Question
Holmes and de Bres analyse creative language in multicultural workplace settings. In the light of your study of this reading and other relevant material from E302, to what extent do you agree that linguistic creativity may create and strengthen social bonds?

(Holmes, J. and de Bres, J. (2016) Reading B: Ethnicity and humour in the workplace, in Demjn, Z. and Seargeant, P. (eds) Creativity in language: from everyday style to verbal art, Milton Keynes, The Open University, pp. 5465.)

Guidance notes
In TMA 01, you considered linguistic and stylistic features of a poem. In this assignment, you will be exploring how creativity may create or enhance social relationships. You will need to consider Holmes and de Bres claim that humour and creativity reinforce social bonds, and the extent to which you find this convincing, bringing in other material you have studied on E302 so far.

To enhance your engagement with this TMA, it is a good idea to make critical notes. A specific activity, Developing critical reading, is available on the module website to help you with this. There is plenty of relevant material in the first block of E302.

You will need to make some comparative and contrastive links with relevant concepts and positions from other theorists encountered in Block 1. For example, what evidence do Holmes and de Bres use to support their claims about creativity, and how convincing do you find these?

Much of the material in the first block of E302 is potentially relevant, depending on where you see the commonalities and contrasts with Holmes and de Bres work. It is worth looking in some detail at the discussion of Elena Seminos work in Unit 8, as this is an example of how you might evaluate ideas and claims. Many of the questions in the activities are also pertinent to an evaluation of Holmes and de Bres.