Metathesis on writing acquisition: symmetries and asymmetries between phonology and orthography

Abstract

This study approaches children writing data following a research line which is distinguished by electing the (ortho)graphic error as its main analysis object, treating it as a potential revealing clue of the knowledge in construction by children concerning the structure of their mother tongue, mainly on the phonological layer. In this theoretical domain, the article explores consonant metathesis’ spelling in texts of children in their writing acquisition phase, seeking to contribute to the discussion about the phenomenon, observing existing symmetrical and/or asymmetrical relations between the metathesis produced especially in the phonological acquisition period and those manifested on early writings. The data analysis reinforces influential aspects already highlighted by other researchers regarding metathesis, such as the nature of the segments involved, the syllabic structure and its degree of complexity, and the representational uncertainty associated within nasality on the medial coda and word segmentation. External factors to language phonology were likewise observed as possibilities for the motivation of the phenomenon on writing, particularly calligraphy and word hypersegmentation, aspects that relates to notational knowledge, also constitutive of the writing system learning and which seems to interact with variables of phonological nature, pointing to asymmetries between phonology and orthography.