Joel Sherzer, Speech play and verbal art. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2002. 198 pp. Hb $45.00, Pb $19.95.

Extract

During the past 25 years, anthropologists, linguists, and other social scientists have taken a keen interest in delineating the nature (form and function) of play, not only among humans but also among other higher primates. The establishment of the Society for the Study of Play in the1970s, the annual meetings of its members, and the resulting publications clearly manifest this interest. Sherzer's book on speech play and verbal art is a significant addition to the extant literature on the subject. His aim is to delineate “the significance of verbal play in the intersection of language, culture, and society in relation to verbal art” (p. 1). He views speech play as an “implicit and explicit meta-commentary on everyday life and artistic performance” (1).