How have music emotions been described in Google books? Historical trends and corpus differences

Liang Xu (), Min Xu, Zehua Jiang, Xin Wen, Yishan Liu, Zaoyi Sun, Hongting Li () and Xiuying Qian ()
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Liang Xu: Zhejiang University of Technology
Min Xu: Zhejiang University of Technology
Zehua Jiang: Zhejiang University
Xin Wen: Zhejiang University
Yishan Liu: Zhejiang University
Zaoyi Sun: Zhejiang University of Technology
Hongting Li: Zhejiang University of Technology
Xiuying Qian: Zhejiang University

Palgrave Communications, 2023, vol. 10, issue 1, 1-11

Abstract: Abstract Human records can assist us in understanding real descriptions and expected ideals of music. The present work examined how have music emotions been described in millions of Google books. In general, positive adjectives were more regularly used to describe music than negative adjectives, demonstrating a positivity bias in music. The emotional depiction of music has shifted over time, including a decrease in the frequency of emotional adjectives used in English books over the past two centuries, and a sudden surge in the usage of positive adjectives in simplified Chinese books during China’s Cultural Revolution. Negative adjectives were substantially less employed to describe music in simplified Chinese books than in English books, reflecting cultural differences. Finally, a comparison of different corpora showed that emotion-related adjectives were more frequently used to describe music in fictional literature.

Date: 2023
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DOI: 10.1057/s41599-023-01853-1

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