Effects of Dialect on American and British Children's Spelling |
| |
| Authors: | Rebecca Treiman Usha Goswami Ruth Tincoff Hilary Leevers |
| |
| Institution: | Department of Psychology, Wayne State University, 71 W. Warren Ave., Detroit, MI 48202;The University of Cambridge;The Johns Hopkins University;The University of Oxford |
| |
| Abstract: | Two experiments were carried out to compare the spelling of children who speak General American English and children who speak Southern British English. The first dialect is rhotic (/r/may occur after a vowel in a syllable), and the second is nonrhotic (/r/may not occur in this context). Young children's spelling errors reflected the characteristics of their dialect. For example, American children with spelling ages of about 6–7½ often misspelled hurt as "hrt" whereas British children of similar spelling levels were more likely to misspell it as "hut." Such errors were uncommon by spelling ages of greater than 7½. Even at these spelling ages, however, the British children made overgeneralization errors that reflected their dialect. For example, they sometimes spelled bath as "barth" based on the fact that bath contains the same vowel sound as card in their dialect. The results show that phonology plays an important role in children's spelling development. |
| |
| Keywords: | |
|
|
