World Englishes;

Dec 2010, Vol. 29

Issue   4, pp.
467-480.  
Creativity  and  Discourse  
 
Rodney  H.  Jones  
City  University  of  Hong  Kong  
 
To  appear  in  World  Englishes  
 
Abstract  
 
In  this  paper  I  will  consider  the  relationship  between  discourse  analysis  and  
creativity  and  elucidate  the  ways  in  which  a  discourse  analytical  approach  to  
creativity  might  be  distinguished  from  the  'language  and  creativity'  approaches  
which  currently  dominate  applied  linguistics  and  sociolinguistics.  In  the  
‘discourse  and  creativity’  approach  I  will  be  describing,  creativity  is  located  not  
in  language  per  se,  but  in  the  strategic  ways  people  use  language  in  concrete  
situations  in  order  to  stimulate  social  change.  I  will  explore  how  aspects  of  this  
approach  are  reflected  in  work  carried  out  within  the  paradigm  of  World  
Englishes.    
 
Keywords:  applied  linguistics,  creativity,  discourse  analysis,  sociolinguistics,  
stylistics  
 
  Over  the  past  few  decades  there  has  been  considerable  interest  in  the  
fields  of  applied  linguistics  and  sociolinguistics  in  the  relationship  between  
language  and  creativity  (see  for  example  Cater  2004,  Cook  1994,  2000,  Crystal  
1998).  Although  many  studies  on  language  and  creativity  make  use  of  various  
tools  and  theories  from  discourse  analysis,  few  explore  creativity  in  light  of  the  
broader  social,  cultural  and  critical  dimensions  of  discourse  that  are  the  focus  of  
much  current  work  in  the  field  (see  for  example  Bhatia,  Flowerdew  and  Jones  
2008).  In  this  paper  I  will  attempt  to  lay  out  the  principles  of  a  discourse  
analytical  approach  to  creativity  that  takes  these  dimensions  into  account,  and  to  
differentiate  such  an  approach  from  the  ‘language  and  creativity’  paradigm  that  
currently  dominates  applied  linguistics  and  sociolinguistics.  I  will  then  illustrate  
these  principles  with  examples  of  studies  that  I  believe  exemplify  them  and  
consider  their  relevance  to  the  field  of  World  Englishes.    
According  to  Swann  and  Maybin  (2007),  research  in  language  and  
creativity  has  broadly  defined  creativity  as  ‘a  property  of  all  language  use  in  that  
language  users  do  not  simply  reproduce  but  recreate,  refashion,  and  
recontextualize  linguistic  and  cultural  resources  in  the  act  of  communicating.’  
This  definition  is  telling,  for  it  locates  creativity  in  the  ways  in  which  ‘linguistic  
resources’  themselves  are  recreated  and  reconfigured  rather  than  in  the  acts  of  
communicating  for  which  they  are  used.  Despite  the  implicit  focus  in  Swann  and  
Maybin’s  definition  on  language  use  and  language  users,  most  work  in  the  
language  and  creativity  paradigm  has  primarily  emphasized  the  formal  aspects  
of  language  in  use  and  has  only  dealt  secondarily  with  the  ways  language  as  it  is  
used  in  situated  social  contexts  helps  to  create  new  kinds  of  identities,  social  
practices  and  relationships  of  power.  Herein  lies  the  primary  difference  between  
approaches  that  focus  on  ‘language  and  creativity’  and  the  ‘discourse  and  
creativity’  approach  I  will  propose:  while  the  former  are  concerned  with  what  
might  be  called  ‘linguistic  creativity’,  locating  creativity  in  words  and  how  they  
are  put  together  to  form  texts,  the  latter  locates  creativity  in  the  concrete  social  
actions  that  people  use  these  words  and  texts  to  perform.  So,  while  ‘language  and  
creativity’  enthusiasts  concern  themselves  with  literary  works  and  the  
‘literariness’  of  everyday  speech  (Carter  2004),  those  taking  the  kind  of  approach  
I  am  suggesting  often  concern  themselves  with  texts  which  few  would  consider  
literary  or  necessarily  ‘creative’  -­‐-­‐  AIDS  prevention  pamphlets  (Jones    2007),  
pharmaceutical  labels  (Jones    1998),  corporate  disclosure  reports  (V.  Bhatia  
2007,  2008),  and  the  speeches  of  George  W.  Bush  (A.  Bhatia  2007)  -­‐-­‐  but  which  
demonstrate  how  language  can  be  used  in  strategic  ways  in  concrete  social  
contexts  to  create  fundamental  changes  in  the  world  in  which  we  live.    

Language  and  Creativity  

  Research  within  the  language  and  creativity  paradigm  falls  into  two  broad  
categories:  that  which  uses  linguistic  tools  to  analyze  literary  and  creative  works,  
and  that  which  aims  to  describe  the  ‘creativity’  of  ‘everyday  language’.    
  Approaches  within  applied  linguistics  which  take  as  their  objects  of  study  
literary  works  of  art  are  perhaps  best  exemplified  by  the  long  tradition  of  
literary  stylistics,  a  field  of  literary  criticism  which  uses  tools  from  linguistics  to  
analyze  literary  texts  (see  for  example  Fowler  1996,  Leech  and  Short  1981,  
Widdowson  1975).  The  way  creativity  is  defined  in  this  approach  is  primarily  as  
a  function  of  ‘patterns  of  formal  features’  and  ‘linguistic  idiosyncracies  of  
particular  texts’  (Cook  1998:205).  To  be  fair,  stylisticians’  conception  of  
creativity  is  not  totally  limited  to  texts,  but  also  takes  into  account  the  
relationship  between  texts  and  their  social  contexts.  In  fact,  Jackobson,  the  
thinker  whose  work  serves  as  the  foundation  for  contemporary  stylistics,  
defined  ‘literariness’  as  ‘a  property  of  texts  and  contexts  (which)  inheres  in  
patterns  of  language  in  use  as  opposed  to  patterns  of  language  in  isolation’  
(Simpson  2004:10).  Nevertheless,  most  of  the  work  in  stylistics  is  primarily  
product  focused,  locating  creativity  in  the  formal  aspects  of  language  use.    
While  traditional  stylistics  relies  chiefly  on  tools  of  linguistic  and  
grammatical  analysis  (more  and  more  undertaken  through  computer  aided  
analyses  of  large  corpora  of  data  –  see  for  example  Semino  and  Short  2004)  there  
is  also  a  well-­‐established  practice  of  using  tools  from  discourse  analysis  in  
subfields  of  stylistics  that  have  come  to  be  known  as  discourse  stylistics  
(Simpson  and  Hall  2002)  or  pragmatic  stylistics  (Black  2006).  Scholars  in  these  
areas  have,  for  example,  applied  politeness  theory  and  other  pragmatic  
perspectives  to  the  study  of  literary  and  historical  texts  (Magnusson  1999),  
conversation  analysis  to  the  study  of  fictional  narrative  (Norrik  2000),  and  
speech  act  theory  to  the  exploration  of  the  communicative  dynamics  that  occur  
between  literary  works  and  their  readers  (Pratt  1977).    Among  the  most  
influential  applications  of  discourse  analytical  tools  to  the  understanding  of  
literature  is  Cook’s  1994  Discourse  and  Literature,  in  which  he  combines  more  
traditional  stylistic  perspectives  on  language  form  with  schema  theory,  arguing  
that  the  mental  representations  that  readers  bring  to  texts  are  often  as  
important  as  the  language  that  makes  up  the  texts.  Since  then  there  has  been  
increased  interest  in  cognitive  aspects  of  reader  response  in  stylistics  (see  for  
example  Stockwell  2002).    
Discourse  analytical  models  of  stylistics  have  sought  even  more  than  
traditional  stylistics  to  take  into  consideration  extra-­‐textual  aspects  of    
‘literariness’,  seeing  it  in  terms  of  ‘multiple  intersections  among  texts,  readers,  
institutions,  and  sociocultural  contexts’  (Simpson  and  Hall  2002:  136).  They  have  
also  made  an  important  contribution  to  challenging  the  notion  that  literature  is  
the  sole  province  of  literariness,  broadening  the  reach  of  their  analysis  to  
domains  like  advertising  (Cook    2001),  journalism  (Juker  1992),  and  casual  
conversation  (Carter    2004).    
This  challenge  to  traditional  notions  of  ‘literariness’  is  perhaps  most  
convincingly  taken  up  by  Ron  Carter  in  his  2004  book  Language  and  Creativity:  
The  Art  of  Everyday  Talk,  in  which  he  declares  that  ‘linguistic  creativity  is  not  
simply  a  property  of  exceptional  people  but  an  exceptional  property  of  all  
people’  (13).  Based  on  his  analysis  of  the  five  million  word  CANCODE  corpus  of  
spoken  English,  Carter  argues  that  features  associated  with  literary  texts  like  
word  play,  rhyme,  metaphor,  simile,  hyperbole,  understatement,  irony,  
repetition  and  parallelism  are  actually  common  features  in  everyday  language  
and  serve  important  social  functions.  The  hard  and  fast  distinction  between  
literary  and  non-­‐literary  language  he  argues  is  artificial  and  unhelpful,  and  
literariness  is  more  usefully  seen  as  a  ‘cline’,  with  some  uses  of  language  judged  
to  be  more  or  less  literary  based  mainly  on  text-­‐intrinsic  linguistic  features.    
What  is  particularly  useful  about  Carter’s  work  from  a  discourse  
analytical  point  of  view  is  his  focus  not  just  on  creative  forms  but  on  the  social  
contexts  in  which  these  forms  appear  and  the  social  functions  which  they  
accomplish.  Classifying  the  data  in  his  corpus  according  to  ‘context  types’  and  
‘interactions  types’,  he  is  able  to  argue  that  ‘linguistic  creativity’  is  more  often  
associated  with  collaborative  interactions  between  friends  and  intimates  and  
tends  to  serve  the  purpose  of  building  solidarity.    
Other  researchers  have  also  explored  literary-­‐like  behavior  in  everyday  
communication  (see  for  example  Cook  2000,  Crystal  1998,  Maybin  and  Swann  
2006,  Norrick  2000,  Pomerantz  and  Bell  2007)  and  made  comparable  claims  
about  its  pervasiveness.  The  focus  of  much  of  this  work  has  been  on  the  notion  of  
‘language  play’,  or  what  Crystal  (1998)  calls  the  ‘ludic  function’  of  language  and  
its  social,  cognitive  and  even  evolutionary  functions.  In  most  cases,  however,  as  
with  ‘literariness’,  play  is  defined  as  the  manipulation  of  linguistic  forms  rather  
than  the  use  of  language  to  creatively  manipulate  social  situations.    
  What  makes  work  such  as  this,  even  when  it  uses  theoretical  concepts  and  
analytical  tools  from  discourse  analysis,  fall  into  the  ‘language  and  creativity’  
paradigm  rather  than  the  ‘discourse  and  creativity’  model  I  will  be  proposing,  is  
that  it  primarily  sees  creativity  as  a  property  of  texts.  Even  when  they  take  socio-­‐
pragmatic  aspects  of  language  use  into  account,  researchers  in  this  paradigm  
tend  to  focus  on  the  social  functions  of  creative  language  (by  which  they  usually  
mean  ‘literary’  or  ‘poetic’  language)  rather  than  the  function  of  language  (of  all  
kinds)  in  performing  creative  actions.  According  to  Swann  and  Maybin  (2007)  
most  work  on  language  and  creativity  mainly  concerns  itself  with  ‘poetic  
creativity’,  in  the  sense  that  Jakobson  (1960:  356)  meant  the  term  as  a  ‘focus  on  
the  message  for  its  own  sake’  rather  than  on  the  role  of  the  message  in  the  
broader  social  processes  though  which  meaning,  identities  and  social  practices  
are  negotiated.  Some  in  fact,  including  Widdowson  (2008:  503),  have  questioned  
this  orientation,  insisting  that  ‘there  is  no  distinctively  poetic  way  of  being  
creative  by  focusing  on  the  message  form,  but  that  creativity  is  a  function  of  how  
the  message  form  interacts  with  other  speech  act  conditions.’  Even  work  in  this  
paradigm  that  does  attempt  to  account  for  these  socio-­‐pragmatic  conditions,  
however,  such  as  that  of  Carter,  often  limits  its  scope  to  the  immediate  
conversational  context  of  utterances  rather  than  considering  the  broader  social  
or  cultural  contexts  in  which  they  are  formed.  
  Work  on  language  and  creativity  in  sociolinguistics,  especially  from  the  
World  Englishes  perspective,  on  the  other  hand,  though  still  primarily  focusing  
on  the  formal  properties  of  language,  has  been  much  more  concerned  with  the  
social  and  cultural  conditions  of  creativity.  Central  this  line  of  thinking  is  the  
notion  of    ‘bilingual  creativity’,  defined  by  Kachru  (1985:  20)  as  ‘those  creative  
linguistic  processes  which  are  the  result  of  competence  in  two  or  more  
languages’  (see  also  Kachru  1987).  According  to  Kachru,  ‘bilingual  creativity’  
involves  two  things:  first,  the  production  of  texts  which  creatively  mix  linguistic  
resources  from  one  or  more  languages,  a  more  product  focused  approach  similar  
to  that  common  in  stylistics,  and  second,  ‘the  use  of  verbal  strategies  in  which  
subtle  linguistic  adjustments  are  made  for  psychological,  sociological,  and  
attitudinal  reasons’  (1985:  20),  an  approach  much  more  in  line  with  the  
discourse  analytical  perspective  I  will  be  advocating.  Both  of  these  concerns  have  
been  represented  in  the  pages  of  World  Englishes  (though  the  former  has  tended  
to  dominate).  In  a  content  analysis  of  the  journal  on  the  occasion  of  its  twenty-­‐
fifth  anniversary,  Bolton  and  Davis  (2006)  noted  that  nearly  a  tenth  of  the  
articles  had  been  devoted  to  the  topic  of  ‘bilingual  creativity’.    
  Notable  examples  of  research  focusing  on  the  literary  works  of  bilingual  
writers  are  Dissanayake’s  (1985)  examination  of  how  various  South  Asian  
authors  experiment  with  English  to  make  it  better  accommodate  South  Asian  
cultural  experiences,  and  Osakwe’s  (1999)  discussion  of  how  traditional  Yorbu  
literary  conventions  are  incorporated  into  the  English  language  poetry  of  Wole  
Soyika.  Such  work  highlights  the  complexity  of  questions  of  linguistic  creativity  
when  multiple,  linguistic  and  cultural  traditions  come  into  play  and  make  strictly  
formalist  definitions  of  creativity  based  on  features  prevalent  in  the  English  
literary  tradition  seem  rather  narrow.    
Such  work  suggests  that  bilingualism  has  the  inherent  potential  to  give  
rise  to  a  distinct  form  of  ‘literariness’,  which  results  when  two,  or  more  ‘linguistic  
textures  and  literary  traditions’  are  blended.  Such  ‘contact  literatures’,  says  
Kachru  (1986a:61)  manifest  a  ‘range  of  discourse  devices  and  cultural  
assumptions  distinct  from  the  ones  associated  with  the  native  varieties  of  
English’.  In  such  cases,  it  is  not  just  the  text  but  language  itself  that  is  remade.  In  
this  regard,  sociolinguistic  approaches  to  creativity,  at  least  from  the  World  
Englishes  perspective,  differ  dramatically  from  the  approaches  of  the  
stylisticians  discussed  above,  for  while  both  focus  on  linguistic  form  as  evidence  
of  creativity,  for  those  coming  at  the  issue  from  a  World  Englishes  perspective,  
the  product,  the  particular  literary  work  of  art,  is  less  important  than  the  
processes  of  linguistic  and  cultural  contact  that  give  rise  to  such  creativity.    
One  of  the  more  interesting  questions  arising  from  the  phenomenon  of  
‘bilingual  creativity’  has  to  do  with  the  kinds  of  strategies  bilingual  writers  use  to  
overcome  inevitable  problems  of  cultural  and  linguistic  translatability  in  their  
work.  Research  into  this  question  has  particularly  benefitted  from  the  
application  of  tools  from  discourse  analysis,  which  focus  analysis  as  much  on  
contextual  issues  of  comprehension  as  on  linguistic  form.  Nelson  (1988,  1992),  
for  example,  has  explored  how  bilingual  authors  from  ‘outer  circle-­‐English’  
backgrounds  deal  with  possible  issues  of  intelligibility  by  embedding  innovative  
language  use  within  a  ‘comprehensible  and  interpretable  matrix  of  English  
discourse’,  thereby  gradually  ‘teaching’  the  reader  to  comprehend  both  new  
variety  and  text-­‐specific  innovations  (1992:180).            
  At  the  same  time,  there  has  also  been  work  within  this  paradigm  that  
looks  at  literary  works  of  art  from  a  strictly  formalist  perspective,  revealing  little  
about  the  strategic  ways  authors  negotiate  multiple  literary  and  cultural  
traditions,  though  nonetheless  contributing  to  our  understanding  of  linguistic  
variation.    One  example  is  Baker  and  Eggington’s  (1999)  use  of  computational  
methods  to  analyze  a  large  corpus  of  literary  works  written  in  a  number  of  
different  varieties  of  English  in  terms  of  the  frequency  of  certain  grammatical  
features  (verb  tenses,  pronouns,  kinds  of  reference,  relative  clauses).  While  such  
work  confirms  rhetorical  and  linguistic  differences  in  work  by  authors  using  
different  varieties  of  English,  it  does  little  to  explain  if  and  why  such  differences  
are  ‘creative’.  The  only  thing  linking  this  approach  to  the  notion  of  ‘bilingual  
creativity’  is  the  fact  that  the  texts  analyzed  are  a  priori  deemed  to  be  creative.
  As  in  applied  linguistics,  there  is  also  a  focus  within  the  World  Englishes  
paradigm  not  just  on  works  of  literature  but  also  on  the  everyday  creativity  of  
bilinguals  as  evidenced  in  domains  like  journalism,  commerce  and  casual  
conversation.  In  this  work  as  well  there  are  examples  which  define  creativity  
strictly  on  the  level  of  formal  innovation,  and  so  are  less  satisfying  from  a  
discourse  analytical  point  of  view,  and  those  which  focus  more  on  the  strategic  
and  creative  uses  of  linguistic  innovations  such  as  code  mixing  and  style  shifting  
in  specific  situations  or  sociocultural  contexts.  An  illustration  of  the  former  
approach  can  be  seen  in  work  like  that  of  Baumgardner  (2006),  which  catalogues  
the  use  of  English  in  Mexican  shop  signs,  brand  names  and  advertisements,  but  
only  gives  a  cursory  explanation  as  to  why  such  code-­‐mixing  should  
automatically  be  considered  creative  or  what  social  functions  it  serves.  In  
contrast  are  studies  that,  while  focusing  on  formal  innovation,  nevertheless  
approach  it  in  the  context  of  larger  issues  like  power  and  identity  (see  for  
example  Lin  2000,  Martin  2007,  Rampton  2005).  There  are  also  studies  that  
focus  on  broader  pragmatic  features  of  bilinguals’  interaction  and  how  they  are  
used  in  creative  ways  (see  for  example  D’souza  1988,  Y.  Kachru  1993).  Much  of  
this  work,  however,  still  falls  into  the  ‘language  and  creativity’  paradigm  due  to  
its  bias  towards  linguistic  creativity  –  the  novelty  or  inventiveness  of  linguistic  
products.    
Just  as  form  focused  treatments  of  everyday  creativity  in  applied  
linguistics  tend  to  conflate  the  ‘creative’  with  the  ‘poetic’,  sociolinguistic  
treatments  of  it  tend  to  conflate  the  ‘creative’  with  the  ‘novel’  or  the  ‘hybrid’,  so  
that  almost  any  adaptation  or  variation  in  a  language  or  mixture  of  resources  
from  more  than  one  language  can  be  seen  as  an  example  of  ‘bilingual  creativity’.  
Most  definitions  of  creativity,  however,  demand  more  than  just  novelty,  seeing  
creativity  as  involving  both  the  new  and  the  valuable  (Boden  1990),  the  novel  
and  the  appropriate  (Sternberg  1990),  the  original  and  the  fitting  (Pope  2005).  
While  some  treatments  of  linguistic  variation  do  consider  its  appropriateness  for  
certain  contexts  or  its  utility  on  helping  language  users  to  negotiate  situated  
activities,  identities,  and  even  larger  sociopolitical  phenomena  like  colonialism  
and  globalization,  (see  for  example  Dissanayake  1985),  some  are  content  simply  
with  arguing  about  the  novelty  or  distinctiveness  of  various  linguistic  forms.  For  
the  discourse  and  creativity  perspective  I  propose,  a  concern  with  value  is  
absolutely  central  -­‐-­‐  not  in  the  sense  of  aesthetic  value  -­‐-­‐  but  rather  in  the  sense  
of  pragmatic  value,  the  extent  to  which  our  so  called  ‘creative’  uses  of  language  
actually  help  us  to  accomplish  things  in  the  material  world  and  in  our  
relationships  with  others.    

Discourse  and  Creativity  

 
If  I  had  to  say  what  is  the  main  mistake  made  by  philosophers  of  the  present  
generation…  I  would  say  that  it  is  that  when  language  is  looked  at,  what  is  
looked  at  is  a  form  of  words  and  not  the  use  made  of  the  form  of  words.  
                                                         -­‐-­‐    Wittgenstein,  Lecture  on  Aesthetics  (1967)  
 
  Delineating  what  a  discourse-­‐based  approach  to  creativity  might  be  and  
how  it  might  differ  from  the  ‘language  and  creativity’  approaches  discussed  
above  requires  first  that  we  define  ‘discourse’,  a  term  that  is  nearly  as  slippery  as  
‘creativity’.  According  Schiffrin,  Tannen  and  Hamilton  (2001:1),  definitions  of  
discourse  tend  to  fall  into  three  categories:  those  that  define  it  as  anything  
beyond  the  level  of  the  clause,  those  that  define  it  as  language  use,  and  those  that  
define  it  as  a  broader  range  of  practices  associated  with  the  social  construction  
of  knowledge.  The  first  definition,  introduced  by  the  linguist  Zelig  Harris  in  the  
early  fifties  to  describe  the  next  level  in  an  analytical  hierarchy  of  morphemes,  
clauses  and  sentences,  is  essentially  formalist,  not  really  taking  us  much  beyond  
the  ‘language  and  creativity’  model  discussed  above.  It  is  the  second  two  
definitions  that  are  more  useful,  and  I  would  argue  that  both  of  them  together  
must  be  part  of  a  discourse  analytical  approach  to  creativity,  for  neither  can  be  
properly  understood  without  the  other.    
  The  idea  of  ‘language  use’  means  different  things  to  different  people.  For  
some  it  simply  means  ‘authentic  language’  as  opposed  to  the  made-­‐up  examples  
trafficked  in  by  generative  linguists.  This  is  the  sense  in  which  Stubbs  (1983)  
means  it  when  he  calls  discourse  analysis  ‘the  sociolinguistic  analysis  of  natural  
language.’  For  others,  language  use  means  language  as  it  occurs  in  particular  
contexts:  understanding  the  meaning  of  a  text,  they  caution,  can  only  be  done  
properly  with  reference  to  its  context.  Calls  for  work  that  explores  the  ways  
creative  linguistic  forms  are  produced  in  particular  sociohistorical  and  
interpersonal  contexts  have  come  from  a  number  of  scholars  from  within  the  
‘language  and  creativity’  paradigm  (see  for  example  Carter  2007,  Maybin  and  
Swann  2007a).  Simply  widening  the  circumference  of  analysis  to  include  the  
things  that  are  occurring  around  texts,  however,  or  recognizing  the  ‘co-­‐
constructed’  nature  of  creative  language  (Maybin  and  Swann  2007b:  512),  does  
not  necessarily  constitute  a  ‘discourse  and  creativity’  approach  as  long  as  
creativity  is  still  defined  based  on  text-­‐intrinsic  features.    
  For  yet  others,  language  use  means  the  ways  language  is  used  to  take  
specific,  concrete  actions,  how,  in  Austin’s  famous  formulation,  we  ‘do  things  
with  words’.  Here  the  focus  is  less  on  the  language  itself  and  more  on  the  actions  
it  is  used  to  take.  Many  approaches  to  discourse,  in  fact,  most  notably  speech  act  
theory  and  conversation  analysis  see  discourse  itself  as  a  kind  of  social  action.  
More  recent  approaches,  specifically  mediated  discourse  analysis  and  
multimodal  discourse  analysis,  influenced  by  the  work  of  Soviet  psychologist  Lev  
Vygotsky  (1978),  have  gone  even  further  in  privileging  social  action  as  the  unit  of  
analysis,  considering  language  as  only  one  of  a  host  of  possible  ‘meditational  
means’  which  people  use  to  take  action  in  the  world.    
  Rather  than  starting  with  language  and  asking  what  people  do  with  it,  such  
action  oriented  approaches  to  discourse  take  as  their  starting  point  Goffman’s  
famous  question:  ‘What’s  going  on  here?’  and  then  go  on  to  explore  the  role  that  
discourse  plays  in  it.  This  perspective  leads  to  a  conceptualization  of  creativity  
that  sees  it  as  residing  in  not  language  but  rather  in  the  actions  people  take  with  
language.  There  may,  therefore,  be  nothing  intrinsically  ‘creative’  about  an  
utterance  or  a  text  that  comes  under  the  scrutiny  of  such  an  approach  -­‐-­‐  i.e.  there  
may  be  no  ‘language  play’,  no  metaphors  or  puns  or  other  rhetorical  devices,  and  
it  may  not  even  be  intrinsically  original  or  inventive.  Instead,  what  may  be  
‘creative’  may  have  more  to  do  with  the  strategic  way  language  is  used,  and  what  
may  be  ‘created’  may  not  be  an  inventive  linguistic  product,  but  rather  a  new  
way  of  dealing  with  a  situation  or  a  new  set  of  social  relationships.    
  This  brings  us  to  the  third  definition  of  discourse  pointed  out  by  Schiffrin  
and  her  colleagues,  one  which  comes  less  from  linguistics  and  more  from  critical  
cultural  and  sociological  traditions  of  analysis.  In  this  definition  discourse  is  
often  used  as  a  count  noun  to  describe  socially  informed  systems  of  knowing,  
being  and  acting.  Gee,  in  order  to  distinguish  between  this  definition  and  
discourse  as  ‘language  use’  adopts  the  practice  of  using  a  capital  ‘D’,  defining  
‘Discourses’  as  ‘ways  of  being  in  the  world,  or  forms  of  life  which  integrate  
words,  acts,  values,  beliefs,  attitudes,  and  social  identities’  (1996:127).  Foucault  
(1972),  and  after  him,  Fairclough  (1992)  use  the  term  ‘orders  of  discourse’  to  
describe  these  systems,  which  Foucault  defines  as  ‘the  group  of  statements  that  
belong  to  a  single  system  of  formation;  thus  I  shall  be  able  to  speak  of  clinical  
discourse,  economic  discourse,  the  discourse  of  natural  history,  psychiatric  
discourse’  (1972:  121).    
For  Foucault,  the  most  important  thing  about  orders  of  discourse  is  that  
they  exert  incredible  control  over  the  way  we  act  and  think,  so  while  ‘small  d  
discourse’  and  other  meditational  means  allow  us  to  take  actions  in  the  world,  
the  ‘big  D  Discourses’  within  which  they  are  fixed  exert  all  kinds  of  constraints  
over  the  kinds  of  actions  that  can  be  taken.  Social  practice  and  Discourses,  then,  
are  seen  as  mutually  constitutive  phenomena  whereby  what  we  say  and  do  
instantiate  and  reproduce  Discourses  and  Discourses  determine  what  we  are  
able  to  say  and  do.    
  At  the  same  time,  Discourses  themselves  are  neither  stable  nor  monolithic  
–  they  are  open  to  being  compromised,  undermined  or  transformed  as  they  
interact  with  other  Discourses.  As  Candlin  and  Maley  (1997:  204)  note,  
Discourses  consist  of  ‘internally  heterogeneous  discursive  practices  whose  
boundaries  are  in  flux,’  so  that,  as  they  come  into  contact  with  other  Discourses,  
‘not  only  are  novel  (inter)texts  constructed,  but  novel  (inter)discourses  arise.’  
These  transformations  occur  through  the  incremental  everyday  actions  of  
individuals  as  they  strategically  appropriate  and  combine  elements  of  different  
Discourses  as  ‘discourse’  in  order  to  meet  the  needs  of  particular  moments.  Thus,  
the  relationship  between  Discourses  and  social  action  is  not  entirely  one  sided.  
That  is,  communicative  actions  do  not  just  reproduce  Discourses,  but  can  also  
change  them  through  the  creative  use  of  ‘small  d  discourse’.  When  we  speak  of  
‘creativity’  from  this  perspective  we  are  not  just  talking  about  changing  language  
in  some  clever  or  inventive  way  –  we  are  talking  about  changing  the  world.    
  When  discourse  is  used  creatively,  it  can  potentially  change  the  world  on  
two  levels:  first  on  the  level  of  the  immediate  interaction  by  shifting  the  
relationships  of  power  among  participants,  creativity  reframing  the  activity  that  
is  taking  place,  or  otherwise  creating  possibilities  for  social  action  that  did  not  
exist  at  the  outset  of  the  interaction,  and  second,  on  the  level  of  society  or  culture  
by  contesting  conventional  orders  of  discourse  and  opening  up  possibilities  for  
the  imagining  of  new  kinds  of  social  identities  and  new  ways  of  seeing  the  world.    
When  a  gay  man  in  China,  for  example,  uses  the  label  tongzhi  (comrade)  
to  refer  to  himself  and  other  gay  men,  he  appropriates  a  piece  of  discourse  from  
the  very  ideological  system  by  which  in  the  past  he  has  been  oppressed  in  a  way  
that  cleverly  disarms  the  oppressor.  By  playing  on  the  term’s  multiple  meanings  
the  gay  ‘comrade’  is  able  to  simultaneously  take  up  the  positions  of  Party  loyalist  
and  ironic  dissident,  to  simultaneously  claim  belonging  and  cultural  citizenship,  
and  to  highlight  how  he  has  been  unfairly  marginalized.  The  use  of  the  term  in  
different  circumstances  might  serve  different  purposes  –  to  joke,  to  argue,  or  to  
provoke  –  and,  while  it  might  function  in  strategic  ways  to  make  these  actions  
more  possible,  none  of  these  isolated  instances  will  change  the  world.  Social  
change  does  come,  however,  through  the  accumulation  of  this  new  usage  over  
time  in  multiple  situations  across  multiple  domains  as  this  use  of  the  term  is  
appropriated  into  yet  other  Discourses,  the  Discourse  of  advertising,  for  
example,  or  the  Discourse  of  entertainment,  to  the  point  where  this  subversive  
usage  has  almost  completely  supplanted  the  original  one  (Jones  2007).    
  This  way  seeing  creativity  in  discourse,  as  ‘strategic  and  potentially  world  
transforming  action’  seems  to  set  the  bar  rather  high,  especially  compared  to  the  
focus  on  ‘everyday  creativity’  that  is  currently  in  vogue  in  applied  linguistics.  The  
fact  is,  however,  such  creative  actions  are  every  bit  as  everyday  ‘literariness’.  
They  are  just  not  as  obvious  (which  is  one  reason  they  are  so  effective).  We  are  
constantly  using  rather  conventional  discourse  in  unconventional  ways  to  
overcome  the  constraints  imposed  by  Discourses  and  to  transform  social  
situations  and  social  relationships  in  our  workplaces,  in  our  relationships,  and  in  
our  public  lives.    

Going  Beyond  Texts  

It  should  be  obvious  by  now  that  an  approach  which  locates  ‘creativity’  
not  in  language  but  in  the  actions  that  we  use  language  to  take  and  the  broader  
social  implications  of  those  actions  cannot  operate  simply  though  the  analysis  of  
texts.  Rather  it  requires  a  multidimentional,  ethnographic  approach  which  traces  
how  people  use  texts  in  different  circumstances,  and  which  moves  freely  among  
texts,  social  actors,  situations,  societies  and  histories.  Take  for  example  the  
following  piece  of  discourse  which  started  out  as  the  slogan  for  the  Hong  Kong  
government’s  anti-­‐triad  publicity  campaign  in  1997  but  was  later  recycled  in  a  
number  of  other  campaigns  targeted  at  ‘at-­‐risk’  youth,  including  anti-­‐drug  
campaigns.    
生命冇Take  2  
 (There’s  no  ‘take  2’  in  life)  
 
A  ‘language  and  creativity’  approach  would  no  doubt  seize  on  such  a  slogan  as  an  
example  of  ‘everyday  literariness’  of  the  kind  that  is  common  in  advertising.    
Such  an  approach  would  focus  on  the  metaphor  in  the  slogan  which  compares  
life  to  a  movie  and  might  point  out  how  it  enables  the  authors  to  get  across  a  
rather  complex  message  in  a  memorable  and  economic  way.  It  might  even  
consider  the  effect  of  this  language  upon  its  target  audience  (teenagers),  and  
make  conjectures  either  about  the  cognitive  processes  readers  might  use  to  
interpret  it  or  the  kinds  of  social  relationships  it  might  construct  between  the  
author  (the  government)  and  those  to  whom  it  is  directed.    
A  sociolinguistic  approach,  on  the  other  hand,  might  see  the  slogan  as  an  
example  of  bilingual  creativity,  focusing  on  the  code  mixing  of  English  lexis  into  a  
Chinese  message,  a  common  linguistic  practice  in  Hong  Kong.  Proponents  of  this  
approach  might  also  step  back  from  the  slogan  itself  to  make  more  general  
observations  about  how  code  mixing  in  Hong  Kong  tends  to  occur  in  particular  
lexical  domains,  music  and  entertainment  being  one  of  them  (Li  1996),  and  may  
want  to  further  explore  the  use  of  the  English  phrase  ‘take  2’  in  other  contexts.  
Finally,  those  whose  interest  extends  to  education  might  want  to  note  the  irony  
of  the  government’s  use  of  ‘mixed  code’  in  its  own  educational  messages  to  
young  people  at  that  same  time  it  was  warning  school  teachers  against  such  
practices  in  official  educational  policy  papers.    
At  the  end  of  the  day,  however,  both  of  these  analyses  appear  fairly  
impoverished,  especially  if  our  goal  is  to  find  out  something  concrete  and  useful  
about  creativity  and  discourse.    
A  discourse  and  creativity  approach  like  that  outlined  above  would  take  a  
rather  different  tact.  First,  it  would  concern  itself  less  with  the  ‘literariness’  or  
inventiveness  of  the  language,  and  instead  ask  what  social  actions  this  piece  of  
discourse  were  intended  to  accomplish  and  whether  or  not  they  were  indeed  
accomplished.  It  is  not  much  use  for  an  advertising  slogan  to  be  novel  and  
memorable  if  it  does  not  have  the  desired  effect  on  the  public.  It  would  also  
consider  the  broader  orders  of  discourse  (or  ‘Discourses’)  within  which  the  
slogan  is  situated,  and  what  relationship  these  Discourse  had  with  one  another  
during  this  particular  historical  moment  in  Hong  Kong.  Finally,  it  would  ask  what  
people  actually  did  with  this  slogan  after  it  was  transmitted  to  them:  how  did  
they  appropriate  it  into  their  own  everyday  actions  and  choices,  and  what  can  be  
said  to  be  ‘creative’  about  these  acts  of  appropriation  and  adaptation?  In  other  
words,  in  order  to  really  understand  if,  why  and  how  this  piece  of  discourse  is  
‘creative’,  the  analyst  needs  to  go  beyond  just  looking  at  the  discourse  itself.    
Observations  about  metaphor  and  code  mixing,  for  example,  are  apt  to  
miss  the  point  when  it  comes  to  ‘creativity’  in  this  particular  instance.  What  
makes  the  slogan  not  just  novel  but  also  ‘fitting’  for  this  specific  time  and  place  is  
not  just  its  intertextuality,  the  appropriation  of  the  English  phrase  ‘take  2’,  but  
also  the  interdiscursivity  which  this  mixing  creates,  in  particular  the  introduction  
of  the  Discourse  of  entertainment  into  the  voice  of  the  government.  This  
particular  mixture  of  Discourses  is  especially  fitting  because  at  this  particular  
time  in  Hong  Kong  the  entertainment  industry  was  widely  seen  by  the  
government  and  the  public  as  glorifying  gang  activity  and  essentially  promoting  
it  to  young  people,  particularly  in  a  series  of  controversial  films  released  shortly  
before  this  campaign  by  director  Andrew  Wong  called  Young  and  Dangerous.  
These  films  portrayed  a  comic  book  inspired  version  of  the  gangster  hero  in  a  
style  that  particularly  appealed  to  young  people  (Vesia  2002),  and  so  particularly  
alarmed  their  parents  and  teachers.  The  slogan  seeks  to  undermine  the  
attraction  of  the  triad  societies  for  young  people  not  simply  by  using  a  clever  
metaphor,  but  by  indirectly  alluding  to  an  active  public  debate  on  the  role  of  
entertainment  in  the  increase  in  youth  crime.  Understanding  the  creative  
interdiscursivity  of  the  slogan  is  really  not  possible  without  this  historical  
information.    
At  the  same  time,  other  layers  of  interdiscursivity  are  also  present  in  the  
slogan.  There  is,  for  example,  the  fact  that  much  of  Hong  Kong’s  entertainment  
industry  was  itself,  at  least  until  the  mid  nineties  heavily  controlled  by  organized  
crime  (Dannen  1997),  as  well  as  the  fact  that  the  campaign  came  a  few  months  
before  the  return  to  Chinese  sovereignty  whose  run-­‐up  had  been  peppered  with  
rumors  of  supposed  ties  between  the  PRC  government  and  Hong  Kong’s  triad  
societies,  fuelled  by  China's  minister  for  public  security  Tao  Siju’s  1994  
statement  that  some  members  of  Hong  Kong’s  gangs  were  ‘patriotic  citizens’  and  
had  a  role  to  play  in  building  the  nation  (Vines  1998).    
When  we  look  beyond  the  linguistic  creativity  in  this  phrase,  we  come  
across  a  more  complex  network  of  discursive  (and  interdiscursive)  creativity  
that  links  this  slogan  to  history,  politics,  and  popular  culture  in  ways  that,  while  
they  might  escape  the  analyst  focusing  on  the  everyday  use  of  metaphor  would  
not  have  escaped  those  who  created  the  phrase  or  the  Hong  Kong  citizens  who  
heard  it  at  that  time.    
Beyond  focusing  on  the  web  of  interdiscursivity  implicated  by  this  bit  of  
language,  a  discourse  and  creativity  approach  would  also  want  to  consider  the  
role  of  this  phrase  in  various  social  actions,  asking  what  actions  this  ‘creative’  
piece  of  discourse  were  intended  to  be  used  for,  if  those  actions  were  actually  
successful,  and  what  other  kinds  of  actions,  perhaps  unintended,  might  it  have  
been  appropriated  in  the  service  of.    
The  answer  to  the  first  question  seems  rather  obvious:  that  the  slogan  
was  intended  to  carry  out  the  action  of  persuading  young  people  to  avoid  gang  
activity  and,  in  its  later  uses  by  the  government,  a  range  of  other  dangerous  
activities  associated  with  ‘juvenile  delinquency’  such  as  drug  use.  It  is  more  
difficult  to  assess  its  success  in  doing  this  beyond  noting  that  there  is  no  
evidence  that  youth  triad  activity  in  Hong  Kong  decreased  after  the  launch  of  this  
campaign  (in  fact,  just  the  opposite,  see  Hong  Kong  Federation  of  Youth  Groups  
1999),  and  drug  use  by  adolescents  in  Hong  Kong  actually  increased  dramatically  
after  this  slogan  began  being  circulated,  the  number  of  reported  new  drug  users  
under  the  age  of  21  nearly  doubling  from  between  the  years  1997  and  2000  
(Central  Registry  of  Drug  Abuse  2010,  Hong  Kong  Council  of  Social  Services  
2000).    
Of  course  it  would  be  unfair  to  attribute  these  facts  solely  to  the  ‘failure’  of  
this  campaign,  particularly  given  all  of  the  other  sociocultural  factors  involved.  
However,  there  is  some  evidence  that  this  slogan  may  have  had  unintended  
consequences,  and  some  of  those  consequences  might  have  been  partly  the  
result  of  its  ‘creativity’,  the  playful  ambiguity  created  through  its  intertextual  
borrowing.    
 Some  evidence  for  this  can  be  found  in  an  ethnographic  study  of  the  effect  
of  Hong  Kong  government  anti-­‐drug  media  messages  on  the  attitudes  and  
behavior  of  ‘at  risk’  young  people  at  different  stages  of  their  involvement  with  
drugs  which  I  conducted  in  the  late  nineties  not  long  after  this  slogan  began  
being  used  (Jones  1999,  2005).    
In  interviews  and  focus  groups  with  participants  in  the  study  I  found  not  
just  that  this  and  similar  slogans  did  not  go  very  far  in  persuading  young  people,  
particularly  those  already  involved  with  drugs  and  gangs,  but  that  in  fact  many  
participants  were  adept  at  ‘twisting’  such  slogans  to  justify  their  behavior.  This  
was  particularly  common  among  active  drug  users  who,  in  their  discourse,  
associated  their  drug  use  and  gang  affiliation  with  adventurousness  and  fun.  
When  asked  how  he  interpreted  this  particular  slogan,  for  example,  one  
participant  said:  ‘  You  only  live  once,  right?  So  you’ve  got  to  do  all  you  can.  That’s  
what  makes  us  different.  We're  willing  to  take  the  risk  when  other  people  aren’t.’  
Another  said,  'What  this  means  to  me  is  take  every  chance  you  can—just  do  it!’  
(Jones  1999:6).  Although  this  may  be  far  from  what  the  authors  of  the  slogan  
intended,  it  is  also  an  example  of  discursive  creativity,  the  strategic  
appropriation  of  the  voice  of  another  to  fit  ones  own  purposes,  not  much  
different  from  the  Chinese  gay  man’s  appropriation  of  the  label  ‘comrade’  which  I  
mentioned  above.    
This  slogan  was  seen  as  even  less  effective  by  those  in  the  study  who  were  
in  recovery  from  drug  abuse.  For  this  group,  the  effect  of  the  slogan  was  to  
undermine  their  recovery  by  denying  the  possibility  that  a  second  chance  was  
possible.  As  one  participant  put  it:  ‘I  recall  one  slogan  of  the  advertisement  is  
“life  has  no  take  two,  please  be  careful”.  If  this  is  true,  I’ll  do  whatever  I  want  and  
not  care  about  the  consequence.  You  won’t  stop  taking  drugs  even  if  you  know  
how  bad  the  consequences  are.  From  the  point  of  view  of  drug  users,  this  kind  of  
API  is  useless’  (Jones  1999:8).  
  Participants  in  this  group,  however,  were  also  able  to  creatively  
transform  this  slogan.  As  part  of  the  study,  I  provided  my  participants  with  video  
equipment  and  a  short  course  in  video  production  and  asked  them  to  produce  
their  own  television  commercials  about  drugs.  The  commercial  produced  by  this  
group  of  young  people  in  recovery  was  particularly  telling.  It  started  off  as  a  
series  of  scenes  depicting  drug  use,  crime,  gang  activity,  and  the  consequences  of  
these  actions  -­‐-­‐  shooting  up  in  a  toilet,  purse  snatching,  buying  and  selling  
heroin,  altercations  with  friends,  family  members,  and  the  police,  and  finally  a  
coffin.  This  was  followed  by  the  very  same  scenes  played  in  reverse,  the  coffin  
emerging  from  the  ground,  the  purse  whisked  back  into  the  arms  of  its  owner,  
the  syringe  exiting  the  arm  rather  than  entering  it,  and  then  the  slogan  
生命有Take  2  (There  is  a  take  2  in  life).  It  is  here,  I  suggest,  that  we  can  see  a  real  
example  of  discursive  creativity,  a  creativity  that  far  exceeds  in  value  the  clever  
manipulation  of  words  by  the  original  slogan’s  authors.  In  the  act  of  
appropriating  and  transforming  this  slogan  in  the  context  of  retelling  their  own  
experiences,  these  young  people  managed  to  both  contest  the  narrow  and  
simplistic  approach  embodied  in  it  and  to  open  up  discursive  space  for  their  own  
continued  recovery.  
  Of  course,  the  story  of  this  slogan  is  far  from  over.  Since  I  conducted  the  
research  I  described  above,  it  has  continued  to  be  appropriated  and  adapted  into  
multiple  contexts  for  multiple  purposes.  An  internet  search  of  the  exact  phrase  
results  in  over  10,700  hits  including  examples  of  the  phrase  being  taken  up  by  
electronics  manufacturers,  Christian  churches,  comedians,  pop-­‐singers,  school  
guidance  counselors  and  adolescent  bloggers,  each  time  twisted  into  a  different  
meaning  as  it  is  adapted  for  different  social  actions.  Bauman  (2004:  10)  speaks  of  
how  the  ‘dynamics  of  recontextualization’  that  occur  as  texts  are  continually  
reported,  rehearsed,  translated,  relayed,  quoted,  summarised,  or  parodied’  work  
to  open  up  ‘ways  to  a  recognition  of  alternative  and  shifting  frames  available’  to  
those  who  appropriate  them.  It  is  in  such  acts  of  recontextualization,  rather  than  
in  the  formal  aspects  of  language,  that  the  approach  I  am  describing  locates  
creativity.    
  This  analysis,  cursory  as  it  is,  illustrates  some  of  the  chief  methodological  
implications  of  a  discourse  and  creativity  approach:  that  it  requires  not  just  
reading  the  text,  but  reading  around  the  text  and  understanding  the  networks  of  
interdiscursivity  of  which  it  is  a  part;  that  it  also  often  requires  ethnographic  
methods  like  participant  observation,  interviews  and  other  means  of  getting  at  
the  creative  ways  texts  are  appropriated  into  different  situations  and  the  ways  
they  cycle  through  different  historical  circumstances;  and  finally,  that  it  may  
sometimes  involve  more  interventionalist  methods  like  introducing  new  
meditational  means  into  communities  and  situations  in  order  to  stimulate  
creativity.    
  This  example  also  illustrates  the  three  major  theoretical  concerns  of  a  
discourse  and  creativity  approach.  First  is  the  concern  for  interdiscursivity,  how  
hybridity  not  just  in  ‘small  d  discourse’  (e.g.  code  mixing  and  intertextuality)  but  
in  ‘big  D  Discourses’  can  open  up  possibilities  for  creative  action.  Attention  to  
interdiscusivity  allows  us  to  make  the  link  between  specific  texts  in  specific  
contexts  and  the  societies  and  cultures  in  which  they  are  produced  and  
consumed.  It  helps  us  to  uncover  how  ideology  operates  in  the  ways  we  use  
language,  and  how  by  creating  new  interdiscursive  links,  speakers  and  writers  
can  sometimes  reveal  the  cracks  in  the  operation  of  ideology.  Finally,  it  reminds  
us  that  creativity  involves  not  just  the  creation  of  novel  texts  and  intertexts,  but  
of  novel  interdiscourses  and  thus  new  ways  of  speaking,  thinking  and  being.  
  Second  is  the  notion  of  strategic  action,  the  idea  that  through  
appropriating  and  mixing  texts  and  discourses  in  creative  ways,  speakers  and  
writers  are  sometimes  able  to  open  up  space  for  actions  and  identities  that  were  
not  previously  possible.  Creativity  is  to  a  large  extent  a  matter  of  finding  our  way  
around  constraints  or  limitations  placed  on  us  by  the  Discourses  within  which  
we  operate.  As  Fairclough  (1992:91)  puts  it:  ‘subjects  are  ideologically  
positioned,  but  they  are  also  capable  of  acting  creatively  to  make  their  own  
connections  between  the  diverse  practices  and  ideologies  to  which  they  are  
exposed,  and  to  restructure  positioning  practices  and  structures.’    
  Finally,  and  most  importantly,  a  discourse  and  creativity  approach  is  
concerned  with  how,  though  producing  new  meanings,  new  practices,  and  new  
ways  of  organizing  their  relationships  through  discourse,  people  can  function  as  
agents  for  social  and  cultural  change.  This  concern  need  not  be  simply  a  matter  
of  observing  and  describing  the  world  changing  actions  of  others,  but  might  also  
involve  considering  how,  though  our  actions  as  researchers  we  can  work  
together  with  our  participants  to  create  positive  change  by  inventing  alternative  
discourses/Discourses  that  generate  the  possibility  of  new  ways  of  acting  and  
interacting.    
Conclusion:  Discourse  and  Creativity  in  World  Englishes  
  In  some  ways  I  have  framed  this  approach  to  creativity  which  privileges  
discourse  (with  both  a  small  and  a  big  D)  over  language  as  something  new.  An  
inspection  of  the  pages  of  World  Englishes  over  the  past  thirty  years,  however,  
reveals  many  examples  of  work  that  explores  the  ways  people  strategically  
marshal  ‘small  d  discourse’  in  specific  sociocultural  contexts  to  subvert  or  
overcome  the  constraints  placed  on  them  by  ‘big  D  Discourses’.  One  could  hardly  
find,  for  example,  a  better  treatment  of  creative  interdiscursivity  than  Bhatia’s  
(2008)  analysis  of  how  the  financial  reports  of  multinational  corporations  mix  
the  Discourses  of  economics,  accounting,  law  and  public  relations,  strategically  in  
ways  that  ‘discourage  unintended  interpretation  of  corporate  objectives’  (325).  
Another  notable  example  is  Martin’s  (1997)  account  of  how  French  advertisers  
creatively  manipulate  copyright,  multimodal  glossing,  and  other  techniques  in  
order  to  ingeniously  circumvent  French  language  laws  that  prohibit  the  use  of  
English.  Still  another  is  Moriel’s  (1998)  analysis  of  how  the  transgendered  Israeli  
pop  singer  Dana  International  sings  in  an  idiosyncratic  gender-­‐free  pastiche  of  
English,  French,  Arabic  and  Hebrew,  thus  non-­‐confrontationally  opening  up  
space  for  her  unconventional  performances  of  sexuality  in  the  conservative  
social  context  of  the  Middle  East.    
One  of  the  best  representations  of  an  approach  focusing  on  strategic  
creativity  in  interaction  is  the  work  of  Chew  on  university  admissions  interviews  
in  Singapore.  While  in  her  1997  article  in  World  Englishes  she  focuses  mainly  on  
how  powerful  participants  exert  ‘generic  power’  over  the  interaction,  in  her  
earlier  work  (1995)  she  focuses  more  on  the  strategies  interviewees  use  to  
subvert  generic  constraints,  overcome  challenges  from  interviewers,  and  
reframe  questions  to  their  own  advantage,  a  phenomenon  which  she  refers  to  as  
‘aikido  politics’.    
    Aside  from  these  and  the  many  other  examples  of  studies  that  explore  
language  as  it  is  employed  to  take  strategic  action,  it  could  be  argued  that  the  
entire  journal  represents  an  orientation  towards  discourse  and  creativity.  World  
Englishes  is  itself  a  creative  interdiscourse,  a  nexus  of  applied  linguistics,  
sociolinguistics,  critical  linguistics,  lexicography,  literature  and  literary  criticism,  
education,  commerce  and  the  voices  of  everyday  life  in  a  globalized  world  which  
has  resulted  in  a  ‘paradigm  shift’  (Bolton  2005)  not  just  in  research  and  teaching  
in  English  studies,  but  also  in  educational  practice,  language  policy,  literature  
and  the  arts,  journalism  and  politics.  Its  ultimate  goal  is  not  as  much  to  discover  
or  debate  about  new  linguistic  forms  as  to  break  down  social  and  intellectual  
dichotomies  (us  and  them,  native  speaker  and  non-­‐native  speaker,  teacher  and  
learner,  developed  world  and  developing  world),  to  alter  relationships  of  power  
between  nations  and  between  individuals  (Kachru  1986b),  to  undermine  the  
institutionalized  stigmatization  of  local  language  users,  and  to  make  available  to  
English  users  all  over  the  world  the  communicative  resources  to  grapple  
creatively  with  the  complex  political,  social,  cultural,  religious,  environmental  
and  economic  issues  with  which  we  are  faced.    
 
 
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