The Writing Difficulties of the Difference between Graphemes and Phonemes in Arabic and English

Abstract

The grapheme-phoneme link in Arabic and English is the subject of this study. Some learners of both Arabic and English find difficulty in the process of reading and writing. Such difficulty rises from the difference between the grapheme and phoneme. The main aim of this research is to demonstrate the difficulty that the learners of both Arabic and English encounter in the process of reading and writing. To comprehend the depth of the two languages and the interaction between their graphemes and phonemes, it is necessary to study their orthographies. When short vowel marks and other diacritical (tashkeel) signs are employed, Arabic orthography is transparent; however, in the case of their absence, they become opaque. However, the orthography in English is confusing, as some words of English are adopted from other languages such as French, Italian and Latin. Some of the loaned words are inserted in English with their original spellings without any modification in order to suit English language pausing a difficulty in reading and writing. This research is based on secondary data from previous case studies. The researcher makes a comparison and analysis of such data to address the proposed questions. This research looks at Arabic letters and the various ways that they are written. It also highlights the confusion that happens to even native Arabic speaker with the " ‫ي‬ " and " ‫ى‬ ", " ‫ة‬ " and " ‫ه‬ ", and the different places of ‫"ء"‬ "Hamzah". Understanding the several forms of graphemes (monographs, digraphs, trigraphs, and quadgraphs) and how they relate to the graphemes of consonant and vowel phonemes are the main focus in English. Hence, the diacritical markers are essential to any learner of Arabic. However, in English, the diacritics' knowledge is essential as in Arabic.