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What Do Each Of These Sets of Words Show?
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wildchild



Joined: 14 Nov 2005
Posts: 519
Location: Puebla 2009 - 2010
PostPosted: Mon Feb 27, 2006 2:54 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Quote:
It can be argued that we're able to read the posts in this thread with ease not because the writing system has regular patterns and is predictable, but because of constant exposure from a young age, and because we're fluent in the language. For example, we cuold raed tehse psots eevn if teh wrods wree msispleled, or ddn't hv vwls..


Sure. But one wouldn't really want to make that argument. The Whole Language approach to learning to read has already been discredited. They tried it and a whole generation of kids can't read.

Besides, if it were true that the majority of english spelling was irregular and that we are only able to read due to constant exposure, then how would one account for the fact that we can all correctly read words to which we had previously never been exposed?

Quote:
Shaw's point that the letters don't consistently correspond to the same sounds, when they ideally should, is true...


Yes, you are right that there are mutiple ways to represent a single phoneme. If this is ideal or not is arguable. Again, please see Mulcaster's 3 Principles.

AND please note, I have opend a new thread, in the Teacher's Forum under Applied Linguistics, titled English Writing System to where we might direct further responses to this off-topic discussion.
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Cdaniels



Joined: 21 Mar 2005
Posts: 663
Location: Dunwich, Massachusetts
PostPosted: Mon Feb 27, 2006 3:52 am    Post subject: Lighten up guys! Reply with quote
wilderson, 1. it was pointed out that Shaw's statement was meant to be funny! 2. It is endlessly arguable why we read the posts with ease.
3. I'm not sure what "whole generation" of kids can't read! 4. Sonya didn't argue that the majority of english (or English!) spelling was irregular. 5. And any interest I might have had in "Mulcaster's Principles" has been killed by your pretentious tone.
Is this is the kind of discussion they usually have in the "Applied Linguistics" forum?
I thought my jokes were pretty lame, but this stuff is unbearable!. Rolling Eyes

Last edited by Cdaniels on Mon Feb 27, 2006 4:31 am; edited 1 time in total
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sonya



Joined: 25 Feb 2006
Posts: 51
Location: california
PostPosted: Mon Feb 27, 2006 4:13 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Please explain how these arguments work. What is the "whole language" approach? What generation can't read? Explain what's relevant from this book, so I can understand your reasoning.

We can't all correctly read completely unfamiliar words we've never seen before. Some are pretty straightforward, but others aren't. Remember elementary and junior high? Even high school? Being forced to read literature aloud, and half the class guessing at how to pronounce the fancy words? Even now I hear people sometimes hesitate over how to pronounce or mispronounce a world spelled out before them.

back to Alice, again.. I think this is amusing. I googled something Carroll wrote and dug it up for everyone's reading pleasure.

(First, how would you pronounce "borogove"?)

As this poem ["The Hunting Of The Snark"] is to some extent connected with the lay of the Jabberwock, let me take this opportunity of answering a question that has often been asked me, how to pronounce "slithy toves". The "i" in "slithy" is long, as in "writhe"; and "toves" is pronounced so as to rhyme with "groves". Again, the first "o" in "borogoves" is pronounced like the "o" in "borrow". I have heard people try to give it the sound of the "o" in "worry". Such is Human Perversity.
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Cdaniels



Joined: 21 Mar 2005
Posts: 663
Location: Dunwich, Massachusetts
PostPosted: Mon Feb 27, 2006 4:38 am    Post subject: Gotta luv Jabberwocky! Reply with quote
www.jabberwocky.com/carroll/jabber/jabberwocky.html
"It seems very pretty," she said when she had finished it, "but it's rather hard to understand!" (You see she didn't like to confess even to herself, that she couldn't make it out at all.) "Somehow it seems to fill my head with ideas--only I don't exactly know what they are! However, somebody killed something: that's clear, at any rate---" Cool
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ClanDestine



Joined: 23 Nov 2005
Posts: 17
PostPosted: Mon Feb 27, 2006 1:52 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Thanks a MILL all. I really appreciate all of you assistance.
awesome!
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