IMMIGRANT IDENTITY IN SONGS: THE CONSTRUCTION OF SENSE BASED ON FRAMES

Abstract

Popular music is a mediatic artifact which socially conveys concepts, values, attitudes, and collective and individual identity strategies. Through lyrics, we may reflect upon important topics, get emotional, acknowledge a cultural identity. In universal music, themes ranging from love to work exploitation are presented, and the immigrants’ identity is put aside from the thematic scope of songs. This paper is a relationship between the English Language, once all the songs used for this study belong to this language, and Portuguese Language, when interpreting and analyzing meaning construction are in question. Thus, to shed some light on immigrants’ identities and other social aspects enlightened by language, this research aimed at investigating the way construction of the meaning of songs concerning the immigrants’ universe happens. This research has a qualitative nature. First of all, worldwide success songs by artists or bands known by a wide audience will be investigated. To analyze the construction of meaning, the basic conceptual mastery of frame will be privileged. These frame types are associated with expressions or lexical items and, by relating to other frames, help in the construction of meaning.  By associating the lexical items “flowers”, “crying” and “coffin”, for instance, the frame of funeral service is illustrated. Starting from the criteria defined by the researcher, who searched songs to establish the corpus of this research: a)  Immigrant Song, Led Zeppelin; b) American Oxygen, Rihanna; c) Prayer of the Refugee, Rise Against, d) Immigration Man, Crosby & Nash, e) Ellis Islans, Mary Black, f) America, Neil Diamond, g) Immigration Blues, Chris Rea, h) City of Immigrants, Steve Earle e i) The Refugee, U2. Based on the elements which were analyzed, it is possible to affirm the immigrant figure is submissive to gender and social conditions. It is a figure who does not master his fate and who is always waiting for somebody else to come due to his tonal vagueness, thickening a wide range of interpretative transferences, densely and critically collaborating for recent thoughts about immigration all over the country.