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Article published In:
The Politics of Sound: Intersections of Music, Discourse and Political Communication
Edited by Lyndon C.S. Way
[Journal of Language and Politics 18:4] 2019
► pp. 598–616

From here

The multimodal construction of place in English folk field recordings

ORCID logo | Newcastle University

This article considers the sonic construction of place in English folk music recordings. Recent shifts in the political context have stimulated renewed interest in English identity within folk music culture. Symbolic struggles over folk’s political significance highlight both the contested nature of English identity and music’s semantic ambiguity, with texts being interpolated into discourses of both ethnic purity and multiculturalism. Following research in popular music, sound studies and multimodal communication this article explores the use of field recording to explore questions of place and Englishness in the work of contemporary folk artists. A multimodal analysis of Stick in the Wheel’s From Here: English Folk Field Recordings (2017) suggests that a multimodal approach to musical texts that attends to the semantic affordances of sound recording can provide insight into folk music’s role in debates over the nature of English identity.

Keywords: social semiotics, identity, discourse, multimodality, folk music, place, Englishness, sound recording, proxemics, musical meaning
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Context: The folk tradition and Englishness
  • 3.Musical ambiguity and multimodality
  • 4.Case study: Stick in the Wheel’s From Here: English Folk Field Recordings (2017)
    • 4.1Englishness in domestic and national space
    • 4.2Textual and visual constructions of English place and identity
    • 4.3The recordings: Sound, mediation and authenticity
    • 4.4The meaning of field recordings
    • 4.5Reception
    • 4.6Recording, performance and the construction of social intimacy
    • 4.7Recording, place and Englishness: Bringing the songs home
    • 4.8Intertextual dimensions
  • 5.Conclusion: The sound of England
  • Notes
  • Works cited
  • Discography
Published online: 3 July 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.18062.ord
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Discography

Carthy, Eliza & The Wayward Band
2017 Big Machine. Topic TSCD 592 2017, compact disc.Google Scholar
Carthy, Martin
. Crown of Horn. Topic TSCD 300 1995, compact disc. Originally released in 1976.Google Scholar
Stick in the Wheel
. From Here: English Folk Music Field Recordings. Stick in the Wheel SITW 005 2017, compact disc.Google Scholar
Cited by

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Way, Lyndon C. S.
2021. Populism in musical mash ups: recontextualising Brexit. Social Semiotics 31:3 ► pp. 489 ff. DOI logo

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