1284: Parapraxis: Psychologists vs. Linguists Jun 16, 2018

Parapraxis is another term for a Freudian slip, i.e. making a linguistic error which is subconsciously motivated (humorously: "when you say one thing and mean your mother"). There is a large debate going on between linguists and psychologists on this subject; in a classical psychoanalytic reading (though there are plenty of new theories) the erroneous replacement word is drawn in this assumedly systematic way from words which are related—in general—semantically, with much more emphasis placed upon the meaning of the slip that other factors such as how it sounds. A more strictly linguistic approach to this problem—forgetting for a moment the different takes within the neurolinguistic and psycholinguistic fields—would consider more factors, such as how a word sounds, and more to the point, how it is stressed. Think about how you may have experienced a word on the tip of your tongue (ToT), believing it started with one sound, and actually it began with a different sound, but the sound you remembered featured somewhere in the word where the stress may have been placed (if you haven't done this in the past, don't worry, but maybe considering playing with this in the future).

Make sure also to check out Word Facts' analysis of the film, Arrival.