Situating affect in Chinese mediated soundscapes of suona

ABSTRACT

Situating affect in the soundscapes of suona as a Chinese musical instrument in various media, this study investigates how these mediated soundscapes shape social ideologies, hierarchies of cultures, and social resistance in ancient and contemporary China. Several mediated soundscapes are tapped into, including (1) the poem titled “To the Tune of Seeing the Emperor-Ode to the Trumpet”; (2) a TV program demonstrating how suona can be “languaging” in localized contexts; (3) a famous movie titled “Song of the Phoenix” capturing the contestation of affective regimes represented by the Chinese conventional versus the Western modern; (4) works of a well-known rock band, the Second-Hand Rose, showing how two differing affective regimes were conflated. In examining these mediated soundscapes, this study showcases how stratifications of cultures as the high versus the low, the conventional versus the modern, vernacularism versus globalism are constructed, resisted, and transmuted via competition and conflation of affective regimes in Chinese media.

KEYWORDS:

• Suona
• soundscapes
• affect
• affective regime
• globalization

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 The translation is adapted from the webbook Read China: http://www.readchina8.com/LiteratureItems.php?PassId=72DC4EFD-FC5B-4E97-A4E5-1FD6FF2CF427

2 Trumpet (“laba”, or “喇叭” in Chinese) and suona are seen as the same musical instrument. Suona is referred to as trumpet in vernacular terms in some areas of China, and they are used interchangeably oftentimes (see Zhang and Zhu 2020, 23). Hence, “and” in the original translation was changed to “or”.

3 Thanks to the reviewer for offering this insight in to interpreting the film.

4 Thanks to the reviewer for offering this insight in the cultural phenomenon of “diaosi”.

5 Thanks to the reviewer for his or her suggestions on this idea.

Additional information

Funding

This work is supported by the National Social Science Foundation of China (Project NO.: 18CYY050) National Social Science Foundation of China (Project NO.: 21AYY013), and the Self-Determined Research Funds of CCNU from MOE for basic research and operation (Project No.: CCNU20TD008).

Notes on contributors

Jiayu Wang

Jiayu Wang is Professor in the School of Foreign Languages at Central China Normal University. He has published research articles in the areas of critical discourse analysis and multimodality in internationally peer-reviewed journals such as Discourse & Society, Journal of Language and Politics, Social Semiotics, Semiotica, and International Journal of Communication.

Wenhua Li

Wenhua Li is Associate Professor in the School of Foreign Languages at Central China Normal University. Her research interests include comparative linguistics and sociolinguistics.