psy 369: psycholinguistics
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PSY 369: Psycholinguistics. Language Production: Speech Errors. Problems with speech errors. Even very carefully verified corpora of speech errors tend to list the error and then “ the target”. However, there may be several possible targets. - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
PSY 369: Psycholinguistics
Language Production:Speech Errors
Even very carefully verified corpora of speech errors tend to list the error and then “the target”.
However, there may be several possible targets. Saying there is one definitive target may limit conclusions
about what type of error has actually occurred. Evidence that we are not very good at perceiving
speech errors.
Problems with speech errors
How well do we perceive speech errors? Ferber (1991)
Method: Transcripts of TV and radio were studied very carefully
to pick out all the speech errors.
Problems with speech errors
Did you hear what he said?!
The tapes were played to subjects whose task was to record all the errors they heard.
The errors spotted by the subjects were compared with those that actually occurred.
How well do we perceive speech errors? Ferber (1991)
Problems with speech errors
Results: subjects missed 50% of all the errors and of the half they identified
50% were incorrectly recorded (i.e. only 25% of speech errors were correctly recorded).
Conclusion: we are bad at perceiving errors.
Experimental speech errors Can we examine speech errors in under more
controlled conditions? SLIP technique: speech error elicitation technique
Motley and Baars (1976)
Say the words silently as quickly as you canSay them aloud if you hear a tone
dog bone
dust ball
dead bug
doll bed
barn door
“darn bore”
• This technique has been found to elicit 30% of predicted speech errors.
• Lexical Bias effect: error frequency affected by whether the error results in real words or non-words
Experimental speech errors
“wrong loot” FOR “long root”
“rawn loof” FOR “lawn roof “
Some basic findings
More likely
Influence of semantics (Motley, 1980)
Experimental speech errors
Hypothesis: If preceded by phonologically and semantically
biasing material (PS) If preceded by only phonologically biasing material
(P).
Some basic findings
Predicted to be more likely
Influence of semantics (Motley, 1980)
Experimental speech errors
Method: 2 matched lists 20 word pairs as targets for errors
e.g. bad mug mad bug Each preceded by 4 - 7 neutral “filler”
word pairs
Some basic findings
mashed bunsmangy bears
Then 4 interference word pairs 2 phonological PLUS
2 semantic (SP)
angry insect
ornery fly
angled inset
older flu
or semantically neutral controls (P)
bad mug
small catsrainy daysred cars
Results: More errors in the Semantic and Phonological (SP) condition than in the Phonological (P) condition.
Conclusion: Semantic interference may contribute to a distortion of
the sound of a speaker’s intended utterance
Experimental speech errors
Influence of semantics (Motley, 1980)
Some basic findings
Freudian slips The psycholinguistic approach
Assume that “the mechanics of slips can be studied linguistically without reference to their motivation.” (Boomer and Laver, 1968)
Freudian approach Held that speech errors “arise from the concurrent action - or
perhaps rather, the opposing action - of two different intentions”
Intended meaning + disturbing intention speech error
Freudian slips“In the case of female genitals, in spite of many
versuchungen [temptations] - I beg your pardon, versuche [experiments]…”
From a politician “I like Heath. He’s tough - like Hitler - (shocked silence from reporters) - Did I say Hitler? I meant Churchill.”
Are these cases of disturbing intentions or merely cases of lexical substitution (phonologically or semantically related words)?
Freudian slips
Of the 94 errors listed in Psychopathology of Everyday Life 85 were made in normal speech.
Ellis, (1980)
51 (60%) involved lexical substitution in which the substituting word was either similar in phonological form (27) to the intended word or related in meaning (22).
Freudian slips
Of the 94 errors listed in Psychopathology of Everyday Life 85 were made in normal speech.
Ellis, (1980)
Only 10/94 of the errors reported by Freud were spoonerisms, and 4 were from Meringer and Mayer, 1895 (an early, linguistically oriented study).
E.g. Eiwess-scheibchen (“small slices of egg white”) Eischeissweibchen (lit. “egg-shit-female”)
Alabasterbüchse (“alabaster box”) Alabüsterbachse (büste = breast)
Freudian slips
Hence, it appears that “Freud’s theory can be translated into the language of modern psycholinguistic production models without excessive difficulty.”
Ellis, (1980)
Experimental Freudian slips? Hypothesis: Spoonerisms more likely when
the resulting content is congruous with the situational context.
Method: 90 males, same procedure previously used by Motley, 1980 (SLIP). 3 Conditions: “Electricity”, “Sex”, and Neutral.
car tires
cat toys
can tops
cup trays
tool kits
“cool tits”
Same word pairs in all conditions, spoonerism targets were non-words (e.g. goxi furl foxy girl), targets preceded by 3 phonologically biasing word pairs not semantically related to target words.
Experimental Freudian slips?
Results: Electricity set: 69 E, 31 S Sex set: 36 E, 76 S Neutral set: 44 E, 41 S
Hence errors were in the expected direction. Conclusion: subjects’ speech encoding systems are
sensitive to semantic influences from their situational cognitive set.
Experimental Freudian slips?
Hypothesis: subjects with high levels of sex anxiety will make more “sex” spoonerisms than those with low sex anxiety.
Method: 36 males selected on the basis of high, medium, & low sex
anxiety (Mosher Sex-Guilt Inventory). SLIP task same as previous experiment but with 2 additional
Sex targets and 9 Neutral targets.
Experimental Freudian slips?
Results: looked at difference scores (Sex - Neutral) High sex anxiety > medium > low. Overall: Sex spoonerisms > Neutral spoonerisms.
Conclusion: appears to support Freud’s view of sexual anxiety being revealed in Slips of the Tongue
BUT: the experimenters (Baars and Motley) went on to show that any type of anxiety, not just sexual produced similar results.
SO: anxiety was at play but it was more general, so the priming
was more global.
Experimental Freudian slips?
Conclusions Speech errors have provided data about the
units of speech production.
Phonology - consonants, vowels, and consonant clusters (/fl/) can be disordered as units. Also, phonetic features.
Syllables which have morphemic status can be involved in errors. Separation of stem morphemes from affixes (inflectional and derivational).
Stress? Stress errors could be examples of blends..
Conclusions
Syntax -grammatical rules may be applied to the wrong unit, but produce the correct pronunciation (e.g. plural takes the correct form /s/, /z/, or /iz/.
Indicates that these parts of words are marked as grammatical morphemes.
Phrases (e.g. NP) and clauses can be exchanged or reversed.
Words - can exchange, move, or be mis-selected.
Speech errors have provided data about the units of speech production.
From thought to speech How does a mental concept get turned into a spoken utterance? Levelt, 1989, 4 stages of production:
1 Conceptualising: we conceptualise what we wish to communicate (“mentalese”).
2 Formulating: we formulate what we want to say into a linguistic plan.– Lexicalisation
– Lemma Selection– Lexeme (or Phonological Form) Selection
– Syntactic Planning3 Articulating: we execute the plan through muscles in the vocal tract.4 Self-monitoring: we monitor our speech to assess whether it is what we
intended to say, and how we intended to say it.
Models of production As in comprehension, there are serial
(modular) and interactive models Serial models - Garrett, Levelt et al. Interactive models - Stemberger, Dell
Levelt’s monitoring stage (originally proposed by Baars) can explain much of the data that is said to favour interaction between earlier levels
An model of sentence production Three broad stages:
Conceptualisation deciding on the message (= meaning to
express)
Formulation turning the message into linguistic
representations Grammatical encoding (finding words and
putting them together) Phonological encoding (finding sounds and
putting them together)
Articulation speaking (or writing or signing)
Message
Lexicon
Grammatical
Form
Articulation
FunctionalProcessing
PositionalProcessing