[The Programme was published as a leaflet issued with Journal 3.] Simplified Spelling Society Fifth International Conference: Spelling for Efficiency PROGRAMME FRIDAY 24 JULY All plenary sessions in Conference Room 2 15:00-18:00 Main Entrance: Arrival, registration, tea 20:00 Welcome and introduction Tom McArthur, Editor English Today: Form and Reform: the four great communicative shifts. Reported though not advertised beforehand: Discussion John M Fletcher & Christopher A Upton The end of shortcuts, Oxford 1483-1660. SATURDAY 25 JULY 09:15-10:45 Thomas R Hofmann, Hokuriku University, Japan: Foreign Learning of English. Adam Brown, Language Studies Unit, Aston University: English spelling and non-native speakers: the example of Singapore 11:15-12:45 David Stark, Cumbermauld, Scotland: Maximizing the alphabetic efficiency of English orthography. Ronald Threadgall, General Secretary, United Kingdom i.t.a. Federation: The Initial Teaching Alphabet: proven efficiency and future prospects. 14:00-16:00 Patrick Hanks, Editor Collins English Dictionary, Collins Birmingham University International Language Database (COBUILD): The hyphen in written English: conventionality and efficiency. Frank Knowles, Professor of Language, Department of Modem Languages, Aston University: Comparative efficiency of Slavonic orthographies and the lessons for English. 16:30-18:00 John Kerr, Dept. of Vision Sciences & Road Signal Perception Group, Aston University: Experimental methodology for investigating reading efficiency. Chris Jolly, Chairman, Simplified Spelling Society, & Marketing Consultant: The marketability of spelling reform. 20:00 Julius Nyikos, Dept. of Languages, Washington and Jefferson College, Washington, Pennsylvania: A sibilant extravaganza epitomizing our spelling non-system. 20:30 Syndicate groups SUNDAY 26 JULY 09:15-10:45 Edgar Gregersen, Dept. of Anthropology, Queens College of the City University of New York: The strategy of spelling reform in stages: pros and cons. Chris Upward, Editor Journal of the Simplified Spelling Society, & Dept. of Modem Languages, Aston University: Conflicting efficiency criteria in Cut Spelling. 11:15 Closing discussion: Where do we go from here? End of Conference First Announcement and Call for Papers VENUE: Aston University, Birmingham: James Gracie Conference Centre, Birmingham. DATES: Friday - Sunday 24 - 26 July 1987 COST: For conference facilities, full board, with accommodation at conference centre, £60 for 48 hours, £30 for 24 hours; non-residential with all meals. £40 for 2 days, £20 for 1 day; single meals by arrangement. ORGANIZERS Chris Upward (host organizer) Chris Jolly (chairman, Simplified Spelling Society) ENQUIRIES TO: Chris Upward. BACKGROUND It was long thought English spelling reform just meant writing words by their sound. But the obstacles to this procedure are now clear: above all the variations in pronunciation and the need to ensure continuity of literacy. Instead of phonographic representation, the principle now proposed is efficiency, i.e. the convenience of all categories of user. The task facing orthographers is thus to determine what kind of spelling best meets this criterion. The requirements are complex and often conflicting. How can the needs of children and adults, native speakers and foreign learners, backward readers and skilled professionals, keyboard operators and sign-writers, poets and journalists, graphic designers and secretaries, scholars and publishers all be reconciled? The conference therefore invites linguists and psychologists, educationists and typographers, theorists and practitioners to help develop such an orthography. The starting point will be the report of the Society's working party which is now updating New Spelling, as revised by Daniel Jones and Harold Orton in 1948. The report will be available before the conference. The conference aims to collate insights from teaching, publishing, linguistics, psychology, and related fields to develop a common understanding of the different expectations and constraints which any proposal for reforming English spelling must take into account if it is to attract support. It is hoped the 1987 conference will renew the pressure for English spelling reform. More is now expected of written English than ever: maximum effectiveness of individuals, maximum literacy in society, an easy-to-master language for world use. Yet its spelling remains a major, though remediable, barrier to the achievement of these aims. It is time to reconsider how it might best be improved in the light of present knowledge, needs and circumstances. The conference will extend the Society's role as a forum for all those interested in improved writing systems. The question has several dimensions: international, because English is a world- language; interdisciplinary, because it involves mental processes, social interaction, autonomous systems, and advances in technology; and presentational, because although requiring sophisticated analysis, it must still be accessible to those of below-average intelligence. But the Society has a practical aim too: to bring about a reform of English spelling; and it is hoped the conference will not only enable ideas on spelling reform to be exchanged, but also consider ways of developing public awareness of the issue and influencing the key decision-makers in the field. [Simplified Spelling Society, Journal 6, 1987/3 p7 in the printed version] [See Chris Upward in Journals, Newsletters, Cut Spelling, Leaflets and Pamphlets.] Report in brief A Report in Brief. Christopher Upward The Simplified Spelling Society held its Fifth International Conference at Aston University's James Gracie Conference Centre in Birmingham 24-26 July 1987. Conference papers will appear in the Journal of the Simplified Spelling Society in 1988. THE PLACE The Society picked a rare fine weekend in a grey summer to hold its 1987 conference in the agreeable James Gracie Conference Centre, with its trim lawns, mature trees, and comfortable part-modem, part-victorian-mansion buildings. Excellent food and friendly, helpful staff complemented the surroundings and provided a pleasantly relaxed environment conducive to the fruitful exchange of ideas and experience. THE PROGRAMME The conference theme Spelling for Efficiency itself implies certain concept of the purpose of spelling: spelling for use. In other words, spelling less as an abstract system of sound-symbol correspondence, than as a system that people have to learn and then make use of for the highly practical purpose of communication, whether as receivers or as transmitters of messages. The need to consider the spelling of English, of all languages, in this perspective, arises from its international function: not merely is it used by hundreds of millions of native speakers with very different accents (which itself rules out any straightforward sound-symbol correspondence), but it is also learnt by even more non-native speakers for communication around the world, and their needs are scarcely less important. The benefits of a regular system have been shown from the experience with teaching orthographies like i.t.a. and Writing to Read and in other languages (Hungarian, for instance). But how to get from the present fragmented mosaic of English spelling to a lucidly and logically patterned system is the problem that has defeated spelling-reformers in the past. It is not only teachers and linguists who today have an interest in and a vital contribution to make to the question, but publishers, printers, lexicographers, psychologists and business people who have perhaps the most rigorous concept of efficiency of all. The conference theme was intended as a focus for these many facets of the question. THE PARTICIPANTS And if the facets of the question were varied, so were the participants, even though their numbers were small. They ranged from young researchers in computational linguistics and experimental psychology to established professionals with many decades' experience in typography, printing, publishing, lexicography, editing (among whom the dynamic veteran New York typographer Ed Rondthaler must be mentioned by name); they included speakers of many languages of eastern, western and northern Europe and beyond to the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent-not to mention speakers of English of the American, English, Indian and Scots varieties; there were teachers of English to native-speaking children, to teenage backward readers, to adult illiterates, to foreign learners, and to other teachers; there were information scientists, translators, administrators and historians versed in the techniques of paleography. By no means all arrived convinced of the case for simplifying English spelling, but more left convinced than arrived. THE PAPERS. Summary omitted as all papers are included in full. THE PROSPECTS The conference ended with a discussion of the Society's future strategy. Ongoing work on the revision of 'New Spelling' as a complete reform scheme and the development of Cut Spelling as a first stage was to continue toward publication, while contacts with other organisations, particularly in the literacy field, were to be furthered. [Simplified Spelling Society, Journal 7, 1988/1 pp5-8 in the printed version] Form and Reform: the Four Great Communicative Shifts Tom McArthur Born in 1938 and a graduate of both Glasgow and Edinburgh Universities, Tom McArthur has held varied educational posts: in the British Army, in schools in England, Scotland, and India, and at the Universities