Book review

Idiomatic Creativity

Langlotz, Andreas. 2006. Idiomatic Creativity: A Cognitive Linguistic Model of Idiom-Representations and Idiom-Variation in English. Amsterdam and Phildelphia: John Benjamins

Reviewed by Alicia Thuc Anh Vo, School of English Studies, University of Nottingham

With the revived interest in linguistic creativity over the past fifty years or so, virtually all aspects of the phenomenon are progressively being addressed. Idiomatic creativity is a relative latecomer that did not receive much attention until quite recently. Following Sinclair's (1991), Moon's (1998) and Carter's (2004) corpus-based studies of the variability of idiomatic usage in discourse, Langlotz's (2006) contribution deserves credit for being one of the first substantial and systematic ventures into this area that advances a combined model from both cognitive and linguistic perspectives.

The main achievement of the book under review is that instead of providing a descriptive account of idiomatic creativity, the author aims to explain the relationship between idioms, idiom variation and the architecture of the human cognitive capacity, with the ultimate goal of developing a coherent cognitive-linguistic model of the mental representation of idiomatic creativity.

The theoretical prerequisites of the study, including issues such as the non-compositionality/compositionality debates, Langacker's Cognitive Grammar, Lakoff's Cognitive Semantics, and Relevance Theory, are carefully and extensively presented in Chapters 2 and 3. Langlotz observes that a large number of idioms are decomposable, i.e. they have internal semantic structures which make them semantically analysable and motivated (cf. Nunberg 1978, Nunberg et al. 1994). This view contrasts with a treatment of idioms as opaque and semantically non-composable lexical units. The theory that the motivation of idioms is facilitated by conceptual metaphors (Lakoff 1987), has been empirically substantiated by various psycholinguistic experiments, notably by Gibbs (1990, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995).

From that departure point, in Chapter 4, Langlotz carefully explains his model of idiom motivation by means of idiomatic activation-sets, the term used by Langlotz to refer to "the mental network that can be potentially activated when an idiom is used" (Langlotz 2006: 95). Each idiomatic activation-set is made up of various symbolic and semantic substructures associated with the idiom, the coordination and activation of which triggers the behaviour of the idiom. Of course, not all idioms require activation of component structures on every occasion of use, nor are they activated at the same level of intensity. Three issues concerning the activation-set of an idiom, therefore, need to be addressed:

1. identification of the immanent symbolic and semantic substructures that form the activation-set of each idiom
2. characteristic connections between these substructures, and whether or not these connections are accessible to speakerscheck
3. various ways in which these substructures can be activated in an actual usage-event (in most cases, conceptual metaphors provide the activation)

In Chapter 5, the activation-set model is then empirically tested. A collection of idioms is analyzed with the aims of settling the debate on idiom compositionality and clarifying the role of conceptual metaphor for idiom motivation. The data for the analysis is extracted from the Collins Cobuild Dictionary of Idioms (CCDI). The study includes approximately 600 idioms, which belong to 3 word-fields, including SUCCESS, PROGRESS, and FAILURE (SPF). While these idioms are quite different on the conceptual level, they share the same underlying metaphorical models. The conclusion is that idioms are composable and can be activated via conceptual metaphors, thus reinforcing earlier findings in the field.

Before testing the model against idiom variation in the data, Langlotz recapitulates the theoretical notion of idiomatic creativity in Chapter 6. Whether an idiomatic expression is used creatively in specific contexts depends on the degree to which the idiom's intrinsic creativity is open to the language user as well as the degree to which the user can manipulate the original idiom to suit his or her purpose. Idiom variations thus reflect an idiomatic form of Carter's (2004) pattern-reforming. The hypothesis is that the size of an idiom's activation-set will correlate with its variation potential. Alternative idiom-variation principles are also proposed by Langlotz to complement the activation-set model. These principles can be employed to create different types of variation, affording different ways to manipulate an idiomatic activation-set in the process of coding. Global constraints on the variation potential of idioms are also outlined in detail.

Extensive analyses are carried out on a larger body of data in Chapter 7 in order to test the validity of the model formulated above. The analysis is qualitative rather than quantitative, although the number of examples being analyzed is quite large. Using the BNC World Edition corpus of more than 100 million words, the author conducted approximately 800 searches which generated 120 idiom-usage tokens for each of the following structures: V + NP, V + NP + PP, V + NP to-V and P + NP for analysis purposes. Several tools were used to help with the process of extracting valuable usage tokens, including SARA-32 version 0.98, Query Builder, and the Lancaster Lemma-scheme. The results suggest that activation-sets of idioms, rather than autonomous syntactic rules, are responsible for idiomatic variation.

Additionally, Langlotz is careful to emphasize that "while an idiom may be motivated for speaker A, it is potentially opaque for speaker B" (Langlotz 2006: 127). As a result, the model of idiom activation set should be viewed as reflecting a dynamic cognitive structure with degrees of complexity and node-activation that are different from idiom to idiom, from speaker to speaker and from speech context to speech context.

On balance, the book is comprehensive and detailed, gathering information and advances in the field from different directions and authors. More importantly, with a strong theoretical basis and support in the form of empirical evidence, Langlotz's model and theory is a valuable contribution to the field, although further analyses in the future may be able to consolidate or complement these findings. Langlotz dedicates the last part of his book, Chapter 8, to extensive suggestions for future research, reflecting a deep understanding of his own project's results and methodology in relation to its own goals as well as to the requirements and advances in the field. Interested researchers stand to benefit from these suggestions if they want to advance further into this area.

References

Carter, Ronald. 2004. Language and Creativity: The Art of Common Talk. London: Routledge.

Gibbs, Ray W. 1990. Psycholinguistic studies on the conceptual basis of idiomaticity. Cognitive Linguistics 1, 417- 451.

Gibbs, Ray W. 1992. What do idioms really mean. Journal of Memory and Language 31, 485-506.

Gibbs, Ray W. 1993. Why idioms are not dead metaphors. In C. Cacciari & P. Tabossi Eds. Idioms: Processing, Structure, and Interpretation pp. 57- 77. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Gibbs, Ray W. 1994. The Poetics of Mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Gibbs, Ray W. 1995. Idiomaticity and human cognition. In M. Everaert, E. van der Linden, A. Schenk & R. Schreuder Eds. Idioms: Structural and Psychological Perspectives pp. 97- 116. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Langacker, Ronald W. 1987. Foundations of Cognitive Grammar. / Volume I: Theoretical Prerequisites. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Lakoff, George. 1987. Women, Fire, and Dangerous things: What Categories Reveal about the Mind. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Moon, Rosamund. 1998. Fixed Expressions and Idioms in English: A corpus-based Approach. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Nunberg, Geoffrey. 1978. The Pragmatics of Reference. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Linguistics.

Nunberg, Geoffrey, Ivan A. Sag and, Thomas Wasow. 1994. Idioms. Language 70, 3, 491- 538.

Sinclair, John. 1991. Corpus, Concordance, Collocation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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