Linguistic Analysis of Urdu, Punjabi and English slips of the Tongue in an Urdu Talk-Show

Abstract

Slip of the tongue is a natural phenomenon which may occur unintentionally in any language user’s speech. An analysis of slip of the tongue gives an insight into deviations in the various standard linguistics patterns in the speech of an individual. The present study aims to investigate the types of slip-ups in the speech of Urdu language users and their potential factors behind them. The researchers have used the naturalistic data i.e. bloopers recorded during the broadcast of an Urdu talk show on a private channel. Data of 50 pieces of slip-ups were collected from 10 pieces of videos ranging from 2021-2022 of a Pakistani talk show on television that was available on YouTube. Descriptive qualitative method was used to analyze the data. The data was collected from the recorded videos in the form of words and phrases. Moreover, using the theoretical framework with eight types of slips of the tongue proposed by Carrol (2008) and Fromkin (1973), the data was classified and then analyzed by describing the forms of slips of the tongue happened by the performers of the talk show. In addition to that, analyzing the forms of slips of the tongue in the context gave substantiation about the factors like code switching/mixing, social and psychological pressure, phonological and structural complexity of the word/phrase behind them. The findings of the study suggested that substitution, reversal/exchange, addition and deletion are  more frequently occurred slip of the tongue which can be circumvented if the identified factors are abridged.

Key Terms: Slip of the tongue, Pakistani Talk Show, Bloopers, Linguistic Analysis