GEN E243F Creativity in
Everyday English
Lecture 1:
An Overview: Creativity in Everyday Talk
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Questions for today:
•What do we know about creativity?
•What is creativity in language?
•Why do we need to study creative language?
•Where do we find creative language?
•What are pattern forming and pattern re-forming?
•What are verbal irony and sarcasm?
•What is literariness?
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What is (was) creativity?
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The Ancient of Days (1794) by William Blake L'Uomo Vitruviano (1490) by Leonardo da Vinci
What is creativity?
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What is creativity?
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What is creativity?
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Write down your own definition of
creativity and keep it for future reference
•Creativity can be defined as
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What is creative language use ?
The most striking aspect of
linguistic competence is what we
may call the ‘creativity of
language’, that is, the speaker’s
ability to produce new
sentences, sentences that are
immediately understood by other
speakers although they bear no
physical resemblance to
sentences that are ‘familiar’.
Noam Chomsky Topics in the Theory of Generative
Grammar (The Hague, 1966), p. 11.
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deep at the core of our language uses
Creative language use is
deep at the core of our
language uses
... and [it] is not just an
exceptional decoration; it is
a means by which we adjust
and adapt to changing
circumstances, meet new
challenges and needs and
make renewed sense of our
lives. Professor Michael
Toolan MA, [Link],
GDL
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What is creative language use?
Expressing imaginative ideas
Creative story telling
Taking others’ ideas and
making them your own
Creating original metaphors
(Appropriating)
Using language to make people laugh
All meaning making
Describing your experience interestingly
Performing a social role
Making a new connection to something old
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creative language is often informal
• ‘Conversationalisation’ - the language that we come across and use every
day is becoming more conversation-like, less formal.
In contrast with the
The boundaries between public and stiff formality of early
private use of language are shifting; the BBC broadcasting, a
boundaries between written and spoken huge amount of effort
discourse practices are shifting, spoken goes into giving an
language has a new status and prestige impression of
(Fairclough & Mauranen, 1997). informality and
spontaneity in a lot of
contemporary
programming (Talbot,
2007).
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Why do we need to study creative language?
1. Appreciation of
the English language and language theories
2. Investigation of the value of creative language in
the society
3. Reflecting on how human beings establish
interpersonal roles/ relationships
4. Understanding the society of different times
through studying the language used
Appreciation of the English language and
language theories
Investigation of the value of creative
language in the society
Reflecting on how human beings establish
interpersonal roles/ relationships
Understanding the society of different times
through studying the language used
Where do we find creative language?
Shopfront creativity
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make waves
to be very active so that other people notice you,
often in a way that intentionally causes trouble.
e.g. It’s probably not a good idea to start making
waves in your first week in a new job.
Making
waves
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cut and dried
(i) already decided and unlikely to
be changed
e.g. We need a cut-and-dried
decision by the end of the week.
(ii) simple and easy to understand:
e.g. Most investigations are pretty cut
and dried, but this one is more
complicated.
Cut and
dried
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The impact of shop sign creativity
•IT’S FUNNY!!
•The humour establishes interpersonal
rapport
•It reveals shop owners to be friendly,
multidimensional people
•‘A jokey name and shop sign becomes one
small and... memorable way [of] making the
shop name interesting, and attention-holding’
An example of the ‘conversationalisation’1
(Fairclough, 1995) of discourse generally
1 ‘conversationalisation’ -
an increasing use of colloquial and personal pronoun styles
of language in everyday public life.
Where do we find creative language?
CONVERSATIONS
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[3 students from a same project group were talking about the
exam.]
<S01>: <S02>, you studying for the exam yet?
<S02>: What?
<S01>: The exam.
<S02>: Oh. The test.
<S03>: I don’t want to study.
<S01>: Yeah. You know I think the exam is going to be hard.
<S03>: Yes. But it’s a piece of cake for you, right? <S02>?
<S02>: Uh-huh. You got the tips from Dr. Martin, <S03>?
<S01>: I got it. I got it. I got it from the time I went to Dr.
Martin’s office.
<S02>: If you need it, I got the teacher to send it to me.
<S03>: Nice!
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[4 members of a family are preparing food for a party. A is fema1e (45), B is male
(19), D is male (49), C is male (46). C is D’s brother and is visiting. B is the son of A
and D.]
A: Now I think you’d better start the rice
B: Yeah. What have you got there?
[pause]
A: Will it all fit in the one?
B: No. We'll have to do two separate ones.
[pause]
C: What next?
[pause]
C: Foreign body in here. What is it?
B: It's raisins and [inaudible]
C: Er oh it's rice with raisins is it?
D: No. No. No. It's not supposed to be.
[laughter] Erm
C: There must be a raisin for it being in there
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Where do we find creative language?
OTHER art forms
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Tourism Posters
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Parody Songs
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Memes
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What do these examples have in common?
• They all involve an established pattern
• An expression
• An idiom
• Cultural knowledge
• They all break the pattern in some way
• modification of the words used in the pattern
• using the pattern in a new context with a new meaning
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Where and when does such creativity occur?
In language produced
by ordinary people in their daily lives.
Why does such creativity occur?
• to construct a personal identity
• to manage relationships
Carter, R. (2004) Language and creativity:
The art of common talk. London:
Routledge.
•Ordinary language can be just
ordinary – routine and
formulaic.
•Ordinary language can also
resemble literary language in its
creativity and in the processes
required to interpret it.
Carter, 2004, p. 24)
What are pattern forming and pattern re-forming?
Pattern forming is the most marked form of
convergence and mutuality is created by means of
a wide range of repetitions (between interlocutors),
functioning above all as pattern forming elements.
<S02>: [laughs] Cos you come home.
<S03>: I come home.
<S02>: You come home to us.
Carter, R. (2004). Language and creativity: The art of common talk. New York: Routledge.
What are pattern forming and pattern re-forming?
(Pattern re-forming) draw attention to patterns by
re-forming and reshaping them and sometimes by
directly and overtly breaking with them.
• C: Er oh it's rice with raisins is it?
• D: No. No. No. It's not supposed to be.
• [laughter] Erm
• C: There must be a raisin for it being in there
Carter, R. (2004). Language and creativity: The art of common talk. New York: Routledge.
What are verbal irony and sarcasm?
• Irony, sarcasm, satire, understatement, and
hyperbole are common creative language usages
• These are non-literal meanings which require
listeners to make interpretative inferences in order to
extract the meaning
Nice weather for ducks
Lovely weather isn’t it?
Warm enough for you?
Squidward’s angry roast
[Link]
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Kids In The Hall - Lonely Sarcastic Guy
[Link]
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What is literariness?
Literary
language
a song
Practical
Poetic
Factual a
a service
encounter
moving Deviant
Informative speech
a clever Patterned
Serious advert
Beautiful
Straightforward
Emotive
Non-literary Deep
language
Carter, R. (2004) Language and creativity: The art of
common talk. London: Routledge.
a cline of literariness
At the Post Office At Home Mary
S: Yes please B: I remember Dad and all the Monastery monochrome
C: Can I have two like that miners wore them. Boom balloon machine and oh
[hands over 2 letters] M: I can’t remember whether Diamond rings and gutter bones
Dad wore them but I think he Marching up the mountain
S: Yes [weighs the letters] one’s With our aching planning
did
forty-five, one’s twenty-five B: All the … because ah, in the High and smiling
C: And have you got the first day Cheap drink
mines see they went ah intake
covers of Dark and violent
air – the air coming through is
Full of butterflies
S: Yes colder … ss The violent tenderness
C: Anzac M: Oh, it would be, yeah The sweetest silence
S: How many would you like? B: And they’re sweatin’ like The clay you find is fortified
C: Four please pigs ya know. Working like We felt unfocused fade the line
S: Two of each? Trojans The sugar rush
M: Mmm yeah The constant hush
B: And they’re sweating … The pushing of the water gush
The marching band
When April ran
May June bugs fly in
Push your gin Jacob
With the tired wiry brandy look
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Here you go around Mary in your
Everyday creativity
•How do people use language creatively?
• Joking
• Playing with the sounds of words
• Puns ‘the lowest form of humour’ ([Link]
• Repetition
• Words, phrases, syntactic patterns, rhythm, sounds
• Playing with fixed expressions
• Using metaphor ([Link] )
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Key points
1. Creative use of language usually seen as written
(e.g. literature)
2. Everyday (spoken & written) language can also be
creative
3. Language inherently ‘patterned’
syntactically, semantically, phonologically
4. Not only writers create patterns
speakers create patterns
• when they speak
• when they interact with other speakers
5. Creative use of everyday language performs
different functions 41
References
Carter, R. (2004) Language and creativity, the art of common
talk, London, Routledge.
Carter, R. (1999) ‘Common Language: corpus, creativity and
cognition’ Language and Literature 8(3), pp. 195-216.
Fairclough, N. & Mauranen, A. (1997) The conversationalisation
of political discourse: A comparative view Belgian Journal
of Linguistics, vol. 11, 89-120.
Fairclough, N. (1995) Critical Discourse Analysis, Harlow,
Longman.
Toolan, M. (2006) ‘Telling stories’ in Maybin, J. and Swann, J.
(eds) The art of English, everyday creativity, Basingstoke,
Palgrave Macmillan in association with The Open
University (pp. 54-102).
Toolan, M. (2000) ‘Joke shop names’ mimeo, School of English
Language and Literature, University of Birmingham.
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