Orthographic depth
Encyclopedia
The orthographic depth of an alphabetic
orthography
indicates the degree to which it deviates from simple one-to-one letter
-phoneme
correspondence.
Orthographies may be defined as either shallow or deep, depending on the ease of predicting the pronunciation of a word from its spelling. In shallow orthographies, the spelling-sound correspondence is direct: given the rules anyone can immediately "name" the words correctly (Besner & Smith, 1992, p.45). In other words,Shallow orthographies have a one-to-one relationship between graphemes and phonemes, and the spelling of words is very consistent. A shallow orthography is also sometimes called a phonemic orthography
. In contrast, in deep orthographies the relationship is less direct, and reader must learn the arbitrary or unusual pronunciations of irregular words (Besner & Smith, 1992, p.45). In other words, Deep orthographies are writing systems that do not have a one-to-one correspondence between sounds (phonemes) and the letters (graphemes) that represent them.
According to orthographic depth hypothesis, shallow orthographies are more easily able to support a word recognition process that involves the language phonology. In contrast, deep orthographies encourage a reader to process printed words by referring to their morphology via the printed word's visual-orthographic structure (Katz & Frost, 1992,71). For languages with relatively deep orthographies, such as English
, French
, Chinese, Arabic or Hebrew, new readers have a great deal more difficulty learning to decode words. As a result, children learn to read more slowly.
For languages with relatively shallow orthographies, such as Esperanto
, Italian
and Finnish
, new readers have few problems learning to decode words. As a result, children learn to read relatively quickly. The phonetic writing systems of Japanese
(hiragana
and katakana
) are another example of shallow orthography, but Japanese also uses logographs (kanji
), which is significantly more complicated, and requires long study to master.
Bosch et al. consider orthographic depth to be the composition of at least two separate components. One of these relates to the complexity of the relations between the elements at the graphemic level (graphemes) to those at the phonemic level (phonemes), i.e. how difficult it is to convert graphemic strings (words) to phonemic strings. The second component is related to the diversity at the graphemic level, and to the complexity of determining the graphemic elements of a word (graphemic parsing), i.e., how to align a phonemic transcription
to its spelling
counterpart.
Alphabet
An alphabet is a standard set of letters—basic written symbols or graphemes—each of which represents a phoneme in a spoken language, either as it exists now or as it was in the past. There are other systems, such as logographies, in which each character represents a word, morpheme, or semantic...
orthography
Orthography
The orthography of a language specifies a standardized way of using a specific writing system to write the language. Where more than one writing system is used for a language, for example Kurdish, Uyghur, Serbian or Inuktitut, there can be more than one orthography...
indicates the degree to which it deviates from simple one-to-one letter
Letter (alphabet)
A letter is a grapheme in an alphabetic system of writing, such as the Greek alphabet and its descendants. Letters compose phonemes and each phoneme represents a phone in the spoken form of the language....
-phoneme
Phoneme
In a language or dialect, a phoneme is the smallest segmental unit of sound employed to form meaningful contrasts between utterances....
correspondence.
Orthographies may be defined as either shallow or deep, depending on the ease of predicting the pronunciation of a word from its spelling. In shallow orthographies, the spelling-sound correspondence is direct: given the rules anyone can immediately "name" the words correctly (Besner & Smith, 1992, p.45). In other words,Shallow orthographies have a one-to-one relationship between graphemes and phonemes, and the spelling of words is very consistent. A shallow orthography is also sometimes called a phonemic orthography
Phonemic orthography
A phonemic orthography is a writing system where the written graphemes correspond to phonemes, the spoken sounds of the language. In terms of orthographic depth, these are termed shallow orthographies, contrasting with deep orthographies...
. In contrast, in deep orthographies the relationship is less direct, and reader must learn the arbitrary or unusual pronunciations of irregular words (Besner & Smith, 1992, p.45). In other words, Deep orthographies are writing systems that do not have a one-to-one correspondence between sounds (phonemes) and the letters (graphemes) that represent them.
According to orthographic depth hypothesis, shallow orthographies are more easily able to support a word recognition process that involves the language phonology. In contrast, deep orthographies encourage a reader to process printed words by referring to their morphology via the printed word's visual-orthographic structure (Katz & Frost, 1992,71). For languages with relatively deep orthographies, such as English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, Chinese, Arabic or Hebrew, new readers have a great deal more difficulty learning to decode words. As a result, children learn to read more slowly.
For languages with relatively shallow orthographies, such as Esperanto
Esperanto
is the most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Its name derives from Doktoro Esperanto , the pseudonym under which L. L. Zamenhof published the first book detailing Esperanto, the Unua Libro, in 1887...
, Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
and Finnish
Finnish language
Finnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland Primarily for use by restaurant menus and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. It is one of the two official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a...
, new readers have few problems learning to decode words. As a result, children learn to read relatively quickly. The phonetic writing systems of Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
(hiragana
Hiragana
is a Japanese syllabary, one basic component of the Japanese writing system, along with katakana, kanji, and the Latin alphabet . Hiragana and katakana are both kana systems, in which each character represents one mora...
and katakana
Katakana
is a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with hiragana, kanji, and in some cases the Latin alphabet . The word katakana means "fragmentary kana", as the katakana scripts are derived from components of more complex kanji. Each kana represents one mora...
) are another example of shallow orthography, but Japanese also uses logographs (kanji
Kanji
Kanji are the adopted logographic Chinese characters hanzi that are used in the modern Japanese writing system along with hiragana , katakana , Indo Arabic numerals, and the occasional use of the Latin alphabet...
), which is significantly more complicated, and requires long study to master.
Bosch et al. consider orthographic depth to be the composition of at least two separate components. One of these relates to the complexity of the relations between the elements at the graphemic level (graphemes) to those at the phonemic level (phonemes), i.e. how difficult it is to convert graphemic strings (words) to phonemic strings. The second component is related to the diversity at the graphemic level, and to the complexity of determining the graphemic elements of a word (graphemic parsing), i.e., how to align a phonemic transcription
Phonetic transcription
Phonetic transcription is the visual representation of speech sounds . The most common type of phonetic transcription uses a phonetic alphabet, e.g., the International Phonetic Alphabet....
to its spelling
Spelling
Spelling is the writing of one or more words with letters and diacritics. In addition, the term often, but not always, means an accepted standard spelling or the process of naming the letters...
counterpart.