Speech Errors as a Window on Language and Thought: A Cognitive Science Perspective

Autori

  • Giulia M.L. Bencini Università Ca' Foscari, Venezia

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.13130/2035-7680/8316

Parole chiave:

speech errors, language production, psycholinguistics, cognitive science, linguistic representations, usage-based models

Abstract

We are so used to speaking in our native language that we take this ability for granted. We think that speaking is easy and thinking is hard. From the perspective of cognitive science, this view is wrong. Utterances are complex things, and generating them is an act of linguistic creativity, in the face of the computational complexity of the task. On occasion, utterance generation goes awry and the speaker’s output is different from the planned utterance, such as a speaker who says “Fancy getting your model renosed!” when “fancy getting your nose remodeled” was intended. With some notable exceptions (e.g. Fromkin 1971) linguists have not taken speech error data to be informative about speakers’ linguistic knowledge or mental grammars. The paper strives to put language production errors back onto the linguistic data map. If errors involve units such as phonemes, syllables, morphemes and phrases, which may be exchanged, moved around or stranded during spoken production, this shows that they are both representational and processing units. If similar units are converged upon via multiple methods (e.g. native speaker judgments, language corpora, speech error corpora, psycholinguistic experiments) those units have stronger empirical support. All other things being equal, theories of language that can account for both representation and processing are to be preferred. 

Metriche

Caricamento metriche ...

Biografia autore

Giulia M.L. Bencini, Università Ca' Foscari, Venezia

Giulia M. L. Bencini is an Associate Professor in the Department of Linguistics and Comparative Cultural Studies at Ca Foscari University, Venice. Before joining the faculty at Ca Foscari, she was an Associate Professor in Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology at Hunter College, City University of New York. Her research interests are broadly in cognitive approaches to language knowledge and use in children, adults and individuals with language impairments. This work is situated within a broader bio-psycho-social approach to human functioning which views language as a specialized mental function and communication as an activity (ICF: International Classification of Functioning, disability and health).

Dowloads

Pubblicato

2017-04-14

Come citare

Bencini, Giulia M.L. 2017. «Speech Errors As a Window on Language and Thought: A Cognitive Science Perspective». Altre Modernità, aprile, 243-62. https://doi.org/10.13130/2035-7680/8316.

Fascicolo

Sezione

Saggi Ensayos Essais Essays