Re: SCWC 32: Discussion: IMPLEMENT

"Flying Tortoise" <purple.mug@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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On Jun 12, 11:10 pm, "Adrian Bailey" <d...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"Flying Tortoise" <purple....@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message

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On Jun 11, 8:40 pm, Angus Rodgers <twir...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Spelling has nothing to do with language.

Here you leave me speechless!

No, he doesn't, and that's precisely the point! He might leave you
'formally written wordless' but that's an entirely different kettle of
ghoti! Language is not writing.

Too glib. Writing and reading are clearly and obviously two facets of
language. And it's also clear that it's possible to learn a foreign
language
without ever hearing or speaking it.

Writing is a representation of
language (at best!) The failure to recognise that written and spoken
words are entirely different species

You've contradicted yourself here. If writing is a representation of
speech,
what can it mean to say that they are "entirely different species"? In
most
languages, orthography exactly parallels speech, and even in English the
correspondence is rising 90%.

Tell that to a court transcriber. It is all but impossible to
accurately record spoken language in standard orthography. Writing is
an entirely different experience and process to speaking (unless you
mentally punctuate and spellceck every word whilst you're speaking,
which I very much doubt).

Yes, sorry, I was simplifying. In most languages, orthography almost exactly
parallels the standard spoken form, given that variations on a sound may be
respresented by the same symbol. (And that some facets of speech, for
example, tone, emotion, gesture are ignored or represented conventionally.)
The standard written form and the standard spoken form are both
generalisations, but they are not purely academic: they are both functional
exemplars of the language concerned. Some people (Peter, for example) seem
concerned to emphasise how complex language is, and you, too, are right to
say that saying something is different from writing it, and that hearing it
is different from reading it, but it is surely a long way short of
miraculous that we can express ourselves adequately in writing, and that we
can understand someone's meaning from their writing.

There is no contradiction here. A
represntation of anything is not the thing that it represents nor does
it 'exactly parralel' that thing. Spend five minutes in an art gallery
and that should be obvious.

I disagree. Art is metaphor.

Writing is a substitution for speech, the next best thing when direct
speech is unavailable; it is not speech, nor is it a 'recording' of
speech. It only *appears* to parralel speech. Any proper examination
reveals immediately that it does not do anything of the kind in
reality. Consider, for example, how different writing would appear to
you if English suddenly adopted a pictorial orthography such as
Chinese, a right to left reading such as Arabic, or Greek or Cyrillic
letters, or unpunctuated and entirely capitalised writing such as our
Ancient Greek and Roman forbears used.

I doubt very much whether you have a point here.

But of course, in reality, our
own system is every bit as arbitrary, it's just that we don't think
about it in those terms.

I can't see how its (alleged) arbitrariness makes any difference.

is a major reason for reading
standards being so low in the UK currently and, incidentally, why
phonics fails as an adequate teaching method, no matter how many fans
it has!

Er, phonics _doesn't_ fail. It's effective.

Phonics fails to make *good* readers precisely because it equates
reading, writing and speech in the way that you have espoused. Good
readers do not sound out words in voice, silent synching, or even in
their heads. Indeed the very best readers don't actually read words as
such at all.

But we all have to start somewhere. Less able pupils have tended to find
"whole language" learning methods difficult to swallow. There is nothing
wrong at all with them sound-spelling, mouthing words or whatever, if that
helps them on the road to efficient reading.

And it olny tkeas radenig tihs snetcne to pvore taht
pohcins is not rvelnat to porrpely dvlepoed raeindg siklls! Phonics
will always retains its fans because it seems so logical. And adults
with dim memories will always be on hand to cry "It never did us any
harm!" But at best it creates handicapped and disabled readers for
whom reading is a chore. This can be overcome but all too often the
lack of confidence and fluidity mean that far too many give up trying
long before the remedy can be accessed and applied.

I was at infant school from 1971 to 1974. I find reading enjoyable, as do
most people from that or any other era. For most learners, I would say, the
difference made by the way they are taught to read and write is marginal.
But I would also agree with recent research that shows that, for many
learners, synthetic phonics has a significant positive impact on their
reading ability.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reading

Incidentally I have deliberately made a number of spelling errors in
this reply (in addition to the scrambled section) and almost certainly
a number of accidental punctuation 'errors'. Whether they pulled you
up short and caused a break in reading or you didn't notice them as
you were too busy reading the overall meaning they are more than
adequate evidence that writing is as unlike speech as reading a guide
to cricket is to actually playing the game.

Comparing language with cricket is just silly. Are you saying that if I'm
reading or writing I'm not participating in language?

Adrian


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