1.
Background
and Definition
Speech errors are common phenomena happened among children, who
have yet to refine their speech, and can frequently continue into adulthood.
Sometimes, 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.
Speech error is a
deviation (conscious or unconscious) from the apparently intended form of an
utterance. Within the field of psycholinguistics, speech errors fall under the
category of language production. Errors in speech production and perception are
also called performance errors (Wikipedia.com).
Speech errors are made on an occasional basis by all speakers.
There are some factors causing speech error in speech production. They occur
more often when speakers are nervous, tired, anxious or intoxicated. We can see
various examples of speech error in daily life. During live broadcasts on TV or
on the radio, for example, nonprofessional speakers and even hosts often make
speech errors because they are under stress. Even, some speakers seem to be
more prone to speech errors than others. It is happened in the case of
stuttering. There is a certain connection between stuttering and speech errors.
There are also some grounds about stuttering such as what is
explained by Charles F. Hockett 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."
Another example of a “chronic sufferer” is Reverend 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An outdated explanation for the occurrence of speech errors is the
one of Sigmund Freud, who assumed that speech errors are the result of an intra-psychic
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. This gave rise to the expression Freudian
slip. Yet, his theory was rejected because only a minority of speech errors was
explainable by his theory.
2.
Previous
Studies and
Despite those explanations above, there are other previous studies
related to speech errors. Those previous 3studies are as follows:
a)
Spoonerism
The case of
speech error is studied firstly by Reverend Spooner. He is quite commonly
known, even his names is used as one of the types of speech error. That is
spoonerism. Spoonerism is an error in speech or deliberate play on words in
which corresponding consonants, vowels, or morphemes are switched between two
words.
Etymologically,
it is named after the Reverend William Archibald Spooner (1844–1930), Warden of
New College, Oxford, who was notoriously prone to this mistake. The term
'Spoonerism' was well established by 1921. An article in The Times from that
year reports that"The boys of Aldro School, Eastbourne, [...] have been
set the following task for the holidays: Discover and write down something
about: The Old Lady of Threadneedle-street, a Spoonerism, a Busman's
Holiday..."
In 1937 The
Times quoted a detective describing a man as "a bricklabourer's layer"
and used "Police Court Spoonerism" as the headline. A spoonerism is
also known as a marrowsky, purportedly after a Polish count who suffered from
the same impediment. Spoonerism also can be divided unintentionally getting
one’s words in tangle, or intentionally as a puns. As we can see the example of
unintentionally spoonerism:
(1) Utterance:
You have hissed all my mystery lectures. Target: …missed all my history
lectures.
(2) Utterance:
In fact, you have tasted the whole worm. Target: …wasted the whole term.
(3) Utterance:
The Lord is a shoving leopard to his flock. Target: …a loving shepherd.
(See Potter, 1980, for a discussion of whether Reverend Spooner’s
errors were in fact so frequent as to suggest an underlying pathology.)
Others examples are:
"Is it
kisstomary to cuss the bride?" (Customary to kiss)
"The Lord
is a shoving leopard." (A loving shepherd)
"A
blushing crow." (Crushing blow)
"A
well-boiled icicle" (well-oiled bicycle)
"You were
fighting a liar in the quadrangle." (Lighting a fire)
"Is the
bean dizzy?" (Dean busy)
"Someone
is occupewing my pie. Please sew me to another sheet." (Someone is
occupying my pew. Please show me to another seat.)
"You have
hissed all my mystery lectures. You have tasted a whole worm. Please leave
Oxford on the next town drain." (You have missed all my history lectures.
You have wasted a whole term. Please leave Oxford on the next down train.)
b)
Intentionally
or puns
Popular use
In modern
terms, "spoonerism" generally refers to any changing of sounds in
this manner.
On the TV
series Hee Haw, comedian/writer Archie Campbell was well-known for using
spoonerisms in his skits, most famously the "Rindercella" skit.
In Maisie and
the Pinny Gig by Ursula Dubosarsky, a little girl named Maisie has a recurrent
dream about a giant guinea pig, which she calls a "pinny gig."
In Jim Henson's
Muppet rendition of "The Frog Prince", the princess is under an
enchantment by an evil witch forcing her to constantly speak in spoonerisms.
Central to the story is her repeated plea that somebody "bake the hall in
the candle of her brain," by which she really means "break the ball
in the handle of her cane," referring to the orb in the witch's scepter on
which her powers depend.
Popular
stand-up comic Andrew Dice Clay utilizes deliberate spoonerisms often, as an extension
of his ignorant Brooklyn "greaser" persona.
Shel
Silverstein's book Runny Babbit is made up entirely of children's stories that
use spoonerisms.
The name of
electronic musician Com Truise is a spoonerism of Tom Cruise.
Poetry
In his poem
"Translation," Brian P. Cleary describes a boy named Alex who speaks
in spoonerisms (like "shook a tower" instead of "took a
shower"). Humorously, Cleary leaves the poem's final spoonerism up to the
reader when he says,
He once
proclaimed, "Hey, belly jeans" When he found a stash of jelly beans.
But when he says he pepped in stew. We'll tell him he should wipe his shoe.
Twisted tales
Comedian F.
Chase Taylor was the star of the 1930s radio program Stoopnagle and Budd, in
which his character, Colonel Stoopnagle, used spoonerisms. In 1945 he published
a book, My Tale is Twisted, consisting of 44 "spoonerised" versions
of well-known children's stories. Subtitled "Wart Pun:
Aysop'sFeebles" and "Tart Pooh: Tairy and Other Fales", these
included such tales as "Beeping Sleauty" for "Sleeping
Beauty". The book was republished in 2001 by Stone and Scott Publishers as
Stoopnagle's Tale is Twisted.
Also known for
telling entire fairytales using spoonerisms is "Zilch the
Torysteller". He travels to Renaissance Faires across the United States
and in England regaling audiences with hilarious versions of classic stories
such as "Parunzel", "Jomeo and Ruliet",
"Rindercella", and "Rittle Led Hiding Rood".
Films
In the Mel
Brooks film Robin Hood: Men in Tights, the Sheriff of Rottingham (Roger Rees)
constantly speaks in spoonerisms. An example of this: "Struckey has loxed
again!" - "Loxley has struck again!"
Kniferism and
forkerism
As complements
to spoonerism, Douglas Hofstadter used the nonce terms kniferism and forkerism
to refer to changing the syllables of two words, giving them a new
meaning.[when?] Examples of so-called kniferisms include a British television
newsreader once referring to the police at a crime scene removing a
'hypodeemicnerdle'; a television announcer once saying that "All the world
was thrilled by the marriage of the Duck and Doochess of Windsor" and
during a live broadcast in 1931, radio presenter Harry von Zell accidentally
mispronouncing US President Herbert Hoover's name, "HoobertHeever."
Usage of these new terms has been limited; many sources count any syllable
exchange as a spoonerism, regardless of location.
·
Sigmud
Freud
We should begin
by reminding ourselves of what Freud actually said about slips and lapses. He
was rarely one to mince his words. ‘A suppression of a previous intention to
say something is the indispensable condition for the occurrence of a slip of
the tongue’ (Freud, 1922, p.52). A slip is the product both of a local
opportunity from the particular circumstances and of a struggle between two mental
forces: some underlying need or wish and the desire to keep it hidden.
Freud applied
similar arguments to slips of action and memory lapses. Indeed, it was his
inability to recall the last name of a minor poet that set him on the track in
the first place. And therein lies his genius: his ability to see the value of
what he termed ‘the refuse of the phenomenal world’.
Freud was well
aware of alternative explanations. He called them ‘psychophysiological
factors’, a label that embraced fatigue, excitement, strong associations,
distraction, preoccupation and the like. He was even willing to concede in a
half-hearted way that a few errors could occur for these reasons alone: ‘…we do
not maintain that every single mistake has a meaning, although I think that is
very probable’ (Freud, 1922, p.22). To Freud, notions such as
absent-mindedness, excitement or distraction offered little or nothing in the
way of real explanation:
They are mere
phrases… They facilitate the slip by pointing out a path for it to take. But if
there is a path before me does it necessarily follow that I must go along it? I
also require a motive determining my choice, some force to propel me forward.
(Freud, 1922, p.36)
It is in regard
to the nature of this motive force — unconscious urges or mere habits— that
many contemporary psychologists would part company with Freud. We can best
illustrate these differences of opinion by getting down to cases.
A classic
example
One whole
chapter of The Psychopathology of Everyday Life (Freud, 1914) was devoted to a
single slip. Freud regarded this analysis as one of the most convincing
demonstrations of his thesis. It also reveals him as the travelling companion
from hell.
On a holiday
trip Freud met a young man who was bemoaning the lot of Jews in the
Austro-Hungarian Empire. The young man quoted — or attempted to quote — a line
from Virgil in which the spurned Dido seeks long-term vengeance on Aeneas. What
the young man actually said was: ‘Exoriareexnostrisossibusultor’ (Let an
avenger arise from my bones). He was immediately aware that he had got the
quote wrong and foolishly asked the all-too-willing Freud to explain why it had
happened.
Freud began by
giving the correct quotation: ‘Exoriarealiquisnostris ex ossibusultor’ (Let
someone arise as an avenger from my bones). He then asked the young man to free
associate on the missing word aliquis (someone). His responses went as follows:
dividing the word into a and liquis; relics; liquefying; fluid; saints’ relics;
Saint Simon, Saint Benedict, Saint Augustine and Saint Januarius (the last two
being calendar saints); Saint Januarius’s miracle of blood (a phial of his
blood is supposed to liquefy once a year). Finally, he got to the crunch — the
fact that he was very worried because his girlfriend back in Vienna had missed
her last period.
One can imagine
the smug expression on the maestro’s face at this moment. The important clues,
according to Freud, were the allusions to calendar saints and the idea that
blood flows on a certain day. Even the choice of quotation had a meaning. Dido
was crying out for her descendants to avenge her race — a clue to the young
man’s equally fervent desire that no descendants should be in the offing.
Should we give
Freud the expected round of applause? Probably not, since the textual critic
SebastianoTimpanaro (1976) devoted an entire book to providing an alternative
explanation, albeit a far more mundane one. Timpanaro pointed out that the
boy’s misquotation contained two separate errors: it omitted the pronoun
aliquis; and the words nostris and ex had been reversed. He then argued very
convincingly that, to a young man of his classical education, both the presence
of the word aliquis in the sentence (which is redundant anyway) and the correct
order of nostris and ex are highly unusual forms (nowhere else does Virgil use
this particular ordering).
The sentence is
thus susceptible to the process of banalisation: the replacement of archaic or
unusual expressions with forms that are in more common use. In other words, the
errors were due to strong habit substitution, or what Bartlett (1932) called
conventionalization.
Slips undone
Let’s take
another of Freud’s own examples and see if the same rather unexciting
counterarguments could also apply. His friend DrStekel told him of an
embarrassing incident that had occurred when he was bidding a female patient
goodbye after a house call. Stekel extended his hand to the lady and then
discovered, to his horror, that it was undoing the bow that held together her
loosely fastened dressing gown. Stekel commented: ‘I was conscious of no
dishonorable intent, yet I executed this awkward movement with the agility of a
juggler.’ (Freud, 1914, pp.136–137.)
To Freud, of
course, the interpretation was obvious: Stekel harbored unprofessional desires
for the woman, a secret betrayed by his unwitting hand movements. But there is
also a more boring explanation: Stekel, momentarily distracted or preoccupied
(perhaps even by lust), had fallen into the habit-plus-affordance trap.
Nineteenth century medicine was a very hands-on affair. In the course of his
house calls, Stekel would have been accustomed to undoing the bows of bed
jackets and similar garments to palpate a patient’s chest or abdomen. A strong
habit was thus established and bows naturally afford untying. All that was
required to trigger the gaffe was some wayward attention just prior to the
intended hand-shaking sequence.
Duller alternatives
With these two examples, we haveassembled most of the ingredients
foran alternative view. There are at leasttwo necessary conditions for
provoking anabsent-minded error. Firstly, some cognitiveunderspecification that
can take a variety offorms — inattention, incomplete sense data,or insufficient
knowledge; secondly, theexistence of some locally appropriate response pattern
that is strongly primedby its prior usage, recent activation oremotional
charge, and by the situationalcalling conditions. There is also theprediction
that an error sequence is likely to be more familiar, more frequent andmore
typical in context than the intendedcorrect sequence. We can test out
theseideas on an instance of what, on the faceof it, was a classical Freudian
slip.
Some years ago, I was invited to attendthe opening of a new
building designed tohouse clinical psychologists. The personwho made the
opening speech was a local politician. After extolling the virtues ofclinical
psychology at some length, sheended by saying: ‘I declare this Departmentof
Cynical — er, I mean Clinical —Psychology open.’
Initially I warmed to her, thinking — as no doubt would Freud —
that that waswhat she really meant. But there wereduller alternatives. First,
‘cynical’ and‘clinical’ have very similar structures andwould therefore fit
equally well into thearticulatory programme. Second, ‘cynical’anticipates the
initial phonology of‘psychology’ — the first syllables havea very similar
sound. How often have we heard newsreaders make similaranticipatory errors?
Third, being apolitician, it is likely that the word ‘cynical’had far more
currency in her everydaylexicon than did ‘clinical’.
The claim here is not that Freudian slipsdo not occur. They almost
certainly do. Theargument is about their relative frequency.Modern
psychologists (see Norman, 1981;Reason, 1979, 1990) would contend thatmost
everyday slips and lapses have morebanal origins — along the lines
indicatedabove. But there is a simple test that canbe applied. For a slip to be
convincinglyFreudian, it should take a less familiar formthan the intended word
or action.
A cursory search of Freud’s ownexamples yielded one strong
possibility —that of the Viennese lady who, when calling her children in from
the garden, said‘Juden’ (Jews) instead of ‘Jungen’ (boys).It is likely that,
for any mother, the latterword would be used more frequently thanthe former,
even if she were Jewish herself.
Mostly right
Enough of this carping. It is time toreacknowledge Freud’s
greatness as a psychologist. Like William James, he had a rare gift for
describing and analyzing the phenomenology of mental life. For example, he was
perhaps the first person to recognise the significance of ‘recurrent blockers’
in tip-of-the-tongue states:
In the course of our efforts to
recover the name that has dropped out, other ones — substitute names — enter
our consciousness; we recognise them at once as incorrect, but they keep
returning and force themselves on us with great persistence… My hypothesis is
that this displacement [of the target name] is not left to arbitrary psychical
choice, but follows paths that can be predicted and which conform to laws.
(Freud, 1960, p.38)
That these paths probably have more to do with structural
similarity, shared context and strong association than with unconscious impulses
does not diminish the value of this insight (Reason & Lucas, 1984).
Perhaps Freud’s greatest contribution was in recognising such
apparent trivia as ‘windows on the mind’. He put it well:
In scientific work it is more
profitable to take up whatever lies before one whenever a path towards its
exploration presents itself. And then…one may find, even in the course of such
humble labour, a road to the study of the great problems. (Freud, 1922, p.21)
And so he did.
So, was Freud right about Freudian slips? Rightness, particularly
in our business, is not an all-or-nothing thing.He was probably not right in
asserting that all (or nearly all) slips are in someway intended. But if we ask
whether Freudwas correct in his view that slips representminor eruptions of
unconscious processing,then the answer would be an emphatic‘yes’. But we would
not necessarily takethe strict psychoanalytic interpretation of‘unconscious’;
rather it would be one thatrelates to processes that are not directlyaccessible
to consciousness. The large partof mental life — schematic or
automaticprocessing — falls into this category.
Slips, we now believe, provideimportant glimpses into the minutiae
ofskilled or habitual performance. But theycan also reveal suppressed feelings.
Freudwas perfectly correct in refusing to divorce cognition from emotion.
On balance, then, he was mostly right— though he would hate the
‘mostly’.
3.
The
process of Speech Error
The process of speech error closely
related with the process of language learning. The source of speech error might
be on the first language or the second language of learner. Therefore, it is
needed to understand the concepts of language learning to know the process of
speech error. There are two processes of language learning: language
acquisition and language learning.
Language acquisition usually refers
to first-language acquisition, which studies infants' acquisition of their
native language. This is distinguished from second-language
acquisition,
which deals with the acquisition (in both children and adults) of additional languages. In speech error, the focus
will be on the systematic process of error, not the source error. In relation
to the source error, language transfer is used to identify the source of error.
Language transfer will discuss about the occurrence process of error especially
on the language which is transferred from the first language learner to the
target language which is learned by learners.
Several processes that may occur
include: a) language transfer, b) language transfer learning, c) second
language learning strategies, and d) communication strategies (Suryadi, 2011).
a.
Language
transfer, speech error
may be caused by the language transfer. That is the tendency of learner in
transferring language elements such as sound, form, meaning, and even culture
of their first language to the language that they learned.
b.
Language
transfer learning,
the error could be the influence of poor learning provided by the teacher. For
example, teachers’ explanation which is confused or unclear will make student
unable to practice the language correctly.
c.
Second
language learning strategies, in
the process of learning second language, learner has certain strategies. Brow
(1980) as cited in Suryadi says that the leaning language strategy essentially consist
of transfer, interference, generalization, and simplification.
d.
Communication
strategy is another
causal factor of speech error. Communication strategy used by learners will
determine the way how they speech in order to communicate with other. For example,
someonewhohas aconservative style in
communicatingmayproduceutteranceswhich arefullof doubt. Furthermore,
this hesitant may appeartobethe error. Theerrormaybea
mistakeapplyingthe rules ofthe languagethatis alreadymastered.
4.
The
classification of speech error
|
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: person/people
Error: perple
|
|
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, he produces the intended word, which is semantically
inadequate. Therefore, this is rather a competence error than a performance
error. Malapropisms are named after 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: pus
pocket
Error: pospucket
|
|
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.
|
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
|
|
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 [naitlaif]
Error: Knife
light [naïf 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.
|
5.
6.
Speech
errors can also affect different kinds of segments or linguistic units:
7.
Segments
|
Segment
|
Example
|
|
Distinctive or phonetic features
|
Target: clear
blue sky
Error: glearplue
sky (voicing)
|
|
Phonemes or sounds
|
Target: ad
hoc
Error: odd
hack
|
|
Sequences of sounds
|
Target:spoon
feeding
Error: foon
speeding
|
|
Morphemes
|
Target: sure
Error: unsure
|
|
Words
|
Target: I
hereby deputize you.
Error: I
hereby jeopardize you
|
|
Phrases
|
Target: The
sun is shining./The sky is blue.
Error: The
sky is shining.
|
Based on the
classification above, four generalizations about speech errors have been
identified. They are states below:
1. Interacting
elements tend to come from a similar linguistic environment, which means that
initial, middle, final segments interact with one another.
2. Elements
that interact with one another tend to be phonetically or semantically similar
to one another. This means that consonants exchange with consonants and vowels
with vowels.
3. Slips are
consistent with the phonological rules of the language.
4. There are
consistent stress patterns in speech errors. Predominantly, both interacting
segments receive major or minor stress.
Speech
errors
Analysis of
speech errors has found that not all are random, but rather systematic and fall
into several categories.
Although speech
production is very fast, (2 words per second) the error rate of the utterances
are relatively rare (less than 1/1000) and those errors are categorized as
follows:
• Anticipation:
The word is in the speaker's mind and ready to be spoken, but the speaker says
it too quickly. This could be because the speaker is planning and holding words
in their mind.
• Perseveration:
The word retains characteristics of a word said previously in a sentence:
Taddle
Tennis instead of Paddle Tennis
• Blending:
More than one word is being considered and the two intended items
"blend" into a single item, perhaps implying the speaker is waffling
between a few word options.
The
child is looking to be spaddled instead of spanked or paddled
• Addition:
adding of linguistics material, resulting in words like implossible.
• Substitution:
a whole word of related meaning is replacing another. These errors can be far
apart from another, or target words, and are generally grammatically consistent
and accurate. at low speed it's too light (instead of heavy)
• Malapropism:
a lay term referring to the incorrect substitution of words. It is a reference
to a character MrsMalaprop from Sheridan's The Rivals.
Makes
no delusions to the past.
The
pineapple of perfection.
I
have interceded another letter from the fellow.
• Spoonerism:
switching the letters from words. For example, the phrase slips of the
tongue could become tips of the slung.
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