The Dynamics of Wordplay

This volume focuses on serious aspects of wordplay related to phenomena of exclusion, complementing previous research where its funny and innocent dimension has been foregrounded.

Wordplay is not only an essential means of bonding people and reinforcing group identities, but it can also serve to exclude others. This function of exclusion is often a key part of the communicative game at play.

The papers in this volume, written by authors from a variety of countries, explore types and functions of exclusive wordplay and its inherently multi-addressed nature across different languages, cultures, and historical periods.

The present study explores the aesthetic productivity of idiomatic ambiguity in children’s literature. Looking at the connection between context and understanding of idiomatic expressions in either their phrasal or their compositional reading, the study investigates how ambiguity is activated, if, how, and when it is perceived on the different levels of communication, and how literary texts use this ambiguity in playful ways.

What does wordplay teach us about the function of language and communication? What creative open spaces are used in wordplay, and what are the rules and limits that govern the game? The volume presents ideas of masters of wordplay from literature, film, cabaret, and poetry slams along with brief scientific analyses. The dialogue between theory and practice reveals the diverse complexity of language play.

This volume is dedicated to the analysis of wordplay in a variety of texts and contexts. It explores the evolution of wordplay and its appreciation over time, as well as the intermediate stages between wordplay and related phenomena. Together with DWP 6, DWP 7 gathers selected papers from the interdisciplinary symposium The Dynamics of Wordplay / La dynamique du jeu de mots (Trier, 2016).

This volume focuses on realisations of wordplay in different cultures and social and historical contexts, and brings together various research traditions of approaching wordplay. Together with the volume DWP 7, it assembles selected papers presented at the interdisciplinary conference The Dynamics of Wordplay / La dynamique du jeu de mots (Trier, 2016) and stresses the inherent dynamicity of wordplay and wordplay research.

The creation of new lexical units and patterns has been studied in different research frameworks, focusing on either system-internal or system-external aspects, from which no comprehensive view has emerged. The volume aims to fill this gap by studying dynamic processes in the lexicon – understood in a wide sense as not being necessarily limited to the word level – by bringing together approaches directed to morphological productivity as well as approaches analyzing general types of lexical innovation and the role of discourse-related factors. The papers deal with ongoing changes as well as with historical processes of change in different languages and reflect on patterns and specific subtypes of lexical innovation as well as on their external conditions and the speakers’ motivations for innovating. Moreover, the diffusion and conventionalization of innovations will be addressed. In this way, the volume contributes to understanding the complex interplay of structural, cognitive and functional factors in the lexicon as a highly dynamic domain.

This volume seeks to shed light on the interdependencies between wordplay and language creativity. Contributions explore the most diverse genres and discourses throughout History —anagrams, medieval fatrasies, the works of Rabelais, children books, slam, riddles, and contemporary constrained writing—, trying to understand their theoretical, didactic and historical impact.

Wordplay involving several linguistic codes represents an important modality of ludic language. It is attested in different epochs, communicative situations, genres, and contexts of use. The translation of wordplay, which is generally seen as a challenging enterprise, illustrates another dimension of crossing linguistic borders in wordplay.

The third volume of the series The Dynamics of Wordplay unites contributions from different disciplines which study the creative and playful use of elements from different languages and the transfer of ludic language into other linguistic systems. It sheds light on the multi-dimensionality, special linguistic make-up, and specific interactive potential of wordplay at the interface of different languages and cultures.

The individual studies collected in this volume will be of interest to scholars from different scientific fields, such as linguistics and literary studies as well as cultural and media studies.

In conjunction with the first volume of the series, this collection of essays analyzes techniques and basic traditions of wordplay in various communicative situations and offers new perspectives on the dynamics of wordplay as an interface phenomenon.

Conjointement avec le premier volume de la série, les contributions de ce volume analysent des techniques et des traditions fondamentales du jeu de mots dans des situations de communication variées et offrent ainsi de nouvelles perspectives sur la dynamique du jeu de mots dans toutes ses facettes.

Wordplay can be seen as a genuine interface phenomenon. It can be found both in everyday communication and in literary texts, and it can fulfil a range of functions – it may be entertaining and comical, it may be used to conceal taboo, and it may influence the way in which the speaker’s character is perceived. Moreover, wordplay also reflects on language and communication: it reveals surprising alternative readings, and emphasizes the phonetic similarity of linguistic signs that also points towards relations on the level of content. Wordplay unravels characteristics of literary language in everyday communication and opens up the possibility to analyze literary texts from a linguistic perspective. The first two volumes of the series The Dynamics of Wordplay therefore aim at bringing together contributions from linguistics and literary studies, focusing on theoretical issues such as basic techniques of wordplay, and its relationship to genres and discourse traditions. These issues are complemented by a series of case studies on the use of wordplay in individual authors and specific historical contexts. The contributions offer a fresh look on the multifaceted dynamics of wordplay in different communicative settings.