\u201cThe grouchy knight cuddled the rowdy seer\u2019s adorable puppy while devouring lasagne\u201d<\/p>\n
This is probably a sentence you\u2019ve never heard \u2013 or produced \u2013 before. Yet this experience is not novel – everyday, you make utterances you\u2019ve never heard, and understand new ones.<\/p>\n
Producing such utterances is not a trivial matter. To do this we have to generate them \u2013 that is, decide on the concept to be expressed, encode that into words and structures, then into the sounds that make up our words before sending instructions to our articulatory apparatus to produce the utterance. All within fractions of a second.<\/p>\n
Yet, sometimes we make mistakes, and produce things we didn\u2019t intend to do:<\/p>\n
Error (The Mistake we Make)<\/strong><\/td>\n| Target (What we had intended to say)<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | h<\/u>eft l<\/u>emisphere<\/td>\n | left hemisphere<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | sq<\/u>uoor<\/td>\n | squeaky floor<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | a l<\/u>eading l<\/u>ist<\/td>\n | a reading list<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | g<\/u>ave the g<\/u>oy<\/td>\n | gave the boy<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | stough<\/u> competition<\/td>\n | stiff\/tough competition<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | she sliced the knife<\/u> with a salami<\/u><\/td>\n | she sliced the salami<\/u> with a knife<\/u><\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | a hole<\/u> full of floors<\/u><\/td>\n | a floor full of holes<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n | <\/p>\n We usually notice these errors when we make them and correct ourselves. But rather than being merely slips of tongue, they are a goldmine of information as they demonstrate breakdowns at various parts in the speech production process.<\/p>\n Some of these errors are lexical selection<\/em> errors \u2013 we select the wrong lexical concept or lemma<\/em> for the message we\u2019re trying to say. That is, we select the wrong word stored in our brains, we pick the wrong word from our mental dictionary. This can be simply the wrong concept, as in: \u2018he\u2019s carrying a bag of cherries<\/u>\u2019 instead of \u2018grapes<\/u>\u2019. <\/em>Sometimes, we can combine words together in blends: \u2018the competition is getting a little stough<\/u><\/em>\u2019 instead of st<\/u>iff<\/em> or tough<\/u><\/em>. Other times, we can exchange words within a sentence, as in \u2018she sliced the knife<\/u> with a salami<\/u>\u2019, rather than \u2018she sliced the salami with a knife\u2019.<\/p>\n We can also make phonological errors, that is, errors in the sound structure of our words:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n We can look at large data sets, or corpora, to see what kinds of errors are commonly made. We find that these errors are still well-formed in terms of their sound structure, or phonology. 60-90% of errors (depending on the corpus you look at) involve errors with a single sound or segment, and these errors are sensitive to syllable structure. That is, we might swap segments from the same part of the syllable as in exchanges:<\/p>\n f<\/u>ace sp<\/u>ood <\/em>< sp<\/u>ace f<\/u>ood<\/em><\/p>\n Or we might combine the beginning of one syllable and the end of another:<\/p>\n grool<\/u><\/em> < gr<\/u>eat<\/em> + cool<\/u><\/em><\/p>\n We also like to swap sounds that are similar to each other, so<\/p>\n p<\/u>aid m<\/u>ossible<\/em> < m<\/u>ade p<\/u>ossible<\/em><\/p>\n is more likely than<\/p>\n two s<\/u>en p<\/u>et<\/em> < two p<\/u>en s<\/u>et<\/em><\/p>\n There are exceptions to these generalisations of course – but they are rare.<\/p>\n Speech errors give us an insight into normal speech production processes. The fact that sound errors occur at all tells us that speech production is a generative process \u2013 it is not that we just reproduce fully formed stored sentences, but rather we create each utterance afresh each time. In order to mix or swap two elements, both must be activated at the same point of the production process.<\/p>\n Furthermore, the range of speech across which errors can occur implies that the span of processing is greater than a single word. You might be familiar with spoonerisms, popularised by Dr William Archibald Spooner:<\/p>\n There is a much wider array of questions we can ask about speech production than can be answered by speech errors, but certainly they are an entertaining place to start.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cThe grouchy knight cuddled the rowdy seer\u2019s adorable puppy while devouring lasagne\u201d This is probably a sentence you\u2019ve never heard \u2013 or produced \u2013 before. Yet this experience is not novel – everyday, you make utterances you\u2019ve never heard, and understand new ones. Producing such utterances is not a trivial matter. To do this we have to generate them \u2013 that is, decide on the concept to be expressed, encode that into words and structures, then into the sounds that…<\/p>\n |