Exploding The Creativity Myth: The Computational Foundations of Linguistic Creativity

Description

Karl Lagerfeld's description of his sunglasses as a 'Burqa for my eyes' drew a huge amount of commentary. But what was going on within that phrase? Why was it deemed original and contentious and what can it tell us about creativity? Taking us through cliche, metaphor, analogy, neologism and surrealism, amongst other creative tropes, Tony Veale offers a comprehensive guide to the actual processes behind linguistic creativity. By grounding his approachable examples in easy to replicate methods, the book is perfect as a resource for individual creative exploration. Anyone with an open mind and a computer and a desire to learn about how we creatively say things with words will love this book.Written by an expert in natural language generation, this deceptively simple book offers powerful tools for reconceptualising creativity.

Tony Veale lectures in Computer Science atmUniversity College Dublin, Ireland, and is a visiting professor in the Web Science and Technology division of KAIST, the Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, South Korea.

Exploding the Creativity Myth is an exceptionally lively, readable, and empirically well-founded study of the processes of human linguistic and conceptual creativity. Veale has grasped the essentially analogical nature of creative thought, and shows us how it works and why it is necessary for successful communication. I have rarely enjoyed reading an academic book so much. -- Professor Patrick Hanks, Bristol Centre for Linguistics, University of the West of England, UK; and Research Institute of Information and Language Processing, University of Wolverhampton, UK We have long lacked a clear guide to how we use language creatively. Computer scientist Tony Veale steps into this gap with admirable brio, presenting his insights in creative patterning with all the humour and panache of a stand-up comedian. -- Charles Forceville, Media Studies, Universiteit van Amsterdam, The Netherlands