Finally, is mastering spelling so essential today? When confronted with this question, the linguist Alain Bentolila launches into an unstoppable demonstration. “Let’s analyze the phrase ‘the death of the man I’ve always wanted’,” he offers: “As written, this one implies that you covet that person. Conversely, by adding an ‘e’ to ‘desired’, you signify to your interlocutor that you hate this man, to the point of wishing for his disappearance.” Proof that a simple grammatical agreement can totally change the meaning of the message you want to convey. “Spelling is absolutely essential for communication,” concludes the specialist.
Alain Bentolila advocates the return of a certain requirement in terms of syntax. Conversely, some specialists in the sciences of education denounce the “discriminatory” nature of spelling. They campaign for its simplification and call for greater tolerance towards students struggling with dictation and grammatical rules. On January 12, a memorandum from the Ministry of National Education relaunched the debate. The text recommends, among other things, the use of brief daily dictations. “27% of students do not have the required level in French” at the entrance to college, recalled Pap Ndiaye a few days before. Asked about the same text since 1987, teenagers today make “twice as many mistakes” as their elders. Should we be worried about it? Do students who show shortcomings risk suffering from them in their future lives?
“Seventy years ago, spelling was the selection tool par excellence. When entering 6th grade, at the college certificate, in all the major higher education competitions, it was essential to be good in this matter. Which is no longer the case today”, indicates Michel Fayol (1), professor emeritus at the University of Clermont Auvergne. And yet. In recent years, several specialists have shown that mastering spelling can have a significant impact on our lives. And this, as soon as you enter the world of higher education. This was revealed in 2016 a CNRS study (2) conducted with first-year economics and management students enrolled in Paris-Est-Marne-la-Vallée and Lille I. The four teacher-researchers behind this survey worked between 2011 and 2014 , on a panel of 849 students separated into two groups: the first was strongly encouraged to follow the Voltaire program, a software for improving spelling, but also grammar, conjugation and syntax. While the second was free to use it if he wished.
“As a result, the students who worked hardest on ‘literacy’ – the ability to read, understand and use written information – achieved an overall average that was half a point to one point higher than that of their classmates in the other group”, says economics professor Yannick L’Horty, one of the authors of the study. This training will have enabled them to improve their skills in literary subjects but also – even more surprisingly – in scientific disciplines. “Mastering the language makes it possible, for example, to better understand a statement of a problem in mathematics. In any case, this is one of the hypotheses retained”, advances the researcher. In other areas such as law, the interest of mastering the language is more obvious: it helps to understand legal texts. Choosing the right words, the best adjectives, mastering the turns of phrase can change the way you look at a written assignment. From there to demonstrate that the shortcomings of students in literacy are one of the many factors at the origin of the high failure rate in the first year of a license? Yannick L’Horty thinks so: “It was important to me to demonstrate that university is not a world in which all students write very well because they have the baccalaureate and that this inventory can have repercussions non negligable.”
“Good spelling is a form of courtesy”
Many other studies have also proven that poor spelling or grammar can be deal breakers in a hiring process. A few years ago, Christelle Martin Lacroux, professor at the University of Grenoble Alpes conducted an experiment (3) with more than 500 recruiters looking for a bank account manager, a position that requires the use of writes it down. The researcher wrote CVs manipulating different variables such as the number of spelling and typographical errors or even the candidate’s level of experience. “This survey showed that the chances of a candidate letting errors pass were greatly reduced, she explains. Note that recruiters were more severe with regard to keyboard errors, which may be associated with a lack of attention, only with regard to errors of lexicon, grammar or conjugation.” To better understand their motivations, Christelle Martin Lacroux used the “verbal protocol method” which consisted of bringing together around twenty of these potential employers and asking them to express all their thoughts orally. “I learned that faults could be perceived as signs of lack of politeness, intelligence, inability to adapt to professional requirements”, underlines the author of this thesis defended in 2015.
Eight years later, are spelling errors still as penalizing on the labor market? Yannick L’Horty affirms it. He regularly participates in testing campaigns consisting in sending false applications, with more or less faults, to companies to analyze their behavior. A few years ago, Loïc Drouallière, researcher in information and communication sciences and professor at the IUT of Toulon, undertook a similar approach (4) by responding to 200 job offers, alternating CVs and cover letters alternately handling an impeccable spelling and another incomplete. “I have shown that a candidate with a perfect command increases his chances of answering by 56%”, he states.
In 2017, Christelle Martin Lacroux set out to study the impact of spelling errors on consumer behavior. “The experiment consisted of putting two sites face to face offering consumer products, such as pastry equipment; one offering irreproachable texts, the other not”, explains the researcher. The fact of detecting the faults aroused “negative emotions” in many visitors such as lack of confidence, contempt, doubts as to the quality of the products offered. All of this undermines their initial intention to buy. “Good spelling is a form of courtesy, analyzes Alain Bentolila. It’s the opposite of casualness because if I pay attention to what I write, if I make an effort for you, it’s good that you count for Me.” However, surveys on the impact of the lack of mastery of our language remain far fewer than those devoted to mathematics. “Probably because the world of research considers that this is a problem that is too Franco-French, which does not necessarily have an impact outside our borders. While mathematics, physics, chemistry or biology are part of an international competition”, says Michel Fayol.
For Loïc Drouallière, the discretion of such studies plays objectively in favor of those who demand more indulgence with regard to students. What annoys him: “I defend the opposite position! National Education must give the same chances of success to all students, including and especially those from more disadvantaged backgrounds.” By making spelling a flagship discipline. “Lowering the bar so that all students can pass will not eliminate inequalities”, supports Alain Bentolila. It is even scientifically proven.
(1) Author of The acquisition of writing (ed. PUF, 2020).
(2) “Should students be encouraged to improve their spelling?” » by Estelle Bellity, Fabrice Gilles, Yannick L’Horty, Laurent Sarfati (2016).
(3) “Assessment of spelling skills in the pre-selection phase of candidate files: practices, perceptions and implications for HRM” (2015).
(4) Spelling in fall, spelling in numbers (ed. L’Harmattan, 2016).
