Lexical Creativity, Texts and Contexts

Editor
Judith Munat | University of Pisa
HardboundAvailable
ISBN 9789027215673 | EUR 110.00 | USD 165.00
 
e-Book
ISBN 9789027291752 | EUR 110.00 | USD 165.00
 
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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.
Publishing status: Available
Table of Contents
“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.”
“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.”
“[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.”
“[...] 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.”
“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.”
Cited by

Cited by 11 other publications

Altmann, Eduardo G., Janet B. Pierrehumbert, Adilson E. Motter & Enrico Scalas
2011. Niche as a Determinant of Word Fate in Online Groups. PLoS ONE 6:5  pp. e19009 ff. DOI logo
Carter, Ronald
2012. Coda: Some rubber bullet points. Language and Literature: International Journal of Stylistics 21:1  pp. 106 ff. DOI logo
Dal, Georgette & Fiammetta Namer
2016. Productivity. In The Cambridge Handbook of Morphology,  pp. 70 ff. DOI logo
Ferrara, Casey & Donna Jo Napoli
2019. Manual Movement in Sign Languages: One Hand Versus Two in Communicating Shapes. Cognitive Science 43:9 DOI logo
Koliopoulou, Maria & Jim Walker
2024. Exploring Creativity and Extravagance: The Case of Double Suffixation in English. Languages 9:3  pp. 88 ff. DOI logo
Koteyko, Nelya, Mike Thelwall & Brigitte Nerlich
2010. From Carbon Markets to Carbon Morality: Creative Compounds as Framing Devices in Online Discourses on Climate Change Mitigation. Science Communication 32:1  pp. 25 ff. DOI logo
Körtvélyessy, Lívia, Pavol Štekauer & Pavol Kačmár
2021. On the role of creativity in the formation of new complex words. Linguistics 59:4  pp. 1017 ff. DOI logo
López-Rúa, Paula
2019. From Carmageddon and Invizimals to SimCity and Digimon: Blending Patterns in Videogame Titles. Complutense Journal of English Studies 27  pp. 183 ff. DOI logo
Nikolić, Marina, Svetlana Slijepčević-Bjelivuk & Slobodan Novokmet
2021. New words in Serbian public discourse as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic. Zbornik radova Filozofskog fakulteta u Pristini 51:1  pp. 365 ff. DOI logo
Ray, Alice
2023. Approche contrastive anglais-français de la création lexicale science-fictionnelle. Studia Romanica Posnaniensia 49:4  pp. 125 ff. DOI logo
Stein, Simon David & Ingo Plag
2022. How relative frequency and prosodic structure affect the acoustic duration of English derivatives. Laboratory Phonology 13:1 DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 16 march 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Subjects

Linguistics

Morphology

Terminology & Lexicography

Lexicography

Main BIC Subject

CF: Linguistics

Main BISAC Subject

LAN009000: LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / General
ONIX Metadata
ONIX 2.1
ONIX 3.0
U.S. Library of Congress Control Number:  2007020957 | Marc record