At 09:56 PM 3/21/99 -0500, you wrote:
>Hi Ken and list,
>
>>Unlike other language aspects spelling is not rule governed. By
>>standardizing spelling across dialects we limit the extent to which
>>any spelling rules can be applied across dialects.
>
>This is not necessarily true of other languages. English is
>(fortunately) nearly unique in the utter insanity of its spelling. After
>tutoring Russian-speakers in English as a second language I came to the
>conclusion that it must be close to what I felt when I first encountered
>Chinese characters! I used to tell them that, "We stole this word from
>French so it's written this way, and this word was stolen from German so
>it's written another way...etc." In languages like Russian or Italian, a
>"spelling bee" would be pointless, since the conventions for writing
>sounds in these languages are orderly - a direct (although not
>necessarily a one-to-one) mapping.
>
>For that matter, has anyone ever compared the process of learning Chinese
>characters with the process of learning how English words are spelled?
>Both are somewhat, but not completely, arbitrary. In fact, I recall that
>back in the 'sixties someone actually did this with non-readers in an
>inner-city school - teaching them the Chinese characters for English
>words, and then when they had gotten the idea of reading and lost their
>terror of the printed page, switching to English letters.
>
>Any comments?
>
>Rochel Sara Heckert
>
>PS Your comment on the teacher's need for perfect "surveillance" is
>another reminder that as much as our schools exist to teach, they
>function to separate the (supposedly genetically determined) sheep from
>the goats. For most people I know the idea that how hard the child
>*works* can be significant is still heresy, or at least violently
>counter-intuitive.
>
>
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***************************************************************
Angel Lin, Ph.D.(Toronto)
Assistant Professor
Department of English
City University of Hong Kong
Tat Chee Ave., Kowloon
Hong Kong
Fax: (852) 2788-8894
Phone: (852) 2788-8122
E-Mail: enangel who-is-at cityu.edu.hk