Phonemes & Graphemes in the English Language

A phoneme, as defined in the Longman Dictionary of Applied Linguistics (1985), is "the smallest unit of sound in a language which can distinguish two words." Thus, pan and ban differ only in the contrast of the phonemic consonants /p/ and /b/; and ban and bin differ only in the phonemic vowels /µ/ and /I/. The English (RP)'s phoneme inventory contains 24 consonants and 20 vowels. The phone is a realization in sound of a phoneme. Interestingly, there are no minimal pairs contrasting dental and alveolar [n] in English. As a result, the difference is not phonemic; rather, the two forms are allophonic of the same phoneme /n/.

A grapheme, in linguistics, is a minimal unit in a writing system. It consists of one or more symbols representing a phoneme. Graphemes are individually related in writing or print to graphs. An individual graph, when compared with another graph or representing a grapheme, is called an allophone.

Were it, however, that things were this simple in the practice of the English language!

The consistency of inconsistencies in English phonology

The problem of phoneme-grapheme correspondences in English continues to baffle linguists as well as EFL teachers. This is not surprising when one considers the inconsistencies found in such correspondences. Clymer (1963) studied 45 phonic generalizations to discover whether they were consistent in the words students encountered in initi

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and fin, etc. There are three essential steps in teaching to make sounds. Students must be able to: 1. Hear the sound. 2. Identify it, i.e. distinguish it from any other. 3. Produce it (Finocchiaro & Bonomo, 1973, p. 76). Two questions arise when considering teaching phonics to EFL learners. One: Do they need it to learn to communicate efficiently and effectively in English at whatever level of interest they have? (Passing State examinations, transacting international business, doing library research, travelling as tourists, watching American sitcoms). Two: Is phonics instruction for all EFL students? Gunderson (1991) is of the opinion that "Phonics instruction is not for all ESL students. Indeed, only those with limited fluency in English and with a history of literacy training are able to cope with training in phonics. These activities require students to operate on language in a different manner from" traditional school teaching/learning methodologies (p. 84). English spelling is not known for its regularity. The phonics teacher dos not teach rules; rather, he or she teaches generalizations, because there are too many exceptions. In reading programs, the tradition has been to produce and build words through the teacher's selec
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Some common words found in the essay are:
English Teaching, Helen Keller, English RP's, Finocchiaro Bonomo, Clarke Silberstein, America Britain, Applied Linguistics, North America, Reading Teacher, References Bouton, esl students, reading process, york ny, bouton 1976, english language, phonics esl, york ny holt, reading texts, bonomo 1973, initial reading, holt rinehart winston, finocchiaro bonomo, ny holt rinehart, ed psycholinguistics reading, psycholinguistics reading pp,
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Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)

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