Language Myths

Instructor: Trương Thị Như ThủyGroup : 6Students: 1/ Triệu Thị Thảo

2/ Trần Thị Thanh Yên3/ Tô Thị Thanh4/ Dương Thị Nhung5/ Trần Thị Hoa

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TOPIC & AUTHOR

Myth 5: English Spelling is “Kattastroffik”catastrophic /,kætə'strɔfik/ adj :

a terrible event in which there is a lot of destruction, suffering,

or death.

Author : Edward Carney -at the University of Manchester.

-Books : English Spelling and A Survey of English Spelling

believes that it would be best to have one single letter for each speech sound AND acknowledges that even in English there would emerge many different dialects in writing the phonetic spelling would depend on the speaker.

He disagrees

3. Correspondence /ˌkɔrɪˈspɔndəns / n

a relationship or connection between two or more ideas or facts

III. THE CIVIL SERVICE

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KEY WORDS

1. phlegm : /flem/ n

the thick yellowish substance produced in your nose and throat,

especially when you have a cold

2. inconsistent /ˌɪnkənˈsɪstənt/ adj

two statements that are inconsistent cannot both be true

4. divergence [-dʒəns] n

the act of moving away in different direction from a common point

5. cope /kəup US koup/ v

to succeed in dealing with a difficult problem or situation

8. mismatch /ˈmɪsmætʃ/ n

a combination of things or people that do not work well together or are not

suitable for each other

9. muddy 1 /ˈmʌdi/ adj

confused and not clear

10. spelling ['spelɪŋ] n

forming words with letters according to the principles underlying accepted usage

KEY WORDS

I. Introduction

II. Main contents

III. Conclusion

IV. Game

OUTLINE

III. THE CIVIL SERVICE

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I. INTRODUCTION

Facts of spelling:

-History

-English words spelled the way they are

1350

1. How the alphabet copes

2. Vowel markers

3. Keeping a spelling constant

4. Other markers

5. Look-alikes and sound-alikes

6. A muddy sort of vowel

7. Clever stuff

8. A system of subsystems

9. Different speakers, different problems

10. The price of history

11. Sources and further reading

III. THE CIVIL SERVICE

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II. Main contents

III. THE CIVIL SERVICE

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1. How the alphabet copes

vowels

5 vowels refers vowel letters .

About 20 vowels depending on accent .

Ex: Vowels : cake ; cow ; key ; flu ; find .

Try Collecting by:

• 1 word changing the vowel sound

new words turns up get different

words .

Ex: send sand / sond /sind /sund / ( sand ;

son ; sin; sun ) bad bed ; bod ; bid ;

….

consonants

Most consonant may have a single-

letter ‘ alphabetic .

Ex : Play /plei/

Often ‘divergence ‘

• One spelling = different speech-sounds

• One speech-sound = several different

spellings

Six consonants do not have a single-

letter spelling & require =< 2 letters

• Ex: mother / /m^ðər/

• Sharp /ʃɑrp/

Thảo

1. How the alphabet copes

- 5 pairs of vowel can have single-letter

spellings:

• <a> <e> <i> <o> <u>

2. Vowel markers

Yên

- To get the long value of <a> in a single-syllable

word, add <-e>

E.g: scrape.

- Get the short value before a suffix beginning

with a vowel like <-ing> => double a final

consonant.

E.g: scrapping

- 4 consonants have unusual doubling:

- <k> , <ck>: stoking, stocking

- <ch>, <tch>: beach, batch

- <g(e)>,<dg(e)>: cage, cadge

- <vv>: navvy

2. Vowel markers

Yên

Some words are made up of several recognizable building block.

E.g: reason is the single unit, while un+reason+able+ness consists of 4.

Each of these building blocks a constant spelling.

E.g: verbal ending <-ed>

3. Keeping a spelling consonant

Yên

Silent letters: are letters that you can't hear when you say the word,

but that are there when you write the word.

E.g: <g> in sign

<m> in malign, malignant

The <-e> marks the vowel as long but marks the last

consonant as ‘ voiced’ rather than the ‘voiceless’.

Ex: + bathe /beið/, bath /bɑ:θ/

+ wreathe [ri:ð], wreath [ri:θ]

The marker <-e> to prevent confusion with the plural

forms

Ex: + browse [brauz], brows [braus]

+ please [pli:z], pleas [pli:s]

4. Other markers

Thanh

4. Other markers

Thanh

Two distinct consonants:

+before <a,o,e> we have /g/

Ex: gap /gæp/,got ,gum [gʌm]

+before < i, e> the consonant spelt /j/

Ex: gin /ʤin/,gem /ʤem/

Many exceptions to this:

+ with /g/ before <i, e>

Ex: get /get/, girl [gə:l]

+some words have used the letter <u> as a marker for /g/

Ex: guess [ges], guide [gaid], guitar [gi'tɑ:]

Homographs

Words: spelt the same + pronounced differently

I always read books /reed/

I read Sam’s letter yesterday. /read/

5. Look-alikes and sound-alike

Thanh

Homophones

Words : pronounced the same + spelt

differently

Ex: pail pale

a bucket lacking color

Please get me a pail of water

Lucky looks pale these days

Homonyms

Words: Sounding the same + looking the same

Bear a animal

to endure

I haven’t seen a real bear.

Tim said he can’t bear the situation he’s in anymore.

6. A muddy sort of vowel

Thanh

# A vowel be weakened lack of stress

Ex: about [ə'baut], author ['ɔ:θə], together [tə'geðə]

# The spelling of < ə > varies widely, since it reflects what

the vowel would be in a stressed context

Ex: organ ['ɔ:gən], political [pə'litikl]

# The spelling is prompted by the stressed vowels

Ex: organic [ɔ:'gænik], politics ['pɔlitiks]

Constant : The spelling of the basic units.

7 . Clever Stuff

Nhung

Words borrowed from French have sometimes been altered by

anxious academics looking beyond the French spelling to the

distant Latin original.

French : dette -> debt

doute -> doubt

The ‘silent’ <b> was inserted in 16th century to resemble the

original Latin.

Latin : debitum, dubitare

English: debit, dubitative.

7. Clever stuff

Nhung

In the eighteenth century grammarians trying to make English more “

legitimate” by appropriating Latin spelling.

Such interference is often inconsistent

+ The <p> Receipt : receptacle, reception.

+ lacks a <p> Deceit : deception

+ French loan grocer is a regular English spelling : racer, slicer

A similar mismatch

+ French : <gn> align, alignment

+ English <line> French <ligne>

+ used as slang

Our language is a combination of Anglo- Saxon Old language word

Ex : life death, earth, heaven, sun, moon, day, night, black, white…

Adopted cultural loanwords from French

Ex: chance, conquer, courage, language, money, place, pleasant, royal, strange,

sure….

Technical terms for use in science are often derived from Latin or Greek.

<rrohea> in diarrhea => meaning ‘through flow’

These various subsystems are often marked by their own peculiar spelling

correspondences.

+ <ch> : chief, cheap, cheese…

<ch> /k/ : character, chemist….

<ph> /f/ diaphragm, philosophy, symphony….

8. A system of subsystems

Nhung

English spelling cater for a wide range of English accents goodness of fit with present spelling conventions.

1. In some words: Witch/which, weather/whether, wine/whine

Pronounce <w> and <wh> the same have to learn individual words have <wh->

2. In some words: court, cores, floor, formerly, source

Southern England pronounce without an /r/ same as caught, cause, flaw, formally, sauce.

most Scottish, Irish and American kept /r/ in all positions.

9. Different speakers, different problems

Hoa

III . CONCLUSION

1/ If you know how an English word is pronounced and roughly what it means, you ought to be able to write it down without much trouble. If you find that you can’t do that, then the writing system may well seem to be at fault.

2/ There are several rules between the spelling and the pronunciation.

3/ English spelling has to cater for a wide range of English accents, which differ in their goodness of fit with present spelling conventions.

4/ The spelling system has to cater as best it can for phonetic differences between speakers. If people were encouraged to spell as they spoke, there would emerge a number of different written dialects of English.

5/ English spelling has preserved a continuous record of cultural activity by borrowing foreign spelling conventions along with the borrowed words.

6/ Sure, English Spelling is ‘Kattastroffik’, but there’s nothing we can do about it.

1. A Survey of English

Spelling (Psychology Press,

1994 – 535 pages )

2. English Spelling (Taylor &

Francis, 04-01-2002 – 112

pages )

Hoa

11. Sources and further reading

IV. GAMES

English Spelling Sounds

The spellings of English are difficult you know

Try these words : now , cow and low,

moth and mother, broth and brother,

But what about both and bother?

There and here, pear and hear .

What about bear and dear?

Read and read, bead and dead .

Pay and paid, say and said .

Ah c’mon meat, great and threat .

Is like suite, straight and debt.

Hose, rose, dose and lose.

Foe, shoes, goose and choose.

English Spelling Sounds

The spellings of English are difficult you know

Try these words : (1) , (2) and (3) ,

(4) and (5) , (6) and (7) ,

But what about (8) and (9) ?

(10) and (11) , (12) and (13) .

What about (14) and (15) ?

(16) and (17) , (18) and (19) .

(20) and (21) , (22) and (23) .

Ah c’mon (24) , (25) , and (26) .

Is like (27) , (28) and (29) .

(30) , (31) , (32) and (33) .

(34) , (35) , (36) , and (37) .