Linguistics in a Minor Key—Of Atmospheres, Voice(s), and Ethics.

This article examines the complexities of signification through the lens of music, focusing on Aretha Franklin's 1967 song "Respect" as a site of Black radical tradition and decolonial thought. It argues that music challenges conventional linguistic frameworks by emphasizing affective atmospheres, vocal timbre, and an ethics of listening that resists reductive representation and calls for relational understanding. Drawing on minor theory and disciplinary disobedience, the article highlights how Franklin's reinterpretation of "Respect" transformed its lyrics and vocal arrangements to articulate feminist and Black power struggles, creating revolutionary atmospheres that unsettled dominant power structures. The discussion underscores the importance of listening as an ethical and epistemological practice that embraces opacity and multiplicity, thereby expanding applied linguistics beyond traditional boundaries.