Chapter Five: English Orthography
Summer, 2012
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Orthography
• General Definition:– All aspects of writing, including:
• spelling, punctuation, spacing, fonts, etc.
• Specific Definition:– The way that letters are used to
spell words
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Brief History of Writing Systems• Greek Contributions:
– First true alphabet. 1500 BC• Each sound of the language was
represented by a letter.
• Roman/Latin Contributions:– Romans added the letters v, x, and y to the
Greek alphabet. • Roman/Latin alphabet is now the most
widely used in the world.
The Early Greek Alphabet to the Roman Alphabet
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Alphabet Systems: Pros & Cons
• Pros:– Uses letters to represent sounds and words
that, in turn, represents ideas. – Only a small number of letters are needed
to generate a very large repertoire of words. • Cons:
– Regularity of spelling varies by language (Sp. = consistent b/t letter + sound, Eng = more complicated)
– Not always 1:1 letter-sound correspondence in Eng (e.g. “th” - /θ/ or /ð/)
Etymology
• Greek origin meaning “study of the true sense of words or discourse;” the history of words and their meanings
• Important concept when discussing literacy because English has been influenced by many languages, hence, the development of our non-fonetik spelling sistim.
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Brief History of English Spelling
• Old English Influences (450 - 1100 A.D.)– Did not use the letters j, k, v, w, (q, z rarely)
• Used replaced letters to denote certain sounds:
– e.g., a kind of z (cursive), called the yogh (written
as 3, Arabic number)
– Alterations in word endings for some plurals
originate in Old English
• e.g., thief and thieves
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Brief History of English Spelling
• Middle English Influences (1066 - 1500
A.D.):
– Associated with the Norman Conquest
• Words from French and Latin added
– Replaced Old English ‘cw’ with ‘qu’
• e.g., cwen became queen
– Replaced h with gh
• i.e., origin of words tough and cough
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Brief History of English Spelling
• Modern English Influences (1500 A.D. - present)
– Approximately 1500-1755 A.D., many Anglo-
Saxon spellings were replaced by supposed
“Greek & Latin” roots
– e.g., “dette” became “debt” and
“doute” became “doubt”
Brief History of English Spelling• American English Influences (1700s -
Present) – American Spelling Book (Noah Webster)
• Reformed certain spellings, especially suffixes (e. g., our to or):
– our - From favour To favor
– re - From centre To center
– ce - From defence To defense
– ise - From recognise To recognize
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RECAP: Annotated History of English Spelling
• Old English
– Alterations in word endings for English plurals (E. g., thieves)
• Middle English
– Replaced:• ‘cw’ with ‘qu’• ‘g’ with ‘gh’
• Modern English– Anglo-Saxon
spellings replaced with Greek & Latin (e.g., debt & doubt)
• American English– Noah Webster– Reformed many
spellings, especially suffixes (E. g., -our to -or)
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Spelling Strategies
– The more ideas you can give students for practicing
spelling words, the better!
– Here are a few ideas:
• Personal dictionary
• Think alouds
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Personal Dictionary
Word In my language
Meaning Picture
Chanticleer
Sh not ChGallo Heroic
rooster
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Talk to Yourself Spelling Chart
The word is _____
I hear the consonant sounds ____
I see _____ letters
The spelling pattern is _____
The vowel says _____
Another word with the same spelling pattern as _____ is _____
Talk to Yourself Spelling Chart Example
The word is ___struggle__
I hear the consonant sounds _/strgl/___
I see ____8_ letters
The spelling pattern is ___”str”__
The vowel says /ʌ / and /ə/
Another word with the same spelling pattern as __struggle___ is __strange___
Consonant Cluster
• What is a consonant cluster? : two or more consonants in sequence (e.g., st-/-st, tr-, str-, spl-) e.g., past, trick, stress, splash
• It may occur at the beginning of a word (stop), at the end of a word (past), or within a word (pastry).
• Students whose L1 doesn’t have a CVC pattern may add a vowel at the end to facilitate pronunciation, which leads to spelling errors (e.g., test testo)
Mini Lesson on Consonant Clusters
• Not all languages have consonant clusters.• Consider the syllabic structure of other
languages (e.g., Japanese – predominantly CV).• In a small group, create a mini lesson to teach
CC (e.g., tr- as in “trick”) and CCC (e.g., str- a in “street”) patterns that is engaging.
• Demonstrate your lesson!
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What is working for you?
• Word walls (words, pictures, realia, L1 words)
• “Magnetic Poems” (Post-its with vocabulary)
• Human words (Ss wear/hold letters to make words)
• Rules that work with most words (e.g., “I” before “E” except
after “C”)
• Interactive Word Blender Game -
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/wordsandpictures/clusters/ble
nder/game.shtml
Word Walls - more than just displaying words
Word Walls of Synonyms
Symbolic Representation
Different Orthographies
• For students whose first language writing system is alphabetic and who have learned to read in that language, moving to English orthography (spelling conventions) may not be a huge leap. However, for those who have learned to read in a syllabic writing system (like that of Japanese, where a syllable like ka or mi is represented by a single graphic element) the leap is greater.
Japanese Orthography
Did you know …?
• If you know a little Spanish and have good pronunciation, you can read a page of a newspaper aloud to a native Spaniard without knowing what it means, and s/he will still understand you. This is impossible in Japanese.
• Japanese is one of the few languages in the world which cannot be read aloud without understanding the text you are reading.
.
3 Character Types• Japanese use a combination of 3
writing systems (Hiragana, Katakana & Kanji)
Ex. その猫はトムと呼びます。 (The cat is called “Tom”).
• Kanji are for content words (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs)
• Hiragana are for function words/grammatical markers (verb endings, particles)
• Katakana are for foreign words or onomotopeia
Semantic Radicals
• The basic kanji parts are called “radicals”, which combine with other kanji to create more complex characters.
• To some extent, it is possible to guess their meanings from the combination of parts.
Ex. 猫 (radical = animal/beast)
Different Orthographies
• Even when a student’s first language is written in alphabetic system, we cannot expect students to make the transition to English reading without considerable explicit instruction (Escamilla, 1999).
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Different Orthographies• Vowels and the Problems They Can
Cause– Roman alphabet still may need explicit
instruction.• English: 5 letters represent 11
vowel sounds, individually or in combination.
– The letter a alone represents at least four sounds: /ɑ/, /æ/, /ə/, /eɪ/, etc.
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Sounds That Do Transfer• Focus on what they bring with them in their
language system• Four of the ten most commonly spoken languages (other
than English) use the Roman alphabet system– Spanish– Vietnamese– Hmong– Haitian Creole
Orthography Activity
• Using the table provided, let’s explore components (4 - 5) of orthography in the language selected from the list by the team as compared to English.* When the table is complete, summarize 2 – 3 ways that your team will use this information in your future professional practice with CLD students.
* Add Chinese (Cantonese) to the list.
Language Exploration ExampleLanguage that the team explored: French
English
1) 26 letters (not including 5 accents and 2 ligatures) represent approx. 40 phonemes.
2) 7 vowel letters (with 5 diacritical marks) and 17 vowel sounds
3) Pronunciation is mostly based on spelling, but the sounds from those spellings are often different than English
4) Letters may not be pronounced at the end of words, depending on the beginning of the next word, but they often play an important role in determining number or gender (e and s).
5) Numerous phonemes can be spelled in more than one way (s and c, for example). Because so many letters can be silent, there are many opportunities for homonyms.
1) 26 letters represent 40-52 phonemes
2) 5 vowel letters and 15 vowel sounds 3) Sometimes the pronunciation varies with the same spelling (read)
4) Some letters do not have direct relation to the sounds in the word (height)
5) 19 consonant phonemes are spelled using more than one letter (enough)
Teaching Applications
• 1. Build background knowledge of a CLD student’s L1: L2 errors can inform the teacher on L1 transfers. 2. It might be helpful to ask French speaking students to think about silent letters in their L1 when learning words such as “know” and “knife”.
3. French “q”s are pronounced as English “k” s, so it might be helpful to give special influence to q words with French CLD students.
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Spelling and CLD Students• Remember that CLD students may find spelling
one of the most difficult tasks to master in English.
– Problems with phonemes (Consonants different
in different environment)
– Rules and exceptions
• Focus on multiple encounters with comprehensible
written language to increase spelling skills.
Orthographic Linguistic Investigations
• In small groups (or independently) use an article that is provided to you – You might have to refer to more than one article,
depending on the spelling feature you choose to investigate
• Select a spelling feature to investigate– i.e., a single letter/sound correspondence or a
combination of letters and their sound correspondences (e.g., frequency – L. frequentia "a crowding”)
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Orthographic Linguistic Investigations
• Use the IPA to give examples of the orthographic rule that you’re investigating (i.e., /eɪ/ can be spelled “aCe”, “ai”, “ea”, “a”, and “ay” (Freeman & Freeman, p. 113)
• See if you can find a pattern/explanation for the spelling rule that you’re looking into (i.e. use the dictionary to find out the etymology of the word – online etymology dictionary) http://www.etymonline.com
Why do we need to learn about orthography?
• Knowing phonological and spelling patterns of other languages allows us to understand why ELL students make orthographic errors the way they do in English. We can approach our instruction to meet the specific linguistic needs in the area of orthography. For example, we can predict possible phonological transfer from L1 to L2 (e.g., replace “th” with “d”, “j” with “h”, etc.) resulting in spelling errors.