A Pragma-cognitive Study Of Slips Of The Tongue In Utterances

Slips of the tongue (SOT for short afterwards) happen as often as people talk. Even the experienced hosts can’t help making SOT in broadcasting, let alone the commoners in daily conversations. There were few academic groups and academic papers discussing SOT since the golden age for SOT studies. This study aims to look at SOT in a new angle, namely SOT in utterance in the scope of pragma-cognitive perspective which may enable a thorough expolaration of it.In the utterance, slips of the tongue can be seen as a process of being triggered, taking place, being corrected and being mended under the heavy pressure of composing linear structure of oral speech with multi-dimensional factors in certain context. The use of language is a dynamic construction constrained by the context while refreshing the context in the meantime. The process is by no means a smooth one but rather a journey with a lot of unexpectedness and setbacks. The study of SOT is to abide by the true scenario of language use and to supplement the related linguistic researches which mostly based on that of ideal language study.Slips of the tongue, under the threefold influence of intentionality, the interpersonal relations and factors related to context, occur in the language communication and interaction. Such deviation sometimes will not change the nature of speech act while sometimes derail the speech act at one go. Consequently, slips of the tongue is a lengthy issue staying close with language adaptation, pragmatic inference as well as pragmatic adaptation. Furthermore, the perlocutionary act brought in by slips of the tongue can be of uncertainty which conceives post-event escalation or conflict both at home and abroad. SOT is worth in-depth research and it may become a lively topic combining psycho-linguistics, socio-linguistics and pragmatics.SOT is by no means a sheer language issue but rather an issue related with language use. Based upon this concept, we define SOT from a pragmatic perspective: SOT is a speech event where what the speakers say deviates from what is planned under certain context. SOT is a special state in implementing speech act as it may or may not change the nature of the speech to which the audience(can be the hearers and speakers) would make relevant response. This definition supplies the key words for us to classify the SOT accordingly under the terms of context, trichotomy of speech act, speech roles and its after-event influence. Thus can we have the solid foundation for pragmatic analysis thereafter.Conversation involves speaker and listener. Hence, slips of the tongues involve the speakers who produce them and the listeners who process them accordingly. The next wo chapters discuss respectively the production mechanism of SOT and the inference nachanism in pragma-cognitive perspective. We discovered that interlocutors voluntarily carry out the conversational strategies, namely the use of repetition, detail ind imagery languages as well as reconstructed language in the hope of achieving two goal:(informative)coherence and (emotional)involvement. The twofold concepts are not >nly the goals of successful conversation, but also the outcome of that. People invite the )ccurrence of slips in the process of applying conversational strategies during which a leep pragma-cognitive root functions. We name it the emergence of salience which neans the salient information will unconsciously emerge and make it the source of SOT. Under that scope, slips wear the features of an intentional process seeking for effective communication and thereby it is a byproduct of positive pragmatics rather than a negative mistake in traditional discussion.Inference of slips is to evaluate language code which provides hypothesis and ;vidence for inference. Interlocutors estimate the speech event on line in different contexts, hoping to understand the distorted parole with minimum cognitive efforts. With he help of linguistic knowledge, logical knowledge and encyclopedic knowledge, nference takes place chronologically from disambiguation, reference assignment to semantic enrichment according to maxims of local interpretation and analogy. When only the (informative) coherence is hindered by the SOT. no serious consequence belies the intentionality. However, when the serious consequence does take effect, there is always a willful distortion on hearer’s side since the SOT destroy the possibility of emotional involvement and thus invite the conflict. The varied consequences of SOT drive us to go further to look at the different degrees of distortion they may bring in.Last chapter discusses the possible confrontational tips in dealing with SOT. The term degree of distortion is invented to show varied pragmatic deviation that various SOT may produce. This concept demonstrates the different consequence SOT may accomplish under the cooperation of context genres and communication modes. High degree of distortion, mostly in institutional context, means the failure of emotional involvement, failure of communication and the failure of speech act thereafter. Intermediate degree of distortion, mostly in half-institutional context, formal context or non-collaborative context, will threaten the achievement of communication, the fulfillment of speech act as well as the success of emotional involvement; Low degree of distortion suffers the least influence and may affect neither the speech act nor the communication goals. Accordingly, the tactics to cope with the three degrees of distortion should differ.This dissertation is a tentative exploration of SOT in the pragma-cognitive perspective. We start with the new definition and classification, then analyze the mechanism of the production and inference of SOT and lastly focus on the strategies to cope with SOT by degree of distortion. SOT, consequently is an occasional but discoursal phonemenon under the influence of emergence of salience.Hopefully the research of this unbroken contiunuum can help extend the academic field of SOT.