Types of speech errors speech errors. “Put”, not “lie”: the most common mistakes in our colloquial speech

The word is the most important unit of language, the most diverse and voluminous. It is the word that reflects all the changes taking place in the life of society. The word not only names an object or phenomenon, but also performs an emotionally expressive function.

And when choosing words, we must pay attention to their meaning, stylistic coloring, usage, and compatibility with other words. Since violation of at least one of these criteria can lead to a speech error.

The main causes of speech errors:

  1. Misunderstanding the meaning of a word
  2. Lexical compatibility
  3. Use of synonyms
  4. Use of homonyms
  5. Use of ambiguous words
  6. Verbosity
  7. Lexical incompleteness of the utterance
  8. New words
  9. Outdated words
  10. Words of foreign origin
  11. Dialectisms
  12. Colloquial and colloquial words
  13. Professional jargon
  14. Phraseologisms
  15. Clichés and stamps

1. Misunderstanding of the meaning of the word.

1.1. Using a word in a meaning that is unusual for it.

Example: The fire grew hotter and hotter. The error lies in the wrong choice of word:

Inflame - 1. Heat to a very high temperature, become hot. 2. (trans.) To become very excited, to become overwhelmed by some strong feeling.

Flare up - start to burn strongly or well, evenly.

1.2. The use of significant and function words without taking into account their semantics.

Example: Thanks to the fire that broke out from the fire, a large area of ​​the forest burned down.

In modern Russian, the preposition thanks retains a certain semantic connection with the verb to thank and is usually used only in cases where the reasons that cause a desired result are spoken of: thanks to someone’s help, support. The error arises due to the semantic distraction of the preposition from the original verb to thank. In this sentence, the preposition thanks should be replaced with one of the following: because of, as a result, as a result.

1.3. Selection of words-concepts with different bases of division (concrete and abstract vocabulary).

Example: We offer complete treatment for alcoholics and other diseases.

If we are talking about diseases, then the word alcoholics should be replaced with alcoholism. An alcoholic is someone who suffers from alcoholism. Alcoholism is a painful addiction to drinking alcoholic beverages.

1.4. Incorrect use of paronyms.

Example: A person leads a festive life. I'm in an idle mood today.

Idle and festive are very similar words, with the same root. But they have different meanings: festive – an adjective for holiday (celebratory dinner, festive mood); idle - not filled, not busy with business, work (idle life). To restore the meaning of the statements in the example, you need to swap the words.

2. Lexical compatibility.

When choosing a word, you should take into account not only the meaning that is inherent in it in the literary language, but also lexical compatibility. Not all words can be combined with each other. The boundaries of lexical compatibility are determined by the semantics of words, their stylistic affiliation, emotional coloring, grammatical properties, etc.

Example: A good leader must set an example for his subordinates in everything. You can show an example, but not a sample. And you can be a role model, for example.

Example: Their strong friendship, tempered by life's trials, was noticed by many. The word friendship is combined with the adjective strong - strong friendship.

What should be distinguished from a speech error is the deliberate combination of seemingly incompatible words: a living corpse, an ordinary miracle... In this case, we have one of the types of tropes - an oxymoron.

In difficult cases, when it is difficult to determine whether certain words can be used together, it is necessary to use a compatibility dictionary

3. Use of synonyms.

Synonyms enrich the language and make our speech figurative. Synonyms may have different functional and stylistic connotations. Thus, the words error, miscalculation, oversight, error are stylistically neutral and commonly used; hole, overlay - colloquial; gaffe – colloquial; blooper - professional slang. Using one of the synonyms without taking into account its stylistic coloring can lead to a speech error.

Example: Having made a mistake, the plant director immediately began to correct it.

When using synonyms, the ability of each of them to be more or less selectively combined with other words is often not taken into account.

Differing in shades of lexical meaning, synonyms can express different degrees of manifestation of a characteristic or action. But, even denoting the same thing, being interchangeable in some cases, in others synonyms cannot be replaced - this leads to a speech error.

Example: Yesterday I was sad. The synonym sad is quite suitable here: Yesterday I was sad. But in two-part sentences these synonyms are interchangeable. I look sadly at our generation...

4. Use of homonyms.

Thanks to the context, homonyms are usually understood correctly. But still, in certain speech situations, homonyms cannot be understood unambiguously.

Example: The crew is in excellent condition. Is the crew a cart or a team? The word crew itself is used correctly. But to reveal the meaning of this word, it is necessary to expand the context.

Very often, ambiguity is caused by the use in speech (especially oral) of homophones (sounding the same, but spelled differently) and homoforms (words that have the same sound and spelling in certain forms). So, when choosing words for a phrase, we must pay attention to the context, which in some speech situations is designed to reveal the meaning of the words.

5. Use of polysemantic words.

When including polysemantic words in our speech, we must be very careful, we must monitor whether the meaning that we wanted to reveal in this speech situation is clear. When using polysemous words (as well as when using homonyms), context is very important. It is thanks to the context that one or another meaning of a word is clear. And if the context meets its requirements (a semantically complete segment of speech that allows one to establish the meanings of the words or phrases included in it), then each word in the sentence is understandable. But it also happens differently.

Example: He's already sung. It’s not clear: either he started singing and got carried away; or, after singing for a while, he began to sing freely, easily.

6. Verbosity.

The following types of verbosity occur:

6.1. Pleonasm (from the Greek pleonasmos - excess, excessiveness) is the use in speech of words that are close in meaning and therefore logically redundant.

Example: All guests received memorable souvenirs. A souvenir is a keepsake, so memorable is an extra word in this sentence. A variety of pleonasms are expressions such as very huge, very tiny, very beautiful, etc. Adjectives denoting a characteristic in its extremely strong or extremely weak manifestation do not need to specify the degree of the characteristic.

6.2. Using unnecessary words. Superfluous not because their inherent lexical meaning is expressed in other words, but because they are simply not needed in this text.

Example: Then, on April 11, the Druzhba bookstore will take care of this so that you can smile.

6.3. Tautology (from the Greek tauto - the same logos - word) is the repetition of words with the same root or identical morphemes. Not only students’ essays, but also newspapers and magazines are full of tautological errors.

Example: Business leaders are business-minded.

6.4. Predicate splitting. This is the replacement of a verbal predicate with a synonymous verbal-nominal combination: fight - fight, clean - clean.

Example: The students decided to clean up the school yard. Perhaps in an official business style such expressions are appropriate, but in a speech situation it is better: The students decided to clean the school yard.

Example: In small cheap cafes, well, where people from their neighborhood go, there are usually no empty seats.

7. Lexical incompleteness of the statement.

This error is the opposite of verbosity. An incomplete statement consists of missing a necessary word in the sentence.

Example: The advantage of Kuprin is that there is nothing superfluous. Kuprin may have nothing superfluous, but this sentence is missing (and not even just one) word. Or: “...do not allow statements on the pages of the press and television that could incite ethnic hatred.” So it turns out - “television page”.

When choosing a word, it is necessary to take into account not only its semantics, lexical, stylistic and logical compatibility, but also its scope. The use of words that have a limited sphere of distribution (lexical new formations, obsolete words, words of foreign language origin, professionalisms, jargon, dialectisms) should always be motivated by the conditions of the context.

8. New words.

Poorly formed neologisms are speech errors. Example: Last year, 23 thousand rubles were spent on pothole repairs after the spring thaw. And only the context helps to understand: “pothole repair” is the repair of holes.

9. Outdated words.

Archaisms - words that name existing realities, but for some reason have been forced out of active use by synonymous lexical units - must correspond to the style of the text, otherwise they are completely inappropriate.

Example: Today there was an open day at the university. Here the obsolete word now (today, now, currently) is completely inappropriate.

Among the words that have fallen out of active use, historicisms also stand out. Historicisms are words that have fallen out of use due to the disappearance of the concepts they denote: armyak, camisole, bursa, oprichnik, etc. Errors in the use of historicisms are often associated with ignorance of their lexical meaning.

Example: The peasants cannot stand their hard life and go to the main governor of the city. Governor is the head of a region (for example, a province in Tsarist Russia, a state in the USA). Consequently, the chief governor is an absurdity; moreover, there could only be one governor in the province, and his assistant was called the vice-governor.

10. Words of foreign origin.

Now many people have an addiction to foreign words, sometimes without even knowing their exact meaning. Sometimes the context does not accept a foreign word.

Example: The work of the conference is limited due to the lack of leading specialists. Limit - set a limit on something, limit it. The foreign word limit in this sentence should be replaced with the words: goes slower, stopped, etc.

11. Dialectisms.

Dialectisms are words or stable combinations that are not included in the lexical system of the literary language and belong to one or more dialects of the Russian national language. Dialectisms are justified in artistic or journalistic speech to create speech characteristics of heroes. The unmotivated use of dialectisms indicates insufficient knowledge of the norms of the literary language.

Example: A scavenger came to see me and sat there the whole evening. Shaberka is a neighbor. The use of dialectism in this sentence is not justified either by the style of the text or by the purpose of the statement.

12. Colloquial and colloquial words.

Colloquial words are included in the lexical system of the literary language, but are used mainly in oral speech, mainly in the sphere of everyday communication. Colloquial speech is a word, grammatical form or turn of phrase, predominantly of oral speech, used in a literary language, usually for the purpose of a reduced, rough characterization of the subject of speech, as well as simple casual speech containing such words, forms and turns. Colloquial and vernacular vocabulary, in contrast to dialect (regional), is used in the speech of the entire people.

Example: I have a very thin jacket. Thin (colloquial) – holey, spoiled (thin boot). Errors occur in cases where the use of colloquial and colloquial words is not motivated by context.

13. Professional jargon.

Professionalisms act as colloquial equivalents of terms accepted in a certain professional group: typo - a mistake in the speech of journalists; steering wheel - in the speech of drivers, a steering wheel.

But the unmotivated transfer of professionalism into general literary speech is undesirable. Such professionalisms as sewing, tailoring, listening and others spoil literary speech.

In terms of limited use and the nature of expression (jocular, reduced, etc.), professionalisms are similar to jargons and are an integral part of jargons - peculiar social dialects characteristic of professional or age groups of people (jargon of athletes, sailors, hunters, students, schoolchildren). Jargon is everyday vocabulary and phraseology, endowed with reduced expression and characterized by socially limited use.

Example: I wanted to invite guests to the holiday, but the hut doesn’t allow it. Khibara is a house.

14. Phraseologisms.

It must be remembered that phraseological units always have a figurative meaning. Decorating our speech, making it more lively, imaginative, bright, beautiful, phraseological units also give us a lot of trouble - if they are used incorrectly, speech errors appear.

14.1. Errors in learning the meaning of phraseological units.

  1. There is a danger of taking idioms literally, which can be perceived as free associations of words.
  2. Errors may be associated with a change in the meaning of a phraseological unit.

Example: Khlestakov always casts pearls before swine, but everyone believes him. Here the phraseology “throw pearls before swine”, meaning “to talk about something in vain or prove something to someone who is not able to understand it”, is used incorrectly - in the meaning of “inventing, weaving fables”.

14.2. Errors in mastering the form of phraseological units.

  • Grammatical modification of a phraseological unit.

Example: I'm used to giving myself full reports. The form of the number has been changed here. There is a phraseological unit to give account.

Example: He constantly sits with his hands folded. Phraseologisms like folded arms, headlong, headlong retain in their composition the old form of the perfective participle with the suffix -a (-я).

Some phraseological units use short forms of adjectives; replacing them with full forms is erroneous.

  • Lexical modification of a phraseological unit.

Example: It's time for you to take charge of your mind. Most phraseological units are impenetrable: an additional unit cannot be introduced into the phraseological unit.

Example: Well, at least hit the wall! Omitting a phraseological unit component is also a speech error.

Example: Everything returns to normal in a spiral!.. There is a phraseological unit back to normal. Substitution of a word is not allowed.

14.3. Changing the lexical compatibility of phraseological units.

Example: These and other questions play a big role in the development of this still young science. There has been a mixture of two stable expressions: it plays a role and it matters. You could say this: questions matter... or questions matter a lot.

15. Clichés and cliches.

Officeisms are words and expressions, the use of which is assigned to the official business style, but in other styles of speech they are inappropriate, they are cliches.

Example: There is a lack of spare parts.

Stamps are hackneyed expressions with a faded lexical meaning and erased expressiveness. Words, phrases and even whole sentences become cliches, which appear as new, stylistically expressive means of speech, but as a result of too frequent use they lose their original imagery.

A type of stamps are universal words. These are words that are used in the most general and vague meanings: question, task, raise, provide, etc. Usually, universal words are accompanied by standard prefixes: work - everyday, level - high, support - warm. There are numerous journalistic cliches (field workers, a city on the Volga), and literary cliches (an exciting image, an angry protest).

Clichés - speech stereotypes, ready-made phrases used as a standard that is easily reproduced in certain conditions and contexts - are constructive units of speech and, despite frequent use, retain their semantics. Clichés are used in official business documents (summit meeting); in scientific literature (requires proof); in journalism (our own correspondent reports from); in different situations of everyday speech (Hello! Goodbye! Who's the last one?).


Speech is a channel for the development of intelligence,
the sooner the language is acquired,
the easier and more completely the knowledge will be absorbed.

Nikolai Ivanovich Zhinkin,
Soviet linguist and psychologist

We think of speech as an abstract category, inaccessible to direct perception. Meanwhile, this is the most important indicator of a person’s culture, his intelligence and a way of understanding the complex connections of nature, things, society and transmitting this information through communication.

It is obvious that when learning and already using something, we make mistakes due to inability or ignorance. And speech, like other types of human activity (in which language is an important component), is no exception in this regard. All people make mistakes, both in speech and in speech. Moreover, the concept of speech culture, as the idea of ​​“”, is inextricably linked with the concept of speech error. In essence, these are parts of the same process, and, therefore, striving for perfection, we must be able to recognize speech errors and eradicate them.

Types of speech errors

First, let's figure out what speech errors are. Speech errors are any cases of deviation from current language norms. Without their knowledge, a person can live, work and communicate normally with others. But the effectiveness of the actions taken in certain cases may suffer. In this regard, there is a risk of being misunderstood or misunderstood. And in situations where our personal success depends on it, this is unacceptable.

The author of the classification of speech errors given below is Doctor of Philology Yu. V. Fomenko. Its division, in our opinion, is the simplest, devoid of academic pretentiousness and, as a result, understandable even to those who do not have a special education.

Types of speech errors:

Examples and causes of speech errors

S. N. Tseitlin writes: “The complexity of the speech generation mechanism is a factor contributing to the occurrence of speech errors.” Let's look at special cases, based on the classification of types of speech errors proposed above.

Pronunciation errors

Pronunciation or spelling errors arise as a result of violation of the rules of spelling. In other words, the reason lies in the incorrect pronunciation of sounds, sound combinations, individual grammatical structures and borrowed words. These also include accentological errors - violation of stress norms. Examples:

Pronunciation: “of course” (and not “of course”), “poshti” (“almost”), “plotlit” (“pays”), “precedent” (“precedent”), “iliktrichesky” (“electric”), “colidor” ("corridor"), "laboratory" ("laboratory"), "tyshcha" ("thousand"), "shchas" ("now").

Accent: “calls”, “dialogue”, “agreement”, “catalogue”, “overpass”, “alcohol”, “beets”, “phenomenon”, “driver”, “expert”.

Lexical errors

Lexical errors are violations of the rules of vocabulary, first of all, the use of words in meanings that are unusual for them, distortion of the morphemic form of words and the rules of semantic agreement. They come in several types.

Using a word in a meaning that is unusual for it. This is the most common lexical speech error. Within this type there are three subtypes:

  • Mixing words that are similar in meaning: “He read the book back.”
  • Mixing words that sound similar: excavator - escalator, colossus - colossus, Indian - turkey, single - ordinary.
  • A mixture of words that are similar in meaning and sound: subscriber - subscription, addressee - addressee, diplomat - diploma holder, well-fed - well-fed, ignorant - ignoramus. “Cashier for business travelers” (required – business travelers).

Word writing. Examples of errors: Georgian, heroism, underground, spender.

Violation of the rules of semantic agreement of words. Semantic agreement is the mutual adaptation of words along the lines of their material meanings. For example, you cannot say: “ I raise this toast", since “to lift” means “to move,” which is not consistent with the wish. “Through a door that is ajar” is a speech error, because the door cannot be both ajar (open a little) and wide open (wide open) at the same time.

This also includes pleonasms and tautologies. Pleonasm is a phrase in which the meaning of one component is entirely included in the meaning of another. Examples: “the month of May”, “traffic route”, “residence address”, “huge metropolis”, “be on time”. Tautology is a phrase whose members have the same root: “We were given a task,” “The organizer was a public organization,” “I wish you long creative life.”

Phraseological errors

Phraseological errors occur when the form of phraseological units is distorted or they are used in a meaning that is unusual for them. Yu. V. Fomenko identifies 7 varieties:

  • Changing the lexical composition of a phraseological unit: “As long as the matter is the case” instead of “As long as the trial is the case”;
  • Truncation of phraseological units: “It was just right for him to hit the wall” (phraseological unit: “beat his head against the wall”);
  • Expansion of the lexical composition of phraseological units: “You have come to the wrong address” (phraseological unit: go to the right address);
  • Distortion of the grammatical form of a phraseological unit: “I can’t stand sitting with my hands folded.” Correct: “folded”;
  • Contamination (combination) of phraseological units: “You can’t do everything with your sleeves folded” (a combination of phraseological units “carelessly” and “hands folded”);
  • Combination of pleonasm and phraseological unit: "Random stray bullet";
  • Use of phraseological units in an unusual meaning: “Today we will talk about the film from cover to cover.”

Morphological errors

Morphological errors are incorrect formation of word forms. Examples of such speech errors: “reserved seat”, “shoes”, “towels”, “cheaper”, “one and a half hundred kilometers away”.

Syntax errors

Syntactic errors are associated with violation of the rules of syntax - the construction of sentences, the rules of combining words. There are a lot of varieties, so we will give just a few examples.

  • Incorrect matching: “There are a lot of books in the closet”;
  • Mismanagement: “Pay for travel”;
  • Syntactic ambiguity: “Reading Mayakovsky made a strong impression”(have you read Mayakovsky or have you read Mayakovsky’s works?);
  • Design offset: “The first thing I ask of you is your attention.” Correct: “The first thing I ask of you is your attention”;
  • Extra correlative word in the main clause: “We looked at those stars that dotted the whole sky.”

Spelling mistakes

This type of error occurs due to ignorance of the rules of writing, hyphenation, and abbreviation of words. Characteristic of speech. For example: “the dog barked”, “sit on the chairs”, “come to the train station”, “Russian. language", "gram. error".

Punctuation errors

Punctuation errors - incorrect use of punctuation marks when...

Stylistic errors

We have dedicated a separate section to this topic.

Ways to correct and prevent speech errors

How to prevent speech errors? Work on your speech should include:

  1. Reading fiction.
  2. Visiting theaters, museums, exhibitions.
  3. Communication with educated people.
  4. Constant work to improve speech culture.

Online course “Russian language”

Speech errors are one of the most problematic topics that receive little attention in school. There are not so many topics in the Russian language in which people most often make mistakes - about 20. We decided to devote the course “to” to these topics. During the classes, you will have the opportunity to practice competent writing skills using a special system of multiple distributed repetitions of material through simple exercises and special memorization techniques.

Sources

  • Bezzubov A. N. Introduction to literary editing. – St. Petersburg, 1997.
  • Savko I. E. Basic speech and grammatical errors
  • Sergeeva N. M. Speech, grammatical, ethical, factual errors...
  • Fomenko Yu. V. Types of speech errors. – Novosibirsk: NSPU, 1994.
  • Tseytlin S. N. Speech errors and their prevention. – M.: Education, 1982.

49. Types of speech errors: methods of working to prevent and correct them.

Types and examples of speech errors

Speech errors These are errors associated with violation of the requirements of correct speech.

    Using words with meanings that are unusual for them. Example: We were shocked by the excellent performance of the players.

    Repetition of cognate words in one sentence (tautology): The writer vividly describes the events of that day.

    Speech impairment (occurs when the right word is missed). The car lost both of them.

    A mixture of vocabulary from different historical eras. Anna Sergeevna and the prince went to get married at the registry office.

    Pleonasm (hidden tautology). Example: colleagues.

    Using unnecessary words. A young girl, very beautiful.

    Poor use of pronouns. This text was written by K. Ivanov. It refers to an artistic style.

    Unjustified repetition of words. Maria loves flowers. Maria knows everything about them.

Causes of speech errors

“The complexity of the speech generation mechanism is a factor contributing to the occurrence of speech errors” Nikolai Ivanovich Zhinkin.

The main causes of speech errors are:

    Misunderstanding of the meaning of a word (when a word is used in a meaning that is unusual for it). The fire grew hotter and hotter.

    The use of synonyms (each such word can have its own functional and stylistic connotation, this leads to speech errors). For example: "blunder"- professional jargon, but "hole"- a colloquial word.

    The use of polysemantic words (when using them, be sure to make sure that they are understandable to the interlocutor).

    Lexical incompleteness of the statement (an important word is missing).

    Use of outdated words. (Example: Now everything in the store is at a discount).

    Words of foreign origin (if you have a passion for borrowed words, be sure to find out their exact meaning).

    Errors in word formation (for example: they want; dog kennel; on the forehead, etc.)

    Incorrect use of paronyms (words that are similar in sound, usually one part of speech, but different in meaning and structure). For example: addressee - addressee.

    Lack of lexical compatibility in a sentence. A good leader must set an example for his subordinates in everything.(The word “sample” is used inappropriately and should be replaced with “example”).

    Inappropriate use of dialectisms (expressions or ways of speech used by people of a particular locality). For example: The scavenger came to me and sat there until the morning. ( Shaberka - neighbor).

When choosing words, you need to pay attention to their meaning, usage, stylistic coloring, and compatibility with other words. Since violation of at least one of these criteria can lead to a speech error.

Ways to correct and prevent speech errors

Often in the speech of people (especially very young people) there are lexical and stylistic errors, i.e. the use of words in an inaccurate or unusual meaning (and the reason for this is ignorance of the meaning of the word). IN book “Speech Secrets” edited by T. A. Ladyzhenskaya options for working to prevent and eliminate these errors are presented.

In the meantime, we offer you our selection designed to prevent speech errors:

    Communicate with literate and educated people.

    Visit theaters, museums, trainings.

    Constantly monitor your speech (pronounce words correctly).

    Essays and presentations are recognized as good speech exercises.

The Latin word is lapsus. It denotes an error in a person's speech. From this word came the well-known abbreviation blunder. Only if a blunder is considered a gross violation of speech norms, then lapsus has a less strict meaning. Unfortunately, there is no analogue of this word, which denotes speech errors, in modern Russian. But lapsus are found everywhere.

Speech errors are divided into normative errors and typos. Typos are mechanical errors. A word may be spelled incorrectly in the text, which will complicate the perception of information. Or instead of one word they accidentally use another. Typos also occur in spoken language. These are slips of the tongue that you hear from people every day.

Mechanical errors occur unconsciously, but a lot depends on them. Errors in writing numbers create a distortion of factual information. And spelling words incorrectly can completely change the meaning of what was said. One scene from the film “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day,” directed by Miguel Arteta, demonstrates the problem of typos well. The printing house mixed up the letters “p” and “s” and in a children’s book they wrote, instead of “You can jump on the bed,” the phrase “You can burp on the bed.” And according to the plot of the film, this situation resulted in a scandal.

Particular attention was paid to typos during the Stalinist repressions, when an incorrectly spelled word cost a person his life. It is impossible to eradicate the problem of typos, since people make them unconsciously. The only way you will avoid this type of speech error is to be careful when writing the text, carefully choosing the words you say.

Types of regulatory errors

Speech errors are associated with violations of the norms of the Russian language. Types of speech errors:

  • orthoepic;
  • morphological;
  • spelling;
  • syntactic-punctuation;
  • stylistic;
  • lexical.

Spelling error

A pronunciation error is associated with a violation of orthoepy norms. It manifests itself only in oral speech. This is an erroneous pronunciation of sounds, words or phrases. Errors in pronunciation also include incorrect stress.

The distortion of words occurs in the direction of reducing the number of letters. For example, when instead of “thousand” the word “thousand” is pronounced. If you want to speak competently and beautifully, you should rid your speech of such words. A common mispronunciation of the word “of course” is “of course.”

Pronouncing the correct accent is not only correct, but also fashionable. Surely you have heard how people correct the incorrect emphasis in the words “Alcohol”, “calls”, “contract” to the correct ones - “alcohol”, “calls” and “contract”. Incorrect placement of stress has recently become more noticeable than before. And the opinion about your erudition depends on compliance with pronunciation standards.

Morphological error

Morphology is a branch of linguistics in which the object of study is words and their parts. Morphological errors are caused by incorrect formation of word forms of different parts of speech. The reasons are incorrect declension, errors in the use of gender and number.

For example, "doctors" instead of "doctors". This is a morphological error in the use of the plural.

They often use the wrong form of a word when changing case. The genitive case of the word apples is apples. Sometimes the incorrect form of "apples" is used instead.

Common morphological errors - incorrect spelling of numerals:

“The company owned five hundred and fifty-three branches.” In this example, the word “fifty” was not declined. Correct spelling: "The company owned five hundred and fifty-three branches."

In the use of adjectives, a common mistake is the incorrect use of the comparative degree. For example, this use: “more beautiful” instead of “more beautiful”. Or “the highest” instead of “the highest” or “the highest”.

Spelling mistake

Spelling errors are misspellings of words. They arise when a person does not know the correct spelling of a word. Have you ever received a message containing grammatical errors? A common example: spelling the word “sorry” with an “e.” To prevent such spelling errors from happening to you, read as much as possible. Reading stimulates the perception of the correct spelling of words. And if you are used to reading correctly written text, then you will write without making grammatical errors.

Spelling errors, in principle, occur due to ignorance of the correct words. Therefore, if you are not sure of a written word, you should consult a dictionary. At work, learn the list of words specific to your field that you need to remember and in which you should never make grammatical errors.

Syntax and punctuation errors

These types of speech errors occur when punctuation marks are placed incorrectly and words are incorrectly combined in phrases and sentences.

Missing dashes, extra commas - this refers to punctuation errors. Don't be lazy to open your textbook if you're not sure about the use of commas. Again, this is a problem that can be overcome by reading a lot of books. You get used to the correct placement of punctuation marks and already on an intuitive level it is difficult for you to make a mistake.

Violations of syntax rules are common. Coordination errors are common. “To be happy, a person needs a favorite place to relax, a job, a happy family.” The word “need” in this sentence is not suitable for listing. It is necessary to use “need”.

Professional editors believe that management error is common. When a word is replaced by a synonym or a similar word, but the control does not agree with the new word.

An example of a management error: “They praised and congratulated Alina for her victory.”

They praised Alina. They brought congratulations to Alina. Parts of the proposal are inconsistent due to mismanagement. After "praised" you need to add the word "her" to correct the mistake.

Stylistic errors

Unlike other types of errors, stylistic errors are based on distortion of the meaning of the text. Classification of main stylistic speech errors:

  • Pleonasm. The phenomenon occurs frequently. Pleonasm is a redundant expression. The author expresses a thought, supplementing it with information that is already understandable to everyone. For example, “a minute passed,” “he told the true truth,” “a secret spy was watching the passenger.” A minute is a unit of time. The truth is the truth. And a spy is a secret agent in any case.
  • Cliche. These are established phrases that are used very often. Clichés cannot be completely attributed to speech errors. Sometimes their use is appropriate. But if they are often found in the text or a cliché of a conversational style is used in a business style, this is a serious speech error. Clichés include the expressions “to win”, “golden autumn”, “overwhelming majority”.
  • Tautology. An error in which the same or similar words are often repeated. The same word should not be repeated in the same sentence. It is advisable to eliminate repetitions in adjacent sentences.

Sentences in which this error was made: “He smiled, his smile filled the room with light,” “Katya blushed from the red wine,” “Petya loved to go fishing and catch fish.”

  • Violation of word order. In English, word order is much stricter than in Russian. It is distinguished by the clear construction of parts of a sentence in a certain sequence. In Russian, you can rearrange phrases as you would like. But it is important not to lose the meaning of the statement.

To prevent this from happening, follow two rules:

  1. The order of words in a sentence can be direct or reverse depending on the subject and predicate.
  2. The secondary members of the sentence must agree with the words on which they depend.

Lexical speech errors

Vocabulary is the vocabulary of a language. Mistakes occur when you write or talk about something you don’t understand. More often, errors in the meanings of words occur for several reasons:

  • The word is outdated and rarely used in modern Russian.
  • The word refers to highly specialized vocabulary.
  • The word is a neologism and its meaning is not common.

Classification of lexical speech errors:

  • False synonymy. A person considers several words that are not synonyms to be synonyms. For example, authority is not popularity, and features are not differences. Examples where an error was made:“The singer was an authority among young people” instead of “The singer was popular among young people.” “The brother and sister had many differences in their personalities” instead of “The brother and sister had many differences in their personalities.”
  • Using words that sound similar. For example, using the word “single” when you need to say “ordinary”. Instead of the word “Indian” they may write the mistaken “Indian”.
  • Confusion in words with similar meanings. “Interviewer” and “Interviewee”, “Subscriber” and “Subscription”, “Addressee” and “Addressee”.
  • Unintentional formation of new words.

It's easy to make a speech error. Sometimes this happens in case of a slip of the tongue, and sometimes the problem lies in ignorance of some norm of the Russian language or due to confusion in the meanings of words. Read a lot of books, speak correctly and don’t hesitate to consult a dictionary or textbook once again. Constantly work on your oral and written speech so that the number of errors is close to zero.

What are speech errors? These are any cases of deviation from language norms that are valid. A person without knowledge of these laws can work, live, and build communications with others normally. However, in certain cases, efficiency may suffer. There is a risk of being misunderstood or misunderstood. In these and other cases, you simply need to know what errors exist and how to deal with them.

Correcting speech errors in sentences is not always easy. In order to understand what exactly to pay attention to when composing this or that oral statement or written text, we created this classification. After reading this article, you will find out exactly what shortcomings will need to be corrected when you are faced with such a task.

When classifying speech errors, it would be logical to consider the fundamental criterion to be a unit of the linguistic tier - one whose norms of writing, education, and functioning were violated. The following levels are distinguished: words, phrases, sentences and text. A classification of speech errors was created using this division. This will make it easier to remember their different types.

At the word level

The word is the most important unit of language. It reflects the changes taking place in society. Words not only name a phenomenon or object, but also perform an emotionally expressive function. Therefore, when choosing which of them are appropriate in a particular case, you should pay attention to the stylistic coloring, meaning, compatibility, and usage, since violation of at least one of these criteria can lead to the appearance of a speech error.

Here you can note spelling errors, that is, a violation of spelling patterns existing in the modern Russian language. Their list is known, so we will not dwell on this in detail.

Derivatives at the word level

At the word level, there are also word-formation speech errors, that is, violations of various norms of word formation of the Russian literary language. These include the following types:

  • incorrect direct word formation. An example is the use of the word “hare” instead of the correct version “hares”, or a “thoughtful” (instead of “thoughtful”) look and others.
  • speech error associated with incorrect reverse word formation. For example, “loga” (from the word “spoon”). Such use is usually typical for children of primary school or preschool age.
  • Another type is substitutive word formation, which manifests itself in the replacement of one or another morpheme: “weigh” (from the word “hang”), “throw away”, used instead of “throw away”.
  • word-composition, that is, the creation of a derivative unit that cannot be considered as occasional: reviewer, spender.

All these are types of speech errors that relate to word formation.

Word-level grammatical

There are also other types of incorrect uses of words. In the Russian language, in addition to word-formation ones, there are also grammatical and speech errors. You should be able to distinguish them. Grammatical errors are the incorrect formation of various forms, a violation of the properties of the formative system in different parts of speech. These include the following varieties:

  • associated with a noun. This may be the formation of the accusative case form of some inanimate noun by analogy with an animate one. For example, “She asked for a breeze” (the accusative form “breeze” should be used). Here we also include the opposite situation - the formation of the accusative case form for an animate noun in the same way as for an inanimate one. Example: “They harnessed two bears to a sleigh” (correct: “two bears”). In addition, when forming case forms, there may be a change in the gender of the noun: “February blue”, “pie with jam”. There are cases when indeclinable names are inclined: “to ride the meter”, “to play the piano”. Some of us sometimes form plural forms for nouns, while they only have singular forms, and vice versa: “a tray of teas.”
  • speech errors associated with adjectives. This may be an incorrect choice of short or long forms: “The man was quite full,” “The building was full of people.” This also includes the incorrect formation of degrees of comparison: “Lena was weaker than Lyuda,” “The new ones are becoming more and more militant.”
  • Another speech error is an error associated with the verb (forms of its formation). Example: “A man is rushing around the room.”
  • speech errors associated with participles and gerunds. Examples: “Looking around, a hunter walked,” “Riding on a bus.”
  • confusions associated with the incorrect use of pronoun forms: “I didn’t want to tear myself away from (the book),” “Their contribution to the common cause,” and others.

Lexical at the word level

The next type of errors is lexical, that is, a violation of various lexical norms, lexical-semantic compatibility and word usage norms. They manifest themselves in the fact that compatibility is disrupted (less often in a sentence, most often at the level of a phrase).

This may be the use of a meaning that is unusual for the word. Such a speech error was made in the sentence “All the walls of the room were covered with panels” (the word “covered” cannot be used in this context). Another example: “Luxurious (that is, living in luxury) was the landowner Troekurov.”

It should be noted here that there is a violation of the lexical-semantic compatibility of a certain word: “The sky was bright” (“stand” in the meaning of “to take place” can only be used in relation to the weather), “The rays of the sun lay in the clearing” (correctly: “illuminated the clearing” ). This type of error primarily affects the verb.

In addition, we can highlight the attribution of some figurative meaning to a word that does not have one: “This man’s weary hands claim that he had to work a lot.”

The use of synonyms may also be incorrect. These are speech errors, examples of which look like this: “Mayakovsky uses satire in his work” (instead of “uses”), “With his legs spread wide, the boy looks at the football field on which the players are fighting” (correctly - “fighting”). Here we highlight the confusion of the meanings of paronyms: “His eyebrows rose surprisingly” (instead of “surprisedly”), “This work is a typical image of the fantastic genre (that’s right - “sample”). Let’s supplement the types of speech errors with polysemy, which cannot be removed in the sentence: “Only These lakes live several days a year."

At the level of phrases

When choosing a word, you should take into account not only its meaning in the literary language, but also lexical compatibility. Not all words can be combined. This is determined by their semantics, emotional coloring, stylistic affiliation, grammatical properties, etc. When it is difficult to determine whether certain words can be used together, you should turn to a compatibility dictionary. This will help to avoid errors at the level of phrases, sentences, and also text.

Errors at this level occur when there is a violation of various syntactic connections. For example, agreement: “I want to teach everyone volleyball - this is a good, but at the same time difficult sport” (a good, difficult sport). Controls: “I feel a thirst for glory”, “I am amazed at his strength”, “gain strength”. The connection between the predicate and the subject may be disrupted: “Neither heat nor summer is eternal (the singular form is used instead of the plural form “eternal”). All these are types of speech errors at the level of phrases.

Sentence level errors

At this level we can distinguish syntactic and communicative. Let's take a closer look at these speech errors in Russian.

Sentence-level syntax errors

This may be an unjustified parcellation, a violation of structural boundaries. As an example, we can cite the following sentences with speech errors: “Seryozha went hunting. With dogs,” “I see. My dogs are running around the field. Chasing a hare.” Syntactic errors also include violations in the construction of various homogeneous rows: the choice of different forms in a row of homogeneous members: “She was smoothly combed and rosy-cheeked.” Another variety is their different structural design, for example, as a subordinate clause and as a secondary clause: “I wanted to tell you about the incident with that person and why he did this (correctly “and about his action”). There may also be a mixture of indirect and direct speech: “She said that I would definitely fight (here the same subject is meant - “she”, correctly - “will”). Violation in the subordinate and main clauses of the aspectual-temporal correlation of predicates or homogeneous members: “She goes and said,” “When the girl was sleeping, she had a dream.” And another variation is a separation from the defining word of the subordinate clause: “One of the works is hanging in front of us, which is called “Spring.”

Communication errors at the sentence level

The next section is communicative errors, that is, violation of various norms that regulate the communicative organization of a certain utterance. They are as follows:

  • actually communicative (violation of logical stress and word order, leading to false semantic connections): “The boys sat on the boat with the keel up.”
  • logical-communicative (violation of such a side of the statement as the conceptual-logical). This may be a substitution of the subject performing the action (“Masha’s eyes and facial contours are captivated by the film”); substitution of the object of action (“I like Pushkin’s poems, especially the theme of love”); the combination of logically incompatible concepts in one row (“He is always serious, of average height, his hair is a little curly at the edges, not touchy”); violation of various clan-species relations (“The tone of angry meetings is not difficult to predict - angry speeches addressed to the regime, as well as calls to close ranks”); a mistake when using cause-and-effect relationships (“But he (that is, Bazarov) calmed down quickly, since he didn’t really believe in nihilism”).

  • constructive and communicative, that is, violation of the laws of constructing statements. This may be a poor connection or lack of one between the parts of the statement: “They live in the village, when I visited him, I saw his blue eyes.” This also includes the use of an adverbial phrase without connection with the subject related to it: “Life should be shown as it is, without worsening or embellishing it.” Another type of similar error is the break in the participial phrase: “There is little difference between the questions written on the board.”
  • information-communicative, or semantic-communicative. This type is similar to the previous one, but differs in that here the deterioration of communicative properties occurs not due to incorrect, unsuccessful structuring of the utterance, but due to the absence or excess of information in it. This may be the ambiguity of the primary intention of the statement: “We are inextricably linked with the country, with it we have the main blow - a blow to the world.” One can also include his incompleteness here: “I myself adore plants, so I am happy to see that our village becomes so unrecognizable in the summer.” This may be the omission of part of the statement and necessary words, semantic redundancy (word repetitions, tautology, pleonasms, duplication of information), etc.
  • stylistic errors, that is, a violation of the unity of the functional style, the use (unjustified) of stylistically marked, emotionally charged means. For example, the use of various colloquial words in literary speech, book expressions in reduced and neutral contexts, expressively colored vocabulary that is unjustified (“A couple of robbers attacked the American embassy”), unsuccessful comparisons, metonymies, metaphors.

At the text level

All errors at this level are of a communicative nature. They can be of the following types:

  • logical violations are very common errors at the text level. Here we include a violation of the logic of thought, the absence of connections between sentences, a violation of various cause-and-effect relationships, operations with an object or subject, a violation of genus-species relations.
  • grammatical violations. This type of error is also common. Here there may be a violation in different sentences of the aspectual-temporal correlation of various verb forms, as well as a violation of agreement in the number and gender of the predicate and the subject in different sentences.
  • information and communication disorders. These include constructive and information-semantic insufficiency, that is, the omission of part of a statement in the text; constructive and information-semantic redundancy (in other words, an excess of meaning and a clutter of structures); inconsistency with the constructive specifications of the semantics of statements; unsuccessful use of pronouns as a means of communication; pleonasms, tautology, repetitions.

Stylistic errors in the text

Stylistic violations existing at the text level can be viewed in a similar way. It should be noted that we also attribute to them the monotony and poverty of syntactic constructions, since texts such as: “The boy was dressed very simply. He was dressed in a jacket lined with cotton wool. His feet were wearing moth-eaten socks” - do not indicate syntactic violations, but about the inability to express thoughts in a variety of ways. At the text level, speech disorders are more complex than at the utterance level, although in the latter they are “isomorphic.” As a rule, text errors are syncretic in nature, that is, they incorrectly use the constructive, lexical, and logical aspects of a speech unit. This is natural, since the text is more difficult to construct. At the same time, we need to retain in our memory the previous statements, as well as the semantics of the entire text and the general idea, creating its continuation and completion.

The ability to find flaws in the text, as well as correcting speech errors, are important tasks that every school graduate faces. After all, in order to write a good Unified State Exam in the Russian language, you need to learn to identify all of the above types of errors and try to avoid them if possible.