What makes the English language such a complex orthography to read and spell?

What makes the English language such a complex orthography to read and spell?

English orthography uses a set of rules that governs how speech is represented in writing. English has relatively complicated spelling rules because of the complex history of the English language. Most sounds in English can be spelled in more than one way and many spellings can be pronounced in more than one way.

What is a non-phonetic language?

Words whose pronunciation and spelling do not match are called non-phonetic. Children learning to read are taught to memorize each of these words as a whole word instead of reading it letter-by-letter.

Why English is non phonetic language?

Like we all know, the English alphabet has 26 letters. This, consequently, makes English a non-phonetic language, which means that the pronunciation of a word is not dependent on its spelling.

Why is English so illogical?

Examples of Why English Is Illogical English tends to be a combination of prefixes, suffixes, and borrowed words from several other languages. As a result, we end up with endless combinations of words with unpredictable, sometimes contradictory, meanings.

What is conventional orthography?

An orthography is a set of conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalization, word breaks, emphasis, and punctuation. Sometimes there may be variation in a language’s orthography, such as that between American and British spelling in the case of English orthography.

What is orthography of a language?

Definition of orthography 1a : the art of writing words with the proper letters according to standard usage the rules of English orthography. b : the representation of the sounds of a language by written or printed symbols.

Where did English spelling come from?

History. Modern English spelling developed from about 1350 onwards, when—after three centuries of Norman French rule—English gradually became the official language of England again, although very different from before 1066, having incorporated many words of French origin (battle, beef, button, etc.).

Can a non-native speaker teach English effectively?

Most non-native speakers are trained teachers either in their country or the country they teach in which means that they often will have much more teaching experience than native speakers. It seems foolish to assume that just because someone speaks English they can teach it effectively.

Is it offensive to label non-native speakers as ‘non- native speakers’?

She also stated that “it is entirely inappropriate, indeed offensive, to label as ‘non-native speakers’ those who have learnt English as a second or foreign language” (Jenkins ibid: 9).

Should students be able to ask questions in their native language?

It is often helpful for students to be able to ask questions in their native language or to draw parallels between their language (L1) and English. An English native speaker may not be able to clearly communicate more complex ideas and structures to students especially if his understanding of the local language is limited.

Is the term “non-native” offensive?

In a recent article I wrote about “a powerful plenary session … [in which] Richardson (2016) reminded us that the term, ‘non-native’ has been and continues to be offensive to many professional English language instructors…offensive….because it ‘asserts what [people] are by negating what [they] are not” (Jenkins, 2017).