Spoken Language Interference Patterns (SLIPs)

Pot Legal

Phonology

Error SLIPs: Spelling and print code deviations

Nonerror SLIPs: Short words, pronoun frequency, contractions

Inverse SLIPs: Print code conventions (including spelling and punctuation), long words

Examples:

The spelling of marijuana as “mariguana”  Maybe the misspelling represents the way the student hears the word in relation to a phoneme-grapheme correspondence in his L1? 

Morphology

Error SLIPs: Inflectional deletions (subject-verb agreement, verb tense) inventions, inconsistencies

Nonerror SLIPs: Present tense, high frequency of first and second person pronouns, demonstrative pronouns, indefinite pronouns and IT

Inverse SLIPs: Past tense, third person pronouns, archaic or foreign abbreviations and morphemes

Examples:

“There are many issues that mariguana develop in a family.”  Maybe this student would leave out the /s/ when orally saying “develop” in this sentence.  

“...if mariguana were to be leagalize..”  This student, when speaking, might leave out the -ed sound/not state the full past participle in this sentence.  Maybe this is also a phonological error.  

- “Drug is well known around the world.”  Plurality and S/V agreement.  

Syntax

Error SLIPs: Sentence boundaries, awkward structures, double negatives

Nonerror: Independent clause coordination, sentence relatives, because as a subordinator, there constructions, do as a proverb, questions, analytic negations, that deletion

Inverse: Phrasal coordination, passives, nominalizations, synthetic negation, participial clauses, gerunds.  

Examples:

-”A person who lives daily in what we call high conditions can not, is not possible getting a Bachelors in life.”  

“The symptoms that families develop within are a thousand.”  

Semantics

Error: Colloquialisms, wordiness, low variety, wrong word

Nonerror: Discourse particles, amplifiers, hedges, emphatics, private verbs

Inverse: Downtoners, conjuncts, high type/token ratio, archaic or foreign words.  

Examples:

-”He got ecstasy as a try on; got hooked on it and now is an addict who dropped school.”  Maybe “try on” is a phrasal verb this student uses when speaking.  He might also say “dropped school” instead of “dropped out of.”  

Pragmatics

Error: Writer’s block, lack of unity, coherence and/or organization, vagueness, phatic function

Nonerror: Expectation of reader knowledge, omission of details, expressive function

Inverse: Organization, unity, coherence, explicitness, informative function

Examples:

-The lack of consistency, in terms of whom the student is addressing (Gray or someone else)...

Weird Friday

Phonology

“...I don’t know mom were ever you want...”

“I got up, got my blank it an fold it.”  

These spelling issues might stem from how the student hears the words.  

Morphology

- “When my mom was finish...”

The student might leave out the -ed or might not use past participles in his speech. 

Syntax

-....”and that’s what goanna talk am about...”

Semantics

- “We did hella things in one day...”

There is a lot of colloquial language in this essay. 

Pragmatics

Writer’s block doesn’t seem to be a huge problem but there are some coherence and organizational issues.