The Digital Generation vs. Closed Forms, Hyphenated Forms and Open Forms

The article presents the attitudes of two groups of students regarding the spelling (closed forms, hyphenated forms or open forms) of new words whose components (one or two) are words from the English language. The study not only tracks the basic knowledge of the students and their ability to use basic rules in Bulgarian spelling but also their preferences for spelling the analyzed lexical units. In the two test groups, the knowledge of the English language is at different levels, which is a prerequisite for different degrees of interference in the field of spelling. In this way, it is traced whether the degree of proficiency in a foreign language influences the spelling of words or whether the spelling variant they choose is a result of other factors. The results of the experiment clearly show the fluctuations of the respondents in spelling the analyzed lexical units. For the purposes of the study, Chat GPT was also used to determine how useful it can be in solving the spelling cases under consideration.