The Syntax Of Musical Theatre

Musical theatre,as one of the most popular contemporary art genres,has received more serious attention from the academic world.With the deepening of genre research,the comprehensiveness of its own formal vocabulary,the diversity of artistic techniques,and the complexity of the text of the work have triggered new requirements on the methods of genre research,which is growing increasingly urgent.Therefore,based on the uniqueness of its language,this paper uses the concept and method of "syntax" theory from linguistics to explore the special theoretical tools suitable for the analysis of musical theatre.For the reference of the concept of "syntax",this paper adopts its broad and narrow dual-layer meanings: the meaning of "structure of languange" at the broad level,which represents "a set of rules governing the generation and use of discourse in a specific language",that is,a comprehensive tool for genre analysis;in the narrow sense,the meaning of "syntax" refers to "the rules for the formation of ‘sentences’ by‘words’ in language".Following the basic logic of syntax,this paper will consider the syntax of musical theater from two aspects of "units" and "principles" : according to the unique characteristics of "hybrid" and "composition" of its language,the language components are separated from different art categories and different linguistic levels,and then explore the law of their combinations,so to the special type of the organizational relationship,which is analyzed on the basis of the three principles of "order","hierachy" and "tension".Two important works with significant stylistic differences,Show Boat(1927)and Company(1970),are presented as practical examples to the method,with a view to promoting a deeper investigation of the genre and stimulated the renewal of the research methods of musical theater in the contemporary context.The thesis consists of seven parts,"introduction" and "conclusion" at the beginning and end,and the main text is divided into five chapters: the first chapter describes the units of the musical theatre’s syntax;The second chapter elaborates the organizational principle of the units.The third chapter shows the analysis and practice of the methods on the early Show Boat(1927);The fourth chapter shows the analysis and practice of the methods on the contemporary Company(1970);Chapter five summarizes the results of the syntax analysis of the two works,and discusses the relevant issues in the genre study.