Chapter 6 - English Orthography Flashcards
What are the learning and acquisition views of helping people develop the ability to spell correctly?
ACQUISITION
* students should write for real purposes
* they will will gradually use more conventional forms of spelling
* * teachers lead “linguistic investigations”, spelling is always contextualized
LEARNING
* spelling should be taught in a consistent & systematic way
* teachers assign spelling lists, require the words in compositions, hold tests & spelling bees
Why do Spanish-speakers tend to learn vowels first, while English-speakers tend to learn their consonants first?
In Spanish: the correspondence between phonemes and the letters representing vowels is very consistent
In English: there’s more consistency in the correspondence between consonantphonemes and written letters.
What are phonotactics & graphotactics?
* How do those with an acquisition approach help generate graphotactic knowledge?
PHONOTACTICS
* subconscious knowledge of possible sound combos in a language
GRAPHOTACTICS
* subconscious knowledge of possible spellings (combos of letters)
* “bleck” = possible, “lbekc” = not possible
* it’s how we can unscramble puzzles without going through a million possibilities (WORDLE)
* We develop this ability from reading.
Folks with an acquisition approach will incorporate word games, use books about palindromes, etc.
According to Krashen, how do we improve spelling ability?
Extensive reading & writing.
What is orthography? What does it consist of?
Orthography refers to all apsects of writing.
* spelling
* punctuation
* spacing
* bold / italics
What were some of the earliest writing systems?
The earliest writing systems helped keep records (usually for trade)
They consisted of pictures or symbols representing ideas. (“pictographic/ideographic”)
Examples: cuneiform; hieroglyphics
These are NOT alphabetic.
Chinese:
* 1200-1050 BC
* logosyllabic (characters represent syllables; characters are often represent objects)
Japanese
* has two syllabaries (instead of alphabet)
* Hiragana (used with kanji); Katakana (used with borrowed/foreign words)
Cherokee
* has a syllabary (instead of alphabet)
* 1800s by Sequoyah
* 86 characters
What does it mean for a writing system to be “alphabetic”?
Many systems are alphabetic (including English)
- There is an attempt to have ONE LETTER represent each sound.
- no languages actually achieve this
Cuneiform
* What does it mean?
* Who invented it?
* Advantages? Disadvantages?
Cuneiform
* What does it mean? “wedge-shaped” (sticks/reeds made “wedge-shaped” marks on clay)
* Who invented it? Sumerians (Mesopotamia)
* Advantages? Pictographic, so it could be read by people who spoke different languges
* Disadvantages? Writer has to learn a LOT of symbols; one for each idea
Hieroglyphics
* What does it mean?
* Who invented it?
* How does it vary from cuneiform?
* Advantages? Disadvantages?
Hieroglyphics
* What does it mean? “priest writing” (because only priests/scribes could read/write)
* Who invented it? Egyptians
* How does it vary from cuneform? it uses piactures AND marks that stand for sounds. (a mix between “pictographic/ideographic” writing & “alphabetic” writing)
* Advantages? Pretty straightforward to read as long as symbols weren’t too abstract.
* Disadvantages? Writer has to learn a LOT of symbols; one for each idea
Why did alphabetic writing systems replace pictographic/ideographic writing?
What is a major limitation of an alphabetic system?
- writers only have to learn a small number of letters
- then they can combine them to produce ANY word they want to write
LIMITATION: it can only be undersood by a reader that speaks that language.
Who introduced papyrus? How many letters did their alphabet have?
The Phoenicians. 22 letters, and it didn’t include any vowels.
Originally Hebrew and Arabic writing systems consisted only of what?
Consonants.
Talk about the Greek alphabet.
- First true alphabet (each sound was represented by a letter)
- included both consonants and vowels
- used the Phoenician system as a base
- (repurposed some of those Phoenician letters as vowels)
- contained 24 letters
Where does the English word “alphabet” come from?
The first two letters of the Greek alphabet: alpha and beta
Talk about the Latin alphabet
- Based on the Greek alphabet
- addedv, x, and y to represent sounds that didn’t occur in Greek.
- The alphabet used in English is based on the Roman (Latin) alphabet
Talk about the Cyrillic alphabet
- Another variation of the Greek alphabet (like the Latin alphabet)
- Developed by St. Cyril & his bro (they converted Slavs to Christianity)
- Included their own characters to represent Slavic sounds not found in Greek
- Used today in Russia, the Ukraine, Servia, Bulgaria
- Doesn’t always line up: p = /r/ in Russian, but p =**/p/ ** in English
p.154
What are 3 historical periods that English Spelling went through?
- Old English (450-1100)
- Middle English (1100-1500)
- Modern English (1500-present)
p.154
Talk about Old English and spelling.
- 450-1100
- Roman/Latin alphabet introduced
- Didn’t use: j, k, v, w
- Rarely used: q, z
- Also used other letters (that I can’t add here) to represent sounds
- Some sounds spelled differently than in modern English: “sh” spelled sc (so the big boat was spelled “scip” not “ship”; both “k” and “ch” were spelled c (so “cild” not child, and “folc” not “folk”); u and v were interchangeable; /I/ spelled either i or y; f = /f/ and /v/ (with /f/ at the beginning/end of a word, and /v/ in the middle… hence “thief” and “thieves”)
p.155
Talk about Middle English.
- with the Norman conquest the Middle Ages began
- Language started changing
- Lots of French & Latin words added
- Lots of spelling changes (cw–>qu, so “queen” not “cwen”) (Often u–>o, so “come” not “cuman”) (Sometimes u–>ou, so “house” not hus) (h–>gh… “cough”)
- u and v still interchangeable (Shakespeare spelled universal as vniuersall)
- 3–>g, hw–>wh, c–>k&ch (folk, child); v–>f (driven)
p.155-156
Talk about Modern English.
* In what ways did spellings change, how and why?
* What was the Great Vowel Shift?
- First printing press in England (William Caxton); not concerned with consistent spelling; let Dutch typesetters call some of the shots
- Hired scribes = more books with consistent spellings; these spellings become the norm
- Words that had been changed to conform to French spellings were changed back to reflect Latin roots (“b” added to debt, doubt because of Latin debitum and dubitare; “c” added to scissors to reflect Latinsciendere)
- Dictionaries helped w/ consistentcy
- Changes in pronunciation started creating variations between spellings and sounds
- “The Great Vowel Shift” (1500s); long vowels produced higher in the mouth (“feet” was pronounced more like “fate” before the shift); high vowels became dipthongs and moved to a lower position (“town” was pronounced more like “tune” before the shift) ….eventually many vowel spellings didn’t correspond to their pronunciations.
- Even though several pronunciations changed (both with vowels and consonants), the spellings stayed the same
p. 156-157
American English Spelling
- Noah Webster wanted to reform spelling; wanted it simpler (American Spelling Book)
- our–>or (favour–>favor)
- re–>er (centre–>center)
- ise –> ize (recognise–>recognize)
- Not all were accepted (“give”–>”giv”; “women”–>”wimmen”; “bread”–>”bred”, etc.)
Future spelling reform?
* Who would change all the books?
* Which dialect would win out?
* Make writing easier, reading gets harder. Make reading easier, writing gets harder. (“bred” is not “bread”… easier to differentiate as a reader)
What are 3 forces (demands) that shape English spelling?
phonetic demand: spell words the way they sound
* The strongest demand on the spelling system
* most words actually are spelled like they sound
* Example: sit /sIt/
* to spell a given sound consistently
* Everytime a phoneme occurs, it should be spelled the same way
semantic demand (analogy): spell words alike that share the same meaning
* Example: hymn, hymnal
* Words that come from the same root and share the same meaning should be spelled the same way
etymological demand: spell words to reflect their origins
* Example: one (Old English); kangaroo (Australian)
* a force that keeps spelling constant across time and languages
* this is why some words reflect they way they were pronounced in earlier periods
What are homophones? Give an example. What is one advantage of them?
What are homographic homonyms? Give an example,
HOMOPHONES: Words that sound the same, but are spelled differently:
* grate vs great
* “Eye sea too feat inn hour rheum”
* An advantage: their variation in spelling shows they mean different things
HOMOGRAPHIC HOMONYMS: Words that are spelled the same, but have two different meanings:
* bat & bat (animal & baseball)
* bear & bear (animal & “to shoulder”)
* Readers have to use context to figure it out
Why have people proposed getting rid of the letter “c” in English? What would we use to replace it?
This has also been considered for removing silent letters.
What would disadvantages of removing these letters be?
Because it sometimes makes a** /k/** and sometimes makes a **/s/ **sound.
* Example: medicine, medical
We could just use k and s.
* Example: medisine, medikal
While this would make spelling easier, readers would lose the visual connection between related words (so it would be harder to construct meaning) (etymological demand)
- crumb, crumble
- sign, signal
- bomb, bombard
- cupboard, board for cups
