Spelling matters to people. In America and Britain every day, members of the public write to the media on spelling issues, and take part in spelling contests. In Germany, a reform of the spelling ...system has provoked a constitutional crisis; in Galicia, a 'war of orthographies' parallels an intense public debate on national identity; on walls, bridges and trains globally, PUNX and ANARKISTS proclaim their identities orthographically. The way we spell often represents an attempt to associate with, or dissociate from, other languages. In Spelling and Society, Mark Sebba explores why matters of orthography are of real concern to so many groups, as a reflection of culture, history and social practices, and as a powerful symbol of national or local identity. This 2007 book will be welcomed by students and researchers in English language, orthography and sociolinguistics, and by anyone interested in the importance of spelling in contemporary society.
Cette conférence revient de façon synthétique sur les conceptions de la norme, en particulier des normes orthographiques. Elle aborde d’abord les liens de ces normes et de la constitution de l’État ...français, avec l’élimination des variantes dialectales, et la pression sociale croissante de l’orthographe à partir de la fin du 18
e
siècle. Elle s’interroge ensuite sur l’interprétation de Bourdieu en termes de violence symbolique. Enfin, elle signale le renouvèlement apporté par l’approche « cognitive » de Goody. Les déviations orthographiques d’usagers qu’elles soient involontaires chez les « peu-lettrés » ou volontaires chez les féministes inclusivistes montrent qu’on ne se débarrasse pas facilement d’une instance pouvant édicter une norme.
Historical sociolinguistics and scripturality. Linguistic norms and spelling practices.
This paper analyses the construction of French spelling standards. It first discusses the links between these standards and the constitution of the French State, with the elimination of dialectal variants, and the growing social pressure of spelling from the end of the 18
th
century. Then it questions Bourdieu’s interpretation in terms of symbolic violence. Finally, it points out the renewal brought by Goody’s “cognitive” approach. The spelling deviations of users, whether involuntary among the “poorly-literate” (“
peu-lettrés
”) or voluntary among inclusive feminists, show that it is not easy to get rid of the authority that enacts the standards.
L’article questionne les modalités d’évaluation des compétences orthographiques. Il se propose d’interroger la pertinence des évaluations orthographiques dites « décontextualisées », à faible cout ...cognitif, et leur décalage avec des problématiques ayant trait au transfert des compétences orthographiques en production d’écrits à fort cout cognitif. On compare deux façons d’évaluer l’orthographe : un test standardisé et une production de texte. Les résultats montrent une évidente différence entre ces deux modalités de contrôle et soulèvent un questionnement sur ce que représente une évaluation de l’orthographe. De plus, l’étude met en avant un lien entre gestion des informations et performances orthographiques.
Assessing the evolution of spelling performances of students enrolled in professional university courses : methods and outlook.
The article questions how spelling skills are assessed. It proposes to question the relevance of so-called "decontextualized" spelling assessments, with low cognitive cost, and their discrepancy with problems relating to the transfer of spelling skills to the production of writing with high cognitive cost. Two ways of evaluating spelling are compared: a standardized test and text production. The results show a clear difference between these two methods of testing and raise questions about what a spelling assessment means. In addition, the study highlights a link between information management and spelling performance.
Research has indicated that adding mind‐set and self‐regulation strategy instruction to the writers’ workshop framework may improve motivation, independence, and academic success in young writers. ...Invented spelling can strengthen the relation between phonological and orthographic representations. The authors examined the impact of growth mind‐set instruction on writing using a strategy of “brave spelling” to encourage students to use invented spelling skills to increase the sophistication of their writing. The authors combined research on invented spelling and growth mind‐set to create unique lesson plans focused on the development of word‐reading skills, alphabetic knowledge, and phonological awareness. In 10 weeks, 12 kindergartners bravely spelled 240 different words that conventionally contain five or more letters. This research was incorporated into the “brave spelling” lesson plan. The authors explore how creating a culture of brave spellers is one strategy for helping students write any words they can imagine.
Spelling errors are the most common inaccuracies in the writing of ESL learners. Despite the numerous studies on writing, teaching spelling as a research topic has often been overlooked. The primary ...objectives of this mixed method study are to describe the common spelling errors of grade 6 pupils of an all-girls school in Metro Manila post-pandemic, identify teaching strategies to minimize spelling errors and propose recommendations for teaching spelling. First, spelling tests and student handwritten essays were analyzed for spelling errors, which were later categorized using Cook’s classification. Second, interviews with Language teachers to identify teaching strategies were held, determining key themes and best practices in spelling instruction. The results indicated that students committed spelling errors mostly by omission, substitution, and insertion, and the strategies to enhance spelling skills include utilizing visuals, engaging students through interactive materials and collaborative activities, and using the words in context. Based on the findings, it is recommended to consider the following in crafting a spelling program: a fundamental list of commonly misspelled words following the rule-based system, a bank of effective strategies to expose students to words in context and engage them for active learning, a continuous assessment of spelling student abilities, and evaluation of the spelling program.
This work is aimed at developing activities for the treatment of spelling, supporting the evolution, tendencies and methodology of the teaching of spelling, as well as the fundamental elements ...concerning the Cognitive, Communicative and Sociocultural Approach, taking into account the characterization of the teaching-learning process in 7th grade secondary schools students. The current state of the teaching of spelling is characterized, determining the significant elements, and the proposal is made. The application of the proposal permitted confirming its effectiveness shown in the quantitative and qualitative analysis done before and after its implementation.
"This book will tell all you need to know about British English spelling. It’s a reference work intended for anyone interested in the English language, especially those who teach it, whatever the age ...or mother tongue of their students. It will be particularly useful to those wishing to produce well-designed materials for teaching initial literacy via phonics, for teaching English as a foreign or second language, and for teacher training. English spelling is notoriously complicated and difficult to learn; it is correctly described as much less regular and predictable than any other alphabetic orthography. However, there is more regularity in the English spelling system than is generally appreciated. This book provides, for the first time, a thorough account of the whole complex system. It does so by describing how phonemes relate to graphemes and vice versa. It enables searches for particular words, so that one can easily find, not the meanings or pronunciations of words, but the other words with which those with unusual phoneme-grapheme/grapheme-phoneme correspondences keep company. Other unique features of this book include teacher-friendly lists of correspondences and various regularities not described by previous authorities, for example the strong tendency for the letter-name vowel phonemes (the names of the letters <a, e, i, o, u>) to be spelt with those single letters in non-final syllables."
There has been less research on how children learn to spell than on how they learn to read, but a good deal is now known about spelling development. This article reviews studies of normative ...development, beginning with children's early scribbles and proceeding to prephonological spelling involving letters, phonologically influenced invented spelling, and more advanced spelling. Most of the studies deal with spelling development in alphabetic writing systems. Theories about how children learn to spell, including constructivist theories, stage and phase theories, dual-route theories, and Integration of Multiple Patterns, are presented and reviewed in light of the research evidence. The final section of the article discusses directions for future research and implications for children with spelling difficulties.
Within the broad field of learner error analysis, there is now a growing tradition of studies research focusing on errors produced by Arabic L1 learners of English as a second/foreign language. ...However, these previous studies have suffered from a number of important limitations. Many of them have focused on small numbers of features or even just single features (e.g., articles, tenses, auxiliaries, etc.). Many have also been based on very small datasets, and most have only been cross-sectional in perspective. Therefore, this thesis seeks to address these shortcomings by conducting a detailed and quasi-longitudinal analysis of spelling, noun and verb phrase errors produced by Arabic L1 undergraduate learners of English at Benghazi University, Libya. The study reported in this thesis adopts a corpus-based approach, applying computational tools and methods to the analysis of a large database of learner texts which I have called the Libyan English as a Foreign Language Learners (LEFLL) corpus. The aim of this thesis is to provide SLA researchers with a broader picture of the role of L1 in producing spelling, noun and verb phrase errors in the writing of Arab English learners and how the role of L1 influence develop across the three different university levels. The analysis revealed errors that can be attributed to the first language influence was found to be more prevalent and the most obvious in spelling errors followed by verb phrase errors. The analysis also showed that interlingual spelling errors followed a steady decline as from one level to another, but this was not the case in noun and verb phrase errors. As well as providing a broader picture of the role of L1, the thesis also offers a critical appraisal of the two main approaches to classifying and quantifying errors that have been put forward in previous research. In an attempt to overcome the serious limitations of both of these approaches, this thesis introduces a new approach to error counting, which I have called the 'potential for error counting approach'. It will be argued that this approach offers several advantages over other error counting approaches.