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The examples from previous chapters have shown that creative alternations of collocations are possible and that at least some of these variations semantically lean towards parts of the established meaning of the original collocation. A potential relationship between collocations, their creative alternations, and syntactic structures has been outlined. Since traditionally, however, the terms collocations, creativity, and constructions have been associated with quite different fields within linguistic research, this chapter will be dedicated to a more detailed introduction of the concept of cognitive creativity in language research and how it contributes to processes within human cognition.

If we think of creativity, one of the first features which might come to mind is a notion of novel, innovative concepts. In this, it seems to differ quite dramatically from phraseological phenomena such as collocations, which are often associated with prefabricated, institutionalised or even partially fixed items (> 2). But, if creativity consisted only of unique and novel aspects, it would border on nonsense, since it would clearly lack a basis against which it can be understood. Anyone who has ever been to a country where s/he was not familiar with the local language knows from experience that a language made up of completely unfamiliar words and structures, for example, would hardly be more than just a string of characters and sounds. For this reason, creativity, linguistic or otherwise, needs a generally accepted framework to operate or, as Sternberg and Lubart (1999: 3) point out: “Creativity is the ability to produce work that is both novel (i.e. original, unexpected) and appropriate (i.e. adaptive concerning task constraints).”

Therefore, outside academic discourse linguistic creativity is commonly associated in one of two ways; either as the rather rare and ingenious trait of an author, whose creativity is the acclaimed source of extraordinary pieces of work, or, more recently, as a kind of key characteristic for any modern human being, who needs creative ways of thinking and communicating in order to have successful job interviews, lead fruitful discussions or simply be regarded as an interesting person to talk to. In the past, several approaches have sought to account for this dichotomy. Craft (2001: 45–49) for example uses “high” or “big C” creativity for the former, while she refers to the latter as “little c creativity”. Kozbelt and colleagues even suggest a further subdivision, taking into account innovation which is only novel to an individual (“mini-c”) as well as a separate level for professional creatives, like journalists, who have not (yet) produced an outstandingly creative piece of work (“Pro-c”) (Kozbelt/Beghettto/Runco 2010: 23–24). In addition to these four categories, they also point out six main factors within creativity research, known as the Six P’s of Creativity (Kozbelt/Beghetto/Runco 2010: 24–25): product, process, person, persuasion, potential, and place. For the study of language, these six factors mean that creative language use does not just consist of creative language per se, which might simply be explained through the process of language acquisition and its subsequent cognitive manifestation, but that it is also influenced by individuals who might be to different degrees capable (potential) as well as more or less inclined (person) to use language creatively. Furthermore, Kozbelt and colleagues explicitly include a potentially creativity-fostering setting (place) in this list. Hence, a focus on the creative product and process should only be a starting point for research into creativity, and person-specific factors, as well as the setting and context, should be considered too.

This multifactorial approach has not always been part of the conception of creativity. Very early academic thought on linguistic creativity instead seem to focus on little c creativity. In Plato’s dialectic work Cratylus (Plato/Reeve 1998), for example, the author explores the relation between language and reality. There, the topic of creativity is taken up in the quite literal sense of creating something, in this case, words for people and everyday items, both of which Plato refers to as “names”. A discussion on the origin of these labels unfolds between Hermogenes, who claims that “[…] the correctness of names is determined by anything besides convention and agreement” (Plato/Reeve 1998: 2), and Socrates, who assumes that meaning and structure come from within an item. To illustrate his point, Socrates compares linguistic structures like phones, syllables and, with these, words, to a broken weaver’s shuttle and the process of (re)creating it1.

From this conception of linguistic creativity, it follows that every item has an inherent meaning which influences its lexical shape and application. Therefore, if the meaning of an item precedes its name, all potential meaning dimensions should be an a priori part of its definition. A creative use of a word is then simply its correct application, for all a word does is to “divide things according to their natures” (Plato/Reeve 1998: 10). Since Plato focuses, however, more on labels and terms within a language, he does not elaborate the consequences his approach might have for lexical items which are used in an idiomatic sequence, such as idioms and collocations.

Only recently have cognitive linguistic approaches put the human need to conceptualise his/her environment at the centre of any linguistic activity. But because these surroundings change with experience and outside influences, concepts need to be re-combined, expanded or even transformed on a regular basis; these processes are very similar to a usage-based linguistic conception. This becomes even clearer if one compares the three most common types of creative thinking, combinatorial, exploratory or transformational creativity (Boden 2001: 96–97) to general usage-based principles such as schematisation, analogy, entrenchment and competition (> 4). As will be shown below, all types of creative thinking can be defined and explained through these four basic cognitive processes, which suggests that creativity could equally well be interpreted as an inherent part of language acquisition.

Combinatorial creativity is caused by the use of established concepts like words or phrases in a new, unfamiliar way (Boden 2001: 96). It draws on entrenched items, like a parent’s “Juice gone” once there is no more juice to drink or the praise of “flowers pretty” or “Janie pretty” to express that something is pleasant to look at (Tomasello 2005: 95). Through analogy, a child might then produce creative solutions, such as cookies gone, to express that, in analogy to the juice, there are no cookies to be seen, or bird pretty, to point out a particularly interesting bird. The resulting schemata are also called pivot schemes, since items such as gone and pretty link the concepts like a pivot (Braine 1963). The link itself, however, is created through a creative combination of familiar items. It is important to note at this point that a creative solution does not necessarily have to be a generally accepted way of phrasing nor does it imply that the aspect of novelty needs to be new to everyone. What is important here is that the child created an utterance which s/he had never used before by combining items s/he is familiar with, which makes most creative processes at the early stages of first language acquisition a case of “mini c” creativity. The principles, however, remain the same for all creative levels, up to the masterpieces which are generally assigned as eminent creative work or “big C” creativity. Another aspect Boden points out is that not everyone dares to be combinatorially creative to the same extent. “That [kind of] mental flexibility can be inhibited by lack of self-confidence, as well as by having a sparse collection of ideas in the first place.” (Boden 2001: 96). Linking creative thinking with an individual’s character traits, it follows that there are not only different levels of creativity but also a certain predisposition. Furthermore, a collection of ideas and concepts grows through experience, thus, in the case of linguistic creativity it follows that the more creative language an individual uses, the more s/he knows about language in the first place. Therefore, linguistic creativity could be fostered through exposure to language, like reading, writing or communication in general.

Exploratory creativity, on the other hand, is produced within a concept or schema. Here the creative aspect is not formed through the combination of two established items but rather within the perimeters of a system (Boden 2001: 96–97). In language acquisition, morphological rules, such as {-ed} for past tense marking or slots within a semi-fixed schema, like [pretty+N], can be subject to exploratory creativity. The limits are tested through extensive use of these patterns. which then might lead to over-regularisation (Bybee/Slobin 2007, Bybee 1995: 447–453) or language play (Crystal 1998: 159–182). Children, for example, form analogies like walked, played and goed, but Bybee and Modor (1983) observe that also highly frequent verbs which form a so-called irregular past tense can be used as the prototype of an analogy, if the respective test item is similar in form yet less frequent or unknown to the test taker. Forms like pretty man would also fall into the category of exploratory creativity. While a child would most likely soon substitute this phrase for the more likely version of handsome man or be corrected by a parent or teacher, the examples above show that, if used by a seemingly more competent source, like an adult native speaker or even an author, human cognition falls back on the process of intention reading, assuming that there is some purpose behind this choice of words.

In comparison to combinatorial creativity, transformational creativity affects not just single items or concepts, but rather the whole conceptualisation, for example of a schema (Boden 2001: 97). While it could be argued that the use of pretty doll, pretty bird or pretty woman are all analogies based on pretty girl, schematization might later lead to the conclusion that all have one part in common and hence share the same pattern of [pretty+N]. This might shift the perception of this sequence from one item to a semi-lexicalised schema. Similar cases would be “cherry gone” into [NP is/are gone] or “more jelly” into [I want more N] (Tomasello 1992: 288–292). Like combinatorial and exploratory creativity, transformational creativity is based on analogy and entrenchment but the result is a change in conceptualization rather than a novel utterance.

The last paragraphs have argued that creative processes are an essential part of language. Furthermore, it also seems as though the importance of creative language in linguistic research is one of the very few issues that even the two main branches of linguistic research, generativists and cognitivists, can agree on, or as Goldberg admits: “Constructional approaches share with mainstream generative grammar the goal of accounting for the creative potential of language.” (Goldberg 2006: 22). Chapter 4 will, therefore, provide a more detailed discussion of creativity with respect to these different branches of cognitive linguistics (> 4) and thus will try to bring together thoughts on collocation, creativity and language acquisition in order to suggest a model for the cognitive representation of collocations.