MULTIFUNCTIONALITY OF LINGUISTIC CREATIVITY IN SPEECH-THINKING ACTIVITY
This article studies linguistic creativity from a broader research perspective and presents the phenomenon under study as the essential characteristic feature of speech - thinking activity. The author continues the tradition of analyzing the factors of creativity laid down by T. A. Gridina, the founder of “linguistics of creativity” as a special branch of research. The article focuses on the scientific significance of T. A. Gridina’s associative theory of linguistic creativity. Based on the associative theory of linguistic creativity and cognitive - linguistic theories of meaning construction, the author of the article reveals such characteristics of speech thinking as (1) flexibility in resolving semantic lacunarity inherent in the natural language system; (2) productivity and novelty of the combination of linguistic knowledge elements in a variety of speech conditions; (3) flexibility in operating with verbal associations in meaning construction and the emergent character of semantic inference in the acts of speech production and speech perception.