Speech Play and Verbal Art

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University of Texas Press, Oct 1, 2002 - Social Science - 186 pages

Puns, jokes, proverbs, riddles, play languages, verbal dueling, parallelism, metaphor, grammatical stretching and manipulation in poetry and song— people around the world enjoy these forms of speech play and verbal artistry which form an intrinsic part of the fabric of their lives. Verbal playfulness is not a frivolous pursuit. Often indicative of people's deepest values and worldview, speech play is a significant site of intersection among language, culture, society, and individual expression.

In this book, Joel Sherzer examines many kinds of speech play from places as diverse as the United States, France, Italy, Bali, and Latin America to offer the first full-scale study of speech play and verbal art. He brings together various speech-play forms and processes and shows what they have in common and how they overlap. He also demonstrates that speech play explores and indeed flirts with the boundaries of the socially, culturally, and linguistically possible and appropriate, thus making it relevant for anthropological and linguistic theory and practice, as well as for folklore and literary criticism.

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Contents

Introduction
1
The Grammar of Play and the Play of Grammar
12
Forms of Speech Play in Context
26
From Speech Play to Verbal Art
70
Contexts for Speech Play
123
Notes
157
References
167
Credits
179
Index
181
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About the author (2002)

Joel Sherzer is professor of Anthropology and Linguistics at the University of Texas at Austin. He has been carrying out research among the Kuna Indians since 1970. He has written Verbal Art in San Blas: Kuna culture through its discourse, as well as numerous articles dealing with Kuna language, culture, society, and literature.

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