linguistics-y musings

[fox]

so i was thinking this morning about people who pronounce words wrong (or, to use non-judgmental language, "people with non-standard pronunciations")([rolls eyes]). three examples that leaped to mind immediately were:

• theferrett pronounced row (argument) to rhyme with "whoa" rather than with "wow"
  
• a friend of mine in junior high once said something like "innudioes" when she meant innuendoes
  
• just the other day, i heard someone say "drawt" and it took a little sorting out before it became clear to me that she meant draught, which is pronounced "draft"

i wonder if this has anything to do with how much reading people do, or more precisely how much listening they may or may not do. it seems pretty clear that children who read a great deal acquire a lot of vocabulary that way -- but while they may know a word in context, they may never have (had occasion to) hear it used, so they're more likely than less-heavy readers to pronounce things wrong.

maybe. i mean, i was thinking about this in the shower this morning. i don't know if there's ever been any sort of study made of different groups, much-readers vs. not-so-much-readers; and if there hasn't been, i wouldn't know how to put one together. i'd have to consult with someone who had more knowledge of research methods. and then i wouldn't expect it'd be as useful a thing to know about too many languages other than english, since we're the ones with kooky unpredictable correlations between spelling and pronunciation.

ellen_fremedon? therealjae? others? any thoughts?

Comments

[axiom_of_stripe]

just the other day, i heard someone say "drawt"

yeah, that was me. :)

i don't know if there's ever been any sort of study made of different groups, much-readers vs. not-so-much-readers

if there has been, i'd love to see the results! it's always been a pet theory of mine that there's a huge split between my reading and speaking vocabularies, but i know the dangers of armchair academia....

i remember the tremendous trouble i had with cygnet as a child -- i was utterly convinced that it was pronounced "sin-get", even with the spelling right in front of me, because i knew what "signet" meant and it didn't have anything to do with swans. of course, i didn't get "diagon alley" until someone told me, but i got the "mirror of erised" right away, for what that's worth.