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given is: 'With the 42nd Murderers' (Morder, instead of MOrser,
'Mortars').
A guest at a social occasion advances the opinion: 'Yes a woman
must be pretty if she is to please men. A man is much better off; as
long as he has his five straight limbs he needs nothing more!' This is
one of numerous examples of what Meringer and Mayer called
contaminations but which Freud regards as instances of the
psychological process of condensation. The utterance is a fusion of
two turns of phrase resembling each other in meaning: 'as long as he
has his four straight limbs' and 'as long as he has his five wits about
him'. Freud notes that, as in many slips of the tongue, the remark
could pass as a joke. The difference lies simply in whether or not the
speaker consciously intended the words to come out as they did.
(7) Reanalysis of one of the Meringer and Mayer examples: 'Es war mir
auf der Schwest ... auf der Brust so schwer.' This cannot be
adequately explained by the anticipation of sounds. The slip of the
tongue is probably to be interpreted
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in terms of an unconscious association between 'Schwester' (sister),
'Bruder' (brother) and perhaps 'Brust der Schwester' (sister's breast).
Freud concludes: 'There must be a reason for every mistake in
speaking." This includes other forms of speech disturbance besides slips of
the tongue, such as stammering or stuttering. These phenomena are all
symptoms of internal conflict which manifests itself as deformations of
speech. Speech disturbances, Freud claims, do not appear in circumstances
in which an individual is heavily engaged, such as a well-prepared address
or a declaration of love.
Ce qu'on conoit bien
S'nonce clairement
Et les mots pour le dire
Arrivent aisment.8
Does unconscious motivation exist in all cases of slips of the tongue?
Freud believes such to be the case, for 'every time one investigates an
instance of a slip of the tongue an explanation of this kind is forthcoming."
Let me now compare Freud on slips of the tongue with Goffman on
radio talk" - a comparison which might seem unpromising but is actually
very instructive for structuration theory. Goffman's concerns in his
discussion are quite divergent from those of Freud, and rather than
following the themes of his own argument I shall try to tease out its
implications for assessing Freud's views on errors of speech. Radio and
TV announcing is substantially different from ordinary conversation but
just for that reason allows considerable insight into those circumstances.
Announcers are not the authors of the scripts they read out. Their talk
occurs as part of pre-planned sequences, from which they are not free to
depart in anything save minor ways. At the same time announcers are
expected to convey an impression of 'fresh talk' and to keep alive a sense
of spontaneity in what they do. Meeting these inconsistent requirements is
difficult, since they have to deliver their lines in a technically error-free
way. The broadcaster's task is 'the production of seemingly faultless fresh
talk'."
Yet announcers do, of course, make slips of the tongue. Among the
examples given by Goffman it is easy to find instances of the errors listed
by Meringer and Mayer:
(1) 'In closing our TV Church of the Air, let me remind all of
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our listeners that time wounds all heals' (transposition or
Spoonerism).
(2) 'You are listening to the mucous of Clyde Lucas' (pre-
sonance).
(3) 'And now coming into the ball game for the Reds is number
forty-four, Frank Fuller, futility infielder' (perseveration).
(4) 'This is the Dominion network of the Canadian Broad
Corping Castration' (contamination).
(5) 'Word has just reached us that a home-made blonde exploded
in the Roxy Theatre this morning' (substitution).
There are also numerous examples close to those listed by
Freud, such as:
(1) 'Viceroys - if you want a good choke.'
(2) 'Beat the egg yolk and then add the milk, then slowly blend in the
sifted flour. As you do you can see how the mixture is sickening.'
(3) 'And now, audience, here is our special TV Matinee guest that we've
all been waiting for - world-famous author, lecturer and world
traveller, a man about town. Mr, er, Mr.... Oh! What the hell is his
name?'
(4) 'So, friends, be sure to visit Frankie's restaurant for elephant
food and dining.'
Most of these slips are humorous 12 and aptly reinforce Freud's
point that joking and slips of the tongue have a close affinity. Although it
is not possible to demonstrate this directly, such examples fit quite closely
with Freud's interpretation of verbal parapraxes. The mispronounced or
substituted words do not look simply like non-specific alternatives to
those which should have been uttered. They are embarrassing in respect of
the view that the broadcaster is supposed to convey; some have the 'only
too true' connotations to them to which Freud calls attention; and others
have a self-evidently sexual character. But consider two other forms of
slips in radio talk:
(1) 'Ladies who care to drive by and drop off their clothes will
receive prompt attention.'
(2) 'Folks, try our comfortable beds. I personally stand behind
every bed we sell.'
(3) 'The loot and the car were listed as stolen by the Los
Angeles Police Department.'
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(4) 'And here in Hollywood it is rumoured that the former
movie starlet is expecting her fifth child in a month.'
(1) 'Turns will give you instant relief and assure you no indigestion or
distress during the night .... So try Turns and go to sleep with a broad ...
[turns page] smile.'
(2) 'It's time now, ladies and gentlemen, for our featured guest, the
prominent lecturer and social leader, Mrs Elma Dodge... ]Superman
cut-in] who is able to leap buildings in a single bound.'
(3) A local TV station showing a boxing match from Madison Square
Garden interrupted the programme to report the death of a local
politician. On cutting back to the fight, the announcer was saying: 'That
wasn't much of a blow, folks!'
In these cases no slip of the tongue is involved, but they do otherwise take
the form of parapraxes. Something has gone awry with what the speaker
intended to convey. The second set of examples is interesting because if we did
not know the circumstances in which they occurred, it would seem as though
they contain typical 'only too true' utterances. No motive for them can be
imputed, unless the producers responsible for cutting from one programme to
the other somehow (consciously or otherwise) organized the sequencing to
have the effects noted. The first category of slips are more difficult to
interpret. It may be the case that these are unconsciously motivated
ambiguities. But this seems unlikely. It is more probable that their ambiguous
character would pass unnoticed by speakers and listeners alike if they were
uttered within ordinary, everyday conversations. The point is not just that
their ambiguous meanings are not immediately apparent but also that in
everyday talk meanings other than those intended by speakers tend to be
ruled out by contextual features of the conversation. Speakers are able to
address themselves to the specific people with whom they are engaged,
pre-selecting words and phrases so that possible alternative readings are
excluded. Radio or TV announcers cannot do this because they speak to a
generalized audience, that audience not being co-present with them.
Now, it would clearly be mistaken to regard radio talk as typical of talk in
general. There are two reasons why slips of the
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tongue stand out much more prominently in radio talk than in day-to-day
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