I feel my project has been very successful, as I have been able to reach several conclusions from my data. The project has given me considerable insight into what helps make songs successful, and enables me to analyse these themes to predict future Eurovision winners.
My findings have told me that love and relationships are common themes in the lyrics of Eurovision winning songs, as these themes appeal more to the listener, and also songs with themes such as these do better commercially than other themes do. Pronouns are also frequently used to help with listener appeal. Repetition is also a common feature in the songs, as this makes the song catchier, and this is again a common feature in commercially successful songs.
In studying English usage by non-native speakers, I have discovered that they employ many non-Standard features, and also use nonsensical language sometimes for ease of writing. This shows that English is becoming such a global language that Non-Standard English is becoming more common, as more people with less knowledge of the language attempt to use it, to gain an advantage.
The use of the English language in the Eurovision Song Contest can be used as an example of how the role of English in global affairs is growing. It also illustrates the resistance of some countries to it’s growing influences, and how it is the most understood language worldwide. It shows how the language is expanding, and will probably continue to spread further.
In my opinion all these conclusions are safe to reach, as the Eurovision Song Contest takes in the views of thousands of Europeans, and shows who has won. My analysis, however, can unfortunately not take into account other factors in the success of songs, such as performance, singers and draw order, so cannot be seen as completely accurate. I feel that the data I have taken is the most appropriate to my study, and I hope I have covered the subject in enough detail to ensure that my results are reliable.
The lyricist of Ireland’s 2005 song has clearly also noticed the success of songs about love, as Ireland’s entry “Love?” contains the word “love” 42 times! Macedonia and Albania’s entries use repetition with “ Ley la la ley la” 16 times and “Di di da” 18 times respectively. Pronouns are used in the titles alone of 13 out of 22 English-language entries.
It will be interesting to see if these ESC conventions continue over the years, and how the role of the English language in the Contest may change in the future.
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