A speech error, commonly referred to as a slip of the tongue (Latin: , or occasionally self-demonstratingly, ) or misspeaking, is a deviation (conscious or unconscious) from the apparently intended form of an utterance.Bussmann, Hadumod. Routledge dictionary of language and linguistics. Routledge: London 1996, 449. They can be subdivided into spontaneously and inadvertently produced speech errors and intentionally produced word-plays or puns. Another distinction can be drawn between production and comprehension errors. Errors in speech production and perception are also called performance errors. Some examples of speech error include sound exchange or sound anticipation errors. In sound exchange errors, the order of two individual morphemes is reversed, while in sound anticipation errors a sound from a later syllable replaces one from an earlier syllable. Slips of the tongue are a normal and common occurrence. One study shows that most people can make up to as much as 22 slips of the tongue per day.
Speech errors are common among children, who have yet to refine their speech, and can frequently continue into adulthood. When errors continue past the age of 9 they are referred to as "residual speech errors" or RSEs. They sometimes lead to embarrassment and betrayal of the speaker's regional or ethnic origins. However, it is also common for them to enter the popular culture as a kind of linguistic "flavoring". Speech errors may be used intentionally for humorous effect, as with spoonerisms.
Within the field of psycholinguistics, speech errors fall under the category of language production. Types of speech errors include: exchange errors, perseveration, anticipation, shift, substitution, blends, additions, and deletions. The study of speech errors has contributed to the establishment/refinement of models of speech production since Victoria Fromkin's pioneering work on this topic.
Psycholinguistic explanations
Speech errors are made on an occasional basis by all speakers. They occur more often when speakers are nervous, tired, anxious or intoxicated. During live broadcasts on television or on the radio, for example, nonprofessional speakers and hosts often make speech errors because they are under stress. Some speakers seem more prone to speech errors than others. For example, there is a certain connection between stuttering and speech errors. Charles F. Hockett explains that "whenever a speaker feels some anxiety about possible lapse, he will be led to focus attention more than normally on what he has just said and on what he is just about to say. These are ideal breeding grounds for stuttering." Another example of a "chronic sufferer" is William Archibald Spooner, whose peculiar speech may be caused by a cerebral dysfunction, but there is much evidence that he invented his famous speech errors (spoonerisms).
An explanation for the occurrence of speech errors comes from psychoanalysis, in the so-called Freudian slip. Sigmund Freud assumed that speech errors are the result of an intrapsychic conflict of concurrent intentions. "Virtually all speech errors [are] caused by the intrusion of repressed ideas from the unconscious into one's conscious speech output", Freud explained. In fact, his hypothesis explains only a minority of speech errors.
Psycholinguistic classification
There are few speech errors that clearly fall into only one category. The majority of speech errors can be interpreted in different ways and thus fall into more than one category.Pfau, Roland. Grammar as processor: a distributed morphology account of spontaneous speech. John Benjamins Publishing Co.: Amsterdam 2009, 10. For this reason, percentage figures for the different kinds of speech errors may be of limited accuracy. Moreover, the study of speech errors gave rise to different terminologies and different ways of classifying speech errors. Here is a collection of the main types: + Types of speech errors Type Definition Example Addition "Additions add linguistic material." Target: We Error: We and I Anticipation "A later segment takes the place of an earlier segment." Target: reading list Error: leading list Blends Blends are a subcategory of lexical selection errors. More than one item is being considered during speech production. Consequently, the two intended items fuse together. Target: false/baselessError: falseless Deletion Deletions or omissions leave some linguistic material out. Target: unanimity of opinion Error: unamity of opinion Exchange Exchanges are double shifts. Two linguistic units change places. Target: getting your nose remodeled Error: getting your model renosed Lexical selection error The speaker has "problems with selecting the correct word". Target: tennis racquet Error: tennis bat Malapropism, classical The speaker has the wrong beliefs about the meaning of a word. Consequently, they produce the intended word, which is semantically inadequate. Therefore, this is a competence error rather than a performance error. Malapropisms are named after 'Mrs. Malaprop', a character from Richard B. Sheridan's eighteenth-century play The Rivals. Target: The flood damage was so bad they had to evacuate the city. Error: The flood damage was so bad they had to evaporate the city. Metathesis "Switching of two sounds, each taking the place of the other." Target: rough and ready Error: ref and ruddy Morpheme-exchange error Morphemes change places. Target: He has already packed two trunks. Error: He has already packs two trunked. Morpheme stranding Morphemes remain in place but are attached to the wrong words.Anderson, John R. Kognitive Psychologie. Spektrum Akademischer Verlag: Heidelberg 1996 (2nd edition), 353. Target: He has already packed two trunks. Error: He has already trunked two packs. Omission cf. deletions Target: She can't tell me. Error: She can tell me. Perseveration "An earlier segment replaces a later item." Target: black boxes Error: black bloxes Residual speech errors "Distortions of late-developing sounds such as /s/, /l/, and /r/." Target: The box is red. Error: The box is wed. Shift "One speech segment disappears from its appropriate location and appears somewhere else." Target: She decides to hit it. Error: She decide to hits it. Sound-exchange error Two sounds switch places. Target: Night life [nait laif] Error: Knife light [naif lait] Spoonerism A spoonerism is a kind of metathesis. Switching of initial sounds of two separate words. They are named after Reverend William Archibald Spooner, who probably invented most of his famous spoonerisms. Target: I saw you light a fire. Error: I saw you fight a liar. Substitution One segment is replaced by an intruder. The source of the intrusion is not in the sentence. Target: Where is my tennis racquet? Error: Where is my tennis bat? Word-exchange error A word-exchange error is a subcategory of lexical selection errors. Two words are switched. Target: I must let the cat out of the house. Error: I must let the house out of the cat.
Speech errors can affect different kinds of segments or linguistic units:
+ Segments Segment Example Distinctive or phonetic featuresTarget: lear lue sky Error: lear lue sky (voicing) Phonemes or soundsTarget: d hc Error: dd hck Sequences of soundsTarget: aw oll Error: aw oll MorphemesTarget: sure Error: sure WordsTarget: I hereby you. Error: I hereby you. PhrasesTarget: The sun is shining./The sky is blue. Error: The sky is shining.
Types Grammatical – For example, children take time to learn irregular verbs, so in English use the -ed form incorrectly. This is explored by Steven Pinker in his book Words and Rules. Mispronunciation Vocabulary – Young children make category approximations, using car for truck for example. This is known as hyponymy.
Examples "particuly" (particularly) ← elision "syntaxically" (syntactically) ← vocabulary
Scientific relevance
Speech production is a highly complex and extremely rapid process, and thus research into the involved mental mechanisms proves to be difficult. Investigating the audible output of the speech production system is a way to understand these mental mechanisms. According to Gary S. Dell, "the inner workings of a highly complex system are often revealed by the way in which the system breaks down". Therefore, speech errors are of an explanatory value with regard to the nature of language and language production.Smith, Derek J. "Speech Errors, Speech Production Models, and Speech Pathology." Human Information Processing. Date of last revision: 12 December 2003. Date of access: 27 February 2010. .
Evidence and insights Speech errors provide insights into the sequential order of language production processes and the interactivity of language production modules.
Speech errors involve substitutions, shifts, additions and deletions of segments. "In order to move a sound, the speaker must think of it as a separate unit." Obviously, speech errors cannot be accounted for without considering these discrete segments. They constitute the planning units of language production. Among them are distinctive features, phonemes, morphemes, syllables, words and phrases. Victoria Fromkin points out that "many of the segments that change and move in speech errors are precisely those postulated by linguistic theories." Consequently, speech errors give evidence that these units are psychologically real.
It can be inferred from speech errors that speakers adhere to a set of linguistic rules. "There is a complex set of rules which the language user follows when making use of these units." Among them are for example phonetic constraints, which prescribe the possible sequences of sounds. Moreover, the study of speech error confirmed the existence of rules that state how morphemes are to be pronounced or how they should be combined with other morphemes. The following examples show that speech errors also observe these rules:
Target: He likes to have his team rested. [rest+id] Error: He likes to have his rest teamed. [ti:m+d]
Target: Both kids are sick. [kid+z] Error: Both sicks are kids. [sik+s]
Here, the past tense morpheme and the plural morpheme are phonologically conditioned, although the lemmas are exchanged. This proves that the lemmas are inserted before phonological conditioning takes place.
Target: Don't yell so loud! / Don't shout so loud! Error: Don't shell so loud!
"Shout" and "yell" are both appropriate words in this context. Due to the pressure to continue speaking, the speaker has to make a quick decision which word should be selected. This pressure leads to the speaker's attempt to utter the two words simultaneously, which resulted in the creation of a blend. According to Charles F. Hockett, there are six possible blends of "shout" and "yell". The speaker obeyed unconscious linguistic rules because they selected the blend which satisfied the linguistic demands of these rules the best. Illegal non-words are for example instantaneously rejected.
In conclusion, the rules that govern the production of speech must also be part of our mental organization of language.
Errors in speech are non-random. Linguists can elicit from the speech error data how speech errors are produced and which linguistic rules they adhere to. As a result, they are able to predict speech errors.
Lexical errors The existence of lexical or phonemic exchange errors indicates that speakers typically engage in planning their utterances beforehand. In each case, the whole utterance seems available to them.
Anticipation Target: Take my bike. Error: Bake my bike.
Perseveration Target: He pulled a tantrum. Error: He pulled a pantrum.
Performance errors Performance errors may provide empirical evidence for linguistic theories and serve to test hypotheses about language and speech production models. For that reason, the study of speech errors is significant for the construction of performance models and gives insight into language mechanisms.