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ScienceDirect Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 236 (2016) 146 – 152

International Conference on Communication in Multicultural Society, CMSC 2015, 6-8 December 2015, Moscow, Russian Federation

Communicating local culture through a global musical show Evgeniya V. Aleshinskaya* National Research Nuclear University MEPhI (Moscow Engineering Physics Institute), Kashirskoe shosse 31, Moscow 115409, Russian Federation

Abstract The paper explores translingual and transcultural practices in the popular vocal contest “The Voice Russia”. Drawing evidence from three multilingual performances in “The Voice Russia”, it examines the strategies employed by the participants to express local cultures through global music. Three patterns of mixing languages in multilingual performances are shown to link to the structure of popular songs. TheAuthors. Authors. Published by Elsevier © 2016 2016The © Published by Elsevier Ltd. Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license Peer-review under responsibility of the National Research Nuclear University MEPhI (Moscow Engineering Physics Institute). (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer-review under responsibility of the National Research Nuclear University MEPhI (Moscow Engineering Physics Institute). Keywords: Multilingual performance; translingual practice; transcultural practice; folk song; popular song; song structure; local; global

1. Introduction Recent developments in globalization have generated new theoretical discourses that describe hybridity, fluidity and diversity in communication (Canagarajah, 2013, p. 33), as well as re-formulation and re-signification of local structures and cultural identity in terms of modernity (Park, 2010). In popular music, transculturation and hybridity reveal themselves in “new practices of cultural and performative expression” (Shim, 2006, p. 26), in which music performers use global forms as resources in the reassertion of their local identities and construction of their own cultural spaces. Musically, analysts describe emergence of such hybrid musical styles as Georgian folk-jazz/rock fusion – a mix of jazz/rock music with traditional Georgian vocal polyphony (Ninoshvili, 2009), and “lukthung” – a mix of traditional Thai tunes and vocal techniques with modern Western musical instruments, dress and stagecraft (Jirattikorn, 2006). Lyrically, a number of hybrid forms of language contact are widely observed in popular music

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +7-495-788-5699; fax: +7-499-324-2111. E-mail address: [email protected]

1877-0428 © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer-review under responsibility of the National Research Nuclear University MEPhI (Moscow Engineering Physics Institute). doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2016.12.054

Evgeniya V. Aleshinskaya / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 236 (2016) 146 – 152

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and hip hop, including code switching and code mixing (Davis and Bentahila, 2008; Chan, 2009; Alim, Ibrahim, and Pennycook, 2009; Terkourafi, 2010; Gritsenko and Dunyasheva, 2013), and writing original compositions in the English language (Mattar, 2009; Chik, 2010; Aleshinskaya and Gritsenko, 2014). The vocal competition “The Voice Russia” provides a rich source of material for the investigation of translingual and transcultural practices in the globalized popular culture (Gritsenko and Aleshinskaya, 2015), primarily due to its wide geography of participants from the republics within the Russian Federation to the CIS states and countries of the far abroad. The main three languages used in the show are English (the global lingua franca of popular music), Russian (the local lingua franca), and Italian (the lingua franca of classical music and opera) (Aleshinskaya, 2013). In addition to these languages, musical performances incorporate other local languages, which are native to some contestants: French, Spanish, Portuguese, Ukrainian, Georgian, Azerbaijani, and so forth. Translingual and transcultural practices in “The Voice Russia” may take various forms, the most interesting of which are observed in multilingual performances. Here the term “multilingual” is used as a quantitative value to indicate that the given musical performance comprises two or more different languages, as opposed to a monolingual song containing only one language. In multilingual songs, the performers mix lyrics (verses, choruses, fragments of verses and choruses) in different two (or more) languages and in different melodic forms. For example, in one of the Season 2 battle rounds (2013) Georgy Melikishvili and Nodar Revia inserted a traditional Georgian polyphony at the end of Mikhey Jumanji’s hit in the Russian-language “Tuda” (“Somewhere”); in the Season 4 knockouts (2015) Maria Katz combined Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World” with a Soviet-time hit in the Russian language “How Wonderful the World Is”. By mixing languages and music, arranging fragments in particular patterns and using visual means like background videos and dress, the contestants create new indexical meanings and express their multiple cultural identities (Gritsenko and Aleshinskaya, 2015). This study aims to show how multilingual performances combining various languages (Russian, English and/or other languages like Tatar, Romani or Hebrew) with various melodic patterns and forms, musical arrangement, visual effects and/or types of dress become a medium for communicating local cultures in a popular vocal contest. The paper also argues that strategies of mixing local and global cultures in hybrid performances are related to the general structure of popular songs, as switches between the languages are regularly patterned and normally occur at the opening of a particular section of the song. 2. Theoretical framework and study material The paper is guided by research on translingual and transcultural practices (Canagarajah, 2013; Back, 2015) and pop song structure (Appen and Frei-Hauenschild, 2015). The term “translingual” refers to the dynamic interactions between languages (Canagarajah, 2013, p. 8). The use of the term “transcultural” allows to expand analysis to include other non-linguistic aspects of communication such as music, visual images, and behavior (Back, 2015, p.11). The notions of translingual and transcultural practices incorporate the notion of plurality, context, and practice (Back, 2015). In transcultural practices local and global meanings are produced as “a result of border crossing and transcultural movements, rather than a strictly localized adaptation of a global resource” (Higgins, 2009, p. 12). The focus of this study is on the communicative strategies that make up translingual and transcultural practices in the musical show “The Voice Russia” and connect local and global cultures through music. These strategies appear to be linked to the structure of popular songs. According to Appen and Frei-Hauenschild (2015, p. 2), song forms provide “an impetus for interpretation on the semantic, symbolic, and functional levels”, as meanings are more or less assigned to certain formal models. The simplest song structure is a strophic or simple verse form (AAA), in which one formal component (A) is repeated several times with different lyrics but to the same music. This form is common in traditional folk music and blues. Pop songs typically consist of several verses and a chorus. The verses remain more or less identical with respect to harmony and melody but are differentiated by lyrics. The chorus entails a pragmatic contrast to the verses, rhythmically, melodically, lyrically, harmonically and/or dynamically, and it is usually of a greater emotional intensity than the verse. Androutsopoulos (2010) differentiates between several common patterns of mixing languages in German hip hop: switching between the frame and the body, between the chorus and verses, between the verses (stanzaexternal), and inside the verses (stanza-internal). Patterned switching between languages in particular sections of a

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song provides an additional resource for meaning making. Thus, switching to a minor or migrant language in the brackets (the short sequences at the beginning and end of the song) helps provide a stimulus to which the lyrics of the song react or offers cues for the interpretation of the lyrics (Androutsopoulos, 2010, p. 27). The discourse meaning of switching in the chorus of the song draws upon the conventional function of the chorus, which is “highlighted information which expresses the key ideas of the whole song, the elated emotion or feeling” (Chan, 2009, p. 123), and it is often used as “a ‘hook’ to catch the ear of the listener”, being repeated regularly throughout the song (Nunes et al., 2015, p. 188). The material for this paper was drawn from 14 multilingual songs that make 2% of the total number of songs performed in the four seasons of “The Voice Russia” (2012 – 2015). The analysis of multilingual performances in “The Voice Russia” is focused on the structural patterns of these performances, the order of the fragments in different languages and melodic forms, their correspondence to the segments in the structure of a popular song, the musical arrangement, and visual components of the performance. 3. Combining local and global cultures in multilingual performance In multilingual performances combining different languages and music, the languages remain neatly separated from each other. The most common patterns used in multilingual performances in “The Voice Russia” are switching between the chorus and verse, when the chorus is cast in a different language and music than the verse, and between the verses of the song, when the verses are cast in different languages and the chorus remains the same. Another very common pattern is to extend the song structure by adding one or several codas in other languages. These strategies are further illustrated by multilingual songs performed in different series of “The Voice Russia” 1. 3.1. Switching between the verse and chorus In the finale of Season 2 (2013) Tina Kuznetsova combined the Russian folk song “Storonoyu dozhd” with the English-language pop hit “Try”. The songs are combined in a form of a dialogue or Bakhtinian double-voicing in the delivery of the same performer (Androutsopoulos, 2010, p. 31), which reflects two different views on life emphasized by two different languages and musical traditions. The lyrics of the folk song remain authentic and preserve the main features of Russian folk poetry: a plethora of hypocoristics (i.e. affectionates, diminutives), the use of filler particles fulfilling a rhythmical function and various kinds of repetitions due to the structure of the melody (Bailey, 1995), the use of allegories and concrete visual images, easily recognizable by listeners (Prokhorov, 2002). The major part of the first verse is the picture of nature representing rain and fog, the minor being a description of an event in the protagonist’s life that emotionally parallels the depiction of nature: a girl is crying in the rain because of her broken heart. The instrumentation during the Russian verses is minimal, and the musical accompaniment and the background sound of storm and rain maintain the feeling of sadness and suspense. The videos in the background revoice the girl’s inner turmoil and pain by showing large blue drops of either water or tears. The English chorus brings about a shift in narrative perspective, enforced by a shift in beat and background instrumentation, which becomes more intensive. The videos in the background become more optimistic and show electric-like blue flames. The second voice in the chorus urges the protagonist not to give up and continue her life despite difficulties. As the song reaches its climax in the final chorus from “Try”, the background videos turn red and show bright hearts supporting the contrast with the Russian verses. (1) Verse 1 (in Russian): E storonoyu dozhd’ Storonoyu drobniy dozhd’ A vo pole tuman

1

Far away there is rain Far away there is fine rain And in the field there is fog

An ideological analysis of these examples in transnational music contexts is presented in Aleshinskaya and Gritsenko (2016).


E a v pole tuman A v pole tumanushka Podymayetsya E podymaetsya Oi po chistomy polyushku Rasstilayetsya E rasstilaetsya Oi da vse krasna devitsa Slezno plakala E slezno plakala Oi a mamochka toshno mne Golova bolit

And in the field there is fog And in the field fog Is rising (It is) rising Oh in the large field (It is) unfolding (It is) unfolding Oh, a beautiful girl Was crying her heart out Was crying her heart out Aw, my dear mother, I feel so bad My head is aching

Chorus (in English): Where there is desire there is gonna be a flame Where there is a flame someone’s bound to get burned But just because it burns doesn’t mean you’re gonna die You’ve gotta get up and try, try, try Verse 2 (in Russian): E golova bolit Ai chto bolit golovushka Ne mogu tut bit’ E ne mogu tut bit’ Oi pro druzhka lyubeznogo Ne mogu zabit’ E ne mogu zabit’ A moi razlyubezniy Oi zabil pro menya

My head is aching Aw, my poor head is aching I can’t be here Aw, can’t be here Oh, my dear boyfriend I can’t forget I can’t forget And my boyfriend Oh he forgot me

Chorus (in English): Where there is desire there is gonna be a flame Where there is a flame someone’s bound to get burned But just because it burns doesn’t mean you’re gonna die You’ve gotta get up and try, try, try In her bilingual performance, Tina Kuznetsova actually went beyond the borders of both folk and popular music. Folk songs represent a strophic or simple verse form (AAA) and typically have no refrains or choruses, which belong to popular culture conventions. The performer restructured the traditional folk song “Storonoyu dozhd” into a pop song form by adding a chorus from a contemporary song “Try” to it. The formal structure of the folk song is modified in such a way as to acquire a “closed form” (Manuel, 1985) by rendering the final chorus in a distinct and climactic manner. In such a new and unexpected arrangement, the folk song sounded modern and fresh. The vocalist’s appearance (short haircut, jeans, and high heels) emphasized the modern interpretation of the old Russian song. 3.2. Switching between the verses In Season 3 knockouts, Aygün Askerova from Azerbaijan performed a fragment of the traditional Azerbaijani folk song “Sarı Gəlin” (“Blond Maiden”) in combination with fragments of the famous Lisa Stansfield’s hit “All around the World” in the English language. The Azerbaijani fragment was used as the second verse of the multilingual song.

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(2) Verse 1 (in English): We had a quarrel and I let myself go I said so many things, things he didn’t know And I was so bad I don’t think he’s coming back Pre-chorus and chorus (in English): I did too much lying Wasted too much time Now I’m here and crying, I, I, I Been around the world and I, I, I I can’t find my baby I don’t know when, I don’t know why Why he’s gone away And I don’t know where he can be, my baby But I’m gonna find him Verse 2 (in Azerbaijani): Saçın ucun hörməzlər Gülü sulu dərməzlər Sarı Gəlin Bu sevda nə sevdadır Səni mənə verməzlər Neynim aman, aman Neynim aman, aman Sarı Gəlin

You don’t braid the end of your hair You don’t pick a dewy flower Blond maiden What a love is this love They will not give you to me What can I do? Please, help me What can I do? Please, help me Blond maiden

Pre-chorus and chorus (in English): I did too much lying Wasted too much time Now I’m here and crying, I, I, I Been around the world and I, I, I I can’t find my baby I don’t know when, I don’t know why Why he’s gone away And I don’t know where he can be, my baby But I’m gonna find him Like in the previous performance, the singer delivers two different voices in two languages across two verses of the song. However, “All around the World / Sarı Gəlin” is different from “Storonoyu dozhd’ vs Try” due to the different dynamics of language choice in the verses of the song. If “Storonoyu dozhd” begins in Russian, the first verse in Aygün Askerova’s performance is in the English language. In total, the amount of the English and local languages is different: in Tina’s performance the amount of Russian and English is almost the same, while in Aygün’s performance the Azerbaijani fragment from “Sarı Gəlin” is located only in the second verse and the majority of the song is in English. But unlike Tina, Aygün emphasized her local ethnicity by wearing a traditional dress and jewelry, performing traditional dance movements and including a more traditional sound: the folk drum called “nagara” accompanied the singer throughout the performance.


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3.3. Extending the song structure Switching to another language in the final lines of the performance helps to create the climax and/or emphasize symbolic meanings embedded in the song. The closing lines of a song constitute a coda that may contain improvisations, including vocal ornamentations to the main melody. In this respect, coda serves an ideal place for creating new meanings of local and global belonging, as it was done in the song performed by Elmira Kalimullina and her coach Pelageya in the Season 1 finale (2012). They sang an internationally famous Portuguese fado called “Canção do Mar” (“Song of the sea”) incorporating fragments of folk songs in the Tatar and Russian languages. (3)

Verse 2 (in Portuguese): Vem saber se o mar terá razão Vem cá ver bailar meu coração Se eu bailar no meu batel Não vou ao mar cruel E nem lhe digo aonde eu fui cantar Sorrir, bailar, viver, sonhar contigo

I want to know if the sea will be right Come see my heart dancing If I dance in my boat I’m not going to the cruel sea And don’t tell you where I was singing Smiling, dancing, living, dreaming about you

Coda 1 (in Tatar): Bakchanyŋ ber pochmagynda Min utyrdym uiladym Uiladym da yashlegemne Yashlegemne uinadym Yashlegemne uinadym Sin sazyŋny uinadyŋ

In a corner of the garden I was sitting and thinking I was thinking about my youth About my youth I was playing About my youth I was playing You were playing your saz [stringed musical instrument]

Coda 2 (in Russian): Golubushka golubushka Rodimaya matushka Ne davai ti batyushke Chashu zelena vina Ai ne davai ti batyushke Zelena vina ispit’ Zaprodast on dochen’ku Na dal’nyuyu storonushku

My dear, sweetheart My dear mother Don’t you give to my father A cup of acid wine Oh don’t let father Drink the acid wine He will sell his daughter Somewhere far away

The structure of the Portuguese fado is extended by adding two codas in local languages – Tatar, the official language of the Republic of Tatarstan, and Russian, the official language of the Russian Federation, the local lingua franca and the main language of the show. Although the inserted fragments seem to have nothing in common with the rest of the song in terms of the lyrical content, they are a perfect match in terms of music. The song has a fixed accompaniment pattern during interludes, which consists of a repeated melodic motif created by stringed instruments and serves as the rhythmic and harmonic base for incorporating folk fragments in local languages. The local identities of the two performers are emphasized by the traditional folk dress and headwear, as well as the folk patterns demonstrated in the background during the codas as contrasted to the image of the moon during the Portuguese part. 4. Conclusion The analysis of several multilingual performances in “The Voice Russia” allowed to demonstrate how global and local forms of language and culture interact with each other and give rise to new hybrid musical forms. Some performances are reshaped to be up-to-date and modern sounding, some are based on a combination of fragments of folk music from different cultures. Linguistic resources combined with other semiotic resources are appropriated by

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the participants of the vocal contest for their purpose of making new and original performances and thus acquire new meanings and identities. Alternating languages and music between the verses, the verse and chorus of the song or extending the song structure by adding a coda in another language are shown to be additional resources of meaning construction in transcultural performances. By using fragments of songs in different languages and from different cultures, the performers are able to preserve authenticity and creatively express their local belonging in a global music show. Acknowledgements I am grateful to Natalia Aristova and Shabnam Ismailova for providing insights into the Tatar and Azerbaijani languages. I am also indebted to two anonymous reviewers for their important suggestions and comments on the first draft of this paper. References Aleshinskaya, E. (2013). Key components of musical discourse analysis. Research in Language, 11 (4), 423-444. 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