Creativity in language: secret codes, special styles and linguistic taboo

There are many ways in which one can look at language. In the linguistics of the past hundred years or so, the study of languages has largely been informed by ideologies and concepts that result out of a very specific history and process of disciplining. Language, viewed through the particular looking glass of linguistics tends to turn into structure, governed by rules; a repertoire of forms which are used in specific contexts (known by skilled speakers) and which are largely transparent in sound and meaning. Noisy environment and opaque babble are usually not what linguists are trained to look at as 'language', and neither have we been trained to consider the deviant in language - a secret code, a special register - as that what is most powerful, most relevant and most important in language. Special styles, in other words, and noisy communication are largely considered marginal fields of interest, while language-as-standard, and 'every-day communicative practices' are usually taken as the adequate basis for most descriptive, typological and documentary work. Yet, epistemological discourse on language and communication outside this paradigm often tends to reveal that speakers see precisely the special styles, secret codes and spiritually heightened forms of language as the ones that deserve particular attention and expertise