A Study On The Representations Of Phonological Metaphor In Rap Music And Its Meta-Function Realization

Rap music is a rhythmic form of singing that combines music with literature through pauses,repetition,puns,rhymes,and other means.It has been studied in most of the literature from a cultural,political and media perspective,focusing on the cultural connotations and emotional attitudes conveyed by its texts.In the twenty-first century,rap music has entered the field of linguists’ attention because of its specific phonological features and rhythmic forms,and comparative analyses have been made of its vocal tones to investigate the differences in sound characteristics between different musical genres.However,the phonological metaphors generated by the phonological features of rap music have not been explored.Therefore,based on the dimension of trans-stratification,the rank scale theory,the meta-function theory and the contextual view under the framework of Systemic Functional Linguistics,this paper focuses on the following two issues:(1)What are the types of representations of phonological metaphors in rap music?(2)How do the different representations of phonological metaphors achieve their meta-functions?First of all,based on the realization of trans-stratification theory and rank scale theory,this thesis tries to put forward the concepts of phonemic metaphor,syllabic metaphor,rhythmic metaphor,tonality metaphor,tonicity metaphor and tone metaphor,and discuss the types of phonological metaphor representation in rap music.Secondly,from the perspective of meta-functions,this paper discusses the ideational function,interpersonal function and textual function realized by different representations of phonological metaphor in rap music,and reveals the interactive mechanism and content realization between the language representation form and deep semantics of rap text.Analysis shows that different types of phonological metaphors also realize the three meta-functions of text at the same time.Phonological metaphor reflects different processes,participants,environments,and grammaticalization by changing grammar or foot boundaries through similar phonology or pronunciation,reflecting ideational functions.The speaker highlights the subject through puns,mood and tone nucleus,thereby expanding the scope,narrowing the distance with the listener,and reflecting interpersonal function.Phonological metaphor,while emphasizing information structure,evolves into cohesive devices to alter the thematic and rheme progression of text,thereby achieving textual function.Textual function is reflected in the change of information structure,and the evolution of phonological metaphor into cohesive devices changes the progression of themes and rhemes in the text.In the context of text,phonological metaphor is used to change the thematic structure,coherence,and information structure of music texts to achieve textual function.In the context of situation,the tenor dimension is used to change mood or modality through phonological metaphor to achieve ideational function.In the context of culture,the analysis of phonological metaphor provides a deeper understanding of the thematic context created by rap music.The emotional attitude and ideology conveyed by music allow the audience to have a deeper understanding of the functional meaning potential conveyed by the language genre,as well as the specific emotional orientations and cultural connotations presented in the text.The study of phonological metaphor in rap music not only provides a “grammatical” deconstruction for music creation,but also expands a new perspective for music research in different genres.