The very beginning of chapter 3, Some Facts About Verbal Blunders, discusses verbal blunders as not only a part of life but also as mile markers (page 57). I was very surprised to hear that children's speaking may become less interrupted and fragmented as they mature, but as adults enter later life, they begin to sound more like children again. I would like to know what age roughly this starts at? I can see how older people would have longer pauses and changes in the way they speak due to memory loss or dementia, etc. I am curious to know how social class, education level and stress levels would effect a person's verbal blunders and/or language?
The author also talks about tip of the tongue or TOT experiences. It was said that the larger someone's vocabulary, the more TOT experiences they have. I'm having a really hard time believing this. I feel like if you have a large vocabulary then you would know many words with the same meanings. Therefore, I think that if you can not think of a word, then there could be a replacement so quickly that maybe you would not even notice that the original word was not used. Would this still be considered a TOT? I feel like it isn't necessarily one if this whole change happened so quickly that the person never even realized the switching of words.
Comments (1)
In response to your question about TOTs you may be thinking of two different things. As I understand it, TOT is referring to the instance when you find yourself completely stopping what you are saying because of a word you are trying to access that does not come to you. However, if I am correct, you seem to be referring to the split second process of activating and choosing words during conversation/thought/whatever.
As far as TOTs go(at least as I understand them),someone with a high vocabulary would be able to replace the wanted word with an alternative but the occurence of TOT still happened. In regards to someone with a higher vocabulary having this happen more frequently, it could be possible that since there are more words in their lexicon there are more opportunities to forget/misplace a particular word. For instance, if there is someone with only a 1000 word lexicon, they use these words so often that there is a lower chance that they will forget the word. However, someone with a 10,000 word lexicon may find that they want to access a word that they haven't uttered in 5 years. They know that it exists in their memory but, because it is rarely activated, it takes a much longer time for the word to be "found".
I hope my explanation makes sense and helps you look at it in a way that maybe you hadn't consedered.
~Amy
Posted by Amy Smith | February 8, 2008 11:45 AM
Posted on February 8, 2008 11:45