Styles in Spelling Errors

史娜威+麻琳

【Abstract】This paper copes with the spelling errors as following aspects such as：vowel errors， double vs. single consonants， omission of one letter， addition of one letter， etc. The purpose of the present essay is to describe the spelling mistakes which occur in the writing of a group of college students. A classification of such mistakes， according to the assumed implicit cause for the frequency of the mistake， not on the nature of the mistake or what it includes.

【Key words】college students； error； spelling

1. Introduction

Among the some researches on the learning of English for spelling college students witnessing the fact that knowledge of one Roman writing system makes it more hard. Besides the occurrence of mistakes made by the students whose mother tongue language adopts a Roman script， we are shown little about the nature of the spelling mistakes made by different level learners， or whether these mistakes compromise different categories. Because Chinese character is definitely different from that adopted by English， influence by Chinese spelling with English spelling can be ruled out. The resources for the essay have been picked out from the written work， such as， examinations， homework assignments， and compositions.

2. Error Formats

2.1 Non-phonetic features

Mistake caused by the non-phonetic features of English spelling. Despite all claims to consistency in English spelling， there shows loads of arbitrariness and inconsistency in it. A better demonstration of this information is the spelling of weak vowels. Most vowels have the phonetic effect， however， may be displayed by any vowel symbol in spelling. Other mistakes in this category should be the fact that some letters are written but not pronounced， like goverment. Homophony makes up the happening of such errors， namely， xreed （read）， xbrake （break）， xthere （their）， and xtheir （there）. Mistakes caused by variety between the sound systems of English and the learners mother tongue. Correct pronunciation is such an quality in learning to spell that kids with speech articulation difficulties may be slow learners for that cause alone. Disadvantages in articulation and spelling are connected. These statements were written by native English speakers， however， they are fully applicable to non-native speakers. If some foreign English speakers feel it hard in pronunciation of the standard variety of English taught at schools， foreign learners have more problems in this aspect. Let us think about several specific varieties among the Chinese and English sound systems and observe how these could influence the spelling capacity of some Chinese learners of English. Nevertheless English has two different bilabial plosives， [p] and [b]. It is quite often that some Chinese students may substitute [b] for [p] in English words which have [p]. When writers write down these words， it occurs for them to spell those words with b instead of p， which explains misspellings for， example：blaying， aban， bombous and others. In the same way， it could explain covernment because neither typical Chinese nor some of the oral dialects have [g]. A final instance of this category of mistakes falls into varieties in consonant clustering. When the students of these dialects pronounce the word which has a final consonant cluster， they attempt to insert a vowel in front of the last consonant. This vowel is inserted in pronunciation as well as in writing letters because of in the mistake communisem. Varieties between two sound systems may influence spelling pattern. Errors which may be attributed to analogy. The students observe specific similarities between two or more words. My data disclose three types of analogy which may cause the happenfing of spelling errors：phonetic， orthographic， and grammatical. Phonetic analogy appears while the similar sound is represented in more than one way in spelling. For instance， the sound ?>] is represented variously in fought and caught. On the other hand， orthographic analogy happens while， for certain reason， the students observe two words to be similar in spelling， in spite of the phonetic varieties between them. As we known， there is nothing sacrosanct about the method we spell. Convention is a powerful factor. To take a good instance， we usually take a space between a modal auxiliary and not， except in the case of can. It is natural that some students should follow the layout of most auxiliaries and write as for grammatical analogy， once two words are grammatically connected deviate from the general layouts of spelling such related forms， these are spelling mistakes.endprint

2.2 Derivation errors

Errors which may be contributed to the somewhat inconsistent and arbitrary features of English word derivation. This category is connected with the original one and may be included under grammatical analogy. It is certainly a form of analogy， however， is restrained to certain derived words. Derivation in English sometimes occurs by adding a suffix to the stem without changing the spelling of the stem：equal：equality. In certain cases， however， these changes do take place. When this happens， spelling errors are likely to happen. Some of the errors cited by Wyatt clearly belong to this category and can thus be easily explained. *Fourty results from four， *enterance from enter and *arguement from argue. Here it must be pointed out that in some analogical errors more than one factor seem to be at work. For example， in spelling height as *hight， at least phonetic as well as derivational analogy seem to work together to produce this and other similar errors since English has such analogous words as light， sight， fight， and night. Similarly， for *speach there are such analogous forms as preach， peach， and teach.

2.3 Transitional errors

Errors which may be described as transitional. This group of errors may occur because of one or both of the following two factors： ignorance of some English spelling rules or the overgeneralization of a spelling rule. In spite of occasional irregularity， English spelling is systematic in many places. The foreign learner， however， is rarely exposed to a systematic treatment of spelling rules. Instead， he is left to infer these rules by himself. One English spelling rule may be formulated as follows：When adding a suffix to a word in which primary stress falls on the last syllable， the final consonant letter of such a word must be doubled， provided the suffix does not cause stress to shift to another syllable. Examples：occur：occurred：occurrence， begin：beginning， prefer：preferred （but preference）. Once the learners is not consciously aware of this rule， they will write *occured， xtransfered， etc.

2.4 Neglect of spelling

Other similar mistakes which can be accounted for by the learners neglect of certain spelling rules are：Mnitialy， *nin （nine）， xpilled （piled） and *trys （tries）. If a student learns a rule without its exceptions， their grasping of the rule will be unfinished， and spelling mistakes will occur. This may be explained by the below rules：While putting a suffix to one word with a final ‘e， the ‘e have to confined unless the suffix begins with a vowel letter， in which case the final ‘e must be dropped. Examples：complete：completely， but compare：comparing. The students， however， may not learn this rule in its complete form. They probably learn the first section or the second section of the rule and then overgeneralize either part to the whole words with a final ‘e to which any kind of suffix is added. Or he may learn the whole rule but forget either of its two parts. Spelling mistakes like completly， compareing， and xcloseing will occur.endprint

2.5 British and American spelling

There is one spelling error in my data which appears to have been caused by varieties between British and American spelling. The British inflexional and the American inflectional yields the hybrid *inflextional in one students writing. There will often remain many items which defy categorization. The learners sense and pen sometimes slip. An easy way out is to combine such mistakes under the label ‘unaccounted for， however， observe that these mistakes representing words which may be regarded relatively ‘advanced for foreign learners. The fact that students cannot spell a certain word right suggesting that they could not have learned this word well enough to be able to spell it. Kids feel a difficult time even copying a word which is unknown to them in context. At this point the reader may have observed that some of the mistakes talked above in this essay should be classified in more than just one single method. For instance， is xreed （read） the result of homophony as has been stated， or is it an analogical mistake. Mistakes attributed to phonetic analogy （*languidge， ^original， xapostrophy， etc.） may very well be compromised in the first category， such as， mistakes caused by the non-phonetic features of English spelling. In the absence of experimental witness the works of many mistake to certain categories remains arbitrary. We can do little just estimate the underlying reasons of a mistake.

3. Conclusion

To sum up， I would like to pinpoint the striking similarity among some spelling mistakes and those which occur in the field of English grammar. Perhaps a similar research of pronunciation errors might uncover categories like those encountered in grammar and spelling. Once it turns out to be true， more attention should be paid to an integrated method in foreign-language learning rather than to a method which divides hours devoted to language learning into grammar aspects， and pronunciation periods.

References：

[1]A non-contrastive approach to error analysis，ELT，25.3（June 2007），p.204-219.

[2]Sahu，S（2006）.Spelling strategies of socially advantages and disadvantage children.

[3]Psycho Lingua（2012）.Inter-language Review of Applied Linguistics； 10，201-231.

[4]Ormrod，J.（2006）.A learning strategy for phonetic spellers.Academic Therapy； 22，2；195-198.

[5]Richards，J.（2004）.Error analysis：Perspectives on second language acquisition.Longman.endprint