ABSTRACT
Written language systems have been the object of large amounts of linguistic analysis and discussion (Henderson, 1982; Kavanagh & Mattingly, 1972). A distinction has been made between logographic systems, in which symbols represent whole words or concepts, and phonographic systems, in which component sounds are represented. Phonographic writing may take the form of a syllabary or of an alphabet. English is generally held to be an alphabet, although the correspondence between phonemes and graphemes is far from straightforward. Some people take the view that the script is morphophonemic, implying that distinctions of spelling are used to indicate lexical identities, word derivations, and morphological structure. One consequence has been the conclusion that the treatment of English orthography as a simple alphabet is, in principle, inadequate as an approach to the achievement of competence. Almost any word might, legitimately, be written in a number of ways. Because each word is assigned a unique and conventionally agreed spelling, it becomes essential to know the precise arrangement of letters that is appropriate in each case.
