Overcorrection in linguistics refers to errors caused by being too formal or overly correct. It can be grammatical or in pronunciation, and can occur when applying rules incorrectly or hyperforeignism. Common examples include the use of prepositions at the end of a sentence and confusion between “you and me” and “you and I”.
Overcorrection is a term used in linguistics that refers to some sort of error or mispronunciation in language that usually results from a desire to be too formal or overly correct. Usually the overcorrection fallacy takes a linguistic rule and applies it where it shouldn’t be applied. Overcompensation and overlying are among the most common types of errors. In English, these errors are often grammatical, and some forms of overcorrection in English involve personal pronouns and the use of prepositions at the end of a sentence. Overcorrection can also occur in pronunciation, usually in cases of individuals who are learning a new language.
Grammatical overcompensation is probably among the most common types of overcorrection and refers to a situation where an exception to a rule is mistakenly believed to be the rule itself. An example is the verb “to dig”; originally, the past tense of the word was the regular “excavated”, but this form has since become archaic. Over time, the irregular, “hollowed out” shape has become more widely used and is now the standard where it was before the exception.
Hyperforeignism occurs when the grammatical rules of one language are applied to another. For example, the English term habanero peppers is sometimes pronounced “habañero,” although this is incorrect according to the original Spanish word. This may have been influenced by English speakers who discovered the original Spanish pronunciation of “jalapeño” and misapplied it to “habanero.”
A common overcorrection in English involves the problem of “you and I” versus “you and I”. Grammatically, the first sentence should be used before the verb of a sentence, where “I go to the cinema” is correct as opposed to “I go to the cinema”. Not understanding the rule and presumably having been corrected to “you and me” many times in the past, many overcompensate and say “Go to the movies with you and me”. In this case, “you and I” would be the really correct term.
The use of prepositions at the end of a sentence is another situation subject to hypercorrection in English. In fact, there’s generally nothing wrong with a preposition at the end of a sentence, although avoiding it will usually make the sentence clearer. This use of prepositions has, in the past, been condemned and as a result, many make their sentences more awkward by trying to abide by this false rule. A famous example is the quote: “This is the kind of boring nonsense I don’t want to put up with!” believed to be claimed by Winston Churchill.
When overcorrection occurs in pronunciation, it usually means that a pronunciation rule for one word is incorrectly applied to others. For a new language learner, the fallacy can also occur phonetically as a form of hyperforeigner. In this case, an individual confuses the phones of his first language and the one he is learning, not knowing when some phones need and do not need to be replaced. Another word for this is overregulation.
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