BEYOND THE BEATS AND MELODIES: A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF POP MUSIC FROM THE PHILIPPINES

Abstract

Pop music is a significant part of the cultural fabric, and it has an important role in framing public opinion and influencing social norms. This qualitative study which made use of Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) framework investigated the type of pop music that dominated the Philippine music industry for the period 2017-2023. The factors contributing to their popularity among Filipinos as well as the linguistic elements and ideological underpinnings were also examined. In this research, corpora of 60 pop music lyrics and a total of 10 participants were used. The analysis uncovered that pop R&B is the most dominant type of pop music while relatability, emotional resonance, melodic appeal, cultural references, language accessibility, and social media influence are the factors that contribute to the popularity of pop music among the Filipinos. Moreover, the ideologies embedded in pop music included nationalistic ideology, sexism, intensive mothering ideology, new masculinity ideology, and post feministic ideology. The linguistic elements present in the lyrics included rhymes, metaphors, repetition, anaphora, epistrophe, assonance, alliteration, slang and non-standard language, and expressive values. The findings of this study highlight the transformative possibilities associated with incorporating popular music into educational methodologies, specifically in the realms of music education and language studies.