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New Zealand Discourse Conference 2015
Seriously creative writing: Tracing creativity in professional texts
Sky MarsenUniversity of Southern California
New Zealand Discourse Conference 2015
Research questions
• How can we define creativity for professional writing?
• What are the markers of creativity in professional texts?
• What is the role of contextual factors in the perception of creativity? Is creativity in the text or do we attribute it to the text as readers?
New Zealand Discourse Conference 2015
Method
• Explore definitions and approaches to creativity in literary theory and psychology/neuropsychology
• Construct a heuristic definition of creativity for written texts
• Analyze 40 texts from different professional texts, taken from business, academic, and journalistic genres.
New Zealand Discourse Conference 2015
Creativity
Creativity in written discourse can be traced when a text includes juxtapositions or contrasts between two different contexts or patterns thereby producing new or unusual forms and/or when it challenges genre conventions.- Novelty in relation to convention- Bisociation (Koestler)
New Zealand Discourse Conference 2015
Categories of creative techniques
• Juxtaposition of different elements• Narrativization • Semantic deviations• Syntactic deviations
New Zealand Discourse Conference 2015
Metaphor and analogy as clarification
But erosion and blow-by are not what the design expected. They are warnings that something is wrong. The equipment is not operating as expected, and therefore there is a danger that it can operate with even wider deviations in this unexpected and not thoroughly understood way. The fact that this danger did not lead to a catastrophe before is no guarantee that it will not the next time, unless it is completely understood. When playing Russian roulette the fact that the first shot got off safely is little comfort for the next (Feynman, Challenger Report)
New Zealand Discourse Conference 2015
Metaphor and analogy as dramatization
The crisis reached seismic proportions in September with the failure of Lehman Brothers and the impending collapse of the insurance giant American International Group (AIG). Panic fanned by a lack of transparency of the balance sheets of major financial institutions, coupled with a tangle of interconnections among institutions perceived to be “too big to fail,” caused the credit markets to seize up. Trading ground to a halt. The stock market plummeted. The economy plunged into a deep recession (FCIC report).
New Zealand Discourse Conference 2015
Narrativization
• Ed Parker, the former head of Ameriquest’s Mortgage Fraud Investigations Department, […]detected fraud at the company within one month of starting his job there in January 2003, but senior management did nothing with the reports he sent. He heard that other departments were complaining he “looked too much” into the loans. In November 2005, he was downgraded from “manager” to “supervisor,” and was laid off in May 2006 (FCIC report).
New Zealand Discourse Conference 2015
Semantic deviation: neologisms
• Biosociality (Rabinow)• Niche (Grinnell) • Rhizome (Deleuze) • Dromology (Virilio) • Spin (Rosenthal)• Public diplomacy (Gullion) • Uncanny valley (Mori)
New Zealand Discourse Conference 2015
Syntactic deviation
Should we pay consultants with stock options? Answer you’re looking for: “No, stock options are for long-term employees, not short-term consultants. If you can’t afford consultants, do the work yourself.” (Kawasaki, Art of the Start 2.0).
