Lexical Creativity, Texts and Contexts: (58 Studies in Functional and Structural Linguistics)

The coining of novel lexical items and the creative manipulation of existing words and expressions is heavily dependent on contextual factors, including the semantic, stylistic, textual and social environments in which they occur. The twelve specialists contributing to this collection aim to illuminate creativity in word formation with respect to functional discourse roles, but also examine ‘critical creativity’ determined by language policy, as well as diachronic phonetic variation in creatively-coined words. The data, based either on large corpora or smaller hand-collected samples, is drawn from advertising, the daily press, electronic communication, literature, spoken interaction, cartoons, lexical ontologies and style guides. The coining of novel lexical items and the creative manipulation of existing words and expressions is heavily dependent on contextual factors, including the semantic, stylistic, textual and social environments in which they occur. The twelve specialists contributing to this collection aim to illuminate creativity in word formation with respect to functional discourse roles, but also examine ‘critical creativity’ determined by language policy, as well as diachronic phonetic variation in creatively-coined words. The data, based either on large corpora or smaller hand-collected samples, is drawn from advertising, the daily press, electronic communication, literature, spoken interaction, cartoons, lexical ontologies and style guides. Each study analyses novel formations in relation to their contexts of use and inevitably leads to the crucial question of creativity vs. productivity. By focussing on creative lexical formations at the level of parole, these studies provide insights into morphological theory at the level of langue, and ultimately seek to explain lexical creativity as a function of language use.

Table of Contents:
1. List of tables; 2. List of figures; 3. List of contributors; 4. Editor's Preface; 5. Introduction; 6. Lexical creativity, textuality and problems of metalanguage (by Lipka, Leonhard); 7. Lexical Creativity in Disourse; 8. How to do (even more) things with nonce words (other than naming) (by Hohenhaus, Peter); 9. The phonetics of 'un' (by Hay, Jennifer); 10. Lexical creativity in texts; 11. The press ; 12. Tracing lexical productivity and creativity in the British media: The Chavs and the Chav-Nots (by Renouf, Antoinette); 13. Cartoon art; 14. Cathy Wilcox meets the phrasal lexicon: Creative deformation of phrasal lexical items for humorous effect (by Kuiper, Koenraad); 15. Advertising and the media; 16. Blendalicious (by Lehrer, Adrienne); 17. Electronic communication; 18. Keeping up with the times: Lexical creativity in electronic communication (by Lopez Rua, Paula); 19. Fictional genres; 20. Lexical creativity as a marker of style in science fiction and children's literature (by Munat, Judith); 21. Creative concept formation; 22. Dynamic creation of analogically-motivated terms and categories in lexical ontologies (by Veale, Tony); 23. Creative lexical categorization in a narrative fiction (by Porto, Dolores); 24. Sociopolitical effects on creativity; 25. Occasional and systematic shifts in word-formation and idiom use in Latvian as a result of translation (by Veisbergs, Andrejs); 26. Critical creativity: A study of 'politically correct' terms in style guides for different types of discourse (by Fischer, Roswitha); 27. Name index; 28. Subject index

Review :
[The volume] presents the reader with a thought-provoking collection of generally original articles on contemporary issues in lexicology. One might find the diversity of themes and the absence of a common theoretical approach initially unsettling. It is however an inevitable consequence of a collection resulting from an international workshop of this type and might also be considered a strength, as a wealth of methodological perspectives which might otherwise have evolved in isolation are brought together in one place and in one rewarding volume. In terms of overall interest and opening up new vistas for the study of morphology, this book gets a full five stars. [...] Groundbreaking works like this one should be encouraged and attentively read, and their spirit emulated. A fascinating introduction to an aspect of word-formation studies that has generally been ignored, the way in which new words are used in texts and why they are coined rather than just how they are coined. This book contains a wealth of valuable data. Judith Munat has brought together a timely series of interesting studies on lexical creativity. The book offers a wealth of data on the lexical options available to speakers of English to amuse their readers, to attract their attention, and to create fictional or shared private worlds. A wide range of registers, ranging from children's books to science fiction and from speech corpora of interviews to large longitudinal corpora of British newspapers, all bear witness to the importance of lexical creativity for making texts both attractive and effective. [...] due to its impressive scope of coverage and the truly creative treatment of lexical creativity, this fine collection will appeal to specialists in several linguistic disciplines and beyond. It is highly informative and thought-provoking.