Playing by/with the rules: Creativity in language, games, and art
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Bert Cappelle
Bert Cappelle is a Senior Lecturer of English Linguistics at the University of Lille. He has a penchant for paradoxes, both real and apparent ones.
Abstract
Bergs and Kompa (Creativity within and outside the linguistic system. Cognitive Semiotics 13. 1, 2020) discuss creativity in language, which they see as largely rule-bound, as opposed to ‘true,’ rule-breaking creativity in the arts. However, the distinction between intra- and extra-system creativity is not always easy to make. Languages have evolved into efficient systems for communication and occasionally allow for divergences of their own norms, within limits of comprehensibility, just like games are developed to enable maximum player creativity or even rule bending (as in the case of Monopoly Cheaters Edition). The paradox of systems licencing violations of their own norms and rules is similar to the one underlying avant-garde as one or more movements in the history of art, when breaking with expectations was the vogue of the time — hence, somehow to be expected. Judging art as innovative or not also depends on what we adopt as our artistic frame of reference. Furthermore, single works of art or single artists can be ahead of the times in some respects but not in others. Turning again to language, I agree with Bergs and Kompa that competent speakers abide by the rules, which implies such language users also know (perhaps not always fully consciously) how to exploit in-built mechanisms that make them sound creative.
About the author
Bert Cappelle is a Senior Lecturer of English Linguistics at the University of Lille. He has a penchant for paradoxes, both real and apparent ones.
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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
