Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett 
Speech Play [PDF ebook] 
Research and Resources for the Study of Linguistic Creativity

From riddles to proverbs, from jingles to jokes, from mnemonics to pig Latin to dueling with words, speech play is central to social life in all of its forms. These essays describe a variety of speech play genres, formulate the ‚rules‘ for play with language, and discuss the relevance of speech play to current issues in linguistic theory, cognitive development, and the ethnography of speaking.