LISTENING TO GOD’S LANGUAGE
LISTENING TO GOD’S LANGUAGE

STANCETAKING IN ONLINE COMMENTS ON ENNIO MORRICONE’S MUSIC

Summary/Abstract: The study investigates the discursive strategies employed by the commenters in the evaluation of a specific musical piece, Ennio Morricone’s soundtrack for the film The Mission (1986). The methodology applied is based on the theoretical conception of the act of stance-taking as comprising evaluation, positioning and alignment (Du Bois 2007). The results show that similarities and differences in the evaluations lead to the emergence of threads for dialogue, which highlights the intersubjective dimension of stance-taking. The commenters engage in a process of negotiation of meanings, attempting to express the transcendental dimension of the music played. The evaluation of the music represents not only the expression of personal tastes and experiences, but it also contributes to the discursive formation of communities, based on artistic, religious or ethnic criteria.

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