Editing Singing (section)

== Singing and language ==
Every spoken language, natural or non-natural language has its own intrinsic musicality which affects singing by means of pitch, phrasing, and accent.

=== American Sign Language: Artistic Song Signing ===
An artistic signer, a signer who translates the lyrics of a song into American Sign Language (ASL), can modify existing signs, create new signs from the three basic parameters of sign language, and manipulate the typical signing space, thus deliberately expressing "rhythm, pitch, phrasing, and timbre."<ref name=":1">{{Cite journal |last=Maler |first=Anabel |date=March 2013 |title=Songs for Hands: Analyzing Interactions of Sign Language and Music |url=https://www.mtosmt.org/issues/mto.13.19.1/mto.13.19.1.maler.php#AUTHORNOTE1 |journal=Music Theory Online |volume=19 |issue=1 |pages=1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 |via=Academic Search Premier}}</ref> Moreover, an artistic signer can be a person who is "Deaf, hearing, or hard of hearing" such as Justina Miles, a Deaf performer who used ASL to interpret Rihanna's 2023 Super Bowl Halftime Show performance, and Stephen Torrence, a hearing person who created signed songs on YouTube.<ref name=":1" /><ref>{{Cite web |date=February 18, 2023 |title=Justina Miles (Deaf performer) performs Super Bowl LVII 2023 Halftime show by Rihanna in ASL (HD) |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyHudZm_6TE |url-status=live |access-date=November 17, 2024 |website=YouTube}}</ref>

=== Neurological aspects ===
Much research has been done recently on the link between music and language, especially singing. It is becoming increasingly clear that these two processes are very much alike, and yet also different. Levitin describes how, beginning with the eardrum, sound waves are translated into pitch, or a [[Tonotopy|tonotopic map]], and then shortly thereafter "speech and music probably diverge into separate processing circuits" (130).<ref name="brain on music">{{Cite book|title = This is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession|last = Levitin|first = Daniel J.|publisher = Plume|year = 2006|isbn = 978-0-452-28852-2|location = New York}}</ref> There is evidence that neural circuits used for music and language may start out in infants undifferentiated. There are several areas of the brain that are used for both language and music. For example, [[Brodmann area 47]], which has been implicated in the processing of [[syntax]] in oral and sign languages, as well as musical syntax and semantic aspects of language. Levitin recounts how in certain studies, "listening to music and attending its syntactic features", similar to the syntactic processes in language, activated this part of the brain. In addition, "musical syntax ... has been localized to ... areas adjacent to and overlapping with those regions that process speech syntax, such as [[Broca's area]]" and "the regions involved in musical semantics ...  appear to be [localized] near [[Wernicke's area]]." Both Broca's area and Wernicke's area are important steps in language processing and production.

Singing has been shown to help stroke victims recover speech. According to neurologist Gottfried Schlaug, there is a corresponding area to that of speech, which resides in the left hemisphere, on the right side of the brain.<ref>{{cite news|title = Singing 'rewires' damaged brain |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8526699.stm |work = BBC News|date = 21 February 2010|access-date = 2015-12-06 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181217025939/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8526699.stm |archive-date=17 December 2018}}</ref> This is casually known as the "singing center". By teaching stroke victims to sing their words, this can help train this area of the brain for speech. In support of this theory, Levitin asserts that "regional specificity", such as that for speech, "may be temporary, as the processing centers for important mental functions actually move to other regions after trauma or brain damage."<ref name="brain on music" /> Thus in the right hemisphere of the brain, the "singing center" may be [[neuroplasticity|retrained]] to help produce speech.<ref>{{cite journal |url=http://musicianbrain.gottfriedschlaug.org/papers/Loui_Wan_Schlaug_2010_Acoustics_Today.pdf |journal=Acoustics Today |volume=6 |issue=3 |pages=28–36 | date=July 2010 |first1=Psyche |last1=Loui |first2=Catherine Y. |last2=Wan |first3=Gottfried |last3=Schlaug |title=Neurological Bases of Musical Disorders and Their Implications for Stroke Recovery|pmid=21804770|pmc=3145418|doi=10.1121/1.3488666 }}</ref>

=== Accents and singing ===
{{Expand section|date=January 2013}}

The speaking dialect or accent of a person may differ greatly from the general singing accent that a person uses while singing. When people sing, they generally use the accent or neutral accent that is used in the style of music they are singing in, rather than a regional accent or dialect; the style of music and the popular center/region of the style has more influence on the singing accent of a person than where they come from. For example, in the English language, British singers of rock or popular music often sing in an American accent or neutral accent instead of an English accent.<ref>{{cite web|last=Alleyne|first=Richard|title=Rock 'n' roll best sung in American accents|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/7922639/Rock-n-roll-best-sung-in-American-accents.html|work=[[The Daily Telegraph]]|access-date=9 January 2013|date=2 August 2010|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100806003228/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/7922639/Rock-n-roll-best-sung-in-American-accents.html|archive-date=6 August 2010}}</ref><ref>{{cite magazine|last=Anderson|first=L.V.|title=Why Do British Singers Sound American?|url=http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/explainer/2012/11/skyfall_theme_song_by_adele_why_do_british_singers_sound_american.html|magazine=[[Slate (magazine)|Slate]]|access-date=9 January 2013|date=19 November 2012}}</ref>