dc.description.abstract | This study examines the interplay between phonological awareness, orthography
and literacy learning. The field work was carried out in the Konso language
community in Southwest Ethiopia, during the launching of an alphabetic orthography
for the language. Konso had previously been written in the Ge’ez script,
which is classified as an abugida. Each abugida character primarily denotes a
consonant-vowel sequence, and transferring to an alphabetic orthography involves
learning new sound-symbol correspondences on the level of phonemes.
The change of writing system offered the opportunity to study the influence
of an orthography on its readers’ phonological awareness in a context where only
the writing system changed, not the language. At the same time, it gave the opportunity
to establish the basis for the method to be used for transfer literacy
teaching for the Konso language.
The data was mostly collected in the first transfer literacy training workshops
for voluntary literacy teachers (N=80). The data collection stretched over
three years and three months, while the teachers practised alphabetic literacy
skills and started to teach transfer literacy classes. The data includes the results
of phonological awareness tests, spelling and word reading tests, the subjects’
written reflections on the two orthographies and the transfer learning process,
and my diary notes from observations and discussions with the learners.
The results revealed close connections between the sound-symbol correspondences
of the Konso abugida and its readers’ conceptions about the phonological
components of the language. Consonants and vowels were viewed as related
components complementing each other, rather than as independent units.
The lack of the marking of phoneme quantity in the abugida made it difficult for
abugida readers to identify the quantity of phonemes, and the disparity between
phonological syllables and orthographic syllables influenced their intuitive syllabification.
Overall, the results point to the strong influence of a writing system
on its readers’ phonological awareness, making it hard to become aware of phonological
units which are not represented in the orthography. This has consequences
for the transfer literacy learning situation, especially when the transfer
takes place from an orthography operating on bigger phonological units to an
orthography operating on smaller units.
Keywords: transfer literacy, phonological awareness, script, writing system,
orthography, abugida, Konso language | en |