This paper presents a corpus-driven analysis of the linguistic competition between the suffixes "-our"/"-or" in Early Modern English. It is conceived as a state of the art to provide an explanation of the development and distribution of these competing suffixes in Early Modern English. The study is based on the distribution of…

The study investigates the relationship between lexical encoding and production in order to establish whether learners are able to produce a difficult contrast in words that they merged in their mental lexicon. Forty American English learners of Russian were tested on their production and lexical encoding of familiar and highly-frequent words with…

This study is one of the pioneers in investigating and analyzing the orthographical conventions/norms of the outer circle Asian Englishes using one of the largest databases of English corpus, the Global Web-based English (GloWbE). This study extends the analysis of the current orthographical norms of the new varieties to their colonial parents.…

In conversational speech, it is very common for words' segments to be reduced or deleted. However, previous research has consistently shown that during spoken word recognition, listeners prefer words' canonical pronunciation over their reduced pronunciations (e.g., pretty pronounced [word omitted] vs. [word omitted]), even when the latter are far…

This study aims to find out the extent to which students attending the English Language Teaching Programme (ELT) at Ondokuz Mayis University are aware of the major spelling, vocabulary, and pronunciation differences between American and British English which constitute the most commonly used varieties of English. To this end, 42 randomly selected…

The language settings used on personal computers interact with the spell-checker in Microsoft Word, which directly affects the flagging of spellings that are deemed incorrect. This study examined the language settings of personal computers owned by a group of Canadian university students. Of 21 computers examined, only eight had their Windows…

This article describes the use of African American English (AAE) in the written and oral language of African American adolescents who struggle with writing. Written and oral language samples of 22 African American 10th-grade students were transcribed, analyzed, and coded for AAE, grammatical errors, spelling errors, and punctuation errors. Four…

Purpose: To evaluate the role of dialect on phonemic awareness and nonword spelling tasks. These tasks were selected for their reliance on phonological and orthographic processing, which may be influenced by dialect use. Method: Eighty typically developing African American children in Grades 1 and 3 were first screened for dialect use and then…

Compared spelling of children who speak General American English and those who speak Southern British English. Found that spelling errors of children with spelling ages of 6 to 7.5 reflected characteristics of their dialect, and that at older spelling ages, British children made overgeneralization errors reflecting their dialect. Concluded that…

Relationships among African American English (AAE), linguistic knowledge, and spelling skills were examined in a sample of 92 children in grades one through three whose speech varied in the frequency of morphosyntactic AAE features. Children were separated into groups of high (AAE speakers) and low (standard American English, SAE, speakers) use of…

Describes the results of a national survey in which Canadian high school students selected the preferred forms of words with varying British/American forms. Notes the provincial differences that occurred. (RL)

Examines ways in which Noah Webster's linguistic theories and work on dictionaries influenced North American English lexicography, arguing that his impact on American education was great because his spellers and dictionaries monopolized a rapidly growing market, and influence on lexicography was substantial because he insisted on the validity of…

English language business-related documents around the world contain purposeful spelling differences that reflect two standards, American English and British English. Given the importance of culturally acceptable spelling, the need to be aware of and sensitive to cultural differences, and strong reactions to variation in spelling, it is important…

Educational programs for teachers of English as a Second Language must devote more attention to differences between the standard varieties of American and British English, with instruction focusing on the major orthographic, morphological, syntactic, collocational, and lexical differences. (CB)