Language Creativity: A Semiotic Perspective frames the concept of creativity within a linguistic dimension by developing a theoretical reflection with constant references to contact languages and to the educational plan. Through the concept of creativity and linguistic rule, Simone Casini highlights how knowing and using a language does not mean using the rules of its grammar, or making well-made phrases that guarantee understanding and communication. Learning and using a language are social activities, constantly hovering between the risks of misunderstanding and the attempt to create upon the field an understanding between users: a meaning that is possible (but not guaranteed) provided that the users themselves are willing to move within creativity to try to identify the most appropriate semiotic roads to convey and create meaning. In the perspective Casini proposes, semiotic creativity abandons the condition of the linguistic property inter pares and rises to the rank of theoretical and first principle by which languages define themselves, function and interact in the negotiation of meaning in relation to the social uses. This book considers creativity as a premise for the rule changing of boundaries of meaning and creation of language and meaning. Casini progresses from the historical-critical concept of creativity and discusses the most philosophical and linguistic theories in the North American and European context.

Foreword by: Marcel Danesi
Afterword by: Frank Nuessel