The passions in the popular song: semiotic pathways

Abstract

In this article, we intend to present a script of the theoretical path of the semiotics of the passions and demonstrate the application of their proposals in the analysis of songs. For that, starting from the principles of the “semiotics of action”, based on the narrative schema and the subject’s doing, we will describe the theoretical course carried out in search of the understanding of the passionate states of the subject, which led semioticists to study modalities and the deep structures of the generative course, a theoretical set that is called the semiotics of the passions. Based on these proposals for the study of the passion states of the subject, we will take as object of analysis songs representative of the samba-song, musical genre that valued to the extreme the representation of the passion states in its lyrics and intensively explored the passionalization in its melodies. Considering the importance of French semiotic theory for discursive studies, the knowledge of its principles, its evolution and its contributions is fundamental so that its possibilities and potentialities can be understood, with emphasis on the research on syncretic languages, particularly the song.