Grapheme-Phoneme correspondence in English

*A phoneme is an atom of pronounced language.

*A grapheme is an atom of written language.

-For example, there's a -For example, there's a phonemephoneme called the "voiceless called the "voiceless velar plosive" that initiates the English words "catch" velar plosive" that initiates the English words "catch" and "king". Its IPA symbol is [k].and "king". Its IPA symbol is [k].

-As a different example,-As a different example,

there's a Latin-alphabetical there's a Latin-alphabetical graphemegrapheme

called "c" that initiates the Englishcalled "c" that initiates the English

words "chariot" and "ceiling".words "chariot" and "ceiling".

* In typography, a grapheme is the atomic unit in written language. Graphemes include letters, Chinese characters, Japanese characters, numerals, punctuation marks, and other glyphs.

* In a phonological orthography, a grapheme corresponds to one phoneme.

In English — multiple graphemes may represent a single phoneme.

For example, the word ship contains four graphemes (s, h, i, and p) but only three phonemes, because sh is a

digraph.

In English, the main

graphemes are the

twenty-six units that

make up the

alphabet.

Other graphemes include the

various marks of punctuation:

<.>, <;>, etc., and such special

symbols as <@>, <&>, and

. . .)£(.

*There are about 40 distinctive phonemes in English, but 70 letters or letter combinations to symbolize phonemes.

*This makes pronouncing spellings easier than writing correct spellings.

Two related conceptsTwo related concepts

Alphabetic principle-knowing that speech

can be turned into print, that print can be turned

into speech, and that letters are used to

represent sounds in the language.

Letter recognition-

is the ability to recognise and name the letters of

the alphabet .-recognising and recalling

the shapes of letters,-identifying lower and

upper case letters ,--and recognising letters in

isolation , etc

*1.  Digraph- two graphemes-one phoneme.

*Sheet [∫], chick [ʧ,k], photograph [f]

*2. “Silent” grapheme- doesn’t represent any sound at all (like the b in English debt).

*3. Diphtong- a sound formed by the combination of two vowels in a single syllable

*Time [ai]

phoneme phoneme graphemegraphemesamplesamplerepresentation

/i/eeweekdiphthong

/o/o, a on, was Single phoneme

/k/ckclockdigraph

/s/cmuscleSilent phoneme

*Types of vowels where two vowel sounds are connected in a continuous, gliding motion.

Phoneme grapheme samplePhoneme grapheme sample

/ai/ e,i eye, bike

/ei/ a same

/ia/ y yard

* Two graphemes used as one.

Phoneme grapheme sample

/ʃ/ sh shake

/ʧ/ ch check

/θ/ th thin

/ʃ/ sh shake

/ʧ/ ch check

/θ/ th thin