The relationship between spelling and pronunciation: A study of selected English words
Abstract
unavoidable in the present era. Learning to spell and pronounce
English words correctly also receives equal importance attached
to the learning of grammar, phonology and vocabulary.
Unfortunately, the spelling system of English language is
considered irregular, almost divorced from its spoken form
despite straining through different reforms. The fact that it lacks
a perfect guide on how to learn the pronunciation of the words
makes it more complex. A perfect alphabet, would always have
corresponding speech sounds adequately representing one sound
but this remains a different case in English. The defective English
spelling system accounts for its poor reflection of pronunciation
of words as there are inadequate symbols to represent all the
speech sounds of English. There are only 26 alphabets in English
and 44 speech sounds they are meant to represent. The main aim
of this work is to study the relationship between the Spelling and
Pronunciation of selected English words especially where there
are compromises in the representation of both morphological and
phonological information including the integration of
etymological spelling. Non-experimental Descriptive Research
Design was used for the study. The data collected comprising two
hundred (200) words generated from the Oxford Advanced
Learner’s Dictionary (OALD) (7th Edition), were analyzed using
Bi-directional analysis introduced by Carney in 1994. The theory analyses the relationship and irregularities in Spelling and
Pronunciation of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA),
showing its concern with the correspondence path; from spelling
to sound and from sound to spelling. It was observed that there is
no perfect relationship between the Spelling and Pronunciation of
the selected English words. The work recommends that
Phonographic Matching principle (PhM), be applied in the
relationship between Spelling and Pronunciation; the spelling of
a word should represent its phonological form.
Full Text:
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