Slips of the tongue in first and second language production

Abstract

This article reports a selection of the findings of an extensive research project on the occurrence of slips of the tongue in L2 learners' speech. The findings confirm most of the claims based on L1 speech error research. In particular, they support the frame‐and‐slot mechanism and the notion of a spreading activation network adopted in current monolingual models of speech production (Dell 1986, Levelt 1989). With respect to bilingual models of speech production, the data suggest that both L1 and L2 lemmas and L1 and L2 wordforms can be simultaneously activated. Finally, it was found that the process of second language acquisition not only consists of accumulating knowledge and automatizing the procedures used in accessing and processing this knowledge, but also of developing the ability to suppress automatized procedures when they are irrelevant.