MEITS Blog


Spelling and the ongoing standardization of written norms

by John Bellamy

There have been a number of developments in recent months with regard to orthographic norms and standards in written language. The Institut d'Estudis Catalans (IEC) ratified a new set of spelling norms last October, which gave rise to heated debates over changes to the usage of accents (in terms of the diacritic). This January witnessed the death of 111-year old Zhou Youguang, who had played a pivotal role in the development of Pinyin, used for depicting Chinese characters using the Latin alphabetic script. One of the particularly valuable functions of Pinyin is for the teaching of Standard Chinese and a structured, clear, standardized set of writing criteria can be incredibly helpful in the language-learning process.

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Language learning in Anglophone contexts: myths and realities?

by Angela Gayton

I’m sure that on numerous occasions you’ve heard comments from friends, or in the media, about Brits being bad at learning languages – certainly, whenever I’m asked about my research/teaching, and I explain my interest in language-learning attitudes, this is a view raised frequently. Often, this is seen as something to lament (e.g. “Oh, it’s such a pity that we’re so bad at languages!”, or indeed “I wish I could speak another language!”).

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