Speech Errors and Mental Process - Essay Example

Introduction to psycholinguistics Question Speech errors Also known as a slip of the tongue, speech errors refer to either intentional or non-intentional deviations during speech. Mistakes in utterances occur at various levels and at varying degrees based on the age and language competency of the speaker among other demographical features that influence the language proficiency of an individual. Age affects the language proficiency of an individual (Traxler, 2012 p. 212). Children are more likely to make speech mistakes than adults are since children are in a developmental state. As such, a child may lack effective knowledge on the phonological rules of a language thus misses such. The same applies when an individual learns a new language. At such circumstances, novice speakers of a language are more likely to make speech errors that proficient speakers are. However, even proficient speakers make speech mistakes. Psycholinguistics, a field of study that investigates the psychology in linguistics explains that speech errors are always under language production. Among the common errors are preservation, anticipation, exchange errors, substitution, additions, blends, deletions and additions among others. Among the most common mistakes that people make when speaking include pronunciation errors. Pronunciation is an entirely different brain process that requires concerted brain activity in order to coordinate the mouth and its inherent features in order to produce the appropriate language. Other common speech mistakes morphological errors and lexical word selection errors. Phonetic errors include pronunciation mistakes in speech. Phonemes also refer to the sounds that people make during speech. Such errors are equally common and often affect the effectiveness of the communication process. While such are common errors, people are not always likely to make specific mistakes during speech. Among such are the verb tense agreements. Psycholinguists explain that the types of common errors portray unique features of the brain. The brain of a speaker at any given time coordinates a series of activities all of which ensures the manifestation of an error during the tie of speech. A speech process is an extensive process that requires the effective coordination of the facts a speaker presents besides the need to coordinate sentence structures in order to enhance the effectiveness of a speech. Balances and checks depending on the tasks of the speaker often characterize the mental state of a speaker. Public speaking among others for example always entails a series of activities all of which require the effective coordination of the body. Sentence construction and speech production are key features of a speech. Other additional activities include body movements and nonverbal communication among others. Such are basic features of speech that enhance the effectiveness of the communication process. The brain that acts as the central processing unit of the body systematically coordinates he activities of the body during a speech thus enhancing the speech depending on the stability and composure of the speaker. Optimal mental activities occur in composed and confident speakers. Such are speakers who understand their facts and therefore present them confidently. The composure and the confidence of such speakers enhance the operations of the brain thus limiting the activities of the ban to coordinating the speech process. Additionally, people who understand the topical issues they address during a speech and coupled with advanced proficiency in a language further enhances the effectiveness of the speech as the brain works under minimal stress. In such people, the mental processes during speech appear systematic as they speak proficiently, with minimal semantic and actual errors. The mental process appears different in people with specific inabilities. Lack of confidence coupled with adequate understanding of a particular language enhances the occurrence of various errors. Lack of self-confidence is vital since it jumbles up the functionality of the brain thus impairing the communication process. Success in communication arises from the functionality of the brain. Settled brains function best since they concentrate on the recollection of both the facts and coordinating sentence structures and pronunciation among many others. This portrays the manifestation of speech errors in speakers who lack self-confidence. Lack of confidence heightens metabolism thereby increasing perspiration of the body. Such contribute to various discomfort thus worsening the plight of a speaker as the brain loses focus in coordinating sentence structure, the facts of the speech and pronunciation besides the heightening rate of metabolism. Question 3: Roles of morphemes Lexical access refers to the process of retrieving words during speech. Lexical access is an extensive process that entails al the word processing activities in order to retrieve an appropriate word during speech. Morpheme on the other hand refers to the smallest unit in grammar with meaning. Morpheme is not therefore a word since morpheme may not always stand alone unlike a word that always stands alone. Morphemes may or may not always stand-alone. Cat for example is a freestanding morpheme. However, in most cases morphemes appear in the form of affixes in sentences. Free morphemes just as the name suggests always function independently. Such morphemes as town and cat are independent and therefore useful without relying on other words or letters. Bound morphemes on the other hand do not make sense on their own. They therefore appear as parts of other words. Examples of bound morphemes are -ing, in and un among many others. Whether bound or free standing, morphemes play a vital in role in lexical access. As explained earlier, lexical access is an extensive process that results in the retrieval of a word from the memory. In cases of free morphemes, the lexical access requires the retrieval of the specific words. Free morphemes are essential and always strategic in a sentence. This implies that they affect the unity and effectiveness of a sentence. In such cases, lexical access refers to the retrieval of the actual morphemes that enhance the effectiveness of the sentence. The retrieval of such morphemes undergoes the normal processes of lexical access. Bound morphemes on the other hand play essential role in the retrieval of other words. As explained earlier, bound morphemes rely on root words in order to make sense. The bound morphemes play vital roles in the effectiveness of the words. Some of the morphemes negate the verbs while others enhance the tenses of the verbs, which always constitute the root words. Lexical access relies on the ability of an individual to remember the actual words. The bound morphemes often enhance the remembrance process thus enhancing the lexical access. Adding ing for example in the word cook makes it in the present continuous tense (Traxler, 2012 p. 320). The morpheme can therefore help a speaker remember the root word by presenting the probable tense of the verb. Priming refers to an effect of implicit memory in which a stimuli leads to a particular response. Priming experiments help understand the lexical access by providing diverse views on the process of retrieving words. In priming experiments, the pronunciation of particular words is likely to lead to the remembrance of other words. Semantically similar words often evoke the lexical access of the other. Such words as doctors, hospitals, medicines, patients and nurses have semantic relationships. As such, the pronunciation of one of such words is likely to instigate the remembrance of the other thus instigating the lexical access process. Morphemes have similar priming effects in lexical access. Such free morphemes as either a cat or a town have semantic relationship with many other words. A cat for example has close semantic relationship with other animals such as a god, a mouse, a pet among many others. As such, the thought of a cat would initiate the thought of other closely related words thus enhancing the process of lexical access whenever necessary (Traxler, 2012 p. 420). The same applies to town, which has semantic relationship with such nuns as mayors, cities and town hall among many others. Bound morphemes have similar effects in the process. As explained earlier people remember words for various reasons. The structure it adopts when it changes tense or when negated for example is some of the factors in priming experiments that enhance lexical access. Un for example negates the word friendly, -ed turns the verb of the word cook to past while –ing on the other turns the same verb into present tense. Such factors initiate the remembrance process thus enhancing lexical access. Question 5: Tip of the tongue phenomenon The tip of the tongue phenomenon also known as TOT is a common phenomenon in speech. It refers to the failure by people to fail to retrieve certain words during speech. The failure to recall the words from the memory is often accentuated with fractional recall. This arises from the feeling that a word is imminent. The phenomenon arises from the common claim that “it is on the tip of my tongue”. The inability of an individual to remember a word therefore implies that it was not at the tip of the tongue. The phenomenon proves that lexical processes happen in systematic stages and therefore requires a harmonized operation of the processes to complete successfully. The tip of the tongue phenomenon presents various characteristics as people with the condition claim that they remember particular features of the word. A person can for example remember words with similar sounds, the first of last letter of the word or even the placement of stress on the word but fail to remember the word. As such, they always feel the pressure to determine the word. After experiencing such difficulties, failure to determine the word causes disappointment while its successful retrieval of the word causes joy and a sense of fulfilment. The state raises anxiety as the people report mild anguish while looking for the word and trying to retrieve it from their memories. Among the views that explain the condition are the direct access view and the inferential view. Just as the name suggests, the direct access view asserts that the condition arises when the memory strength produced by an individual is not adequate to locate the word but strong enough to instigate the condition. Such weak memory strengths therefore can only help an individual remember similar words or even specific letters in the word. As such, the condition overpowers the need to search for the word thus leading to the confusion. The inferential view on the other hand claims that the condition does not arise from the inaccessibility of the word. Instead, it explains that the condition arises from an individual’s attempts to recollect various clues about the word. This way, the various clues lead to confusion thus the inability to retrieve a word. The various clues validate the fact that individuals can remember such features of the word as specific letters or even sound and stress placement in the particular word. Among the words that are likely to produce TOT include names of cities and descriptive words that elicit emotions. Emotionally induced retrieval often instigates the TOT effect owing to the fact that people often remember the pain and emotions instead of the actual names. This implies that instead of concentrating on retrieving a word, people think about the actual source of the emotion they attach in the names of the places and the specific words. Asking for the capital city of a country for example may elicit emotions depending on the memories one has on the city. However, asking for a capital city is a harmless question that does should not elicit emotions. On the contrary, asking for a town or city in which an individual died evokes emotions. In such cases, people may fail to retrieve the name of the city since instead of retrieving the name; they concentrate on addressing the emotions they attach to the names and words. In retrospect, speech is a natural process that people learn progressively. As such, the tip of the tongue phenomenon may occur to any individual regardless of their age. Language competence on the other hand influences the manifestation of the TOT phenomenal since people have difficulties remembering syllables that make up a particular word in a strange language. Additionally, the emotional stability of individual further influences the manifestation of the condition since the brain often appears reluctant to remember emotional words. Reference TRAXLER, M. J. (2011). Introduction to psycholinguistics: understanding language science. Chichester [etc.], Wiley-Blackwell. Read More