ISSN 2348-3024 Volume 7 Number 1 Journal of Advances in Linguistics 1172 | Page September 2016 https://cirworld.com/ DYSLEXIA AND SPELLING IN TWO DIFFERENT ORTHOGRAPHIES (GREEK VS. ENGLISH): A LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS. Georgia Andreou, PhD, Sotiria Tzivinikou, PhD University of Thessaly, Department of Special Education Argonafton & Filellinon Street, Volos, GR-38221, Greece juliepbaseki@hotmail.com University of Thessaly, Department of Special Education Argonafton & Filellinon Street, Volos, GR-38221, Greece andreou@uth.gr University of Thessaly, Department of Special Education Argonafton & Filellinon Street, Volos, GR-38221, Greece ABSTRACT In our study spelling skills of 40 dyslexic (mean age 13,2 years) and 40 non dyslexic children (mean age 10,9 years) matched on the basis of their general level of language proficiency and foreign language acquisition, were assessed through a dictation passage spelling test and the composing of picture elicited narratives, in both Greek (L1) and English (L2). Results indicate that spelling performance is affected by the distinct nature of each orthographic system. In both groups, phonological errors were the least frequent type of spelling errors, while the predominance of morphological and etymological errors indicates both groups' persistent difficulties with applying linguistic rules and systematicities. As expected, dyslexics made more errors of all types despite the fact that the two groups' error profiles did not differ qualitativelyέ όinally, both groups‟ revising and pausing behaviour indicated that spelling has been the main concern for both dyslexic and non dyslexic writers and confirmed the dyslexics' deficient error detection mechanism. Keywords: Dyslexia; Written production; Orthographic systems; Foreign Language Learning; Temporal Aspects of Written Production (Pauses, Revisions) Academic Disciplines: Special Education; Applied Linguistics Type: Original Research INTRODUCTION Spelling is a linguistic skill, implemented as the visual representation of spoken language and relying on the writer's knowledge of the phonological, orthographic, and morphological structure of the language in use (Perfetti, 1997). Caravolas, Bruck and Genesee (2003) point out that early writing attempts reflect both a limited knowledge of the orthography and a somewhat immature phonological system, while as children learn about their writing system, their spellings become more and more conventional and they reflect the regularities and complexities of the system (Cassar & Treiman, 1997 in Caravolas et al., 2003). Spelling ability is often neglected or underestimated as a deficit attributed to dyslexia (Tilanus, Segers, & Verhoeven, 2013) since dyslexia is typically thought to be a reading disorder (Berninger, Nielsen, Abbott, Wijsman, & Raskind, 2008). This is despite the persistent spelling problems dyslexics face (Larkin & Snowling, 2007) and despite the fact that reading and spelling have a common genetic basis (Bates et al., 2007). Ehri (2000) has reported a relatively strong relation between spelling and reading, while according to Bahr, Silliman, Berninger, & Dow (2012), spelling and reading are linguistic activities that require phonological, morphological and orhographic awareness. Phonological knowledge is one's awareness of the sound system of language (Arndt & Foorman, 2010) and it has been reported as a core skill in both reading and spelling development [Georgiou, Manolitsis, Nurmi, & Parrila, 2010 (Greek language), Landerl & Wimmer, 2008; Treiman & Bourassa, 2000]. Morphological awareness has to do with the knowledge of meaningful units in language, of both free morphemes, which are used as separate words, and bound morphemes, which are used as part of a word (prefixes/suffixes) (Andreou, 2012). Orthographic knowledge is the knowledge of etymological characteristics of a language, that is the way word roots are spelled, and it represents the particularity of the system, as opposed to morphological knowledge that reflects the systematicity of an orthographic system (Protopapas et al., 2013). Thus, since spelling skills depend critically on phonological, morphological and orthographic knowledge, dyslexic children would be reasonably expected to have difficulties with all the three aspects of the process of spelling, according to the deficits relevant research has attributed to dyslexia (e.g. Arndt & Foorman, 2010; Bourassa & Treiman, 2008; Hauerwas & Walker, 2003). As deficient phonological processing is considered to be the core deficit in dyslexia, emphasis has been laid on the way dyslexic writers' impaired phonological skills are depicted in their written texts. According to studies (Diamanti, 2005; for Greek Language; Caravolas & Volin, 2001; for Czech), dyslexic children make more phonological errors than children without dyslexia, while other studies (Angelelli et al., 2010; Bourassa & Treiman, 2003; Nikolopoulos et al., 2003) have failed to support a phonological deficit hypothesis by examining the spelling errors of dyslexic students. DOI : 10.24297/jal.v7i1.4622