The English Writing System (review)

The term writing system usually designates the set of characters in a script plus the rules of orthography governing their use for a language, but this volume covers topics usually assigned to ‘written language’ as well, on a level suitable for students who have had an introduction to linguistics. It is in an efficient textbook form, with introductory questions, keywords, and exercises for each of the seven chapters. The broad interpretation of the title means that many topics are broached, none deeply or completely, and sometimes it leads to confusion.

In Ch. 1, ‘Ways of writing’ (1–30), part 1.1 touches on writing system typology (and manages to say at least one incorrect thing about each script it mentions—Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, and Finnish) and the notion of orthographic depth. Part 1.2 explores theories of reading and questions of orthographic regularity. Ch. 2 covers ‘The multidimensions of spoken and written English’ (31–53), but part 2.1 treats transcriptions of conversation as a form of written English and part 2.2, ‘Special features of written English’, takes among its examples excerpts from fiction by Vikram Seth and Roddy Doyle, two ‘high art’ authors whose prose should hardly be taken as typical written English.

Ch. 3, ‘Approaches to English spelling’ (54–88), begins with a number of ‘rules of thumb’ and then describes fragments of analyses by Richard Venezky, Ken Albrow, and Noam and Carol Chomsky. It’s possible that those by Venezky, Edward Carney, or D. W. Cummings could have been condensed into a chapter-sized discussion; Carney’s Survey of English spelling (London: Routledge, 1994) is mined for data throughout but his systematic presentation is not considered, while Cummings’s American English spelling (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988) is mentioned once. But Albrow’s scheme, at least as presented here, seems incoherent, and the Chomskys’ appears to be an attempt to invert early generative phonology into an account of orthography. In Ch. 4, ‘Punctuation and typography’ (89–120), part 4.1 attempts to correlate English punctuation with syntactic structure; a more insightful semiotic consideration appears in chapter 14 of Ivan Fónagy’s Languages within language (Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2001). Part 4.2 solecistically calls the layout of manuscripts ‘typography’ and reveals a shallow-at-best grasp of the history of lettershapes in the roman alphabet (cf. also 151f.; C wrongly thinks that typefaces can stand in for handwritten forms—see also 153–56, 159–61).

Chs. 5, ‘Learning the English writing system’ (121–48), and 6, ‘Historical changes in the English writing system’ (149–77), reflect the core areas of C’s specialization and so are much more satisfactory (except, again, for odd errors when factoids about other languages are mentioned); but around this point, ample evidence of haste and carelessness creeps in—some examples: the sole mention of dyslexia occurs on p. 136, without definition or discussion; if ‘Old English consonant letters always corresponded to phonemes … they formed a one-to-one system’ (156), then how are there ‘main consonant digraphs’ (ibid.), and why does 〈h〉 correspond to /x/ or /h/, and c to /k/ or /t∫/ (157)? Ch. 7, ‘Variation in the English writing system’ (178–204), covers contemporary spellings in advertising and informal communication (parts 7.2 and 7.3) but focuses mostly on differences between American and British usage—and C has some very strange notions of American spelling: that Americans prefer kidnaper, judgement (180, 204), and carcase (182) and do not distinguish prophecy/prophesy and advice/advise (182); and he offers capsize and seize as examples of British spellings that don’t conform to the -ise/-ize distinction (181)!

I think this book could be revised into a useful textbook, especially for teacher-training programs, but it would have to be used very carefully as it stands.