Part V: Word-Formation 4 page

Several linguists have addressed the question: Do homophones tend to self-destruct because of their tendency to create confusion and ambiguity? Jules Gilliéron states that “two words of different origin that become homophones by regular sound changes may, because of ambiguity and confusion, interfere with each other to such an extent that one is ultimately driven from the vocabulary of a particular dialect” (as cited in Hobbs, 1999, p.7). The scholars refer to this hypothesis as a conflict of homophones; however, Professor Robert Menner of Yale University argues that if there was a loss of a homophonous word, then it should not be attributed only to a conflict of homophones. He believes that “two homophones are unlikely to interfere unless they belong to the same part of speech, and if they do, then words must fall within the same sphere of ideas and be likely to appear in similar contexts” (as cited in Hobbs, 1999, p. 8). Menner asserts it is possible that “a combination of alike sounds representing two different words could become ambiguous, and the resultant confusion is so marked as to lead to elimination of one of the words” (1936, p.229). Homophonous words may disappear not only because of a conflict of homophones but also because they may become obsolete in the course of language development.

7.7 Semantic Deviance

When we hear someone’s speech, we try to understand its sense. When doing so, we often notice syntactic or semantic errors. We find these errors humorous; in fact, humor itself is often based on deviations from projected sense. It was said: “If a company must reduce the work force, it will be through “nutrition.” Here is a retort from the audience: “Only if the employees are forced to eat in the company’s cafeteria!” Of course, it was thought that a reduction in force would be through the means of “attrition,” not “nutrition.”

Often, such errors are referred to as “malapropisms” (French for mal à propos, meaning “inappropriate”), after Mrs. Malaprop, a character created by Richard Sheridan in his 1775 Restoration comedy, The Rivals. Here is an example from the play where she confused word classes: “You will promise to forget this fellow – to illiterate [obliterate] him, I say, quite from your memory” (Act I, scene ii). Although it is difficult to imagine the confusion of two words illiterate and obliterate in real speech, the point is when words are confused, they have either phonetic or semantic attachment to each other. Georgios Tserdanelis and Wai Yi Peggy Wong (2004) define malapropism as a “type of production error by which a speaker uses a semantically incorrect word in a place of phonetically similar word without being aware of the mistake” (p. 526). These errors may occur in speech production and speech perception. “Slips of the ear” are perception errors when a listener misperceives some words. Some examples are some mothers (heard)—some others (said) and the stuff he knows (heard)--the stuffy nose (said). “Slips of the tongue” are production errors that are inadvertent errors in a person’s speech. Malapropism may be observed in the speeches of politicians. Some of the examples are the following:

“This is my maiden voyage” (Bush, 2009, March 17).

“I've abandoned free market principles to save the free market system” (Bush, 2008,

December 16). “Anyone engaging in illegal financial transactions will be caught and persecuted” (Bush, 2008, September 19).

“Let me introduce to you the next President -- the next Vice President of the United States of America, Joe Biden” (Obama)--slipping up while introducing Joe Biden at their first joint campaign rally, Springfield, Illinois, August 23, 2008.

“I’ve now been in 57 states -- I think one left to go” (Obama) --at a campaign event in Beaverton, Oregon.

“How’s it going, Sunshine?” (Obama) --campaigning in Sunrise, Florida.

“The police are not here to create disorder—they’re here to preserve disorder” (Richard Daley, former Chicago Mayor).

“He was a man of great statue” (Thomas Menino, Boston Mayor) (Some Famous Malapropisms).

As mentioned above, malapropism can be based both on semantic and on phonological attachment. “The primary point of importance to a speaker searching the lexicon for a word to produce is the meaning of the word” (Tserdanelis & Wong, 2004, p. 323). The speaker intends to deliver a certain message; therefore, he or she chooses the right words, and in the course of the search, substitution errors may occur. “The speaker is not concerned with how words sound until the word has been chosen” (Ibid, p. 323). When the right word is chosen, the speaker sometimes forgets to use phonological information to organize the pronunciation of the word, which results in a production error.

Other researchers give a different explanation to malapropisms. They say that some stems can adopt different affixes at different times, thus making the meaning link between the stem and the derived word unpredictable, as in final, finale, finalism, finality, and finalize, and “words with similar stems are fairly idiosyncratic as to which suffixes they allow” (Aitchison, 1987, p. 153): there exist induce, induction, and inducement, while produce has a similar form production, it does not have producement, which will lead speakers mistakenly utter a word producement. It is likely that the relationship between the stems and suffixes is chaotic. Since “dismembered words” are difficult to remember, they are stored in mind as wholes (Ibid, p. 153). The malapropism also occurs as a result of derailment when the speaker starts a word and then derails to another, more common word, e.g., Students are industrial (industrious).

Fay and Cutler observed that a speech error corpus found that the target and error were in the same grammatical category 99% of the time (1977). In the following examples, the class of the words is maintained: malicious for malignant, provisional for provincial, predicament for impediment, and detergent for deterrent. As the examples show most confused words have the same number of the syllables and the same stress pattern, e.g., Golf course uses affluent (effluent) water for irrigation—do not drink; and Illuminate (eliminate) underarm sweating for up to 6 months with a single treatment.

Harley and MacAndrew believe that the confused words are phonologically related and are lower in frequency; however, the findings of del Viso et al. (1991) contradict Harley and MacAndrew’ assertions about lower frequency of confused words. Del Viso et al. argue that “the error word was more often higher in frequency than the target word” (1991). Obviously, Harley and MacAndrew (1992; 1995) and del Viso et al. (1991) are right, but since they give a partial explanation of confused words, they look like they contradict each other. Malapropisms occur when the target word and error word are not frequent in usage. The speakers may forget the difference between two infrequent words. Sometimes, when a speaker cannot find the target, he or she may try to create one a new, based on his or her knowledge of the structure of words, as in deduceful for deductive. Words are also confused when a speaker uses a more common and frequent word for the target word, as in malicious for malignant, predicament for impediment, and insulted cargo vest for insulated cargo vest.

Malapropisms may occur during the second language acquisition when the first language interferes with the process. Individuals remember the length of the word and the quantity of the syllables, but since some words sound alike, they are confused which one to use, so they use the one that seems the target word.

In conclusion, malapropism is an interesting phenomenon that pops when one least expects it. Factors that affect its occurrence may be infrequent use of confused words, derailment, and ignorance or nervousness also produce memorable slips, as in the following examples given by Morris Udall (1988) in his article, “Stalking the Elusive Malaprop”: One senator, frustrated by the continuing strife in the Middle East, recently wondered, “Why can’t the Jews and the Arabs just sit down together and settle this like good Christians?”

A young man being honored at a banquet was asked to say a few words. The boy did: “From the heart of my bottom, I thank you.” Sometimes individuals remember the chunks of words—the beginning or the end of the words, and they do some guess work and add an assumed beginning or the end to the word. Sometimes speakers try to create a word anew from a stem, on the analogy of other word forms that may result in malapropisms, as in producement, deduceful, and strategery.

Date: 2015-12-18; view: 931