Kemp, Nenagh, Brett Kessler & Rebecca Treiman. 2011, July. Adults’ spelling of doubled consonants in pseudowords. Paper presented at the meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Reading (SSSR), St. Pete Beach, FL. Abstract retrieved from http://spell.psychology.wustl.edu/KempSSSR2011

Abstract

Purpose

The question of when to double or extend consonant spellings (e.g., the ‹l› in bailiff, billet) is an aspect of English spelling that causes difficulty even for adult spellers. If adults simply memorize the need (or not) for doubling consonants in individual words, their consonant doubling in pseudowords should be random. However, if adults learn probabilistic spelling patterns from written language, then their consonant doubling in pseudowords should be more systematic.

Method

University students (N = 42) wrote 144 pseudowords to dictation. For the consonants usually spelled ‹f›, ‹l›, ‹k›, and ‹ch›, English vocabulary statistics favor doubled or extended spellings (‹ff›, ‹ll›, ‹ck›, ‹tch›) after a single vowel, especially in monosyllabic words (e.g., sell, stitch). We analyzed whether participants followed these patterns by varying vowel length (short, long) and number of syllables (one, two, three), and also tested whether familiarization with pseudowords enhanced the use of surrounding letter context in spelling.

Results

Participants doubled/extended consonants more after single vowels, although more in one- than in two- and three-syllable pseudowords. The number of letters that participants used to spell the vowel was a stronger determiner of consonant doubling than was the phonological length of the vowel. Pseudoword familiarization had a limited effect on spelling.

Conclusions

This study provides evidence that adults make use of preceding vowel context to decide whether to double/extend consonants, and that this sensitivity extends even to multisyllabic pseudowords. Further, graphic factors seem to affect the extent of such context-conditioned spelling more than phonological factors.

APA citation:

Kemp, N., Kessler, B., & Treiman R. 2011, July. Adults’ spelling of doubled consonants in pseudowords. Paper presented at the meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Reading, St. Pete Beach, FL. Abstract retrieved from http://spell.psychology.wustl.edu/KempSSSR2011