creativity (n.)

An application in LINGUISTICS of the usual sense of this term to refer to the capacity of LANGUAGE users to produce and understand an indefinitely large number of SENTENCES, most of which they will not have heard or used before. Seen as a property of language, it refers to the ‘open-endedness’ or PRODUCTIVITY of patterns, whereby a finite set of sounds, STRUCTURES, etc., can be used to produce a potentially infinite number of sentences. In contrast with studies of animal communication, linguistic creativity is considered to be a species-specific property: the creation of new sentences is not a feature of animal communication systems. The notion of creativity has a long history in the discussion of language, but it has become a central feature of contemporary studies since the emphasis placed upon it by Noam Chomsky. One of the main aims of linguistic enquiry, it is felt, is to explain this creative ability, for which such constructs as GENERATIVE RULES have been suggested. Care must, however, be taken to avoid confusing this sense of ‘creative’ with that found in artistic or literary contexts, where notions such as imagination and originality are central.