Schemas, grounds, meaning: On the emergence of musical concepts through conceptual blending

Abstract

This article offers a new theoretical approach to the conceptualization of music, based on Conceptual Blending Theory, with a reinforced role ascribed to the constructs of generic space and the grounding box. Three analyses of typical conceptualizations of music from prior experiments with children and adults are provided to postulate that the ultimate linguistically reported concept comes from blending the intramusical Gestalt (input space 1) with a rich image from an appropriate experiential domain (input space 2). However, the mapping is not haphazard, but rather based on the invariant structure in the generic space, which takes the form of an image-schema family. In the blended space new conceptual elements emerge: one such typical resultant concept generates the idea that music “moves”, and in specifically articulated ways. While more basic verbal reports from experiments may be constrained by image-schema families alone, richer descriptions additionally require the theoretical notion of the grounding box, which hosts experiential information that participants add to the description as they progress in building musical meaning. The proposed model relativizes two common dichotomies in music cognition: (1) the distinction between “intramusical” and “extramusical” meaning, since both participate in the process of creating the ultimate blended concept; and (2) the strict divide between universalism and linguistic relativity in musical concept formation, since the present proposal has sufficient theoretical constructs to account for both schematic invariants and experiential diversity.