1887
Volume 16, Issue 2
  • ISSN 1874-8767
  • E-ISSN: 1874-8775
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Abstract

Abstract

This article deals with the phenomenon of , a term coined in 1954 to describe when a listener to a pop song mishears the lyrics and sings her own version instead, as in (rather than ). A distinction is made in the literature between , which occur when a listener produces a mondegreen in the same language as the original (as in ), and , when a listener produces a mondegreen in a different language to the original (as in the German for the English ). The key question that the article addresses is: Why do we mondegreen? After providing an overview of the approaches to both within-language and cross-language mondegreens that have been taken in linguistics and related disciplines, the article then draws on cognitive psychology and its approach to creativity to argue that mondegreens are in fact better understood not so much as simple errors as products of the creative mind.

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/content/journals/10.1075/etc.00060.wes
2024-02-29
2024-12-07
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  • Article Type: Research Article
Keyword(s): creativity; emotion; error; phonology; pop lyrics; segmentation
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