A Contrastive Study of Alphabet Correspondence Between Letters and Sounds in Shikomori and English language

Abstract

Abstract The purpose of this study is to investigate the alphabet correspondence between letters and sounds in Shikomori and English language. It has been conducted with the aim of investigating the relationship between alphabet spelling and written words in Shikomori to compare it with the English alphabet relationship and the written words. In order to fnd out the area of difiiculties that faces the Comorian English learner at begimiing level. The study has three hypotheses; they come out with the relationship between Shikomori and English orthographies and the area of difliculties that Comorian learners face them when they want to start learning English language. In addition to present suitable solutions for the learners avoid difficulties in learning English. Experimental method has been designed to collect data from learners at Universal English Club in Sudan. The 7 learners are Comorian native speakers who would like to learn English as communication but not their university subject. Therefore, a reading test is administrated to the learners. The analysis of the collected data has revealed that, English alphabet spelling does not have relationship between letter sounds and the corresponding written words whereas Shikomori alphabet has the relationship between spelling sounds and the corresponding written words. Due to this complexity of the English orthography, all the 7 Comorian learners fail to read the English written words correctly while they can spell the English alphabet letters correctly. These difficult situations emerge when Comorian learners transfer the (Ll) orthography to the (L2) orthography. The researcher suggests some recommendations that may facilitate in learning the English alphabet for the Comorian learners at beginning level. Suggestion for further study is recommended.