MA / Department of Communication and Applied Language Studies / Orthographic symbols of languages represent specific speech sounds with their specific phonetic qualities. This research aimed at analysing orthographic representations of murmured speech sounds in the Xitsonga orthography. The qualitative approach was employed to examine the production of murmured speech sounds and their orthographic representations in Xitsonga. The analysis was based on data collected from interviews with speakers of the Xitsonga language, Xitsonga educators and lecturers who are themselves Xitsonga-speaking, Xitsonga authors and Xitsonga subject specialists, and also from existing literature by Xitsonga authors and language scholars. The study made recommendations that will help the development and revitalisation of the Xitsonga language and also benefit the speakers of the language as well as scholars and linguists.

TITLE Handwriting development from 1st to 5th grade of elementary school Author: Mgr. et Mgr. Olga Kučerová Department: Department of Psychology, Faculty of Education Charles University Supervisor: Doc. PhDr. PaedDr. Anna Kucharská, Ph. D. ABSTRACT This dissertation project describes the development phases of the handwriting skills from 1st to 5th grade. The aim of this project is to describe the procedure of dynamic handwriting acquisition concerning two different alphabetic scripts used in Czech elementary schools. These include the traditional cursive script and alternative script that is Comenia Script. We focus on two different styles of penmanship, which are being taught in Czech elementary schools - cursive writing and manuscript writing. Our research sample includes two groups. The first group comprises writers who employ the cursive handwriting style of penmanship, whereas the second group considers the Comenia Script writer i.e. the manuscript style. The research consists of two parts - the theoretical and practical part. The theory defines the basic concepts related to handwriting skills and handwriting development. A substantial part focuses on both styles of penmanship - traditional cursive writing and Comenia Script. We depict their formal characteristics, circumstances of origin and the...

Die Dissertation untersucht die Entwicklung der Rechtschreibfertigkeiten von Schülern mit Deutsch als Zweitsprache im Vergleich zu ihren Mitschülern mit Deutsch als Muttersprache in der Sekundarstufe I. Kern der Untersuchung bildet die Methode der Fehleranalyse. Mittels quer- und längsschnittlicher Analysen werden spezifische Vergleiche zwischen den Rechtschreibleistungen von 236 Schülern italienischer und deutscher Herkunft vorgenommen. Die Ergebnisse der Untersuchung präzisieren die empirisch bislang nur lückenhaft dokumentierten Rechtschreiberwerbsverläufe von ein- und zweisprachigen Schülern der Sekundarstufe I. Die Daten geben Auskunft über bestehende Leistungsrückstände der zweisprachigen Schüler und dokumentieren charakteristische Entwicklungsverläufe und Fehlerschwerpunkte. Für die Unterrichtspraxis geben die gewonnenen Erkenntnisse folglich konkrete Hinweise. Aufgezeigt werden nicht nur die Lerninhalte, für die vertiefende Instruktionen und Übungen im Unterricht der Sekundarstufe I nötig sind, sondern ebenfalls die Zeiträume, in denen sich die Schüler sichere Schreibfertigkeiten in den einzelnen orthographischen Problembereichen aneignen.

The topic of thesis Linguistic Analysis of Historical Text by Augustin Mitis Kázání o povětří is the linguistic analysis of historical text Kázanj O Powětřj, which comes from the year 1620 and his author was Augustin Mitis. Text is divided into two parts - theoretical and practical. In the theoretical part the orthography and language of humanistic era is described. Practical section is bringing results of analysis of linguistic layers: orthography, phonetics, morphology, word formation and syntax. During the creation of the thesis is used the qualitative textual analysis, which is supplemented by the quantitative statistical analysis. The supplement of this thesis contains additional research, which contains analysis of two pages of print Wýklad Modlitby Boží, which comes from the same printing house as analyzed text. In the chapter about orthography the way of print is described. In this print was used the Brethren՚s orthography. Analysis of phonetic changes shows that they are not common. The chapter about morphology is focusing on representation of word classes and grammatical categories of nouns and verbs. In the chapter about word formation the methods of word formation are described. The syntactic analysis is focused on the complex and compound sentences and the grammatical constituents. Analysis of...

The orthography of Östergötland’s 11th century runic inscriptions varies widely, in part due to the lack of spelling norms at the time. This thesis seeks to identify other causes for the observed variation, based on the frequency and distribution of aspects of inscription orthography. The Old Norse words ræisa and stæin in the phrase “raised the stone” were analyzed based on the main vowel and its status as a monograph or digraph. The presence or absence of þ in inflected ræisa was also included as an indicator of age. All runic inscriptions in Östergötland with definite key word orthography were included, 169 in total. The analysis reveals that most inscriptions are clustered in three regions, each with a dominant vowel. By region, these are ei (west), i (central) and ai (east), with vowel consistency between ræisa and stæin the norm. The consonant þ in inflected ræisa is most common in the west and east. The vowel orthography together with the distribution of þ implies a relative chronology for Östergötland’s runic inscriptions, where the ongoing monophthongization is reflected in digraphs and monographs. The detailed orthography distribution of these variables shows that the main clusters align with the known 11th century quarries at Borghamn (west) and Vreta (central). Stoneworking at a shared site resulted in a transfer of knowledge, including runestone design and orthography which became a local norm as it spread. The lack of a unifying quarry in eastern Östergötland resulted in a more diverse local orthography, and possibly hampered the building of the first stone churches during the early 12th century. / Östergötlands runinskrifter från 1000-talet varierar stort i sin ortografi, delvis på grund av bristen på stavningsnormer när de ristades. Uppsatsen eftersträvar att identifiera andra orsaker för denna variation, baserat på frekvensen och distributionen av vissa aspekter i inskrifternas ortografi. De fornnordiska orden ræisa och stæin i inskriftsfrasen “reste sten” analyserades baserat på huvudvokalen samt om den var en monograf eller digraf. Användning av þ i böjda former av ræisa inkluderades som ett tecken på inskriftens ålder. Samtliga runinskrifter i Östergötland med en säker nyckelordsortografi analyserades, totalt 169 stycken. Resultaten visar att de flesta inskrifterna är grupperade i tre regioner som har varsin dominant vokal. Vanligast i väster är ei, i den centrala regionen råder i och i öster råder ai, med normen att samma vokal används i både ræisa och stæin. Konsonanten þ i böjd ræisa är vanligast i väster och i öster. Vokalortografin tillsammans med þ-distributionen indikerar en relativ kronologi för Östergötlands runinskrifter, där vokalernas monoftongering under 1000-talet återspeglas i digrafer och monografer. De analyserade variablernas distribution visar att huvudgrupperingarna sammanfaller med de kända stenbrotten från 1000-talet vid Borghamn (i väster) och Vreta (centrala regionen). Att stenarbetet skedde vid en gemensam site ledde till en omedveten kunskapsöverlämning mellan ristare. Inskriftsortografi kopierades och blev lokala normer allt efter att den spreds. Bristen på ett större stenbrott som informell, gemensam arbetsplats i östra Östergötland ledde till en mer varierad lokalortografi. Detta kan ha hindrat stenkyrkobygget lokalt under tidigt 1100-tal.

The purpose of this study is to determine if elementary school children progress faster in academic or tool subjects when taught through interest units in an integrated curriculum or when taught the separate subjects by a traditional method. Reading, spelling, and handwriting are used as illustrative subjects in the sixth grade with reading only in the second grade.

The study proposes an alternative way for elementary school educators to instruct students in spelling. It suggests that spelling instruction should allow ample time for students to manipulate letters and patterns in their spelling words and provide time for writing. It also offers a two-week lesson plan of spelling instruction backed by research. The study was conducted using a mixed design with a predominantly Hispanic 6th grade class at a Title I school, with 60% of the students classified as English Language Learners. The study design consisted of observations of the students manipulating the spelling words, anecdotal notes taken while observing the students, and the collection of writing samples across time. Data was collected by four formal language arts tests and bimonthly spelling assessments.

This research is concerned with an investigation into the development of a formal diagnostic assessment tool for spelling in the foundation phase. A literature study and information acquired from educators provided information to compile a suitable spelling list that could be used as a diagnostic tool in the foundation phase. A self-designed questionnaire was administered to fifty educators Who provided their expert opinion regard the spelling list. This was followed up by second questionnaire that was based on the analysis and interpretation of the first. The Delphi-technique was applied to this investigation. The study was complete when consensus was reached among the educators with regard to which words should be included in the final spelling list. / Psychology of Education / M. Ed. (Psychology of Education)

Thesis (DLitt (African Languages))--University of Stellenbosch, 2008. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This dissertation is an experimental investigation of vowel duration. It focuses on phonetic and phonological aspects of vowel duration in Civili, and African language spoken in Gabon and some of its neighboring countries. It attempts to bring new insights into the phenomenon of vowel lengthening, and to assess the implictions of these insights for standardizing the orthography of this language. ...

Les élèves dyslexiques éprouvent de grandes difficultés à lire et à écrire. Leurs difficultés en production orthographique sont reconnues pour être persistantes. Elles peuvent être expliquées par un déficit des procédures phonologiques. Or, pour orthographier une langue alphabétique comme le français, il est indispensable de développer des connaissances phonologiques puisque l’entrée dans l’écrit repose en grande partie sur la mise en correspondance de la langue orale et de sa réalisation à l’écrit. En plus des connaissances phonologiques, le système orthographique du français exige du scripteur d’acquérir des connaissances visuo-orthographiques et morphologiques. Les recherches menées sur la compétence orthographique des élèves dyslexiques se rapportent majoritairement à l’anglais et sur la compétence en lecture. La présente étude a pour objectif général de décrire, dans une visée explicative, la compétence orthographique de 26 élèves dyslexiques québécois âgés de 9 à 13 ans. Les objectifs spécifiques sont de décrire les performances de ces élèves en contexte de productions libres et de les comparer à celles de 26 élèves normo-lecteurs de même âge chronologique (CA) et à celles de 29 normo-lecteurs plus jeunes mais de même niveau en lecture (CL). Pour ce faire, nous avons analysé les erreurs en prenant en compte les propriétés phonologiques, visuo-orthographiques et morphologiques des mots écrits. Les résultats indiquent que les élèves dyslexiques ont des performances inférieures à celles des CA, mais aussi, dans certains cas, à celles des CL. Les résultats sont discutés en fonction des connaissances que doivent développer les scripteurs dyslexiques et des pistes orthodidactiques à envisager. / Learning to spell is very difficult for dyslexic children. Their difficulties to spell are known to be persistent. It can be explained by a deficit in processing phonological information. However, in order to spell correctly in an alphabetic language as French, phonological knowledge is required, as spelling is based on the connections between oral and written language. In addition to phonological knowledge, the orthographical system of French demands from the speller to acquire visual-orthographic and morphological knowledge. The majority of studies aimed at describing dyslexic children’s spelling abilities refers to English and to reading. The general goal of this study is to describe the spelling performance, in an explanatory viewpoint, of 26 dyslexic children, French-Canadian and aged 9 to 12 years old. The specific goals are to describe the spelling performances of these pupils in context of free productions and to compare them to those of 26 normally achieving children matched on age (AC) and to those of 29 younger normally achieving children matched on reading-level (RC). To do so, errors were classified according to phonological, visuo-orthographic and morphological properties of French written words. The results indicate that the dyslexic pupils made performances lower than those of the CA, but sometimes also than those of the CL. The results are discussed according to the types of knowledge required to spell correctly in French and to special-education intervention avenues.