Difficult to define, easy to understand: the use of genre categories while talking about music

This study analyses various interactions collected in different music-related situations to underline how individuals are involved in the task of finding the most correct definition for a certain type of music. Specifically, music genre categories are linguistic constructs used to classify and describe music. Although the use of these words is frequent while conversing, speakers do not always share the same idea of their meaning. However, this does not hamper the comprehension in interaction. Some procedures related to the structure of conversation and to the nature of categories explain how people can understand each other. This paper contributes to defining the idea of the indexical and contextual nature of the use of categories, where the discursive and linguistic practices are essential to define their meaning. The limits of the referentiality of music genre categories are overcome in their discursive realization.