Speech Play

Academic Study

The study of speech play is relevant to various disciplines and scholarly concerns. For linguists, speech play provides insight into linguistic structure by revealing the ways in which various elements of language can be manipulated in different contexts. Speech play is relevant to both linguistic theory and linguistic methodology. It provides insight into the nature of language in general, as play is an important component of language structure and language use; play is inherent in grammar and grammar provides potential for play actualized in discourse. The study of speech play also reveals information about particular languages, indicating what parts are available for play, how, and why. Methodologically, speech play provides a tool for the investigation of both language structure and language use. From the perspective of sociolinguistics, because speech play often emerges from language, styles, and varieties in contact, its study provides insights into the use and the attitudes toward the sociolinguistic repertoire of a community.

For anthropologists, speech play can be seen as being at the heart of intersections among language, culture, and society—testing, experimenting with, and sometimes creating the boundaries of appropriate behavior. While there is always some play for play’s sake, play often involves culture exploring and working out both its essence and the limits of its possibilities. It can be a cultural theme, and as such is at the heart of the intersection of language, culture, thought, and individual expression. Play occurs as people—not just children—work out, experiment, exercise, and define the properties of their languages, cultures, and societies, and especially the intersections and relations among them. In this view, language and culture and their interaction and intersection are viewed as dynamic, not static, and in flux, not fixed. Methodologically, the study of people’s speech play gives researchers a tool for analyzing how natives express and live their own language and culture. For literary critics, attention to speech play focuses on the texture of language use and helps define the nature of verbal art.

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