In linguistics, heterography is a property of a written language, such that it lacks a 1-to-1 correspondence between the written symbols and the sounds of the spoken language.[1] Its opposite is homography, which is the property of a language such that written symbols of its written form and the sounds of its spoken form have a 1-to-1 correspondence.[2]
The orthography of the English language is, according to Larry Trask, a "spectacular example" of heterography. But most European languages exhibit it to some extent, with Finnish being the most homographic language.[1][2] A phonemic transcription (such as a transcription of phonemes that uses the International Phonetic Alphabet, for example) is, by its nature, homographic, also.[2]
The degree of heterography of a language is a factor in how difficult it is for person to learn to read that language, with highly heterographic orthographies being more difficult to learn than more homographic ones. Many people have espoused the point of view that the extreme heterographic nature of English is a disadvantage in several respects. These include, for example, Dr. Kiyoshi Makita writing in the July 1968 issue of the American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, who attributes the rarity of dyslexia amongst Japanese children to the fact that Japanese is highly homographic language.[3]
| Written forms | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| same | different | ||
| Sounds | same | Homophonic homographs | Homophonic heterographs |
| different | Heterophonic homographs | Heterophonic heterographs | |
Certainly, confusion between heterographic homophonic words (so-called homophonic heterographs, a.k.a. heterographic homophones), such as "piece" and "peace" is one of the symptoms of surface dyslexia, one of the forms of dyslexia.[4]
Other homophonic heterographs in English include "right", "rite", and "wright", and "there" and "their".[5] In French, examples include "sain" and "saint".[6]
Heterophonic homographs (also known as homographic heterophones) are, in contrast, words whose spoken sounds differ but whose written forms are the same. English has a few hundred heterophonic homographs[7], examples of these latter include "read" and "lead".[5][7]
The two aforementioned classes of words, along with a third class (homophonic homographs — words with different meanings whose written and spoken forms are both the same, such as "bank" in English and "杜鹃" in Chinese) are the three classes of lexical ambiguities in all languages. (They are marked in green in the key on the right.)[8]
Chinese has many words that are both homophonic and homotonic. Distinctions are made between such words using heterography.[9] Homophonic heterographs are very frequent in Chinese, whereas heterophonic homographs are not.[8] In contrast, homographic heterophony is one of the most salient characteristics of English orthography, with the "-ough" in "though", "tough", "through", and "thought" being homographic but greatly heterophonic.[10]
French is more heterographic than English. Whilst it, too, has homographic heterophony, such as the "-ars" in "Mars", "jars", and "gars", its most prominent irregularity is heterographic, namely heterographic homophony. Witness, for example, the identical pronunciation of "-eng", "-empt", "-amp", and "-ans" in "hareng", "champ", "exempt", and "dans".[10]
See also
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Look up Category:English heteronyms in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. |
References
- ^ a b Robert Lawrence Trask (1996). "heterography". A Dictionary of Phonetics and Phonology. Routledge. pp. 170. ISBN 0415112613.
- ^ a b c Robert Lawrence Trask (1996). "homography". A Dictionary of Phonetics and Phonology. Routledge. pp. 172. ISBN 0415112613.
- ^ Vijay Pratap Singh (2004). "The Poor Speller and Reader". Concept and Methods of Special Education. Sarup & Sons. pp. 261. ISBN 8176254509.
- ^ J. Carolina Iribarren (2007). "Description and Detection of Acquired Dyslexia and Disgraphia in Spanish". in José G. Centeno, Raquel Teresa Anderson, and Loraine K. Obler. Communication Disorders in Spanish Speakers. Multilingual Matters. pp. 235. ISBN 1853599719.
- ^ a b Rhona Stainthorp and Diana Hughes (1999). Learning from Children who Read at an Early Age. Taylor & Francis. pp. 9. ISBN 0415174953.
- ^ Jean-Pierre Jaffré and Michel Fayol (2006). "Orthography and literacy in French". in R. Malatesha Joshi and P. G. Aaron. Handbook of Orthography and Literacy. Routledge. pp. 85. ISBN 0805854673.
- ^ a b John Higgins. "Homographs". http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/wordscape/wordlist/homogrph.html. Retrieved 2009-12-01.
- ^ a b Ping Li (2006). The handbook of East Asian psycholinguistics. Cambridge University Press. pp. 273. ISBN 100521833337.
- ^ Po-ching Yip (2000). The Chinese Lexicon. Routledge. pp. 16. ISBN 0415151740.
- ^ a b Jean-Pierre Changeux and Jean Chavaillon (1995). Origins of the Human Brain. Oxford University Press. p. 225. ISBN 0198523904.
Further reading
- Kiyoshi Makita (July 1968). "The Rarity of Reading Disability in Japanese Children". American Journal of Orthopsychiatry 38: 599–614.
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