The role of conceptual metaphor and the image schemas in the formation of musical metalanguage in Turkish

One of the basic linguistic constituents characterizing expertness knowledge specific to a particular field is the metalanguage of that field. Metalanguages which are extremely rich in terms of formats of terms and specialized expressions are difficult and complex to understand and usage. It can be said that these expressions can be understood more easily by people having the field-specific knowledge. However, when the semantic processes in the formation of the terms making up the metalanguage are examined, it can be seen that the terms are transformed from common and easily understandable words in daily language through image schemes and metaphors which are mental tools. The semantic meaning given as a connotation in dictionaries is mostly related to the basic meaning given in the first place, but at the same time it has still undergone a certain semantic transformation. The use of thin or thick words, which are not terms in their essence, as musical terms in the metalanguage of Turkish music (such as thin voice/note) is a good example of this. The aim of this thesis which has a qualitative research design is to describe the roles of the conceptual metaphor and the image schemas in the semantic formation of these terms by making a semantical analysis of some terms that are frequently used in Turkish music metalanguage. For this purpose, the ways in which the concepts of pitch/frequency, sound movement, timbre and interval are handled in the sources of Western Music theory and Turkish Music theory have been examined, and these examples have been analyzed by selecting among the metalanguage examples regarding the expression of the aforementioned concepts. The findings indicated that the Turkish music terminology, which is widely used in both Western Music theory and Turkish Music theory, consists of concepts that are semantically taken form through metaphor and image schemas. For example, steepness and thickness image schemas are active in terms such as thin/thick, high /low, down/up that are encountered under the pitch/frequency heading. It has been seen that terms such as bright, colorful, sweet, sharp which are examined under the title of timbre are essentially descriptive expressions belonging to meaning areas other than music and even sound. The concept of interval which is the expression of the pitch/frequency difference between two voices in terms of physical distance is itself a metaphorical concept. In particular, it was noted that the terms related to the sound movement were used in the transfer of the ongoing characteristics of the maqams in the theory of Turkish Music, and the source-path-goal image schema was effective in this.