ABSTRACT
This chapter explores that creativity is best understood by means of clines and with reference to social contexts. It focuses on the semantic history of core words such as literate and literary and the particular values they carry concerning the central social and cultural significance of written language and creativity in writing. In terms of written language, creative uses are most markedly associated with literary texts. The chapter begins with the more formalist inherency definitions as they are both historically antecedent and can be more easily described. Inherency definitions are predicated on a division between 'poetic' and 'practical' language. The chapter examines a range of linguistic approaches to the study of creativity in the twentieth century. Most descriptions of linguistic deviation and of self-referential uses of language are exemplified by individual words and phrases. Cook attempts to explain the effects of such uses of language in terms of larger units of discourse.
