We use language creativity to manage relationships?

essay by cheryl yow
The Art of English: Everyday creativity

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Question

‘Language creativity(can be seen)as both including textual

artistry and also ways in which people use language

creativity to construct identity and manage relationships

with others.’(Maybin and Swann, 2006, p.1)

Do you agree or disagree with the above statement?

Creativity in language includes literary texts and
conventionally, literary language is considered to be
distinctive - ‘non-ordinary’. Poetic structures like

rhymes, rhythm, repetitions and metaphors are highly valued

as these words and phrases are arranged meticulously and

aesthetically to create the artistic effect. However,

contemporary language creativity is no longer an exclusive

phenomenon. Language creativity does indeed

include textual artistry as well as the ways people

use it to construct identities and manage relationships.

We will look into what exactly constitute language

creativity and examine the textual artistry of literary

content that reside inherently in everyday language;

and lastly we will analyse how speakers unwittingly

 perform their identities while managing interactions

and relationships in everyday discourses.

Approaches to creativity has changed from traditional

creativity to modern creativity. Carter(1999) distinguishes

3 main models of literariness: Inherency model, social

cultural model and cognition model. Inherency model using

the textual approach dictates that creativity and

literariness as existing in the formal properties of

language. This poetic language is self-referential –

where language itself is highlighted rather than the

subjects of the discourse. The social cultural model with

its contextual approach affirms that literary vary socially,

culturally and historically. Anthropological studies focus

on performance, public displays of artistic activity –

story telling and drama in different cultures suggest that

there is much similarity in everyday and literary performance.

In this model anything can be defined as literary depending

on how people or culture interprets the text and within the

social context itself. The Cognitive model refers literary

language to mental processes by examining creativity in the

words and sentences. Metaphorical and metonymy expressions

inspire us to change our mental representation of the world

and challenge us to think out of our restricted boundaries.

Language creativity is not limited to literary language. What

is considered creativity in language also depends on the

historical and cultural context. What is considered creative

now may not be creative in 10 years’ time. Moreover, the

novelty that had impacted one’s culture may not impact

another’s. Thus language creativity is never static, instead

it is fluid and dynamic. Creativity generally means invention,

novelty and originality. These fresh, surprising expressions

do not exclude the ordinary everyday language. Evidently,

literary creativity does exist prevalently within the subtle

innovation of purposeful everyday discourses. For instance,

repetition in literary language is frequently used in

everyday language for interactional effects and is driven

fundamentally by basic human instinct to repeat and imitate.

Thus language creativity includes the playful verbal art

displays which use its inherent textual artistry to adorn

interactive and communicative purposes.

In reading literary texts one needs to read beyond its

contents; it is its textual artistry that is significant. The

ultimate goal of literary texts is its textual analysis –this

is the most direct means to aesthetic enlightenment.

Literariness of a text refers to the quality of expression

use in literature. The poetic language used here foreground

the formal properties of language –rhyme, rhythm and metaphor;

here is where language draw awareness to itself. These

elements are inherently pervasive in the playful verbal art

of everyday communications affirming its association with

literary language. The elements of textual artistry include:

repetition, rhyme, pun, morphological inventiveness, metaphor

and metonymy.

In Repetition –the repeating of words, tone or grammatical

structure contributes to sense of rhythm:

‘ That’s fine’

‘That’s right’

‘My baby, she is smiling’

‘Your baby, she is special’

Speakers are regularly echoing and patterning each other’s

words to reinforce social ties, to establish commonality of

viewpoints or explore multiple meanings. Rhyme,another poetic

component, is commonly found in nursery rhymes as in ‘Jack

and Jill went up the hill’. Repetition and rhyme produce a

musically, rhythmical sensation that innately resonate deep

within our beings. Textual artistry can be playful too: Pun

is a form of deliberate word play for humorous or rhetorical

effect. It treats homonyms as synonyms with ambiguous

meanings. An example:José teacher asked him to use the words

–green, pink and yellow in one sentence. José answered

cheekily, "The phone go green, green, green (ringing tone),

I pink (pick) it up, and I say yellow (hello)"

(Bilingual pun- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilingual_pun).

This unexpected humorous effect instantly relaxes and

refreshes our mind. You have referred to some interesting

examples.

Additionally, metaphor which is very much associated with

poetry,occurs frequently in daily speech. It is a figure of

speech that compare seemingly unrelated subjects without

using ‘as’ or ‘like’. For example, Shakespeare links

entrances and exits to birth and death :

All the world's a stage,

And all the men and women merely players;

They have their exits and their entrances;

(William Shakespeare, As You Like It)

In contrast, metonymy, another textual device, links two

entities with related meanings. A metonymy example:

Washington supports the bill (Washington is related to the

president, there is contiguity between them). Metonymy

serves as a rhetorical strategy; enables the speaker to

implicitly hint at something by referring to things

contiguous to it. Lastly, speakers at times engage in

‘morphological inventiveness’ – the ability to invent new

words by changing the structure of words – heart drawer,

mobile earrings.

Carter suggests that speakers are motivated to use two

patterns; pattern–reinforcing or pattern-reforming.

Pattern-reinforcing choices like repetitions that do not

change the expected linguistic forms to create an affective

convergence of viewpoint. Pattern-reforming choices like puns:

seek to transform, invent words/expressions. They draw overt

attention to language by re-forming them and re-shaping of

our ways of perception. These patterns are always potentially

present in language and speakers seek these patterns to

reinforce harmony or to innovate.

Reading B (Guy Cook, p 41) is an excellent example of textual

artistry in everyday language. Verbal dueling has become

popular in contests between rappers. Terra, a rapper, tries to

upstage another rapper who refuses to stop and pass over the

microphone:

What happened to your apology? 1

It’s time for a little sermontology 2

That’s hypocrisy 3

You jump to the microphone 4

But you aint knocking me 5

You stepping up to poetry 6

Yeah, you know it’s me 7

Yeah it’s Terra 8

Terror- whatever you want to call me 9

In any section 10

I’m not battling you 11

I’m looking for something bigger 12

You need to be trudging 13

In some other corner of the globe 14

Some other corner of this episode. 15

This rap starts off well with the rhyme of apology,

sermontology and hypocrisy. Repetition in lines 7, 8 begins

with ‘Yeah’. In lines 5, 7, 9 the repetition of ‘me’ in –

‘knocking me/ its me/call me’. In lines 11, 12 , the

repetition continues in ‘I’m’ - I’m not battling/ I’m

looking'. In the last two lines ‘some other corner’ is

repeated. Both the rhyme and repetition create a rhythmic

sensation that makes one sway with the beat. Sermontology,

a new invented word is the morphological inventiveness. The

pun in terra/terror has similar sound yet ambiguous in

meaning: terra means earth and terror means horror.

Terra/terror can also be considered a metonymy, linking two

entities with related meanings: that is if the rapper has

meant it to be – that the rapper (Terra) is synonymous with

Terror. The metaphor is expressed in the globe and episode,

comparing both seemingly unrelated subjects. Many of the

formal properties of textual artistry are spontaneously

expressed in this verbal dueling and this evidently supports

the notion that literary also exist in everyday language.

Everyday creativity, a routine phenomenon, is purposeful with

multiple functions: to construct an identity, to manage

relationships by entertaining(story-telling) or building

rapport; to negotiate and to persuade or even to distance

ourselves. All languages are considered performative and

identity is a performative act. Language is manipulated

creatively to communicate a specific identity. Consider an

ordinary sentence like ‘ I will have a difficult interview

tomorrow’ tells the audience that the speaker will need to

exert his expertise, intelligence and communicative skills

for this ‘difficult’ interview and that implicitly

establishes his identity of a credible and effective

professional. Telling stories, an instinctively natural core

human activity in social interaction, is also a kind of

performance. Stories are told not merely as representations

of experience but are manipulated and performed by speakers to

invoke different aspects of their identity and serve their

versions of people and events. Some cultural and private

knowledge are important to understand the story. Outsiders

who have no access to this distinct knowledge will be

excluded and ostracized from the group identity. On the other

hand, stories of shared reality, shared values and shared

intimacies further foster the group’s relationship and

establish a greater sense of group identity.

‘Darned dish towels’ (Maybin and Swann 2006, p 80) is an

example of a family conversation as a performance and it

functions in reinforcing family value, gaining group

membership(identity)and rapport building. Ned is the son of

Frank and Lydia. Claire is Ned’s wife and Sherry is the wife

of Ned’s brother.

Frank: Grandma Imhof, she was the stingy one.

Ned: Claire has darned dish towels

Frank: Her mother did it. Sure.

Lydia: Well see I said if you grew up in a house

where your mother (patched washcloths).

Ned: (Remember darning, Sherry?)

Well, it’s when you don’t want to say damn dish

towels.(General laughter)

Don’t you call that process darning?

Lydia: But my mother just put them under the sewing

machine and took two washcloths and made one. And

patched themiddle of a washcloth when it was worn

out.And I said when you grow up like that it’s hard

to get with this world that throws things away.

Claire:(arriving) Here are darned dish towels.

Sherry: Huhhuh darned dish towels.

Lydia: but were you ever embarrassed, Claire? When

you invited friends to our house, did you ever

have to be embarrassed? I was embarrassed when

the girls from town came.(laughter)

And saw my mother’s patched washcloths.

I tried to hide them really fast.

Sherry: We had a – my mom always had like a dish cloth

that had holes in it? And I always still get

holes in them before I throw them away. And he’s

like going, ‘Don’t you think we need a new dish

towel?’ And she always had an old green pad that

she used to scrub the pans with. And we always

called it that ratty green pad. And so in

my mind it’s supposed to be like really awful

and ratty. Before you throw it away huhhahaha.

And once a year I buy two new dish cloths

whether I need them or not hehehe.

Lydia’s story can be seen as a performance of family

entertainment; at the same time it serves to express herself

and to impress upon Sherry, a new family member, of her

family virtue: frugality. When Lydia said ‘And I said when

you grow up like that it’s hard to get with this world that

throws things away.’ she is endorsing the value of frugality.

Though Lydia states that she was embarrassed about her

mother’s thriftiness when ‘the girls from town’ came and saw

her mother’s patched washed clothes, she asserts that she

values frugality again, implicitly. ‘the girls from town’

implies their spendthrift habits which sharply contrast with

her mother’s valued thriftiness. Although Claire has only

one line ‘Here are the darn dish towels’ , this simple

statement is significant because it shows that she has

adopted Ned’s family’s virtue: frugality and thus has gained

approved family membership. Sherry, who has recently married

into the family is eager to establish her identity as part of

the family membership. Sherry tells her mother’s story: that

her mother always had a dish cloth with holes in it and that

Sherry always throw dish cloth away when there are holes in

them - to mirror Lydia’s story of frugality in order to build

rapport, foster shared values and establish group membership.

Although Lydia seems to joke about frugality(stinginess) and

appears to be embarrassed about it, she is implicitly

endorsing it as a family virtue .‘Darn dish towels’

demonstrates the important of establishing identity. Lydia as

the matriarch, affirms her position by endorsing a family

virtue: frugality; and Sherry, to establish hers by gaining

family membership. Though this family story seems to

entertain, implicitly, there is a didactic message: frugality is an

important value in this family. By sharing family values,

rapport is built and it further bonds the family members.

Literary creativity is no longer strictly confined to the

solitary genius of the Romantic literary ideals or in the

aesthetic theory. Literary language has now extended itself to

modern literary, linguistic and scientific expressions.

Inadvertently, everyday language seems to provide the seeds

for literary language. Textual artistry in literary language

resides inherently in everyday language and language

creativity involves the playful uses of these textual

artistry for significant functional purposes – the

performative art of identity construction and management of

relationships in social interactions. Carter’s models of

literariness further establish the theory that literariness

is not an opposition between literary and non-literary

language. So in language creativity, instead of seeing

literary language as distinct from everyday language, it

seems more appropriate to see the continuity between them:

a cline- a matter of degree.

(2200 words)

Bibliography:

Maybin J., Swann J.The art of English: everyday creativity,

The Open University, 2006

Bilingual pun. Retrieved 14 February 2009 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilingual_pun

Metonymy. Retrieved 14 February 2009

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metonymy