Article published In: Historiographia Linguistica
Vol. 8:2/3 (1981) ► pp.249–265
The legitimate fathers of speech errors
Published online: 1 January 1981
https://doi.org/10.1075/hl.8.2-3.03anw
https://doi.org/10.1075/hl.8.2-3.03anw
Summary
The history of speech errors is reviewed in the West and traced back to its origin in Medieval Arabic linguistics. It is claimed that Rudolf Meringer (1859–1931), the Austrian linguist was not the first scholar to start speech error studies. Some western as well as many Arab linguists were interested in speech errors long before him. It is claimed that Meringer may have been under the influence of Arabic books on speech errors since he thaught at the Orientalische Akademie in Vienna and was in touch with Orientalists interested in speech-error studies. The paper also points out how the interest of Arab linguists in this area emanated from their fear that such errors may lead to the corruption of Arabic and misunderstandings of the Qu’ān. Arab linguists collected speech errors made by educated and uneducated people from different parts of the Arabic-speaking world. Such errors were related to language use, social setting, and cultural factors. Linguistic explanations were also provided such as assimilation, substitution, nearness of point of articulation, anticipation, deletion, addition, and analogy as well as hypercorrection. This helped greatly in the development of empirical studies of phonetics, grammar, lexicography, dialects, the Arabic writing system, and scholarship concerning the Qur’ān.
Résumé
Après un aperçu sur l’histoire des erreurs de langue dans le monde occidental, l’auteur remonte aux origines: la linguistique arabe du Moyen-Age. Le linguiste autrichien Rudolf Meringer (1859–1931), avance-t-il, ne fut pas le premier érudit à entreprendre l’étude de telles erreurs. Plusieurs linguistes d’Occident et beaucoup de linguistes arabes s’y étaient intéressés bien avant lui. Meringer, soutient l’auteur, a fort bien pu être influencé par des ouvrages arabes relatifs aux erreurs de langue à partir du moment où il enseigna à l’académie viennoise d’études orientales et fut ainsi en contact avec des orientalistes intéressés par la lapsologie. L’article met en lumière comment l’intérêt des linguistes arabes pour ce domaine découlait de leur crainte que de telles erreurs ne mènent à la corruption de la langue arabe et à de fausses interprétations du Qur’ân. Les linguistes arabes relevaient les erreurs de langue commises par des personnes, cultivées ou non, originaires des différentes parties du monde arabophone. De telles erreurs, ils les mettaient en relation avec l’usage et matière de langue, le cadre social et les facteurs culturels. Ils proposaient aussi des explications linguistiques, telles que l’assimilation, la substitution, le voisinage de point d’articulation, l’anticipation, la suppression, l’addition et l’analogie, ainsi que la surcorrection. Tout cela contribua beaucoup à développer les études empiriques en phonétique, grammaire, lexicographie, dialectologie, graphie arabe, ainsi que l’érudition coranique.
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Cited by (3)
Cited by three other publications
Marx, Edeltrud
Cowan, William
1983.
Arab Linguistics: An Introductory Classical Text with Translation and Notes. Edited by Michael George Carter. Historiographia Linguistica 10:1-2 ► pp. 120 ff.
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