Spelling and Society: The Culture and Politics of Orthography around the WorldSpelling matters to people. In America and Britain every day, members of the public write to the media on spelling issues, and take part in spelling contests. In Germany, a reform of the spelling system has provoked a constitutional crisis; in Galicia, a 'war of orthographies' parallels an intense public debate on national identity; on walls, bridges and trains globally, PUNX and ANARKISTS proclaim their identities orthographically. The way we spell often represents an attempt to associate with, or dissociate from, other languages. In Spelling and Society, Mark Sebba explores why matters of orthography are of real concern to so many groups, as a reflection of culture, history and social practices, and as a powerful symbol of national or local identity. This 2007 book will be welcomed by students and researchers in English language, orthography and sociolinguistics, and by anyone interested in the importance of spelling in contemporary society. |
Contents
Section 1 | 26 |
Section 2 | 36 |
Section 3 | 39 |
Section 4 | 58 |
Section 5 | 81 |
Section 6 | 102 |
Section 7 | 132 |
Section 8 | 157 |
Other editions - View all
Spelling and Society: The Culture and Politics of Orthography around the World Mark Sebba No preview available - 2012 |
Spelling and Society: The Culture and Politics of Orthography around the World Mark Sebba No preview available - 2007 |
Common terms and phrases
abstand According Afrikaans Ali G Álvarez-Cáccamo and Herrero Androutsopoulos Arabic argument associated Ausbau autonomous model bilinguals British English Castilian century Chapter colonial context cultural Cyrillic Cyrillic alphabet debates deviation dialect discourse Dutch English spelling Estonian example focussed foreign French Gaelic Galician Geerts German graffiti graphemes graphy guage Haitian Creole Herrero Valeiro iconic ideological Indonesia issues Jamaican Creole learners letters lexifier linguists literacy practices literate loanwords Malay Manx Manx orthography missionaries model of orthography non-standard norms official orthography ortho orthographic conventions orthographic practices orthographic reform particular phonemic orthography phonological Portuguese pronunciation proposals Quechua readers recognisable reintegrationism represent representation respellings role Roman alphabet Roman script Schieffelin and Doucet Sebba social meaning social practice sound Spanish speakers spelling reform spelling system Sranan Standard English standardised subcultural Surinam symbolic Tatar Tatarstan texts Turkic languages users variation vernacular Vikør Voorhoeve vowel words writing system
Popular passages
Page 13 - Literacy is not simply knowing how to read and write a particular script but applying this knowledge for specific purposes in specific contexts of use.
Page 15 - This conservative or antiquarian bias can perhaps be best appreciated by contrasting it with fully phonetic writing; for phonetic writing, by imitating human discourse, is in fact symbolizing, not the objects of the social and natural order, but the very process of human interaction in speech: the verb is as easy to express as the noun ; and the written vocabulary can be easily and unambiguously expanded. Phonetic systems are therefore adapted to expressing every nuance of individual thought, to...
Page 15 - ... and so, it may be surmised, was the nature of the writing system itself. For pictographic and logographic systems are alike in their tendency to reify the objects of the natural and social order; by so doing they register, record, make permanent the existing social and ideological picture.
Page 15 - ... written vocabulary can be easily and unambiguously expanded. Phonetic systems are therefore adapted to expressing every nuance of individual thought, to recording personal reactions as well as items of major social importance. Non-phonetic writing, on the other hand, tends rather to record and reify only those items in the cultural repertoire which the literate specialists have selected for written expression ; and it tends to express the collective attitude towards them. The notion of representing...