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Creativity within and outside the linguistic system

  • 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 5 volume paperback) as well as more than fifty papers in high profile international journals and edited volumes.

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    and Nikola Anna Kompa
Published/Copyright: July 4, 2020
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Abstract

In this paper, we distinguish two types of creativity (F-creativity and E-creativity; Sampson 2016) and briefly address the question of language change and linguistic innovation in language acquisition. Cognitively speaking, the two types of creativity may impose different cognitive demands on a speaker. But the most pressing question, from our point of view, is the question whether E-creativity itself is constrained or forces us to ‘transcend’ the (rules of the) system. We will, eventually, argue that what looks like creative language use (metaphor, coercion, etc.) is still governed by rules (or hypermaxims). True E-creativity would then mean to step outside the system.


Corresponding author: Alexander Bergs, Osnabrück University, Osnabrück, Germany, E-mail:

Special Issue: Construction Grammar and Creativity edited by Thomas Hoffmann.


About the author

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 5 volume paperback) as well as more than fifty papers in high profile international journals and edited volumes.

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Published Online: 2020-07-04

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