Blurb:

This article explores the creative aspects of written discourse. It argues that all written texts, regardless of genre, contain creative elements to varying degrees, largely because of the representational aspects of written language. The article proposes an approach that places creative elements of texts on a continuum of low to high creativity, and it discusses the stylistic factors that underpin this continuum. By analyzing selected examples from a database of texts, the article explains some pertinent linguistic and non-linguistic approaches to creativity, and it leads to a typology of semantic, syntactic and textual techniques through which creativity can be studied.