Creativity as an essential and integral characteristic of native speakers of a language and members of a particular culture

Abstract

The focus of the author’s reflections is the analysis of some specific aspects regarding the essence of creativity. Traditionally, this characteristic is interpreted as inherent in the language, and it explains the generation of an unlimited set of utterances using a limited set of language units with certain qualities. It is understood mainly through the description of lexical means. However, a broader interpretation of the discussed characteristic is proposed here: creativity is interpreted as an essential and integral quality of the subject of cognition and communication, manifested in any kind of activity and in any conditions. Linguistic creativity is therefore understood as a special case of a general quality, initially inherent in varying degrees of manifestation to any person as a native speaker of a language and member of a culture. Contrary to the established opinion, it is proposed to see at least two types of creativity, conventionally called “everyday” and “original” creativity, based on the sphere of manifestation and the degree of speaker’s awareness of its presence in speech. Both types of creativity are manifested through the choice of means and methods of solving a particular communicative and cognitive task in interaction, when generating and receiving text, choosing the type of text, choosing their point of view on a communicative situation, choosing communicative and nominative strategies and means of their implementation. The linguistic status of the corresponding means (lexical, word-formation, morphological, syntactic, formal-structural, textual, stylistic) does not play a decisive role.