ABSTRACT
Although creativity has been accused of being an elusive term with a fuzzy boundary, a common core can be located amidst its messiness. Despite the chaos and elusiveness of the term ‘creativity’, there is a possibility and hope for inclusiveness. This chapter looks inside the semiotic make-up of a popular, core phrase which has been widely used to define creativity as ‘an ability to produce new, valuable ideas’ (a core meaning of creativity embedded in various approaches and perspectives to creativity). The chapter demonstrates how each word in that phrase has a large semantic footprint, paradoxically making creativity both an elusive and an inclusive term. It shows how relatively simple words can be expanded to accommodate various meanings and interpretations of creativity proposed in the literature.
