ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines theories of verbal play, to notions of literary language and to sociopsychological formulations, but the emphasis is on creativity in a range of social and cultural practices, including workplace discourse involving professional and client relations. It describes a range of research paradigms for the study of creativity, beginning with a review of work in the discipline of psychology. The chapter discusses main issues and questions which are raised by the data in the Cambridge and Nottingham Corpus of Discourse in English (CANCODE) corpus. It also considers the main corpus of spoken data on which many of the examples for the book are based. The chapter further looks at the kinds of blends which occur in many contemporary discoursal forms such as email, chat-lines and media 'performances'. Finally, it also presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters in this book.
