Spelling words the way they sound (Oral habits)

[Bottesini]

Hey Oceanbreeze, don't take this as criticism or anything, this is exactly what I was referring to in my initial post. I am an oral deaf, and because I prefer text more to speech, I tend to notice orthographical spelling errors done more frequently in the case of the hearing, I think.

When you said tought, I knew you meant taught right away. I am under the impression that when a hearing/hearing impaired (orally raised deaf) person is writing their words, some think the way it is pronounced. In this form, tought can legally pass as taught in speech form because phonetically, it literally sounds the same (to me at least).


PS. the great Bottesini, I have finally caught an error in your last post

Where????!!!!!

 

[naisho]

Since the passing of the initial discussion yesterday I've been looking into psychological explanation of this area of language/phonetics.

The term for this is called "Orthography", which is defined as:
Orthography - a method of representing the sounds of a language by written or printed symbols (princeton WordNet Search - 3.0)


There is a peer reviewed psychological research journal done in 2004 by.. copy and pasting here:

THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY, 2004, 57A (3), 385–417
Orthographic structure and deaf spelling errors: Syllables, letter frequency, and speech
Andrew C. Olson, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK
Alfonso Caramazza, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

Purpose: to find if spelling mistakes are done due to phonetic errors (orthographic mistakes), if so, the deaf ignore that rule.

-The study used 23 deaf students from Gallaudet with -85 dB hearing loss or higher, the max was 115db, the least 85db.
-19 of them used ASL for communication at home,
-03 participants they had no info on
(doesn't say if they were Deaf or oral/mainstream environment, or late deafened that I'm noticing so far)

-The study used 100 hearing participants from high school grades 10, 11, and 12, aged 15-18 in Lincoln High School, Nebraska.

Results.. I'll leave this blank for now because I don't want to make a wrong impression. Read it for yourself below if you are interested:

I have copied the PDF onto my site, and I thikn it is legally redistributable so if you'd like to read into it (beware, it's long and 34 pages - I'm not even done reading it yet) take a gander here:

2004 research on deaf spelling


I've also attempted to contact Dr. Marshack via email.. who is now at RIT.. Hopefully he can give me some answers when he is not busy too.



Bott, in this sentence!

Maybe people will think I a very tough and threatening if I am called Spider?

 

[Bottesini]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I think I left out the word "am", but that does not constitute a spelling error!!! (or my finger did not hit the "m" hard enough)

Bottesini rules!!!!!

 

[naisho]

Check this out, it's in the journal I posted above:

If you notice the difference of errors between deaf and hearing correspondents.. look at the hearing spelling, it is usually done in phonetic/orthographic sense and has questionable ability to pass in speaking, in the deaf, it's phonetically illegal to pass when pronouncing it:

Table1: Examples of Spelling errors made by deaf and hearing sudents:

Target:

Responsible
Deaf: responbile
Hearing: responsable

secret
Deaf: secert
Hearing: Secrete

scissors
D: sicossics
H: Sciccors

medicine
D: medince
H: medican

volunteers
D: volutter
H: volenters

substitute
D: subituse
H: substatute



These spelling mistakes are way out though.. this is really low level english. I wish they had "upper level" words to show examples of.

 

[jillio]

Since the passing of the initial discussion yesterday I've been looking into psychological explanation of this area of language/phonetics.

The term for this is called "Orthography", which is defined as:
Orthography - a method of representing the sounds of a language by written or printed symbols (princeton WordNet Search - 3.0)


There is a peer reviewed psychological research journal done in 2004 by.. copy and pasting here:

THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY, 2004, 57A (3), 385–417
Orthographic structure and deaf spelling errors: Syllables, letter frequency, and speech
Andrew C. Olson, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK
Alfonso Caramazza, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

Purpose: to find if spelling mistakes are done due to phonetic errors (orthographic mistakes), if so, the deaf ignore that rule.

-The study used 23 deaf students from Gallaudet with -85 dB hearing loss or higher, the max was 115db, the least 85db.
-19 of them used ASL for communication at home,
-03 participants they had no info on
(doesn't say if they were Deaf or oral/mainstream environment, or late deafened that I'm noticing so far)

-The study used 100 hearing participants from high school grades 10, 11, and 12, aged 15-18 in Lincoln High School, Nebraska.

Results.. I'll leave this blank for now because I don't want to make a wrong impression. Read it for yourself below if you are interested:

I have copied the PDF onto my site, and I thikn it is legally redistributable so if you'd like to read into it (beware, it's long and 34 pages - I'm not even done reading it yet) take a gander here:

2004 research on deaf spelling


I've also attempted to contacted Dr. Marshack via email.. who is now at RIT.. Hopefully he can give me some answers when he is not busy too.



Bott, in this sentence!

Good luck on getting a reply from Dr. Marsharck. Most likely, you will get a reply from one of his research assistants referring you to his volumes of published research for an answer.

 

[Hear Again]

naisho,

In each case, it seems like the mistakes made by the deaf and hearing alike in the examples you gave are due to simple typing errors rather than one's ability (or inability) to hear.

 

[rockdrummer]

I have pointed out repeatedly that hearing can't spell.

Hey... I represent that remark. Seriously, I think the english language is to blame. I don't think all languages have that problem but I would defer to the experts to answer that one.

 

[Bottesini]

Hey... I represent that remark. Seriously, I think the english language is to blame. I don't think all languages have that problem but I would defer to the experts to answer that one.

Sorry, what can I say? " You spell so well I thought you were deaf?"

 

[rockdrummer]

Sorry, what can I say? " You spell so well I thought you were deaf?"

I'll take that as a compliment

 

[naisho]

I received a reply from Dr. Marschark today.

He is clueless to the outcome of this as well, when I questioned the definitely-definately example.

Here is a copy of the transcribed email. He notes he had used voice recognition software if there are any errors found in them.

Received: via dmail-2007e.18 for +INBOX; Mon, 18 May 2009 13:29:13 -0700 (PDT)
Return-Path: <******.edu>
Received: from mda4.es.uci.edu (mda4.es.uci.edu [128.200.80.7])
by island7.es.uci.edu (8.13.1/8.13.1) with ESMTP id n4IKTCJq016809
for <******.edu>; Mon, 18 May 2009 13:29:13 -0700
Received: from mta1.service.uci.edu (mta1.service.uci.edu [128.200.1.221])
Mr. ******,

Interesting question. I've spoken to a Professor in the English Department of the National Technical Institute for the Deaf who insists that yes, a surprisingly high number of her students misspells "definitely," but she cannot discern whether it is more common for orally-oriented or sign-oriented students. On the other hand, other Center members agree that any number of people misspell that particular word.

I'm afraid we don't have a clue. The suggestion was to take the empirical approach and ask an equal number of deaf and hearing college students to see if there is a difference in which way it is spelled and then separate deaf students as a function of their communication orientation. But that seems like a lot of work for this kind of question unless it turns out there is a broader issue with regard to spelling. There are any number of common misspellings among deaf students, but I'm not aware of evidence concerning signing versus oral students. I'm going to look into that, and if I find anything I will let you know.

In the meantime, later this week we will be opening our Raising and Educating Deaf Children website (RIT - National Technical Institute for the Deaf - Technical College for Deaf Students), designed to provide people with evidence-based answers to questions concerning deaf learners of all ages. I hope we don't get too many questions like this one!

I hope to be in touch... thanks for the brain exercise!
(removing some of the info to retain privacy purposes)
<Produced with voice recognition software. Apologies for missed errors.>
Dr. Marschark, Ph.D.
Center for Education Research Partnerships
National Technical Institute for the Deaf
52 Lomb Memorial Drive
Rochester, New York 14623 USA

Moray House School of Education School of Psychology
University of Edinburgh University of Aberdeen
Old Moray House Aberdeen AB24 3FX
Holyrood Road United Kingdom
Edinburgh EH8 8AQ

Home pages R us:
Center: RIT | CREF | Center for Education Research Partnerships
National Sign Language Interpreting Project: National Sign Language Interpreting Project - Welcome

My original email:

Dear ******,

I apologize for writing without the benefit of an introduction, but am doing so on behalf of a phenomenon that I am starting to notice between deaf culture, a part of what I thought may be related to their cognitive thinking process.
From browsing through the internet in search of resources for the answer, I came across many publications and one that stood out was Psychological perspectives on deafness, and thought that you might have an answer.

Recently I started take action on observing phenomenon of spelling habits, looking for answers to why they were spelled this way. In the English language, one word in particular was always subject to scrutiny whenever I saw it written be it on paper, internet, or chat form. This was the word, "definitely".

I had noticed that in modern pronunciation, the word "definitely" is said as "def-uh-nit-lee", sometimes I noticed that persons of all backgrounds, including doctors and to-be's have mistakenly written it as "definately".

I questioned not why it was written this way, but how come it seems that this error is more common with those that are hearing or raised from an oral environment versus those who are raised purely from deaf culture. My intuition led me to believe that this mistake is related to the way it sounds in the oral environment, versus that of a profoundly deaf/severely deaf person who was taught to spell it without error - how could a person of deaf non-oral background reach for the a instead of i when spelling this particular word?

I understand that this is many of one such request that come across your computer and greatly appreciate any guidance that you can lend in any shape or form.

Much thanks in advance, for your help. I look forward to hearing from you at any convenience you would happen to have.

******

I guess there's no black and white answer for this one, something to put on the to-do list.

 

[rockdrummer]

I constantly misspell the same words the same way. I am hearing. I don't think it has anything to do with deafness or if you are a signer or not. I just thank God for the spellchecker otherwise I would always look like an idiot as opposed to only most of the time.

 

[jillio]

Exactly. The issue is approached as an overall trend toward the type of errors, not errors limited to one particular word.

 

[naisho]

However, if you look at the Psychological journal written by Professor(s) Olson, and Caramazza (from University of Birmingham, the other from Harvard) the journal finds the results are inconclusive in their findings as well.

They questioned that if it was just a mere "typo" as in simple spelling mistakes, it would make a lot of errors in both the deaf and hearing seem reasonable. But they noted the mistakes of the hearing when taken from an orthographically orientated approach, you will notice that when pronouncing the words via speech form, they are phonetically legal.

 

[jillio]

However, if you look at the Psychological journal written by Professor(s) Olson, and Caramazza (from University of Birmingham, the other from Harvard) the journal finds the results are inconclusive in their findings as well.

They questioned that if it was just a mere "typo" as in simple spelling mistakes, it would make a lot of errors in both the deaf and hearing seem reasonable. But they noted the mistakes when taken from an orthographically orientated approach, you will notice that when pronouncing the words via speech form, they are phonetically legal.

I'll be glad to take a look at their research and articles. However, I need a bit more information in order to access such. Such as, specific journal in which it was published, publication year, and title of the article.

 

[naisho]

I'll be glad to take a look at their research and articles. However, I need a bit more information in order to access such. Such as, specific journal in which it was published, publication year, and title of the article.

Oh, it's right there in post #85, the url and everything provided along with it.

 

[deafskeptic]

Since the passing of the initial discussion yesterday I've been looking into psychological explanation of this area of language/phonetics.

The term for this is called "Orthography", which is defined as:
Orthography - a method of representing the sounds of a language by written or printed symbols (princeton WordNet Search - 3.0)


There is a peer reviewed psychological research journal done in 2004 by.. copy and pasting here:

THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY, 2004, 57A (3), 385–417
Orthographic structure and deaf spelling errors: Syllables, letter frequency, and speech
Andrew C. Olson, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK
Alfonso Caramazza, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

Purpose: to find if spelling mistakes are done due to phonetic errors (orthographic mistakes), if so, the deaf ignore that rule.

-The study used 23 deaf students from Gallaudet with -85 dB hearing loss or higher, the max was 115db, the least 85db.
-19 of them used ASL for communication at home,
-03 participants they had no info on
(doesn't say if they were Deaf or oral/mainstream environment, or late deafened that I'm noticing so far)

-The study used 100 hearing participants from high school grades 10, 11, and 12, aged 15-18 in Lincoln High School, Nebraska.

Results.. I'll leave this blank for now because I don't want to make a wrong impression. Read it for yourself below if you are interested:

I have copied the PDF onto my site, and I thikn it is legally redistributable so if you'd like to read into it (beware, it's long and 34 pages - I'm not even done reading it yet) take a gander here:

2004 research on deaf spelling


I've also attempted to contact Dr. Marshack via email.. who is now at RIT.. Hopefully he can give me some answers when he is not busy too.



Bott, in this sentence!

That's an intersting post to mull over.

 

[Beowulf]

However, if you look at the Psychological journal written by Professor(s) Olson, and Caramazza (from University of Birmingham, the other from Harvard) the journal finds the results are inconclusive in their findings as well.

They questioned that if it was just a mere "typo" as in simple spelling mistakes, it would make a lot of errors in both the deaf and hearing seem reasonable. But they noted the mistakes of the hearing when taken from an orthographically orientated approach, you will notice that when pronouncing the words via speech form, they are phonetically legal.

As lnog as we get the pniot asorccs, no hram, no fuol.

 

[deafskeptic]

As lnog as we get the pniot asorccs, no hram, no fuol.

Lol!

 

[jillio]

Never mind. I found it and have downloaded a copy.

 

[Bottesini]

In the meantime, later this week we will be opening our Raising and Educating Deaf Children website (RIT - National Technical Institute for the Deaf - Technical College for Deaf Students), designed to provide people with evidence-based answers to questions concerning deaf learners of all ages. I hope we don't get too many questions like this one!

But it is great you got this extra information in the return email.

That ought to be a good resource for many.