Learning formulaic creativity: Chunking in verbal art and speech – a response to Cristóbal Pagán Cánovas
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Alexander Bergs
Alexander Bergs is Full Professor and Chair of English Language and Linguistics at Osnabrück University. His research interests include, among others, language variation and change, constructional approaches to language, the role of context in language, the syntax/pragmatics interface, and cognitive poetics. His works include several authored and edited books (Social Networks and Historical Sociolinguistics, Modern Scots, Contexts and Constructions, Constructions and Language Change), a short textbook on Synchronic English Linguistics, one on Understanding Language Change (with Kate Burridge), and the two-volume Handbook of English Historical Linguistics (edited with Laurel Brinton, now available as five volume paperback) as well as more than fifty papers in high profile international journals and edited volumes.
Abstract
This response to the paper by Cristóbal Pagán Cánovas argues that wide-learning networks might actually be useful in the description and analysis of phonology and morphology, but it is less than clear that the same applies to syntax or text. Phenomena such as proverbs and oral poetic formulae are probably better understood in a traditional Construction Grammar framework with mid-level abstract units based on compositionality.
About the author
Alexander Bergs is Full Professor and Chair of English Language and Linguistics at Osnabrück University. His research interests include, among others, language variation and change, constructional approaches to language, the role of context in language, the syntax/pragmatics interface, and cognitive poetics. His works include several authored and edited books (Social Networks and Historical Sociolinguistics, Modern Scots, Contexts and Constructions, Constructions and Language Change), a short textbook on Synchronic English Linguistics, one on Understanding Language Change (with Kate Burridge), and the two-volume Handbook of English Historical Linguistics (edited with Laurel Brinton, now available as five volume paperback) as well as more than fifty papers in high profile international journals and edited volumes.
References
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© 2020 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
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- Construction grammar and creativity: Evolution, psychology, and cognitive science
- Constructions and creativity
- Blending is creative, but blendedness is not — a response to Mark Turner
- Creativity, reuse, and regularity in music and language
- Are changes transmitted mistakes?
- Learning formulaic creativity: Chunking in verbal art and speech
- Learning formulaic creativity: Chunking in verbal art and speech – a response to Cristóbal Pagán Cánovas
- Creativity within and outside the linguistic system
- Playing by/with the rules: Creativity in language, games, and art
- Creative intentions — The fine line between ‘creative’ and ‘wrong’
- Speakers are creative, within limits — a response to Peter Uhrig
- Coda: Creativity in psychological research versus in linguistics – Same but different?
- Coda: Literature, language, and creativity
Articles in the same Issue
- Articles
- Construction grammar and creativity: Evolution, psychology, and cognitive science
- Constructions and creativity
- Blending is creative, but blendedness is not — a response to Mark Turner
- Creativity, reuse, and regularity in music and language
- Are changes transmitted mistakes?
- Learning formulaic creativity: Chunking in verbal art and speech
- Learning formulaic creativity: Chunking in verbal art and speech – a response to Cristóbal Pagán Cánovas
- Creativity within and outside the linguistic system
- Playing by/with the rules: Creativity in language, games, and art
- Creative intentions — The fine line between ‘creative’ and ‘wrong’
- Speakers are creative, within limits — a response to Peter Uhrig
- Coda: Creativity in psychological research versus in linguistics – Same but different?
- Coda: Literature, language, and creativity
