The jazz is strong with this one: presentation and positioning of knowers in performance student texts

Abstract

Jazz is frequently depicted as only accessible to ‘ideal knowers’, suggesting a hierarchical knower structure (Maton 2007, forthcoming). This paper uses various frameworks from Systemic Functional Linguistics including transitivity and appraisal theory (Hood, 2010; Martin & White, 2005) in combination with Specialisation from Legitimation Code Theory (Lamont & Maton, 2008, 2010; Maton, 2009, 2010) to investigate the representation of the writer, the reader, musicians and other musical knowers in the research projects of jazz honours performance students. The study has found that student writers construct their own authority as sensing knowers. They also position the reader as an equally musically and analytically literate participant. Musicians are validated as legitimate knowers and as worthy of research through their own exceptional qualities and through alignment with high status jazz musicians and key institutions and locations. This paper offers some insight into the structuring of knowers in the study of jazz, and the key linguistic resources for their depiction, suggesting further avenues for study of the discipline of music.