Orthography in Serbian Language Teaching

Abstract

Since using abbreviations in communication is a common phenomenon, the objective of the paper and research was to determine how well high school leavers know the spelling rules concerning word abbreviating. The research was conducted on the basis of a survey. The survey involved 160 respondents. Abbreviations in primary and secondary school curricula were also analyzed as well as the spelling rules related to their writing in the Serbian Language Orthography by Matica Srpska. We tried to find out what mistakes appeared, what brought them about and we offered possible solutions to making them fewer. The results of the research show that the abbreviations are a very perplexed part of orthographic system. Although there are very strict rules in literary language norm, it seems that the great number of native speakers don’t comply with those rules, mostly because they are not familiar with them. The great percent of correct answers was found in those abbreviations that are the most frequent in everyday communication. Results of the research also show that the orthography teaching on academic level has great impact on knowledge of literary language norm. Therefore, Orthography should be one of the compulsory courses. On the other side, the fact that results of this research are almost the same as the results of the previous similar researches are discouraging. That shows that the problem of writing abbreviations is common. This problem could be solved if we obey literary language norm in Serbian language teaching and in media literacy. In spite of the fact that it’s almost paradoxically, we can say that, nonetheless literary language norm is being taught through whole schooling, it is never completely learned. Therefore it is important for students to learn basics of literary language norm and how to use orthographic textbooks by doing different writing exercises, surveys projects etc. It’s important that they learn how to use that knowledge properly.