NOTICE: This page is copyrighted 1998 to Johanna Rubba
Processes and Spelling
Contents of this
page:
Introduction
Examples of processes
and spelling errors they cause
Exercise
Click
here for the KEY to the exercise
This handout gives you explanations of and practice with identifying the cause of systematic spelling errors. What makes them systematic? They are not random misspellings; they follow the system of English spelling rather well. They simply do not agree with the spelling of the word that is considered correct.
Remember that spelling an unknown word is a guessing task. When a person hears an unfamiliar word, or wants to write a word whose spelling they are unsure of, they often go by the way the word sounds, relying also on their knowledge of the English spelling system.
Processes — the regular ways we modify a phoneme in pronunciation — often underlie spelling errors: processes may make two different phonemes sound alike, or they may mask the identity of the phoneme; or they may delete or move phonemes around. This can cause confusion in a speller unfamiliar with the correct spellings of words. They have to guess at the identity of the intended phoneme, and often they make the wrong guess. In cases of deletion, they don't realize that the phoneme is there at all.
Although these arespelling errors from the point of view of the conventions of English spelling, we must also recognize that they are educated guesses: the misspeller is not wildly and randomly choosing any old letter; rather, they are following the rules of the English spelling system. It is these rules that are flawed, not the misspeller. Such errors actually show that the misspeller has mastered the complexities of the spelling system quite well, for the letter chosen, while not correct,is logical.
Below are listed some processes of English that commonly lead to spelling errors. Each process is briefly described; then the way in which the process contributes to spelling errors is explained. At the very end of the handout is an exercise requiring you to apply this information.
BRACKETS: Slash brackets / / indicate phonemic transcription (before processes apply). Square brackets [ ] indicate phonetic transcription (after processes apply). Angle brackets < > indicate conventional English spelling. A word enclosed in equal signs = = is an actual misspelling found in a piece of writing.
Examples of processes and spelling errors they cause
> Aspiration: A feature that can be added to a sound (usually a stop) by delaying the onset of voicing. It is manifested as a strong puff of air with the release of the consonant. Aspiration applies to /p/, /t/, /k/ when they appear either (a) at the beginning of a word (as in <top>, <tally>) or (b) at the beginning of a stressed syllable (as in <photography>, <attack> [compare <attic>, in which the /t/ begins an unstressed syllable]).
Aspiration is a major way English speakers differentiate the voiceless stops /p, t, k/ from the voiced stops /b, d, g/. But because the voiceless stops are aspirated only in certain positions in a word/syllable, when they appear in other positions, they are not aspirated and therefore are hard to differentiate from the voiced stops.
Examples: =distain= for <disdain>. Aspiration does not occur after /s/, and /d/ is minimally voiced after /s/; =distain= and <disdain> are pronounced exactly the same, so a person unfamiliar with the way the word is normally spelled has to guess whether /t/ or /d/ is intended by the speaker. =Next store= for <next door> is a similar case.
> Flapping: A 'flap' is a speech sound that is voiced, and is produced by very rapidly whacking the tip of the tongue against the alveolar ridge just once. In American English, the phonemes /t/, /d/ are pronounced as the flap (sometimes transcribed [D]) when they appear between vowels and the first vowel is stressed.
Examples: <metal>, <medal> both have stress on the first vowel and the /t/ or /d/ is followed by an unstressed vowel. Compare <áttic> and <attáck>: in <áttic>, the stress is on the vowel preceding the /t/. An unstressed vowel follows the /t/, allowing flapping to apply to the /t/. In <attáck>, however, the /t/ is the first sound in its syllable, and the stressed vowel follows rather than precedes the /t/; when this occurs, the /t/ will be aspirated, not flapped (see Aspiration above).
Since both /t/ and /d/ undergo flapping, a speller unfamiliar with a particular word must guess whether the flap they hear is 'really' /t/ or /d/. Wrong guesses are found in both directions: =titied= for <tidied> and =pedals= for <petals>. (Since when do flowers have pedals??)
> Vowel reduction: This applies to most vowels when they appear in unstressed syllables. Compare the vowels of <photograph> with those of <photography> as these words are pronounced in normal speech not careful or hypercorrect speech. Note that when a syllable is stressed (underlined in the preceding sentence), the vowel retains the features of the expected phoneme /o/ or /æ/. When a syllable is not stressed, the vowel is schwa. (In most dialects, vowel reduction does not apply to /i/, /o/ or /u/ when they are the very last sound in a word, e.g. <window>, <happy>.)
Vowel reduction masks the phonemic identity of vowels: any vowel might be pronounced as schwa if stress does not fall on its syllable. This means that a speller who has never seen a particular word written down (or has seen it infrequently) will have to guess at the intended vowel, since all they hear is schwa. The guess is often influenced by the speller's knowledge of typical prefixes and suffixes of English. Examples: =relivent= for <relevant>, =corralation= for <correlation>, =enherit= for <inherit>. This is an extremely common source of spelling errors in adult writing.
> Syllable-structure simplification: Sounds are frequently deleted to reduce the number of consonants in a syllable. For example, most people do not pronounce all of the consonants at the end of the word <fifths>; most drop either the /f/ or the sound represented by the <th>; many will drop both and say something that sounds like 'fiss'. Naturallly, if someone is unfamiliar with the way a certain word is written, they will not know that a sound is there if they never hear it in speech! So they will not expect a letter for that sound to be required in the spellling. Examples: =artic= for <arctic>, =musn't= for <must'nt>.
> Place assimilation: Frequently, when two consonants occur near each other, the place of articulation of the second will be anticipated and adopted for the articulation of the first, so that the two adjacent sounds don't require movement to a new place of articulation. In other words, the place feature of the second segment 'spreads' to the preceding segment. My favorite example is =upmost= for <utmost> (a good sense for meanings is operating here, too!), in which the first /t/ loses its alveolar place of articulation and acquires the bilabial place of articulation of the following /m/, and is therefore pronounced [p], and this shows up in the misspelling. This frequently happens when a nasal precedes another sound, e.g. =impatient= for <in-patient> (a patient admitted to the hospital, that is), =imput= for <input>.
> Dissimilation: In dissimilation, sounds acquire features that make them less like other sounds in the word or in the phonological system. Aspiration is a kind of dissimilation, but there are other cases, too. Example: the word <diphthong>, technically pronounced 'diff-thong' is frequently pronounced 'dip-thong'. The / f /— a voiceless labiodental fricative represented by the <ph> in the spelling — becomes the voiceless bilabial stop [ p ].To pronounce <diphthong> as spelled, the speaker must produce a sequence of two voiceless fricatives in a row, with nearby places of articulation — a movement requiring very fine motor control. It is easier to make the two fricatives less alike, in this case by changing the first fricative / f / to [ p ]. This changes both its manner feature (fricative > stop) and its place feature (labiodental > bilabial). This makes it much less like the 'th' sound than / f / is.
If a person hears a word with a sound that has undergone dissimilation, and is unfamiliar with the correct spelling of the word, the person will spell the word as it sounds. In this case, the word <diphthong> will be spelled =dipthong=, since that is what the speller hears/says.
Anolther example of dissimilation occurs when a word contains two identical sounds near each other, as with the r's in <February>. One of the identical sounds may be changed, so as to make the word easier to pronounce. In this case, a [ y ] sound replaces the first / r /, rendering 'feb-you-airy'.In spelling, then, the first <r> may be left out; no letter needs to replace it, since the letter <u> frequently represents the sequence / y u /, as in <union>. Hence 'Febuary' is a likely spelling error.
Using the information
above, analyze the following misspellings, which have been collected from
various sources. Identify which of the above processes is responsible for
the error, and explain what caused the speller's confusion.
| Misspelling | Correct | Misspelling | Correct |
| 1. sentance | sentence | 9. backround | background |
| 2. pregnate | pregnant | 10. benifit | benefit |
| 3. disperse | disburse | 11. deep seeded | deep-seated |
| 4. nomatic | nomadic | 12. imput | input |
| 5. shuttered | shuddered | 13. appose | oppose |
| 6. pumkin | pumpkin | 14. formally | formerly |
| 7. ingrediants | ingredients | 15. disgression | discretion |
| 8. must of/should of * | must have, should have | 16. duck tape | duct tape |
| 17. idenidy * | identity |
* These examples involve more than one process.