The cognitive motivation and purposes of playful blending in English
The motivation of playful blending is circumscribed by the combination of source words with a recognized linguistic similarity (either semantic or morphological), or an oxymoronic effect. Interlocutors may then remotivate the consonant clusters of these forms, if they associate semantic features to...
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| Language: | English |
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Cercle linguistique du Centre et de l'Ouest - CerLICO
2020-01-01
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| Series: | Corela |
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| Online Access: | https://journals.openedition.org/corela/9518 |
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| author | Boris Lefilliâtre |
| author_facet | Boris Lefilliâtre |
| author_sort | Boris Lefilliâtre |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | The motivation of playful blending is circumscribed by the combination of source words with a recognized linguistic similarity (either semantic or morphological), or an oxymoronic effect. Interlocutors may then remotivate the consonant clusters of these forms, if they associate semantic features to them so as to coin other blends.The use of playful blending is aimed at reinforcing cognitive salience (a heightened attention is needed to read the output form). The output form therefore stands out from its environing text of monomorphemic lexemes, derivatives and unclipped compounds. It changes the way one focuses on a referent, either by emphasizing a lexeme which is given high attention, or minimizing its impact on the audience who has to reconstitute the possibly unpleasant source words mentally. This main approach unveils a tree of possible purposes (illustrated with representative samples of data), among which are humour, commercial attractiveness, witticisms to defend an idea, literary aestheticism, euphemism, dysphemism, or idiosyncrasy to be creative or express one’s individuality.Coreferential forms inside and outside playful blending are examined in corpus-based tools, which demonstrates that purpose is utterance-based (i.e. purely pragmatic). Utterances of the same playfully blended forms are analysed in various situations, which proves that while motivation is usage-based and situated on the semantic-pragmatic interface. However, pragmatics sometimes has to take over semantics’ limits to shed light on the motivation of a blend, since the form may remain ambiguous. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-ee0f08b0a5bb4e40bb3a869b85c60114 |
| institution | OA Journals |
| issn | 1638-573X |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2020-01-01 |
| publisher | Cercle linguistique du Centre et de l'Ouest - CerLICO |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Corela |
| spelling | doaj-art-ee0f08b0a5bb4e40bb3a869b85c601142025-08-20T02:20:31ZengCercle linguistique du Centre et de l'Ouest - CerLICOCorela1638-573X2020-01-0117210.4000/corela.9518The cognitive motivation and purposes of playful blending in EnglishBoris LefilliâtreThe motivation of playful blending is circumscribed by the combination of source words with a recognized linguistic similarity (either semantic or morphological), or an oxymoronic effect. Interlocutors may then remotivate the consonant clusters of these forms, if they associate semantic features to them so as to coin other blends.The use of playful blending is aimed at reinforcing cognitive salience (a heightened attention is needed to read the output form). The output form therefore stands out from its environing text of monomorphemic lexemes, derivatives and unclipped compounds. It changes the way one focuses on a referent, either by emphasizing a lexeme which is given high attention, or minimizing its impact on the audience who has to reconstitute the possibly unpleasant source words mentally. This main approach unveils a tree of possible purposes (illustrated with representative samples of data), among which are humour, commercial attractiveness, witticisms to defend an idea, literary aestheticism, euphemism, dysphemism, or idiosyncrasy to be creative or express one’s individuality.Coreferential forms inside and outside playful blending are examined in corpus-based tools, which demonstrates that purpose is utterance-based (i.e. purely pragmatic). Utterances of the same playfully blended forms are analysed in various situations, which proves that while motivation is usage-based and situated on the semantic-pragmatic interface. However, pragmatics sometimes has to take over semantics’ limits to shed light on the motivation of a blend, since the form may remain ambiguous.https://journals.openedition.org/corela/9518Blendingplayful blendingword playmotivationpurposecognitive salience |
| spellingShingle | Boris Lefilliâtre The cognitive motivation and purposes of playful blending in English Corela Blending playful blending word play motivation purpose cognitive salience |
| title | The cognitive motivation and purposes of playful blending in English |
| title_full | The cognitive motivation and purposes of playful blending in English |
| title_fullStr | The cognitive motivation and purposes of playful blending in English |
| title_full_unstemmed | The cognitive motivation and purposes of playful blending in English |
| title_short | The cognitive motivation and purposes of playful blending in English |
| title_sort | cognitive motivation and purposes of playful blending in english |
| topic | Blending playful blending word play motivation purpose cognitive salience |
| url | https://journals.openedition.org/corela/9518 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT borislefilliatre thecognitivemotivationandpurposesofplayfulblendinginenglish AT borislefilliatre cognitivemotivationandpurposesofplayfulblendinginenglish |