Learning to Spell

Research, Theory, and Practice Across Languages

Charles A. Perfetti, Laurence Rieben, Michel Fayol

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 1997
• ISBN:
  9781135691332
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

This distinctive cross-linguistic examination of spelling examines the cognitive processes that underlie spelling and the process of learning how to spell. The chapters report and summarize recent research in English, German, Hebrew, and French. Framing the specific research on spelling are chapters that place spelling in braod theoretical perspectives provided by cognitive neuroscience, psycholinguistic, and writing system-linguistic frameworks. Of special interest is the focus on two major interrelated issues: how spelling is acquired and the relationship between reading and spelling. An important dimension of the book is the interweaving of these basic questions about the nature of spelling with practical questions about how children learn to spell in classrooms. A motivating factor in this work was to demonstrate that spelling research has become a central challenging topic in the study of cognitive processes, rather than an isolated skill learned in school. It thus brings together schooling and learning issues with modern cognitive research in a unique way. testing, children writing strings of letters as a teacher pronounces words ever so clearly. In parts of the United States it can also bring an image of specialized wizardry and school room competition, the "spelling bee." And for countless adults who confess with self-deprecation to being "terrible spellers, " it is a reminder of a mysterious but minor affliction that the fates have visited on them. Beneath these popular images, spelling is a human literacy ability that reflects language and nonlanguage cognitive processes. This collection of papers presents a sample of contemporary research across different languages that addresses this ability. To understand spelling as an interesting scientific problem, there are several important perspectives. First, spelling is the use of conventionalized writing systems that encode languages. A second asks how children learn to spell. Finally, from a literacy point of view, another asks the extent to which spelling and reading are related. In collecting some of the interesting research on spelling, the editors have adopted each of these perspectives. Many of the papers themselves reflect more than one perspective, and the reader will find important observations about orthographies, the relationship between spelling and reading, and issues of learning and teaching throughout the collection.

PART

I

THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS: WRITING SYSTEMS, PSYCHOLINGUISTICS, AND NEUROPSYCHOLOGY

CHAPTER
1
FROM WRITING TO ORTHOGRAPHY:
THE FUNCTIONS AND LIMITS OF THE NOTION OF SYSTEM

Jean-Pierre Jaffré
CNRS-HESO, Paris

Written language, even today, is regarded as a poor relation in linguistics. The importance of written language in other fields of research, however, adds irony to this situation. The reasons for it are to be found in the history of linguistic ideas over the last few decades.

In France, as in many other countries, the “Golden Age” of linguistics coincided with the reign of structuralism that, following the Saussurian model, primarily concerned itself with spoken language, relegating writing to a secondary level. Saussure’s (1972) now famous axiom, “The linguistic object is not both the written and the spoken forms of words; the spoken forms alone constitute the object” (p. 45)¹ is echoed by that of Bloomfield (1970): “Writing is not language, but merely a way of recording language by means of visible marks” (p. 25).

LINGUISTICS AND WRITTEN LANGUAGE

The Saussurian tradition, in introducing a dichotomy between synchronic and diachronic linguistics, established a useful separation between spoken and written language. This helped to clarify a situation that, with traditional philology, had long been muddled. However, by placing phonological theory at the center of linguistics, the Saussurian tradition effectively excluded written language (without which this linguistic theory would, paradoxically, never have existed at all). Various claims were made in the name of this theory, including the claim that writing should ideally be phonological. This gave rise, in the 1960s, to a certain number of ideological offshoots—what Harris (1986) termed “the tyranny of the alphabet” (p. 29).

In some linguistic schools, however, written language continued to survive in the glossematics of Hjelmslev (1966, 1985) and Uldall (1944) and in the functionalism of Vachek (1973). Present-day research into written language owes much to the work of these precursors and to their efforts to raise written language to the same status as spoken language. For the members of the Glossematic school, written and spoken language exist alongside one another as expressions of one and the same language. Hjelmslev (1985) thus explained that both speech and written language as well as many other sign systems have a semiotic function, and he analyzed graphemes in the same way as phonemes. Uldall qualified this position, considering written and spoken language as coexistent but asymmetrical.

Vachek (1973) went a step farther, underlining the complementary nature of what he termed the spoken norm and the written norm. The impact of Vachek’s thinking has been such that, today, scholars of quite different tendencies claim to be his successors. Some have taken his concept of separate spoken and written norms as the basis for an autonomous view of writing (Anis, Chiss, & Puech, 1988); others take a less radical stance (Jaffré, 1993). Vachek (1987) pointed out that although the existence of a written norm may imply a certain amount of functional autonomy, writing can never be completely autonomous from speech. He even added that it is essential that there should be links between written and spoken language, for if the gap between the two norms became too wide, orthographic reform is necessary.

Although this position is by no means unanimously accepted today, many linguists now see the need for a linguistics of writing, and they acknowledge that written and spoken language are two different yet equal types of expression. The precise nature of the relation between these two linguistic media remains a matter for debate, and the frequently used notion of asymmetry only goes some of the way toward answering the question. We can even find differences in the terminology used by various linguists: Vachek (1973), for example, referred to norms; others referred to systems (Robins, 1973) and still others to languages (Lyons, 1970).

To refer to written and spoken norms, as Vachek (1973) did, seems to imply the existence of a single language system that sits at a higher level. Vachek did not, however, acknowledge a theoretical construction of this kind. He merely pointed out that there are structural correspondences between written and spoken language and that these correspondences become orthography when they go from speech to writing and pronunciation when they go from writing to speech. However, in a somewhat obscure way, he also assumed that the written norm functions as a superstructure with regard to its oral counterpart. Robins, on the other hand, stated quite clearly that speech and writing both belong to the same language (1973). Catach (1988, 1995) went further, explaining the asymmetry between speech and writing by introducing the concept of a prime language, a kind of high-level language (langue supérieure) that has been modified and enriched by writing.

The Mixed Nature of Writing

Although this introduction explains how writing has gradually come to be accepted in linguistics, it has not given any indication of how writing functions. There are a number of studies on this subject that emphasize the mixed nature of writing. Champollion was, in this respect, something of a forerunner when, in 1822, he wrote the following in his Letter to M.Dacier: “I therefore believe, sir, that phonetic writing existed in Egypt at a very early date, and that it was at first a necessary component of ideographic writing” (pp. 41–42).² This awareness of the coexistence of different principles within the same writing system is very modern, but it has taken some time for it to become widespread. Until quite recently, writing systems tended to be classified according to one or another principle (Gelb, 1973; Sampson, 1985). Robins (1973), who noted that all writing systems are far from being pure specimens and that mixed systems are to be found, nonetheless considered mixed systems to be the exception rather than the rule.

This idea of mixed systems has, in fact, come to be accepted by linguists because of their inability to describe written language in the same way as spoken language. As long as the classification of writing systems forces each system to be in one category, there is no way to recognize the multiplicity of linguistic stuctures honored to various degrees across systems. One has to consider writing as nothing more than a historical accident, a secondary system that got out of hand, or else one must restrict the role of the phonographic principle by setting it within a broader conception of writing, one that encompasses other principles and involves other linguistic units (morphological and lexical). I prefer the second option, but, before developing this idea further, I first explain the terminology used here.

Definitions and Terminology

Any theoretical discussion of written language must give a definition of the object being discussed, especially because the notion of writing can cover a multitude of different things. Here, I focus primarily on the concepts of writing and orthography.

Writing. Although linguists’ definitions of writing refer to language or a particular language, they may differ substantially according to the theoretical conceptions on which they are based. I do not intend to draw an exhaustive list here, but it is interesting to show the main steps in the gradation through a few examples.

For historians, writing is a process that is entirely subservient to language, without it ever being clear whether language refers to spoken language or to something more abstract. For Cohen (1958), writing is “a visual and durable representation of language, which enables it to be transmitted and preserved” (p. 1),³ whereas for Février (1959/1984), it is “a device used to immobilize and to fix articulated language, which is inherently volatile”(p. 9).⁴

This concept of writing, defined in very general terms, contrasts with that of Vachek (1939), who distinguished between writing and written language. Whereas writing is defined as “the inventory of graphical means which can be used in putting down written utterances” (p. 104), written language is “a system of graphical means which are accepted as a norm by the members of a given linguistic community” (p. 104). Here, the idea of writing in a general sense is distinguished from its use within a particular society.

Another step forward was made when the notions of internal structure and function were brought in, and the object of study was referred to, in the plural, as scripts. This latter point is of considerable importance. Catach (1988) pointed out that “Scripts are sets of discrete, articulated and arbitrary signs, which enable any constructed message to be transmitted without necessarily using natural means” (p. 243).⁵

Orthography. What is the difference between writing and orthography? Vachek (1939/1989) used the term orthography to refer to the necessary relations between the spoken norm and the written norm. However, this definition is exceptional: Elsewhere, the term orthography, or spelling, is used to refer to a particular state of writing, without it always being clear what this state is. Cohen (1958) used both terms, without giving a clear definition of either. He wrote at one point of the “orthographies of alphabetical writing” (p. 234), suggesting that an orthography is an actualized form of writing. However, further on, he wrote of Arabic writing and Arabic orthography as though they were the same thing.

It is interesting to compare studies of the history of writing (Cohen, 1958; Février, 1959/1984; Gaur, 1984) with those of the history of orthography and, particularly, of French orthography (Baddeley, 1993; Catach, 1968; Pasques, 1992). One may wonder why hieroglyphs from the time of the Pharaohs (around 1500 BC) should be referred to as writing, whereas written forms of the French 17th century are labeled as spellings. Is this difference in terminology due to a difference in the time period? Writing, when it is not a theoretical concept, seems to refer to the means of expression of cultures from a distant past, whereas orthography refers to more contemporary practices. A comparison of societies with a written tradition, however, suggests the historical timeline is relative. In Mesopotamia, as in Egypt, writing lasted for at least 3,000 years, whereas the foundations of so-called French orthography were laid no more than 1,000 years ago, which makes it a relatively new construction.

This brief overview shows that dealing with writing and its relationship with orthography first requires a statement that clearly explains what certain terms and concepts are meant to cover. The best study from this point of view is that of Coulmas (1989), who distinguished among writing systems, scripts, and orthographies and used each concept to help define the previous one. Thus, when Coulmas talked about a writing system, he referred to the linguistic units that are represented (word writing, syllable writing, phoneme writing, etc.), whereas a script refers to an assimilation of a given writing system with the language using it (Chinese, Greek script, etc.). Finally, orthography refers to a standardization that is characteristic of a specific language (German, French, etc.).

The main advantage of this terminology is that it allows us to describe writing as a general semiotic object as well as a linguistic object whenever it interacts with a particular language. From now on, our analysis is organized along the lines of this tripartite conception, going from the general to the particular. Accordingly, as a conclusion to this first section, I propose a set of definitions that should help avoid certain ambiguities and should lead to a better understanding of what writing and orthography have in common and what is proper to each term (see Table 1.1). The three concepts, taken as a whole, make up what I term writing, or written notation.

FROM WRITING TO SCRIPTS

For the linguist, writing is defined primarily by its relation to language— first, in its spoken form, and then, gradually, as a broader concept, whether in the sense of a social entity (as in Vachek’s, 1939, linguistic community) or as a more abstract notion such as Catach’s (1988) prime language.

TABLE 1.1 Writing, Script, and Orthography: Levels and Definitions

Only glottographic traces, unlike semasiographic traces, can be defined as writing. The former are visible representations of linguistic utterances, whereas the latter represent ideas that may be oralized, but cannot be translated word for word (Sampson, 1985).

Writing, therefore, is defined by its ability to represent linguistic units (phonemes, syllables, words, etc.), and typologies of writing (or writing systems) have been made along these lines. Hence, we have logographic, syllabic, or alphabetic writing (Gelb, 1973; Pulgram, 1976; Sampson, 1985), or even morphemic or phonemic writing (Hill, 1967). A script is defined by the special relationship that it has either with the basic spoken units or with the meaningful elements of a language and, in particular, with its morphology.

The fact that writing represents different kinds of units from language has often led to a misunderstanding of mixed systems. Thus, Scholfield (1994) defined mixed systems as “more than one writing system used at once” (p. 56) and gave Japanese, which uses both kanji (the logographic system) and kana (the syllabic system), as examples. However, DeFrancis (1989) distinguished two ways of transmitting meaning using a single writing system: by symbols that represent sounds (and, therefore, function as oral substitutes) and by symbols that supply information of a nonphonemic type. He insisted, rightly, that all scripts result from the combination of these two tendencies, in varying proportions, and he called this the “Duality Principle.” Thus, the poorer a system is, from a phonemic point of view, the more it must compensate on a nonphonemic level. However, DeFrancis retained a distinction between pure and mixed systems and, therefore, remains very strongly attached to the correspondence of writing with spoken language.

Catach (1988) made better use of the concept of mixed systems by introducing the idea of “Protean” scripts.⁶ She set out a range of modes of coexistence between nonmeaningful and meaningful units, ranging from virtual transparency (e.g., Finnish) to virtual bilingualism (e.g., Chinese), with a number of intermediate solutions in between, according to the role of the respective linguistic units. The phonographic relation may be relatively regular as in Italian and German, or irregular, leaving more scope to morphology as in French and English.

Thus, to return to the theoretical model I develop here, writing, at the most abstract, conceptual level, combines two principles: phonographic and semiographic. The phonographic principle corresponds, more or less, to Vachek’s (1973) orthography and is manifested by correspondences between meaningless units of spoken language (phonemes or syllables) and meaningless units of written language (phonograms or syllabograms). The semiographic principle encompasses the units and their functions in the linguistic elements of written language. These units are determined by the morphological structure of the languages in question, whether there are links with the spoken language (morphonograms) or not (morphograms), and by the way in whi...

Table of contents

• COVER PAGE
• TITLE PAGE
• COPYRIGHT PAGE
• CONTRIBUTORS
• INTRODUCTION
• PART I: THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS: WRITING SYSTEMS, PSYCHOLINGUISTICS, AND NEUROPSYCHOLOGY
• PART II: THE ACQUISITION OF SPELLING
• PART III: THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SPELLING AND READING