Writing Systems

Birch, B. (2011). (2nd Ed.) English L2 Reading: Getting to the Bottom. New York, NY: Routledge, ch. 2

Salient Points:

Writing is symbolic and indirect. Technology is writing because it increases human control of communication and knowledge. There are three types of writing systems: logographic, syllabic, and alphabetic.

Logographic writing systems are independent of spoken language and are topical, or meaning-based languages. They have characters or symbols--Mandarin or numbers are two examples.

Syllabic writing systems also have symbols, but theses symbols have one symbol representing one sequence of sounds. These sequences of sounds or whole parts cannot be broken down to represent consonants or vowels. They can only represent syllables. Korean and Japanese katakana are two examples.

Alphabetic writings systems have one symbol representing one sound. These writing systems are uniquely related to spoken language. There are many different types of alphabetic writing systems, from consonantal (Hebrew and Arabic)and transparent (Spanish and Greek), to opaque (English, French, and Russian). Transparent writing systems have a one-to-one correspondence between consonant and vowel sounds and opaque writing systems do not.

English is so opaque because of all the influences it has had from other languages and the constant changes it has acquired over the years in sounds and spelling.

Implications:

We as teachers need to take into account the various writing systems of our ELLs and note the similarities (i.e. cognates) and differences they have in relation to English. Some of our students may have an easier time than others. We must be patient and creative with our students. Just as there will be a variety of languages in our classroom, so must there be a variety of activities and teaching methods. Our job is to identify the different learning styles and see what works and what does not work for our students. Only then will we best be able to guide them in their second language acquisition.