声音研究——一个全新的STS研究领域

Sound Studies:A Brand New Area in STS

"声音研究(Sound Studies)"是STS视域下的新兴领域,国际学界业已形成声音研究的共同体。来自各领域的STS学者,对声音进行技术层面、社会学层面、文化层面等从不同视角的研究,国际STS学界的声音研究已相对成熟。然而,国内STS学界对该领域的认识尚属空白。声音是人类文明的一部分,其哲学和文化基础,为关于声音的研究提供了正当性和合理性。本文追溯了声音研究的发展脉络和创建过程,并从学科概念、研究对象、研究主题与方法、以及新视野这四个方面详述了声音研究的学科概况。最后,笔者选取了声音哲学研究、乐器研究、录音工作室研究、听觉文化研究、以及噪音研究这五个方面的经典案例,旨在展现声音研究的具体内容和研究方式。STS领域关注到声音维度,意味着该领域的研究范式将不再仅仅是以视觉范式为主导,声音维度的加入为STS领域的研究带来全新的阐释方式和研究维度。

Sound Studies is an emerging area in STS. The international academia has formed an academic community of Sound Studies, gathering STS scholars from different fields, and they have researched sound from different perspectives, for instance, the perspective of technology, the perspective of sociology, and the perspective of culture. It can be seen that the field of Sound Studies tends to be a mature and independent academic field. However, the STS field in China seems to be blank about Sound Studies. Sound is a part of human civilization, which has its philosophical and cultural bases. These bases provide legitimacy and rationality for researching sound. This paper traces the constructive process and development of Sound Studies, and studies the overview of this subject from four aspects which are the discipline concept, the research object, the research themes and methodologies, and the new vision. Finally, the author chooses classic cases of five themes including the research of sound philosophy, the research of musical instruments, the research of recording studios, the research of auditory culture, and the research of noise. It aims to demonstrate the concrete contents and research methods of Sound Studies. The fact that STS turns to focus on the sound dimension means that the research paradigm in this field will no longer be guided only by the visual paradigm. The joining of the sound dimension has brought new interpretations and research dimensions to STS.