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Name: Hassan Basarally

ID: 806007430

Course: LING 6406: The Pronunciation and Spelling of English

Lecturer: Dr. Ferreira

Assignment: 2-With reference to English, explore the relationship of writing to spoken

language. You should consider a range of issues such as language variation and change,

spelling pronunciations, analogical spelling, folk etymology, eye dialect etc.

Date Due: 31/03/2011



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The English spelling system has often been described as chaotic and not reflective of its

phonology. This premise is inaccurate as English is a fairly phonemic language with its spelling

being bound by morphophonemic rules with some irregularities in its spelling convention. The

irregularities stem from historical change, language variation, folk etymology, eye dialect and

spelling pronunciations.

A phonemic spelling system is one in which each sound has a single accompanying

orthographic symbol or letter. In English a single phoneme has several spellings. For example,

/p/ can be spelt as <p>, <pp>, <ph> or <gh>. However, the most common spelling of most

phonemes is usually a single letter. For example Carney states that 83.5 % of the spelling of /f/ is

<f> (Katamba, 201). Many spelling conventions are bound by phonological replacement rules,

thereby making English spelling rule governed. One such rule is voicing assimilation. This rule

states that voiced segments become voiceless in front of voiceless segments (Stockwell and

Minkova, 99). This means that [Îå, [ å and [
å become [å, [å and [å respectively when

occurring before [å e.g. ï
ï . A clear example of how morphology affects spelling is

seen in labial assimilation. This rule states that when [*å occurs at the end of a morpheme and

before [  * å it changes to [å e.g. @
. The exception to this rule is when the

morpheme - means µnot¶ e.g.  Another replacement rule that affects spelling is T-

Lenition. This is when [å occurs before vocalic suffixes that either give the meaning of a noun

e.g.   @ or condition e.g. ±  it is pronounces [´å or [ å e.g. ï

ï
 and
  


   

In English spelling there is the occurrence of consonant doubling. Consonant doubling in

English indicates vowel length. A short vowel is indicated by consonant doubling when the

suffix ± ï is added to a verb (Katamba, 204) e.g. 

 ï. A long vowel is indicated by no



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doubling e.g.  ï. Vowel length can also be indicated by <e> at the end of a word. Its

presence shows either a long vowel as in   or a diphthong. Consonant doubling also indicates

stress. If a disyllabic word has a stress on the second syllable consonant doubling occurs with the

addition of a suffix e.g.







Historical incidents have led to many spelling conventions that may not appear

phonemic. The period of the English language¶s codification and standardisation occurred with

the advent of the printing press. The presence of the ³silent /g/´ in words like ï @ is a result of

historical occurrence rather than phonology. Claxton¶s printing press used Dutch plates which

has /gh/ for /g/, which occurs in Dutch. This is how the convention was introduced in English

with some words retaining the digraph while others did not. Other spelling conventions that do

not match English phonology were introduced after the Norman conquest of Britain. The French

scribes that came institutes French spellings for similar sounds in English. For example /kw/ was

replaced by /qu/ as in  
This shows that many spellings reflect the language¶s history and

effect of linguistic contact.

Language variation and change is an ever occurring process in language. However,

changes in phonology are rarely reflected in spelling. An example is /gh/ representing /x/ in  .

This is partly due to the popular belief in the supremacy of the written word. Writing is viewed

as official and timeless, hence it if far more conservative. An example of the conservative nature

of English spelling can be seen in the Great Vowel Shift. During this period of linguistic change

the phoneme /u/ underwent the following change: '
'' '
' ''  '. Despite the change, the

phoneme is spelt /ou/. The changes that occurred during the Great Vowel Shift made the spelling

of English vowels in particular difficult. The Roman alphabet contains of five letters to represent

about twenty vowel phonemes.



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The existence of spelling pronunciations is another reason why English phonology is not

always reflected in its spelling. This is when a word¶s pronunciation is changed to bring it in line

with its spelling. It occurs frequently in words not used in daily speech and unfamiliar proper

nouns (Algeo and Pyles, 54). Examples of this phenomenon can be seen in words like 


where the initial /h/ is now pronounced. Spelling pronunciations occur in many French

loanwords, for example ïand . In these words, [`å in the first syllable has moved to [ å.

It can also be seen in the pronunciation of /t/ in . The word forehead is now pronounced

[  å or [  å. There is also a pronunciation spelling in English in which the word¶s spelling

is changed to suit its pronunciation. An example is the Italian loanword

which had its

initial syllable changed to [å from [ å.

Folk etymology is a native speaker¶s misunderstanding of a foreign word, assigning to it

a familiar but incorrect etymology. Early English scribes attempted to orthographically indicate

the origin of a word in the English language (Fromkin, Rodman and Hyams, 565). With this,

came the addition of many µsilent letters¶ to show a Greek or Latin origin e.g. <b> in  and

<p> in
 . This can be described as an etymological respelling as a result of analogy of

newer borrowings in which /b/ was pronounced.

Eye dialect is the indication that a word is non standard by its spelling e.g. @ being

spelt  Eye dialect indicates whether a speaker speaks a non-standard form of English but

does not indicate a non-standard pronunciation. Eye dialect provides many alternative spelling,

in some cases a more phonemic one. The eye dialect spelling has become the choice in some

modern registers of English e.g. the internet and SMS messaging.

The English spelling has a close relationship with its pronunciation. Morphophonemic

rules ensure that most spelling follow a regular pattern. However when divergence from



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phonology occurs there are reasonable explanations. English¶s history, spelling not relecting

language variation and the emergence of spelling pronunciations account for many

µirregularities¶ that occur.

Works Cited

Algeo, John and Thomas Pyles. j 

ï @

 ï @ ïï 5th Ed.
Boston: Wadsworth. 2005. Print.



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Fromkin, Victoria, Robert Rodman and Nina Hyams. ¢

 ïï 7th Ed.
Florence: Thompson/Heinle. 2002. Print.

Katamba, Francis. ï @ 

@

  @
@ï 2nd Ed. Oxford: Routledge. 2005.
Print.

Stockwell, Robert and Donka Mibkova. ï @ 

@ @


 Cambridge:
Camb ridge University Press. 2001. Print.