Call for a symposium “writing and spelling”
1) Aim and scope of the symposium
The production of a text is generally conceived as involving different processes, “from ideas to
text”. The speaking models (Garrett, 1980; Levelt, 1989) describe more precisely the translating (or
formulating) level than the writing models (e.g., Hayes & Flower, 1980; Kellogg, 1996). If both
speaking and writing are considered as general abilities to produce language, the translation process
is assumed implying two successive levels (see Bock & Levelt, 1995): a functional level, designed to
determine syntactic category and function of lexical items, and a positional level that fixes the order of
these items in syntactically correct sentences. This level is responsible for the correct spelling of
words. In languages as English or French, for which there is no strict regularity between phonemes
and graphemes, how do writers spell words and how do beginners learn how to spell? In French,
Italian or Spanish, whose morphology is very complex, how do experts and beginner writers avoid
agreement errors? Is translation exclusively syntactically determined, or is it conceptually and/or
phonologically dependent? These questions can be investigated by experimental research on
cognitive processes and by classroom research on learning how to spell. The confrontation of different
perspectives concerns both professionals and researchers involved in education and psychology. This
symposium will contribute to fruitful exchanges about spelling, in a fundamental way (e.g., to specify
writing models) and in an applied way (how to help children to learn how to spell).
2) List of possible studies to include into the symposium
Developmental spelling; automation of spelling abilities; lexical and grammatical spelling; crosslinguistic studies about spelling; spelling in complex vs. simple language; spelling in L1 vs. L2; spelling
models; educational perspectives on spelling; etc.
3) Contact data of the organizer
Pr Lucile Chanquoy
Université de Nice - Sophia Antipolis
Pôle Universitaire St Jean d'Angély
Laboratoire de Psychologie Cognitive et Sociale (LPCS - EA 1189)
24, Avenue des Diables Bleus
F-06357 NICE cedex 4
Phone: (33) (0)4 92 00 12 21
Fax: (33) (0)4 92 00 12 97
E-mail: lucile.chanquoy@unice.fr