,who proposedthese names. I, of course,take
full responsibilityfor theirdefinitionand usage here.
33. While this is not a completeperformanceof the caden-
tial archetype,it is clear enough, both in containingthe most
importantpart of the cadence (the V-I chord progressionat
the end) and one of its characteristicmelodic motions(sol-la-
ti-do). It is also worthnotingthatwhile placementof the dou-
ble bar (which indicates that these measureswill be absent
when this part of the quartetis repeated, as is customary)
gives the playersin the quarteta big clue as to the illocution-
ary game thatis afoot, the listenerswho do not havethe score-
as-a-musical-road-map are not privyto this information.
34. H. Paul Grice, "Logic and Conversation,"in Syntax
and Semantics, eds. P. Cole and J. L. Morgan (New York:
Academic Press, 1975), p. 45.
35. Ibid., p. 46.
36. Ibid., p. 52.
37. I haveomittedthe maximof qualityfrom this list, since
it usually does not apply to music, it being groundedin the
truthor falsehoodof an assertion. However,since Grice,in a
discussion of quality,notes that conversationalcontributions
shouldbe "genuineand not spurious"("Logicand Conversa-
tion," p. 47), one might have floutings of qualityin musical
contexts. For instance, one may have musical gesturesthat
are intentionallyspurious,such as "falserecapitulations" in a
sonata-formmovement,or individualgestures,as in melodic
lines playedon penny whistles in Haydn's"Toy"symphony.
38. In Emotion and Meaning in Music (University of
Chicago Press, 1956), LeonardMeyerdiscusses this passage
in terms of saturation:the repetitionsserve to arouseexpec-
tation for change, and more repetitioncauses greaterexpec-
tation (p. 136). However,Meyer's explanationof this pas-
sage, based upon general principles of pattern perception
and cognition, does not consider it as a deliberateact on the
partof Beethoven. The tension createdby Beethoven'swill-
ful melodic overstatementand its subsequentdeformation
from figure to grounddoes as much, if not more, to raise ex-
pectation(s) in the listener's mind as does the plain fact of
patternrepetition.
The Journalof Aesthetics and Art Criticism
39. Bach and Harnish, Linguistic Communicationand
SpeechActs, p. 65.
40. N.B., Bach and Harnish use the presence/absenceof
an asterisk to indicate the presence/absence of a literal
speech act. Thus in steps L6 and L7 when we shift from a
literalto a nonliteralinterpretationof the speech act, the as-
teriskis omitted (see ibid., pp. 61-66).
41. My utterancecould also be partof a nonliteralindirect
speech act, in that along with asserting that I am in some
small physical discomfortI might also be requestingfor my
companionto get some water(i.e., if none were at hand), or
acknowledgingherpriorwarningthatthe pepperswere very
hot, etc.
42. This demonstratesthat rathersubtle and/or complex
linguistic transactions are possible even with rather large
and sloppylinguisticutterances.If this is the case, thenrough
categories of musical expression (i.e., such as a simple op-
position between"happy"versus"sad"as discussed in Kivy,
Sound Sentiment) may be adequate input for the fine-
grainedoutputof our analysis of particularmusical gestures
in particularstructuraland performancecontexts. Studies
of musicalexpressionand of musicalsemioticsoften stumble
on the observationthat, if music has any capacity for refer-
ence (or at least a capacity to induce widespread"associa-
tions" between certain classes of musical gestures and cer-
tain affects), it would seem to be rathermodest, with a fairly
limited numberof semantic categories. The limited "lexi-
con" of music is then a problemfor subsequentaccountsof
meaning-with only a few entries,and limited combinator-
ial possibilities of those entries, music would seem to have
an impoverishedcapacity for expression and signification.
However,an appeal to the use of these semantic categories
in the context of a musical illocution allows one to restore
much of the richnessto our understandingof the meaning of
a musical gesture.
43. Haverkatehas also arguedthat the recoveryof verbal
irony-which he defines as "saying something different
from what you mean" ('A Speech-Act Analysis of Irony,"
p. 77) is not based on the propositionalcontent of an utter-
ance (and some conventionwherebythe utteranceis marked
for a nonliteral interpretation)but ratheris dependenton a
recoveryof illocutionaryintent:"Wehaveto look for the ori-
gin of the irony [in Haverkate'svariousexamples] at another
level than that of the proposition. This other level, then, is
the level of illocutionaryforce" (ibid., p. 86).
44. Portions of this paperhave been presentedat Pomona
College, duringits 1992 Music DepartmentLecture Series,
and at the Second InternationalConferenceon Music Per-
ception and Cognition (February 1992). I am grateful to
Lawrence Archbold, James Buhler, Brian Hyer, Gary
Iseminger,KristinKnittel, and MatthewKramer,as well as
three anonymous readers, for their comments on earlier
drafts of this paper. I am especially grateful for the contin-
uing commentsand criticismsof Betsey Buckheit. Research
on this project was supported by a faculty development
grant from Carleton College and by the Institute for Re-
search in the Humanities at the University of Wisconsin-
Madison.