Ignoring linguistics in the theory and the practice of the teaching of writing skills. Reflections on a redefinition of the relation between pedagogics and phonetics/phonology

The authors criticize the prevailing practice of the teaching of writing sk ills and of research in this field because it lacks the adequate linguistic foil for the analysis of the learning processes as well as for the systema tic representation of the written language, which ought to be based on the structures of language as it is spoken by children. Neither the analysis no r the description of this language form the basis for the concepts of instr uction in writing; rather, this is formed by letters thought to represent i solated sounds. Recent results of research in phonetics/phonology and on th e written language, however, show that it is not the sound which constitute s the correlate to the letter but, rather, that the syllable forms the cent ral unit of linguistic segmentation. These more recent linguistic insights demand a comprehensive redefinition of the relation between pedagogics and linguistics. Some of the consequences are outlined here. Relating to the ta sk of children in the early stages of learning how to write it is furthermo re shown that the phonetic analysis to be performed depends greatly on the children's respective dialectic variants. In a final part, the authors defi ne the desiderata of research on instruction in writing triggered by the ev ident opening of this field of pedagogically dominated research and concept formation towards linguistics.