LCD720 – 04/16/08

1. LCD720 – 04/16/08 Pronunciation and orthography

2. Announcements Homework • Look at the lesson plan, and answer the following questions. • What is being taught? • Which of the five stages of pronunciation teaching are covered. Give examples, and explain why each activity fits a certain stage. • What are the strong points of this lesson plan? What are its weaker points? • What would you do to improve this lesson plan, and why? • E.g., change activities, add more activities, or different order?

5. Homework • Select an activity from Phonics they use, Chapter 2 • Can you modify these activities for older children and adult? (If so, how?) • Consider: • What is the objective of the activity? • Do you think the activity will be effective? Why?

6. Interfaces, or How pronunciation is involved in other parts of language knowledge and skills • Listening: perception • Grammar • Orthography (spelling) Today

7. English spelling • How regular is English spelling? • Not regular because … • Regular because …

8. Vowel pairs • Consider these pairs • fat fate • pet Pete • bit bite • mop mope • -VCe indicates that the vowel is pronounced as a ‘long vowel’ • Note that these are not the tense-lax pairs we know from the vowel quadrant… short/lax vowels long/tense vowels

9. Vowel pairs:Phonologically FRONT CENTRAL BACK iy beet boot uw HIGH ɪ bit put ʊ ey bait boat ow MID ə Rosa ɛ bet ʌ butt more ɔ æ bat LOW bomb ɑ æ/ey: fat/fateɛ/iy: pet/Pete ɪ/ay: bit/biteɑ/ow: mop/mope

10. Vowel pairs:Orthographically Why this difference? FRONT CENTRAL BACK iy beet boot uw HIGH ɪ bit put ʊ ey bait boat ow MID ə Rosa ɛ bet ʌ butt more ɔ æ bat LOW bomb ɑ æ/ey: fat/fateɛ/iy: pet/Pete ɪ/ay: bit/biteɑ/ow: mop/mope

11. Vowel pairs • The same vowel pairs can also be signaled as follows • In multisyllabic words: Consonant doubling for short vowels • latter later • mopping moping • In monosyllabic words: Vowel digraphs (instead of -e) for long vowels • bait, heat, loan • These vowel pairs have a historical origin • The Early Middle English Vowel Shortening rule, and • The Great Vowel Shift

12. The Great Vowel Shift Between 1400 and 1600 the long vowels changed

13. FRONT CENTRAL BACK HIGH i: u: e: o: MID ɛ: ɔ: LOW a: The Great Vowel Shift ay aw The colon indicates long vowels,e.g., /i:/ is similar to our /iy/

14. The Great Vowel Shift • That is why the vowels sound differently in pairs like divine-divinity; please-pleasant; serene-serenity; crime-criminal • First, the vowels sounded the same • Then, there was the Early Middle English Vowel Shortening rule • E.g., divinity i => ɪ • Finally, there was The Great Vowel Shift • E.g., divine i => ay • The Great Vowel Shift didn’t affect divinity, because the [i] had already been changed to [ɪ] Can you think of more pairs? Appendix 9, p. 387

15. English spelling is more regular than you’d think • English retains many older spellings • It retains information about pronunciation in earlier stages • divine/divinity; sane/sanity • It retains etymological information • Silent b in debt, because of the Latin root • It spells certain morphemes consistently • cats and dogs (s for [s] and [z]) • English spelling doesn’t represent pronunciation exactly • But that makes written English mutually intelligible (cf. American, British, Australian accents)

16. Some more regularities

17. The letters c and g • The letter c can represent /s/ and /k/ • /s/ • Before certain vowels: e, i, y • Before silent -e: ice, piece • Mnemonic: center-circle-cycle • /k/ • In clusters: clean, crime • With k: sick, jacket • Word-finally: tic, chic, zinc • Before certain vowels: a, o, u This explains: electric – electricity criticize – critical medicine – medication deduce - deduction

18. The letters c and g • The letter g can represent /g/, /ʤ/ and /ʒ/ • /g/ • In clusters: grass, grumpy • Word-finally: log, bag • Before certain vowels: a, o, u • Before e and i in Germanic words: get, give • /ʤ/ • Before e, i, y in Romance words: gentle, giant, gyro • /ʒ/ • French-sounding words in -ge: beige, garage This explains: analogy – analog(ue) prodigious - prodigal

19. The letters c and g • /g/ or /ʤ/? Why? • got • gin • dig • green • get • gesture • German • Why is there a u in guess and guilty?

20. The letter x • The letter x can represent /ks/, /gz/ and /z/ • /ks/ in extra, laxity, box • /gz/ between vowels, before a stressed syllable: exact, example • /z/ in initial position: xylophone, xerox

21. Invisible y • Addition of /y/ • Before /uw/ if it’s spelled as eu, ew or u /y/ no /y/ • feud, few crew • eucalyptus rude • heuristic, pew • menu, music • confuse • unity, humid • NAE: Except after t, d, s, z, n, l, x (e.g., new) Exceptafter r

22. Invisible y and palatalization:/ʃ, ʧ, ʒ, ʤ, y, kʃ/ • Palatalization of /s, t, d, ks/ • /s+y/ → /ʃ/ issue • /t+y/ → /ʧ/ virtue • /d+y/ → /ʤ/ arduous • /ks+y/ → /kʃ/ sexual • Always with certain word endings • e.g., vacation, question, expression, revision, measure

23. Silent consonant letters • We know that the vowel e can be silent • E.g., bite, worked • Consonants can also be silent • knee, gnat, pneumonia, mnemonic • psychology, write • Why are these consonants silent? • Some silent letters are pronounced in related words • crumb-crumble; sign-signify, paradigm-paradigmatic • Why?

24. Practice • How would you write these nonsense words? Why? • Transcribe them • Propose one or more plausible spellings • Explain your choice of spelling • pæf • kʌʧ • dɪnʧ • kweyt • drɑk • kiym • ʤæpl̩ • sɛri • kayp • wown

25. Other writing systems • ESL learners may have a writing system that is very different from English • Alphabetic systems with different letters • Greek, Korean, Cyrillic, Arabic • Note: In Hebrew only consonants are written (although vowels can be used too) • Characters in Chinese

26. Chinese • Chinese has characters • Each character represents a word or morpheme • Chinese doesn’t have a lot of inflections, so it doesn’t needs many extra characters for them • Chinese readers need to know about 5,000 characters to be able to read a newspaper • There is now a spelling system based on the Roman alphabet: pinyin • Used for internet and foreign visitors long2 Chinese dragon traditional simplified pinyin

27. Teaching spelling • There are too many regularities to address them all • Don’t present too many regularities at once • This will overload the students’ working memory • Present a few regularities and exceptions • Give a lot of examples • When there are many rules and exceptions, it’s often easier to learn by analogy to examples • Watch out for ‘spelling pronunciation’ • How would you teach spelling at different levels, and to students of different ages?

28. Phonological and phonemic awareness • Everything so far assumes phonological and phonemic awareness: • Phonological awareness: • The ability to separate sequences into words, words into syllables, and syllables into onsets and rimes; and to manipulate these • Phonemic awareness • The ability to recognize that words are made up of a discrete set of sounds, and to manipulate these individual sounds • Children and non-literate adults need to develop phonological and phonemic awareness

29. Reflection • Do you believe there is any relation between a learner’s ability to spell English and the ability to pronounce it? Why or why not? • Do you feel that the concept of “long” and “short” vowels is useful for understanding the relationship between English spelling and pronunciation? Why or why not? • Do you agree or disagree with the commonly heard statement that English spelling is unsystematic? Explain. • Do you think English spelling should be reformed? Why or why not?

30. Next week • Read Phonics they use, Chapter 14 • What do you think of the author’s “personal phonics history”? • Select one or two things you found the most interesting about • how good readers read words • about how children learn to read words? For example, what did you not know yet, or what can you use in your classroom? • Practice homework about orthography