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Examples Of Slips Of The Tongue

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Sigmund Freud believes that there is a source (of ideas) outside the speech. "It (speech-blunder] is thus a means of self-betrayal.” (Freud, The Psychopathology of Everyday Life (p. 69)) It is somehow true and almost every one of us could experience the feeling of ‘self-betrayal’. Have you ever experience a moment when you thought “Oh no! Why did I say that word?” or “I couldn’t control myself, the word just blurted out of my mouth!”? These are normal, according to Freud, and they reflect the unconscious thoughts in our mind which we try to suppress it. Not just normal people like us make slips of the tongue but also politicians, teachers and even professional linguists. One of the famous examples of slips of the tongue is from Reverend William A. Spooner who said ‘God is a shoving Leopard’ when he actually meant to say ‘God is a loving shepherd’. In our daily lives, we make slips of the tongue as well. Sometimes we realize …show more content…

Looking from cognitive psychologists’ perspective, those slips may be occurred due to cognitive problem. Cognitive problem could possibly take place in different forms– inattention, incomplete sense data or insufficient knowledge. (Ronald W. McLeod, 2015) Also, they may be due to the existence of some locally appropriate response pattern that is strongly supported by its prior usage or emotional change. For example, a student whose doing presentation in front of a crowd might accidentally say “Today I’m doing to go a presentation on…” instead of “Today I’m going to do a presentation on…”. This happens because of the feeling of anxiety experienced by language speaker. Or, language speaker could make slips of the tongue because of their insufficient knowledge on certain topic or

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