Lost in Translation — Um . . . Disfluencies and Translation
Let us take a moment to revisit the idea of scanning brain activity to guide the translation process. I suggested that the UT may be able to detect thought patterns that correspond to certain categories of words - such as nouns, verbs, or specific kinds of nouns (people, animals, food, numbers). I recently came across an interesting book that indicates that the human brain actually does work that way. The books is Um . . . Slips, Stumbles, and Verbal Blunders, and What They Mean , by Michael Erard. The book compiles historical, literary, anecdotal, and linguistic evidence that show the inner workings of the mistakes we make when speaking. In the process of studying these speech disfluencies the underlying structure of language and thought patterns begins to emerge. Erard explains: For instance, when you accidentally swap one word for another, you always choose a word of the same part of speech, which is why I heard someone say, "That's the cake on the icing" (where two ...