Talk, time, and creativity: Developing ideas and identities during a start-up weekend

• Published in: Language & communication Vol. 60; pp. 64 - 79
• Main Author: Hiss, Florian
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford Elsevier Ltd 01.05.2018; Pergamon Press Inc; Elsevier
• Subjects: Chronotope; Collaboration; Communication; Creativity; Flow of time; Humaniora: 000; Humanities: 000; Identity formation; Interaction; Language usage; Linguistics: 010; Semiotics; Small business; Språkvitenskapelige fag: 010; Start-up; Temporal indexes; VDP; Start-up; Temporal indexes; Flow of time; Chronotope; Interaction; Creativity
• ISSN: 0271-5309; 1873-3395; 1873-3395
• DOI: 10.1016/j.langcom.2018.01.007

This study explores the temporal dynamics of language use, collaboration, and creativity in the case of a start-up weekend. The organisation of interaction in time and the use of temporal indexes and semiotic resources vary over time, not simply because of changing contextual conditions, but rather because of dynamic developments in the flow of time. Interacting in time, the participants appropriate temporal frames and contextualise their actions in and across time. The start-up weekend as a chronotopic frame has a semiotic impact on all local actions. Simultaneously, small, individual actions emerging in the flow of time have a collective impact, which leads to unpredictable, creative developments. The relations between these perspectives are mutually dynamic. •Time is relevant as permanent flow and as contextual frame.•Creative outcomes emerge in the dynamics between these two.•A linear chain of causal-conditional trajectories does not explain creativity.•Small, individual actions in the flow of time can have a collective impact.•Discursive events can be connected inter- and intradiscursively at the same time.