Gilbert Zaragoza

Mini-Paper #3 Slips of the Tongue

10.20.2003

Example 1:
Speaker 1: Wow that girl is so cute.

Speaker 2: (In front of his significant other): No she’s hot. I mean not, she’s not.

Example 2:
Maneesh: I felt ferry sick last night (Spoken after a night of tossing and turning).

Example 3:
Caitlin: Hey are you going to flicks tonight?

Katie: Nah, that movie’s moring!

Example 4:
Marat: Hurry up, or I’ll be cate for lass. (late for class)

Example 5:
Tongue Twister example:

Phrase: She sells sea shells by the sea shore.

Marat: She sells she shells by the sea shore.

Maneesh: She sells sea sells by the sea shore.

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Gilbert Zaragoza

The process of producing coherent speech is often taken for granted as an automatic

procedure. However, the underlying complexity of speaking is revealed through the analysis of

speech error. For example, slips of the tongue suggest that there may be more on the cognitive

level to developing a sentence than it may at first seem. Slips of the tongue usually occur due to a

mix-up in the cognitive process. However, many of these mix-ups seem to have some motivation.

Consider example 1, in which a substitution takes place and speaker 2 says hot instead of not.

These two words are similar phonetically; however, in context the say two very different things.

The fact that the object of the sentence may have been attractive may lead some to conclude the

error was not the result of a cognitive slip, but was the result of speaker 2 thinking one thing

while trying to say another. The mistake was simply a matter of one letter; yet, given the situation

both explanations seem valid. It is possible that is an example of a Freudian slip, in fact given the

context it seems likely that such is the case. Whether speaker 2 really intended to say hot remains

uncertain, but regardless of the motivation the event still exposes some aspect of the cognitive

development of speech. That is to say, the mistake occurred because speaker 2’s utterance

somehow confused an n with an h, for whatever reason. This suggests that although words are

heard in a continuous fashion, they are produced in chunks.

Example 2 does not seem to have this subtle motivation. The error is simply a confusion

of consonants as Maneesh replaces very with ferry. Notice that both words produce the same

sound and so the confusion seems apparent. The mistake may also be due to the lack of sleep

Maneesh experienced. The fact that his fatigue may have caused his speech error also provides

evidence that utterances are controlled by cognitive process which can be impaired by weariness.

Example 3 offers another example of perseveration, in which movie causes Katie to inadvertently

utter moring. Although moring is a novel linguistic item, its formulation holds consistent with

phonological theories of utterances. That is, the theory predicts that if a phonological error were

to occur in producing the word boring the most recent significant phoneme, in this case the m-

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sound from movie, should play some role. Indeed we see this sound appear as the error which

supports the suspicion that utterances are produced on a syllabic interval, furthermore because the

error occurred over the span of the word was there is also evidence to support that not all

phonemes are produced prior to utterance. If this were the case one would expect all errors to

occur between adjuncts, such is not the case.

Example 4 is both a shift and a deletion. Late and class are swapped and Marat produces

the words cate and lass. However, the word lass may have also been derived by simply dropping

the c. Given the structure of the sentence it is more likely that the shift phenomenon is dominant

simply because it explains the production of both novel words. Also, considering the context of

the utterance, it seems likely that Marat formulated he sentence in haste, thus affecting the

development of the sentence. Once again this utterance shows evidence for accepting the theory

that words are formed syllable by syllable as well as in phrasal chunks. Since this error occurs

within one phrase chunk, it is expected that the outstanding words would have some relationship

to the errors that occur. The final example demonstrates the complexity of the formulation of

utterances. Two people were asked to repeat the famous tongue twister: She sells sea shells by the

sea shore. In their attempts, both committed an error of multiple degrees. Obviously, their words

were affected by the segments preceding and following each word that produced an error. What is

interesting about this example is that each individual makes a different error. This offers evidence

that the way in which an utterance is produced may differ between individuals, but also supports

the suspicion that there are a set number of permutations in which an utterance may be produced.

Notice that while the errors are different, they are very similar in structure. The first example

simply confuses the Sh sound with the S- sound, and the second example simply confuses the S-

sound with the Sh sound. Once again we have evidence to support the claim that an utterance,

while heard in a continuous fashion is actually produced in syllabic chunks.