The problem of contradiction between the English orthography and pronunciation

The article is devoted to the actual problem of contradiction between the spelling and pronunciation of the English words. The subject being considered is of significant interest to linguists and teachers of English phonetics in the Russian-speaking audience. In the course of the research, we consider the most significant historical periods of the language system development, which made for the further formation of the English written standards. A review of scientific literature has shown that the English orthography has changed over the centuries, and the variants of spelling that the language has nowadays are the result of the long-term development of the language system. The language has undergone profound changes and has been influenced by the French language, which has played a significant role in its spelling. It should be noted that during the XV-XVI centuries the spelling of some English words borrowed from the French language, changed under the influence of the Romanization trend and even more diverged from the sound structure of words. This made it very difficult to learn spelling and attain the due level of the population's literacy. Therefore, since the 16^th century, the projects for carrying out the English spelling reform began appearing, and in 1908 the spelling society was established in England. For a long period of time it has been fighting for the English spelling reform and reducing the number of irregularities in the English orthography. However, the activities of this society, as well as various reform projects, have not led to any tangible results, and the English spelling continues retaining its historical character completely, thus, creating great difficulties for learning. The proposed reform projects were not decisive, but were only limited to partial changes and amendments. In the absence of radical spelling reforms, methodologists try to formulate some rules that might help perfect spelling skills. These rules generalize the regularities implicitly present in the language. The existence of such regularities certainly facilitates the task of forming the system of sound-letter correspondences. The paper describes an experiment which shows that ordinary users of the English language are able to recognize such patterns, and formulate explicitly the appropriate rules, basing on their own language experience.

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