QUESTION5-Describe the higher levels of linguistic analysis.
ANS-'Linguistic analysis: From data to theory' discusses Generativism with numerous
examples from various languages spoken all over the world. Its target audience
are advanced university students, researchers and scholars, which is reflected
in the rather technical nature of the linguistic phenomena discussed and the
vocabulary used to describe them. In order to make the text more accessible,however, the two authors opt for a 'semi-guided presentation', combining the description of each phenomenon with a discussion of relevant literature and
linguistic data, as well as structural considerations and general comments. This approach, the authors explain, ensures that language comparisons are clear,
especially for students. The explicit objective of the book is to show that, despite superficial
differences, individual grammars are based on a limited number of universal
principles that determine the morphological, syntactic, phonological, semantic and pragmatic properties of utterances. The two authors explain that this is the reason why they adopt an integrated 'semi-guided' approach, as linguistic data are not considered to belong exclusively to a certain domain, but to share deep meanings and relationships.
QUESTION6-Explain the different aspects of creativity.
ANS-Today I want to talk about the components of creativity or the underlying factors of the creative process. One way to approach the problem is by looking at how we measure or evaluate a creative product.
Creativity is sometimes broken up into divergent thinking and convergent thinking; though I argue that essentially same processes are involved in both.
Divergent thinking is measured using Torrance test of creative thinking (TTCT). TTCT consists of both verbal and figural parts. Divergent thinking is also measured by Guilford's Alternate uses task in which one has to come up with as many uses as possible for a common household items (like brick).
These creativity test results are scored keeping in mind a number of different creativity criteria. The most common (common to all of the above) criteria are:
1. Flexibility: This captures the ability to cross boundaries and make remote associations. This is measured by number of different categories of ideas generated.
2. Originality: This measures how statistically different or novel the ideas are compared to a comparison group. This is measured as number of novel ideas generated.
3. Fluency: This captures the ability to come up with many diverse ideas quickly. This is measured by the total number of ideas generated.
4. Elaboration: This measures the amount of detail associated with the idea. Elaboration has more to do with focussing on each solution/idea and developing it further.
Convergent thinking is measured by tests like remote associations test or insight problems. These problems are solved when you apply one of the methods below:
1. Make unique association between parts of the problem. This looks again similar to flexibility or how fluid is your categorisation schema enabling you to think out of the box and not be limited by typical categories or associations.
2. Take a novel approach (and not the typical approach) to problem solving. To me, this again looks similar to originality.
3. See problem from a different perspective. To me this looks like how quickly you can adopt multiple perspectives – the speed with which you can take alternate perspectives and is similar to fluency.
Creativity is also defined as coming up with something that is both novel and useful. At which point I am reminded of a quote by Oscar Wilde: "We can forgive man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely.
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