“
Genital prints
” instead of “
fingerprints
”, “
fellatio
” for “
inflation
”...: when these slips of the tongue are uttered by political figures, interpretations run rampant.
We all make such language errors, and psychoanalysis has widely disseminated the idea that they reveal thoughts buried within our unconscious.
But is the slip of the tongue really “revealing”?
And if so, what does it show?
Le Figaro
carried out the investigation...
If we can always interpret a slip of the tongue, “
it is very difficult to demonstrate scientifically that it really corresponds to a repressed thought,”
warns Xavier Alario, CNRS research director in cognitive and neural dynamics of language production processes and author from
All the questions you ask yourself about your brain
(ed. Odile Jacob).
“
It takes a lot of slips to begin to have a robust interpretation.
It is also important to ask yourself if this is an error…
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