Abstract:

The acoustic form of the English vocabulary is inseparably tied to complex orthographic patterns, which result in a relatively low degree of visual/acoustic correspondence of the most frequently used words. A special group of words, homographs, provide two possible pronunciations and meanings for the same sequence of letters and the foreign learners of English must recognize and pronounce them accurately. Naturally, the recognition of these words is more likely to be successful in highly proficient learners of English. The aim of the paper is to present the orthographic preferences of selected vocabulary items (homographs and control words) collected from the learners of English participating in a pre-test/post-test research design listening to semantically ambiguous sentences. The participants attended sessions aimed at the familiarization orthography and pronunciation relation to achieve a progress in the use of homographs. The paper was supported by the grant scheme no. 14/TU/2018 Homonymy in English.

Keywords:

Homonymy, homographs, pronunciation, orthography.