Speech errors and the poetics of conversation

Abstract

Speech errors make audible to us certain figures of speech that operate in everyday interaction. Many speech errors display sound assonances and semantic links between the erroneous particle and surrounding activity. We may extend these analyses beyond errors to find principles of poetic activity at play throughout spoken interaction. From this basis, we consider some uses that speakers make of errors. Responses to errors, like errors themselves, often display poetic features. Analyses of conversational play may help us to ground a poetic approach to conversational interaction.