DEVELOPMENT OF WRITTEN TEXT PRODUCTION...

Tel-Aviv University

The Lester & Sally Entin Faculty of Humanities

The Shirley & Leslie Porter School of Cultural Studies

DEVELOPMENT OF WRITTEN TEXT

PRODUCTION OF NATIVE ISRAELI AND

ETHIOPIAN IMMIGRANT SCHOOLCHILDREN

AND ADOLESCENTS: LINGUISTIC AND SOCIO-

CULTURAL PERSPECTIVES

THESIS SUBMITTED FOR THE DEGREE

"DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY"

by

MICHAL SCHLEIFER

SUBMITTED TO THE SENATE OF TEL-AVIV UNIVERSITY

AUGUST 2003

This work was carried out under the supervision of

Prof. Ruth Berman and Dr. Gadi Ben-Ezer

Acknowledgments

I could not have completed this work without the intellectual, emotional and

financial support of so many people. I am grateful for the opportunity to acknowledge

them.

I would like to thank first and foremost the supervisors of my dissertation. Prof.

Ruth Berman, who challenged me to do my best work, and taught me all I know

about conducting high-quality research and how to examine one of the most

remarkable human achievements - the written text. Dr. Gadi Ben-Ezer, a gifted

teacher, a skillful advisor and a good friend, whose expertise in the field,

encouragement, and multicultural sensitivity in building "mutual creative spaces"

allowed me to construct new insights.

I thank my Ethiopian colleagues and friends Yirga Erate, Embeat Melesa, Elimelech

Yitzhak and Dr. Anbessa Teferra, who opened the door for me into their ancient and

magnificent culture. Their help in the data collection and its interpretation was

invaluable. I am grateful for their special way of showing me the humbleness of those

who really know.

I am also grateful to my interviewers for their hard work and commitment: Tali Elbaz,

Orit Gaon-Dekkers, Vered Gavish, Irit Mero, Ruth Abramov, Tahel Hason and Ilan

Bloom.

I appreciate the goodwill of the school inspectors, principals, counselors and teachers

in the process of data collection. I am indebted to my dear subjects who willingly

participated in this study.

I wish to express my deep gratitude to my colleagues in the crosslinguistic study for

their help in analyzing the data: Bracha Nir, Nurit Assaiag, Dr. Irit Katzenberger, Dr.

Dalia Cahana-Amitay, Dr. Tsila Shalom, Elisheva Baruch and Sheva Salmon.

Special thanks to my friends Ofra Barak, Tehila Grunwald and Tsafrit Grinberg for

their participation in the interpretation of the data and for their confidence in me.

I wish to acknowledge the support and trust of my friends and superiors at the Centre

for Educational Technology in giving me the opportunity of working with the

Ethiopian children.

I wish to express my sincere appreciation to Dr. Dorit Ravid who taught me about late

acquisition and how to examine it.

I thank Gila Batori for sharing with me her expertise in statistics and also her

friendship and generosity.

I thank Jayne Robinson for typing this study and for her patience and professional

work.

I thank Lisa Amdur and Yael Heffer for their proof-reading and encouragement.

I thank Lea Godelman from the School of Cultural Science for her moral support and

sincere caring.

Finally, my greatest indebtedness is reserved for my family.

I thank my older brother Ram Asher, who has constantly supported and stood by me.

My love and boundless appreciation to my best friend and life companion, Rick, for

being who he is, and for his unfailing love and encouragement not only in my

academic venture.

Many hugs and cheers for my special winning team: my children, Ido, Elad and Yael

for their wisdom, patience and love. Without them I could not have done it at all.

Table of Contents Abstract

Chapter 1: Theoretical Background Introduction 1

1.1 Development of Written Language 2

1.2 Socio-Cultural Perspectives on Language Use 8

Chapter 2: Research Design and Methodology 2.1 General background 20

2.1.1 The original project and pilot research study 20

2.1.2 Overall conceptual framework 22

2.2 Research Population 23

2.2.1 The Ethiopian group 25

2.2.2 The non-Ethiopian group 26

2.2.3 The external control group for the literacy questionnaire 27

2.3 Language teaching in the research populations schools 27

2.4 Data collection procedures 29

2.4.1 Introduction to the task 29

2.4.2 Personal data sheet 30

2.4.3 Text production 31

2.4.4 Literacy questionnaire 31

2.4.5 Interviewer Questionnaire 33

2.4.6 Teacher's evaluation sheet 33

2.4.7 Teachers' reports on the teaching of writing 33

2.5 Transcription 34

2.6 Categories of Analysis and Associated Predictions 35

2.6.1 Text length 36

2.6.1.1 Text length as measured by number of words per text 37

2.6.1.2 Text length as measured by number of clauses 38

2.6.2 Syntactic complexity 39

2.6.2.1 Connectivity or clause-combining as measured by

clause packages 40

2.6.2.2 Linking devices in clause packaging 41

2.6.3 Lexical richness 43

2.6.4 Thematic content 45

2.6.4.1 Thematic content with regard to content words

expressing physical aggression 46

2.6.4.2 Thematic content with regard to family members 47

2.6.4.3 Thematic content with regard to reliance on the video

clip 48

2.6.4.4 Thematic content with regard to affronts to honor 49

2.6.5 Violations of linguistic norms 50

2.6.5.1 Grammatical errors 50

2.6.5.2 Lexical infelicities 52

2.6.5.3 Register mixing 58

2.6.6 Global text construction 58

Chapter 3: Results

Part 1: Results of the written texts

Introduction 63

3.1 Text length 63

3.1.1 Text length in words 63

3.1.2 Text length in clauses 65

3.2 Syntactic Complexity 67

3.2.1 Syntactic complexity in terms of number of words per clause 67

3.2.2 Syntactic complexity in terms of interclausal packaging 69

3.2.2.1 Number of clauses per clause package 70

3.2.2.2 Types of linking devices in clause packages 70

3.3 Lexical Richness in terms of Lexical Density 72

3.4 Analysis of Thematic Content 78

3.4.1 Reference to the video 79

3.4.2 Reference to physical aggression 79

3.4.3 Reference to the location of conflicts 79

3.4.4 Reference to affronts to honor 80

3.5 Violation of Linguistic Norms 80

3.5.1 Grammatical errors 80

3.5.2 Lexical infelicities 82

3.5.3 Register mixing 84

3.6 Global Text Construction 86

3.6.1 Text Components 86

3.6.2 Text component length 88

3.6.3 Levels of organization of information 89

3.7 Summary of Results of the Written Texts 91

Part 2: Results of Literacy Questionnaire

3.8 Introduction 93

3.9 Success in Hebrew Language Studies 95

3.9.1 Teacher evaluations of language achievements 95

3.10 Writing Proficiency 96

3.10.1 Teacher evaluations of narrative writing 96

3.10.2 Teacher evaluations of expository text writing 96

3.10.3 Teacher evaluations of questionnaire writing 96

3.10.4 Student evaluation of narrative writing 97

3.10.5 Student evaluation of expository writing 97

3.10.6 Student evaluation of questionnaire writing 97

3.11 Writing Abilities and Attitudes 98

3.11.1 Attitudes to and command of writing activities 99

3.12 Level of Difficulty of the Various Writing Activities 99

3.13 Proficiency in Amharic of the Ethiopian Students 100

3.14 Attitudes to Writing 100

3.14.1 Why writing is important 100

3.14.2 What makes a good writer? 101

3.15 Language Attitudes 103

3.16 Interviewer Information on the Questionnaire as a Task 104

3.16.1 Time required to fill out the questionnaire 104

3.16.2 Need for help 105

3.16.3 Task difficulty 106

3.17 Parental Background 106

3.17.1 Parents’ country of birth 106

3.17.2 Parents’ level of formal education 107

3.18 Home Literacy 108

3.18.1 Languages of reading and writing 108

3.18.2 Home-based reading and writing activities 108

3.18.3 Sources of assistance 110

3.19 Summary of the Results 110

Chapter 4: Discussion 4.1 Overview of the Research Findings 114

4.1.1 Patterns shared by the Ethiopian and non-Ethiopian subjects 114

4.1.2 Patterns shared by low and middle-class populations 115

4.1.3 Patterns shared by low SES subjects from poor educational

systems and low SES native-speaking subjects in

well-establishedschools (comparison to Salmon, 2003) 117

4.1.4 Effect of schooling in immigrant low SES subjects from

poor educational systems and immigrant subjects attending

well-established schools (compared to Rabukhin, 2003) 118

4.1.5 Different language skills of the Ethiopian and

non-Ethiopian subjects 118

4.1.6 Different patterns in the three populations 120

4.1.6.1 Thematic themes 120

4.1.6.2 Avoidance of talk 121

4.1.6.3 Cultural conventions of structures 123

4.1.7 Home literacy 124

4.1.8 Attitudes towards writing 125

4.2 The Four Themes 127

4.2.1 More is not necessarily better 127

4.2.2 Early distinctness late command of genres 132

4.2.3 Research involvement of community representatives 133

4.2.4 What makes writing communicative? 135

References 137

Appendix 165

Appendix 167

List of Tables Table 1: Breakdown of research population by origin,

sex and grade level 24

Table 2: Means and standard deviations number of words per text,

by age, genre and origin 64

Table 3: Means and standard deviations of clauses per text,


Table 4: Means and standard deviations of words per clause,


Table5: Means and standard deviations of clauses per CPs,


Table 6: Means and standard deviations of the three types

of inter-clausal links, by age, genre and origin 72

Table 7: Mean number of content words and standard deviations


Table 8: Mean number of content words per clauses

and standard deviations by age, genre and origin 75

Table 9: Means and standard deviations of lexical density by age,

genre and origin 77

Table 10: Total amount of grammatical errors by age and origin 81

Table 11: Percentages of the three common grammatical errors

by age and origin 81

Table 12: Number of lexical infelicities by age,

genre and origin 83

Table 13: Number of lexical infelicities in the original study

by age and genre 84

Table 14: Number of the sub-categorizations of the lexical

deviations by population 84

Table 15: Number of cases of register mixing by age,

genre and origin 85

Table 16: Number of cases of register mixing in the original study

by age and genre 85

Table 17: Numbers of texts containing each of three text

components by age, genre and origin 88

Table 18: Means and standard deviations of CPs

in each text component by age, genre and origin 89

Table 19: Numbers of texts including Linear (L), Partially

Hierarchical (PH), and Fully Hierarchical (FH) levels of

information organization by age, genre, and origin 91

Table 20: Numbers of texts of the original data including Linear (L),

Partially Hierarchical (PH), and Fully Hierarchical (FH) levels

of information organization by genre and age 91

List of Figures Figure 1: Comparison of mean number of words

by genre and population 65

Figure 2: Length of texts in number of clauses


Figure 3: Comparison of mean number of words per clause


Figure 4: Comparison of mean number of content words


Figure 5: Comparison of means of content words per clause


Figure 6: Comparison of means of lexical density


" I ask of G-d only one thing: Do not let me become

indifferent to the wilting of those who had to part and

live a different culture"

Leon Gieco

Abstract

The forces that affect the linguistic behavior of members of an immigrant group,

who are in contact with other ethnic groups became an important subject of research

due to contemporary demographic changes and to a great increase of immigration in the

modern world. The major question of this study is what is involved in becoming

"literate" in different environments? This study focuses on socio-cultural effects on the

development of written discourse abilities of students whose background cultures and

home languages differ from the receiving society and its school system. The overall

goal of the study is to understand how schoolchildren from different ages and from

different cultural and socio-economic backgrounds write monologic texts.

The study analyzes written texts produced by two groups of Hebrew-speaking

schoolchildren, who share similar low socio-economic status (SES). The first group

consists of students of recent-immigrant Ethiopian parentage, while the second consists

of students of non-recent-immigrant and non-Ethiopian background. These two groups

were further divided into three levels of schooling: grade-school (Grade IV), junior high

school (Grade VII), and high school (Grade XI). Subjects were asked to write two texts,

a personal-experience narrative and an expository discussion on the topic of

interpersonal conflict. They were also asked to fill out an informative questionnaire

probing writing experiences, attitudes to language and writing and home literacy. The

focus of this study is thus the development of literacy and language use in relation to

socio-cultural background, by examining the ability of schoolchildren to produce

different kinds of written texts. The study aims to tease apart the variables of SES

background, origin, age and genre, in terms of three types of interactions: 1) between

linguistic forms and discourse functions, 2) between top-down global text organization

and appropriate use of linguistic forms at a local bottom-up level of text construction,

and 3) between background literacy and text production abilities.

This study does not support the popular view that equates economic poverty and

minority or immigrant background with low literacy interests and achievements. Rather,

its underlying assumption is that the differences in the language use of students from

different SES backgrounds are confined to specific literacy-related activities rather than

to general language proficiency. Thus, the different populations would demonstrate

heterogeneous literacy skills, and that variety in performance would be both within-

group as well as across-group. I assumed that more literate writers would reveal greater

sensitivity to differences across text types and that this would be expressed in the

linguistic forms they select in each case. On the one hand, subjects across populations

should rely on shared developmental patterns, expressing the common socio-cognitive,

maturational and experiential base underlying text construction, like strategies for

global text construction, information organization, and distinguishing between narrative

and expository texts. On the other hand, these populations were expected to display

different levels of proficiency in their use of morpho-syntactic and lexical

constructions, and particularly in the thematic content of the text they write. In addition,

this study supports the idea that each writer is an exponent of his/her own culture.

Hence, the different populations were also expected to differ in their conventional

linguistic norms, cultural values and attitudes that characterize their unique literate

usages.

The present study applied a multidisciplinary approach aiming at integrating a

range of linguistic, socio-cultural, and educational perspectives. The study adopts both

quantitative measures of the kind associated with research in education and the social

sciences combined with more qualitative, culturally motivated analyses, on the one

hand, and structural analyses of linguistic forms, on the other. This study also uses a

multilayered approach on the levels of a word, a clause, a clause-package, and the text.

Such an approach suits the linguistic research of the written text since it combines

bottom-up analysis of lexical items with top-down analysis of the overall structure of a

text.

Results of this study derive from two kinds of analyses. The first is a detailed

linguistic analysis of 192 written texts of three age groups of Israeli low SES

Ethiopian and non-Ethiopian schoolchildren. The written texts, about the same topics,

are compared with a corresponding set produced by an external control group of

Israeli schoolchildren of the same age and levels of schooling from middle-class

“mainstream” backgrounds, elicited under similar conditions in the framework of a

large-scale crosslinguistic project (Berman & Verhoeven, 2002). Following the

elaborately devised and carefully tested crosslinguistic study in overall conception

and research design allowed us to achieve a maximal comparability of similarities and

differences in language proficiency across the different populations. The second set of

analyses concerns similarities and differences in language proficiency, in school and

home literacy-related activities, and in attitudes towards writing that may affect the

language use of students from different backgrounds. Information on background

factors was gathered by means of a specially devised literacy questionnaire. These

socio-cultural and demographic variables were compared to Israeli-born high

achievers of high SES background in the same age groups and school levels.

The analyses are the means for characterizing what is involved in "becoming

literate" in these environments, and for constructing "a profile" of linguistic literacy

(Ravid & Tolchinsky, 2002) for each of the research populations. Such insight into

the children's writing development is indispensable, especially in the case of the

recent immigrant Ethiopian children, since there are no carefully designed,

linguistically based studies, which have considered the ways in which these children

express themselves in writing. To the best of my knowledge, this research is the first

developmental study on their acquisition of writing and home literacy. Moreover, this

study offers research in socio- linguistics and education with the first available set of

computerized authentic texts written by Israeli schoolchildren of Ethiopian parentage.

The computerized data on the written texts of the non-Ethiopian students enlarges the

scope of non-computerized sets on the language use of Israeli students from

disadvantaged backgrounds (Erlich, 2001; Salmon, 2003).

The results indicate that immigrant and native-speaking Israeli students from

similar low SES backgrounds manifest similar writing behaviors across age and text

types (personal experience narrative and expository discourse). Nor does analysis of

their home and school literacy-related activities, their language achievements, and

attitudes towards writing reveal significant difference. The comparison of these two

groups with middle class students shows that varied domains including canonical

narrative construction, global expository structure, organization of information, and

lexical density were found to be similar across populations. It seems that all these

abilities represent shared developmental patterns, which underlie text production.

In comparison, when text length is neutralized, middle class students produce

more words per clause across age (indication of greater syntactic complexity, Ravid,

2003). The low SES students produce longer texts containing lots of verbal output,

indicating that they might suffer from a pragmatic failure caused by their lack of

confidence in their ability to get their meaning across. Thus, "verbosity" is not a sign

of linguistic proficiency of low SES students, but rather of lack of confidence in their

communicative competence. SES was also found to be sensitive to lexical richness,

since low SES students not only used fewer words per clause and fewer content words

per clause across genres, but also displayed less proficient usage in lexical selection,

in discourse conventions and in register consistency compared with the middle class

students of the original study. Thus, the difference between low and high SES

populations should not be attributed to the relative scopes of their lexicons, but rather

to the level of their communicative competence, and/or to their awareness for

regulative norms of writing.

The results also show that culture is an important factor in constructing the

underpinnings of linguistic development, and that cultural knowledge serves as a rich

context for interpretation and understanding of specific elements of both form and

content in the texts produced by schoolchildren and adolescents. All the three

populations differ with regard to thematic content. It seems that students choose to

express the unique cultural norms of their own community in their writing. For

example, half of the Ethiopian students chose to write on affronts to their honor in

their narratives; this is a theme that reflects an important norm in Ethiopian society.

With regard to home literacy and attitudes towards writing, the high SES

students reported on more varied and complex literacy activities in their homes, and

they define writing as an abstract process, aimed at self expression and cognitive

enrichment. In contrast, low SES students observe mainly letter-writing in their

homes and define writing as a notational system, aimed at achieving practical goals.

This study concerns the general relationship between socio-cultural

background factors and the developing literacy. It shows that in any environment

extensive experience with the production of a variety of types of texts, especially with

expository academic type of writing, is crucial for the development of linguistic

literacy of schoolchildren. Thus, a clear implication for the language educators is that

explicit instruction of how to construct well-organized expository texts, starting in the

beginning of high school might encourage the development of such abilities, not yet

mastered by most of adolescents. Students of less literate, less educated backgrounds

were found to have more difficulties in developing their communicative proficiency.

Thus, register and lexical selections could serve as criteria for evaluating the language

use of low SES students, and as good diagnostic tools of text maturity.

More researches on the language use of various populations are needed in

order to find out what it means to become literate in different environments, and how

the written texts reflect the unique norms, attitudes and literacy experiences of the

members of these different cultural socio-economic groups.

1

Chapter 1: Introduction and Research Introduction

This study is concerned with the development of written discourse abilities of

schoolchildren from different backgrounds and age groups. The overall goal of the

study is to understand how children of different ages and from different cultural and

socio-economic backgrounds write monologic texts. The study analyzes written texts

produced by two groups of Hebrew-speaking schoolchildren who share similar low

socio-economic status (SES). The first group consists of children of recent-immigrant

Ethiopian parentage, and the second of children of nonrecent-immigrant and non-

Ethiopian background were at three levels of schooling: grade-school (Grade IV),

junior high school (Grade VII), and high school (Grade XI). Subjects were asked to

write two texts, a personal-experience narrative and an expository discussion, both on

the topic of interpersonal conflict. They were also asked to fill out an informative

questionnaire probing writing experiences, attitudes to writing, and home literacy.

The focus of this study is thus the development of literacy and language use in

relation to socio-cultural background, by examining schoolchildren's ability to

produce three different kinds of written texts. From a developmental perspective, the

study is in the domain of “late acquisition”, since it examines the language production

of schoolchildren at ages ranging from nine to seventeen years, rather than of pre-

schoolers. Schoolchildren at these ages are engaged in a cumulative process of getting

familiarized with the written language in addition to further developing the

complexity and sophistication of their oral language use. They acquire a large lexicon

and a complex grammar, and produce different types of texts by flexibly using

different morpho-syntactic resources for diverse communicative purposes (Berman,

1997a; Blum-Kulka, 1997; Gillis & Ravid, in press; Nippold, 1998; Ravid &

Tolchinsky, 2002). From a socio-cultural perspective, the study compares the texts

produced by two groups of children of Ethiopian and non-Ethiopian background

(henceforth the "research" groups) with a corresponding set of texts produced by a

group of Israeli schoolchildren of the same age levels and of schooling from middle-

class, well educated home backgrounds (the "original study" comparison group,

Berman & Verhoeven, 2002).

The study yields two sets of analyses: a careful linguistic analysis of the form

and content of 192 narrative and expository texts, and of 114 literacy questionnaires.

2

The research and the comparison groups wrote about the same topics, and were elicited

by the same set of procedures and the same overall research design as in a large-scale

cross-linguistic study of text production abilities of schoolchildren and adults (Berman,

1996; Berman & Verhoeven, 2002). The main goal of the elaborately devised and

carefully tested crosslinguistic study was to understand how schoolchildren and

adolescents construct monologic narrative and expository texts in writing and in speech

in comparison to highly literate well-educated adults. The present study considers only

the written texts of the research groups compared with the original study in which

spoken texts were also examined (for reasons described below in Section 2.1.1).

Analysis of the parallel sets of materials made it possible to examine the similarities and

differences in language proficiency of the different populations.

The second set of analyses concerns school and home literacy-related activities

and attitudes towards writing yielding a description of the socio-linguistic variables

affecting text-production abilities. The two analyses provide the means for

characterizing what is involved in "becoming literate" in different environments. As yet,

there are no carefully designed, linguistically based studies concerning the ways low

SES students in general and recently immigrated Ethiopian children in particular,

express themselves in writing.

Relevant literature is reviewed here along the two main axes of this study: Research

on the development of writing abilities and linguistic literacy (Section 1.1) and on

socio-cultural aspects of literacy (1.2).

1.1 Development of Written Language This study, as noted, is concerned with the development of written discourse

abilities of schoolchildren from different backgrounds. Regarding modality or the mode

of language production, a wide range of research shows that even young schoolchildren

are able to distinguish between written and spoken language. Recent research

comparing the written and spoken texts produced by schoolchildren compared with

adults reveals an interesting developmental trend. Among grade schoolchildren, what

they write is anchored strongly on how they speak, as shown by a Hebrew-language

study of the narrative and argumentative texts produced by subjects in the same age-

groups as the present study (Berman in press, Berman & Ravid, 1999). On the other

3

hand, more in-depth study of gradeschoolers (aged 9 to 10 years old) producing similar

texts in different languages shows that their written language is already differentiated

from those of their spoken usage when producing narratives and expository discussions

on parallel topics (Danielewicz, 1984). For example, in writing they avoid use of

interactive discourse markers (Berman & Ravid, in press), and they use more complex

syntax and nominal expressions (Ravid & Cahana-Amitay, in press).

With development, this trend for differentiation between the spoken and written

language grows more marked by junior high school, although it is consolidated and

consistently evidenced only from high school (age 15 and above), while among

educated, highly literate adults, the earlier pattern is reversed, so that mastery of the

written language comes to have an increased impact on how people speak (Strömquvist,

1996). Thus, it seems that only in high school students start to use thinking for writing

in their written discourse. Strömquvist and Wengelin (2003) found that only 15 year

olds spent more time on discourse-initial planning, and began using more frequent and

differentiated intersentential connectivity. Strömquvist (1996) showed that high school

students avoided a characteristic of the spoken language in comparison to the younger

children who included this characteristic in their written texts. Gayraud (1999) showed

that French-speaking students, mainly in high school, consistently relied on and marked

lexical, morphological and syntactic features typical of more formal styles in their

written texts (Gayraud, Jisa & Viguié, 1999). Ravid and Zilberbuch (2003) showed that

the written texts of Israeli highschoolers were denser than their spoken texts, lexically

and syntactically, as measured by number of novel N-N compounds (prixat^ha tapuzim-

smixut- 'orange- blossoms- adjacency'), and denominal adjectives (xashmal-i, 'electr-ic')

per clause. In comparison, adults' writing is distinct even from that of highschoolers,

and is characterized by long discourse initial planning pauses, extensive content editing,

great control of large chunks of discourse, and embedded free direct speech designed to

facilitate inferences about the identity of the speaker (Strömquvist et al., 2003). Berman

and Ravid (in press) showed that across age groups, spoken texts are "less informative",

while the written texts contain more text oriented, extra-contentive material.

With regard to genre, this study is concerned with the abilities of schoolchildren

to write three different types of texts. The narrative and expository genres are defined as

relatively stable text regularities, which accomplish different social or communicative

functions (Kress, 1993; Nicolopoulou, 1997) and reflect two distinct “ modes of

4

thought” (Bruner, 1986). Narration focuses on recounting events from fictive

frameworks or personal experiences, and so relies on both episodic and semantic

memory (Tulving, 1972). Expository texts, in comparison, rely heavily on semantic

memory for the expression of thoughts and ideas, and so require academic-type

language proficiency (Nelson, 1988; Cummins, 1981a). Expository texts lack the single

temporal sequencing factor as the major principle of organization of information.

Moreover, content and structure are inextricably interwoven in expository type of texts.

As a result, narration and exposition differ developmentally, since the narrative use of

language emerges well before the expository (Katzenberger, submitted a). The two

types of texts also have different basic principles of discourse organization (Berman &

Katzenberger, submitted). The function of temporal sequencing is crucial for narrative

structure (Hatav, 1975; Labov, 1972), whereas informative and other non-sequential

elements form the core of the expository structure (Giora, 1990). The linear hierarchical

structure of narratives consists of a setting plus episode(s) plus coda. In comparison, in

expository texts the segments are ordered as introduction to middle to ending. The

higher level narrative “action structure” consists of an initiating event(s), attempt and

resolution (Shen, 1985). In comparison, expository texts are characterized as having at

least two types of discourse elements: core or nuclear propositions, and satellite or

supplementary material (Fox, 1978; Matthiessen & Thompson, 1988). These elements

compare broadly to Britton’s “move-on”, which introduces a new topic, “expand”

which develops the already introduced topic, and “unitize” which summarizes

information previously mentioned (Britton, 1995). Discourse stance is also used in

order to describe the differences between the types of texts along three interacting

dimensions of "discourse stance": 1) orientation- sender, text, recipient; 2) generality of

reference and 3) attitude-epistemic, deontic, affective (Berman, Ragnarsdףttir &

Strömquvist, 2002). For example, an oral narrative recounting personal-experience

events expresses a more communicatively motivated sender/receiver orientation, more

specific reference to people and objects and more affective attitudes. In comparison, a

written expository text is more text-based in orientation, more general in reference,

more cognitively epistemic, and more objective in attitude. These different perspectives

of the speaker-writer are expressed in the selection of the thematic content, the

rhetorical expressions, lexical items and grammatical categories (Berman, 2003).

There is a rich body of research on children's text production abilities in the

domain of oral narration. This is perhaps because the narrative is universally familiar,

5

type of discourse to which even young pre-schoolchildren are exposed in oral and

literate cultures alike. A range of studies examining different kinds of narratives show

that even children as young as three years already have scriptlike event-structure

knowledge, on which they base their story production (Nelson, 1986). A large-scale

study of personal-experience narratives of English-speaking children aged 3-10

(Peterson & McCabe, 1983) and of make-believe narratives of children from age 4

years (Nicolopoulou, 1996) showed that by late preschool age, children had some

command of global narrative structure. Other research based on descriptions of picture

series produced by Hebrew speaking children aged 4-6 and 10 years old (Katzenberger,

1994), and of children aged 7, 10 and 15 in English, French, German, Dutch and

Chinese (Hickmann, 1995) showed that a narrative schema was well-established by age

9-10 years. This is confirmed by a crosslinguistic comparisons of children's developing

text production ability (Berman & Slobin, 1994), which compared the oral, picture book

based narratives of children aged 3 to 9 with those of adults in five different languages

including Hebrew. Thus, these studies show that by late preschool, children show some

command of narrative schema, and construct a well-formed oral narrative text and that

this ability concordats across different narrative contexts and elicitation processes by

age 9 to 10, the age of the younger group in the present study (Berman, 1995). All

preschoolers begin to use the typical devices available in their native language for the

construction of cohesive discourse, but they do not master adult use of such devices and

structures at discourse level until late, despite their frequent early uses of "correct"

forms. The development of children's oral narrative activity constrained by factors such

as sociocultural contexts, the dynamics of every individual's cognitive structures and

communicative purposes.

Less research is available on children’s written narratives. Written narratives

both differ from and share properties with oral narratives and other types of written

texts (Freedman, 1987; Purcell-Gates, 1988; Shuman, 1986). Current research

indicates that once children have established a narrative schema, they will transpose

story production abilities from their spoken usage to their writing as was shown in the

crosslinguistic "original" study (Tolchinsky et al., 2002)

Far less research is available on children's expository texts in general and on

their ability to differentiate between the two genres in particular. Analyses of children’s

text production in Hebrew show that by early school age children differentiate between

narrative and expository texts (Berman & Nir, submitted; Berman & Ravid, 1999;

6

Peled, 1996; Peled & Blum-Kulka, 1992). Findings from the crosslinguistic study show

that although even 9 to10-year old grade-schoolers distinguish between narrative and

expository texts in both thematic content and linguistic use, it still takes them until high

school to master the global construction of the expository text and to use a rich range of

linguistic domains in grammar and the lexicon appropriately and flexibly (see papers in

special volume of the Journal of Written Language and Literacy, edited by Berman and

Verhoeven 2002, and also for Hebrew Ravid & Cahana-Amitay, in press). Thus, while

children begin to differentiate between genres at an early age, a lengthy developmental

course is needed for them to reach mature control over the distinct forms of expression

used by proficient language users for inter-genre differentiation (Berman & Nir,

submitted).

A third, highly specific type of text, which differs markedly from both narration

and exposition is the questionnaire. While narratives concern events ordered along a

timeline and expository texts deal with ideas, the essential components of a

questionnaire are data and facts. This type of discourse is an important part of modern

bureaucratic life. It was used in this study as a means of providing information about

socio-linguistic variation in the different research populations. Probing the different

linguistic, cultural and literacy-related backgrounds was done by means of a literacy

questionnaire. To the best of my knowledge how people perform this task has not been

the subject of special research, certainly not from a developmental point of view.

Following Ravid and Tolchinsky (2002) in conception of linguistic literacy,

"literate language users" are defined here as people who possess a rich and varied

linguistic repertoire, encompassing a wide range of registers and genres, together with a

rhetorical flexibility to adapt this repertoire to meet different communicative contexts

and goals. Thus, being literate means being able to access all kinds of written texts

constrained by different communicative purposes, from narrative to expository

discourse, from newspaper reports to questionnaires, from technical manuals to literary

reviews, from Internet chats to poetry (Paltridge, 1997). This familiarity with the

written language promotes the awareness of literate language users to the implicit

structure of their language, and the construction of an internal model of thinking about

their own spoken and written systems (Olson, 1994). This meta-linguistic level of

language awareness leads to the perception of the written language as both a notational

system and as a special discourse style (Bialystock, 1993; Ong, 1992). Moreover, this

meta-linguistic development enables linguistic knowledge to become more complex,

7

dense, and accessible with age (Karmiloff-Smith, 1992). Thus, literate language users

adequately and flexibly to employ a large repertoire of lexical and morpho-syntactic

structures taking into consideration discourse type and goal (Gillis & Ravid, in press;

Saltzman & Reilly, 1999). In conclusion, being literate across modularity and across

genres means being familiarized with writing and the written language, and making a

clear distinction between the types of texts by controlling the thematic content and the

linguistic means of expression suited to different discourse contexts.

Underlying this study is a form/function approach to text analysis (Slobin,

1996). The term “form” here refers to linguistic devices such as bound morphemes,

lexical expressions, and syntactic constructions, while "function" refers to the role

played by these devices in the course of text production (Berman & Slobin, 1994).

Research on children’s language acquisition indicates that a large range of linguistic

forms emerge early in development. Nevertheless, a lengthy developmental route is

required until children acquire mastery of both a full repertoire of linguistic forms and

the ability to use them appropriately and flexibly in extended discourse (Berman,

1997b; 1999a; Berman & Slobin, 1994; Peled, 1996; Levin, Ravid & Rappaport, 1999;

2001). With age, the range of forms used for any particular function becomes not only

more elaborate but also more consistent and more appropriate to a specific

communicative setting (Berman, 1996b; Berman & Slobin, 1994; Hickmann, 1995). In

the present context, “text production abilities” refers not only to the interaction between

linguistic forms and discourse functions, but also to the interaction between top-down

global text organization and appropriate use of linguistic forms and rhetorical devices at

a local bottom-up level of text construction. Developmental studies in the domain of

“late acquisition” (Karmiloff–Smith, 1986; Nippold, 1988, 1998; Ravid & Avidor,

1998) show that it takes until well beyond early school age before children deploy a full

repertoire of linguistic forms, as appropriate rhetorical options, to meet a range of

narrative, expository and informative functions.

The goal of this study is to examine the process of becoming literate.

Consequently, an important focus of this study is the extent to which, and by what

means, schoolchildren distinguish between different types of texts as a function of age.

Their texts, both in narration and exposition are expected to be more differentiated with

age, and to become increasingly more “written-like” as a function of increased literacy.

8

1.2 Socio-Cultural Perspectives on Language Use

The accepted view equates economic poverty and minority immigrant

background with low interests and achievements. The present study does not support

this view. The perspective adopted here is that parents and children from low SES or

immigrant backgrounds do not constitute uniform or homogenous entities, but that

they reveal considerable within-group variation. The present study aims to show that

the language of less-advantaged children is not necessarily "worse" but it is different

to that of their better-educated peers from well-established backgrounds.

The research literature on this topic reveals contradictory approaches and,

consequently also findings. The most extreme orientation is exemplified by the early

work of the British sociolingustic Basil Bernstein (1960). Many other studies appear

to confirm the lower level of language used by children of less-advantaged SES

backgrounds. For example, Hart and Risley (1995) found widening gaps between high

and low SES children in vocabulary size over the first three years of life. Anglin

(1993) also noted that low SES children had smaller vocabularies on the average, but

he pointed out that they were not significantly less capable of morphological analysis

and composition than upper-SES children. Chall and Snow (1988) showed that low-

income children scored less on fourth grade vocabulary tests in reading compared to

their higher SES peers. In other domains, using standardized national tests,

Whitehurst (1997) showed that children from low-income backgrounds began formal

schooling behind their peers with regard to general language ability. The U.S.

National Center for Statistics (1999) showed that around two thirds of fourth graders

of Hispanic and Afro-American low SES backgrounds were below the basic level of

language achievements. Relatedly, Dubow and Ippolito (1994) showed that low SES

children were at risk for later reading difficulties and academic achievements.

There are also Israeli researchers who claim that low SES children attain lower

scores in reading and writing tests in comparison to high SES children both in pre-

school (Smilansky & Shefatia, 1979), and at school (Eshet, 1980; Minkovich, Davis

& Bashi, 1977). Other Israeli studies suggest that appropriate use of formal register

of high-educated language is a major source of difference between children from

different social backgrounds (Davis, 1978; Kais, 1979; Shtal, 1977). Register is used

here as “a general cover term for situationally defined varieties” (Biber, 1995), while

to be register-appropriate means revealing linguistic awareness and sensitivity to

9

communicative setting and social circumstances when producing a piece of discourse.

The Israeli-based studies claim that children of more educated backgrounds use high-

level language in situations which require a more formal style or register, while

children from less educated backgrounds mix high register language with colloquial,

everyday speech in such circumstances. For example, Kemp (1984) showed that a

major difference between Hebrew speaking seventh-graders from disadvantaged

compared with well-established backgrounds was the inappropriate application of

register in an error recognition test.

Other studies attempt to explain different literacy achievements of low SES

children by examining a range of different background factors of these children in and

of themselves. For example, some researchers showed that differences in the

children's reading and writing ability or school readiness are a function of the

economic level of their parents (Alexander & Entwisle, 1988; National Assessment of

Educational Progress, 1998; White, 1982; Wigfield & Asher, 1984). A ten-year

longitudinal study which examined SES, level of parental education, status and level

of family income of forty families from low and middle SES showed that low SES

children had poorer achievements on reading, writing, spelling and mathematics than

their higher SES peers (Walker, Greewood, Hart & Carta, 1994). Holden (1997)

reviewed studies that showed that children of affluent parents attained higher

academic achievements than low SES children.

In contrast to these "child-output" based studies is a broad range of research

that focuses on "child-input" factors such as parental attitudes and home literacy-

related activities. Thus, Dickinson and Tabors (1991; 2001) claimed that different

home and pre-school environment variables, such as adult-child verbal interactions,

home support for literacy, exposure to rare words and extended teacher discourse in

pre-schools could explain the difference in the receptive vocabularies or

decontextualized language skills of children from different socio-economic

backgrounds. Along similar lines, Pflaum (1986) also emphasized the relation

between the different styles of parent-child communication in different SES

backgrounds and linguistic achievements. She added that low SES parents gave less

encouragement to their children’s linguistic initiatives compared with high SES

parents. Tough (1982) described adult-child linguistic interactions in low SES

backgrounds as consisting of short and less complex sentences, having few

explanations, and less use of the language for alternative solutions, for descriptions

10

and for expression of imagination. Walker, et al (1994) showed that low SES parents

play less language games with their children and demand less linguistic productions.

Another study documented pre-schoolers' exposure to infrequent vocabulary, and

found that 3- to 4-year olds from low-income families, who heard and used such

vocabulary at home tended to score high on a standard vocabulary test at age five

(Beals & Tabors, 1993). Storch & Whitehurst (2001) claim that literacy environment

and parental characteristics such as parental expectations for their child’s school

success and parental reading behaviors account for approximately 40% of the

variance in pre-school "outside-in" skills, such as vocabulary about the printed

language, understanding of narrative story structure, and conceptual knowledge. Other

studies emphasize the importance of parental (especially maternal) intelligence,

education and native language on the child’s language and literacy development

(Bowey, 1995; Eshel, 1979; Payne, Whitehurst & Angell, 1994; Plomin, DeFries &

Fulker, 1988; Wigfield & Asher, 1984). Other researchers observe that children,

whose home literacy environments are lacking with regard to shared reading activities

and printed materials are at risk for later reading difficulties (Allen, Cipielewski &

Stanovich, 1992; Scarborough & Dobrich, 1994). Heath (1983) showed that less

literate mothers from low SES expose their children to fewer reading and writing

situations aimed for learning and pleasure, or even aimed at achieving instrumental

everyday needs or work necessities. Snow, Barnes, Chandler, Goodman and Hemphill

(1991) emphasize the relationship between home and school factors for language and

literacy development of children from varying socio-economic backgrounds. As home

factors, they point to the mother's expectation for the child and her level of education.

The contact between parents and teachers regarding academic issues also affects the

child’s language. Gregory (1999) showed that parents of successful literate adults

raised in a poor neighborhood in East London passed down literacy-related

knowledge and encouraged their children to learn from other mediators of literacy.

The research on the effect of school resources on low SES students' outcomes

has also yielded conflicting findings. On the one hand, McCarty (1989) reports that

instability of the educational staff and limited success of the Navajo long-term

educational program were due to the poverty of the area and the dependence on

fluctuating federal money. In comparison, Hanushek (1990) claims that there is no

systematic relation between school resources (e.g., school administration, facilities,

teacher education, teacher-student ratios) and educational outcomes.

11

Less research is available on the writing development of children from

different SES. In Israel, Levin, Share and Shatil (1996) built a developmental scale for

the evaluation of writing of pre-schoolchildren. They showed that low SES children

write at a lower level than high SES children. In Argentina, Ferreiro and Teberosky

(1982) found that middle-class preschoolchildren had an advantage over low SES

preschoolers with regard to first name identification and writing.

Other researchers focused on the mediation of literacy as a factor in their

children’s literacy development. Aram (1998), who examined the nature of low SES

mothers’ mediation of writing, their level of literacy and the children’s literacy-

related environments, showed that the first factor contributed most strongly to the

differences in independent functioning of children regarding literacy in the

kindergarten.

Along very similar lines, research on the second language (the language of the

"dominant" " receiving" society) of immigrant children shows that minority children

attain less on language tests than their native-speaking peers. A study of Canadian

immigrants, schooled entirely in English since arrival in Canada, shows it took them

approximately 5-7 years to achieve grade norms on achievement tests comparable to

their native-speaking peers (Cummins, 1981b). Other studies show that it took

immigrant children 4-10 years, depending on their age on arrival, and level of

previous schooling in their country of origin, to achieve norms comparable to native

English speakers on standardized achievement tests (Collier, 1987; Collier & Thomas,

1988; Thomas & Collier,1997). Other studies carried out in Sweden and the U.S.A.

suggest that immigrant students with interrupted educational backgrounds and limited

world knowledge may experience academic difficulty at the post-secondary level of

language (Bosher & Rowekamp, 1992; Skutnabb-Kangas & Toukoman, 1976). Other

studies have tried to explain the gap in academic achievements by the immigrant

children's lack of exposure to, or lack of understanding of, the vocabulary and

context-specific language needed to perform the more demanding tasks required in

academic courses (Short & Spanos, 1989). In research that is more related to the

present study, Akinחi, Jisa, and Kern (2001) found a delay in the acquisition of L2

linguistic devices for encoding macro-structures in the narratives of school-aged

Turkish children compared to monolingual French children. They suggest that this

relative delay is due to differences in the amount of exposure to literacy-related

activities. The background research to this study pointed to differences in register in

12

terms of use of past tense typical of written versus oral French, in comparing the oral

narratives of 7-year old monolingual French children with Turkish-French bilingual

children (Akinחi, 1999), which they explained by the different quantitative and

qualitative exposures to written French of the two populations. Verhoheven (in press)

reviews studies of "frog story" picturebook narratives of Arabic-Dutch and Turkish-

Dutch children compared to their native Dutch peers (Aarssen,1996; Bos, 1997). The

subjects, minority children aged 4-8 years old of low SES background had a lower

level of narrative production skills than their native Dutch peers. Arabic-Dutch

children also used a more restricted register in use of temporal adverbials in

comparison to monolingual Dutch children, who showed a more complex use of

adverbials, conjunctions and particles. Obviously, the Arab-Dutch children were

exposed to far more restricted channels of literate Dutch input, which might account

for their less developed knowledge of the rules of subordination and the inversion of

basic word order.

Verhoeven (1991) also examined socio-cultural factors in an attempt to find

those which effect L2 proficiency. He identified eight positive factors that predict the

level of Dutch grammatical skills of Turkish children at the age of six. Some relate to

home environment such as the parents' attitude towards the Dutch culture, the parents'

cultural behavior, the extent of L2 literacy within the family. Others relate to

interactions with the immediate surrounding such as the extent of peer interaction in

L2 and of caretaker interaction in L2. Another factor concerns the contact between

parents and the educational institution such as the extent of involvement of the parents

in day-care activities. Leseman and De Jong's study (2001) of low SES minority

children compared to middle-class children in the Netherlands revealed an impact of

home literacy practices, measured by opportunities for literacy related interactions, on

vocabulary and word decoding development.

Incongruence between immigrant cultural practices at home and in school is

another line of explanation for the children’s limited skills in the second language.

Boyd and Nauclיr (2001) showed that 5-6 year old Turkish children are generally not

invited to contribute much to the co-construction of a story with their mothers. The

Turkish mothers generally ask fewer questions and are more dominating compared to

Swedish mothers. On the other hand, the same study proposes that the source of the

problem is at least equally centered in the pre-school practices. The researchers

propose that lack of experience with typical ways of displaying knowledge in the

13

receiving society and classroom interaction have consequences for immigrant

children, especially in schools in which homogenous teaching-learning procedures are

common. They showed that the Swedish pre-school teachers used different strategies

when interacting with children from different origins. The teachers gave the Turkish

children less opportunity to express their knowledge, whereas with the Swedish

children they used a cooperative strategy with much turn-taking on the part of the

children.

Such teachers might very likely hold stereotypical views of ethnic minorities.

Philips (1983) proposed that cultural differences affected teachers’ attitudes towards

American-Indian children and their assessments of the children’s capabilities. She

observed that children who did not participate in classroom discussions were

perceived as not paying attention, lacking motivation, or as less intelligent than the

students who met the teachers’ expectations of behaviors. These teachers failed to

understand that the children of American-Indian origin are taught that it was improper

to draw attention to themselves as individuals, to display knowledge, or to appear to

know more than others. It seems that in this study, many of the problems of

American-Indian children noted by their teachers resulted from incompatibilities

between Indian and Anglo systems for expressing one's knowledge orally.

Thus, devaluation of immigrant children's abilities, talents and potential may

result in fewer learning opportunities for these students. Fewer opportunities means

fewer learning successes, and thus fewer opportunities for positive feedback. If

teachers feel a student is incapable of accomplishing a task, they are less likely to

assign challenging tasks to these students, and are likely to see such challenges as a

burden on both their teaching time and on student's ability. Suבrez-Orozco (1989)

reports that many Central American refugee children may be inappropriately tracked

into vocational classes because counselors assume they are not "college material." In

Israel 50% of the immigrant students from the former USSR reported that the school's

attitude towards them is not good enough. Their teachers noted that insufficient and

unsatisfactory school resources in addition to a continuous influx of immigrant

students contributed to severe staff erosion. The typical pattern between immigrant

and veteran students in the elementary school was harassment, while in high school it

took the form of estrangement or alienation (Tatar, Kfir, Sever, Adler & Regev,

1994). Discriminative attitudes is also the explanation used by Au (1998) to explain

educational inequalities in school dealing with immigrant children in the U.S. She

14

claims that the different cultural norms and linguistic behaviors of minority groups

may be in conflict with the norms and educational processes of the receiving society.

Thomas and Collier (1997) examined 700,000 language minority students'

records collected in five urban and suburban districts in the U.S. over a period of 10

years to examine the effect of school programs on English language proficiency. They

showed that English learners who experience well-implemented versions of the most

common education programs of English studies finish their school at average

achievement level between 10th and 30th national percentiles. In comparison, whereas

native English-speaking students typically finish school at 50th percentile nationwide.

English L2 learners who received bilingual enrichment education finish their

schooling with average scores that reach or exceed the 50th national percentile.

Contrary to the above studies, other recent studies, especially on second-

generation children in the U.S., claim that the education of immigrants is of equal

validity and scope as of their non-immigrant peers. Portes and Rumbaut (2001) report

that immigrant children have higher grades, and sharply lower dropout rates than

native-born American children. The immigrant children work harder and aspire to

greater achievements. At the end of high school the vast majority (98%) speak and

understand English well. Vernez and Abrahams' (1996) study of a national sample of

more than 21,000 tenth and twelfth graders showed that in general, immigrant youth

and parents have higher educational aspirations than do natives of the same racial or

ethnic group. Individual and family factors associated with high school graduation,

college-going and college continuity are generally the same for immigrants and

natives, as well as across racial or ethnic groups. Immigrant students most likely to

attend college have parents with higher income and education levels, and higher

educational expectations for their children. Suבrez-Orozco and Suבrez-Orozco (1996)

examined the attitudes of Latino-adolescents in comparison to non-Latino whites.

They showed that immigrant students hold much more positive views of school and of

school authorities, and are less bored and alienated than their U.S.A. born peers.

An Israeli study that examined issues concerning the integration of

schoolchildren who had emigrated from the former USSR found that teachers

reported no significant differences in academic achievements between the immigrant

children and their Israeli-born classmates (Tatar, et al., 1994). It is important to note

here that the Russian immigrants are on average highly educated as compared with

the receiving population. From all immigrants aged 15 and upwards, over half (56%)

15

completed 13 or more years of schooling, compared to 28% in Israeli society in 1989

(Donitsa-Schmidt, 1999). Another study, with similar elicitation procedures as the

present study, showed that bilingual immigrant students of highly literate Russian

origin, who attained well-established schools, and had been speaking Hebrew for 8

years prior to data collection, write well-organized narratives and expository texts,

and use literate lexicon and register accordingly (Rabukhin, 2003).

Very little research is available on the Hebrew language used by the Ethiopian

population who started immigrating to Israel in 1978 (Shuster, 1997). To the best of my

knowledge, there have been no studies undertaken from a developmental perspective

among grade school to high school students. A study on the absorption of Ethiopian

immigrant youth reported that in two thirds of the families, most of the parents lacked

proficiency in basic Hebrew language skills, while 20% of the youth reported having

difficulties with writing papers in Hebrew, and in understanding and answering

questions on examinations (Lifshitz, Noam & Habib, 1998). Another study showed that

a large percentage (about 45%) of Ethiopian immigrant parents are unable to hold a

simple conversation in Hebrew and most (about 75%) are unable to read or write simple

Hebrew. Another study also claims that adult immigrants' success in learning Hebrew

has been limited (Habib, 2001). A study of teachers’ evaluations of their Ethiopian

gradeschool students indicates that most of their difficulties were in the domain of

language proficiency (Golan–Kuk, Horowitz & Shefatia, 1987). Zehavi (1992) points

to difficulties in acquisition of reading by recently immigrated Ethiopian adolescents,

and notes that these students do not distinguish clearly between written and spoken

modalities, rather they usually write as they speak. Nor do they seem to be aware that

the written text should produce exactly the same meaning for all who encounter it.

Consequently, they do not exploit their formal knowledge of grammar and syntax

properly while writing. About a quarter of Ethiopian immigrant students and their

teachers report the students as having major problems related to study habits, bringing

required materials to class, preparing homework and active participation in class.

(Lifshitz, et al., 1998).

A national normative assessment research (Ministry of Education, 2001) showed

large gaps in academic achievement between Ethiopian immigrant students and non -

Ethiopian students in Language, Mathematics, Science and English both in elementary

and junior high schools. Another national sample study in the 5th, 9th and 11th grades,

comparing the achievements in language and in mathematics between immigrant

16

students and their non-immigrant Israeli peers showed that Ethiopian students

(including second generation) scored significally less in both disciplines across age.

Moreover, it takes 5-11 years for the immigrant student of Ethiopian origin to reach

native proficiency in the Hebrew language (Levin, Shohamy & Spolsky, 2003). Another

study held in only seven elementary schools of low SES children showed that in almost

all the schools the Ethiopian students’ scores in language were lower than the non-

Ethiopians (Mero, 2003).

Dropout rates among Ethiopian students in Israeli high schools (5.7%) are

higher than among Israeli born students (3.9%) (Ministry of Education, 2002). The

percentage of Ethiopian students entitled to a full matriculation certificate reveals only a

third (34%) compared to 44% of the entire population, and less than 2,000 Ethiopian

immigrants (out of 12,400 between the ages 20-29) study in institutions of higher

education (The Student Authority 2000; The Association for Advancement in Education

2000).

These problems in academic achievements are probably linked to the Ethiopian

students' low economic status and inability of their parents to play a more prominent

role in their education. In addition, there is a growing concentration of Ethiopian

children in weaker, less well-established and less "successful" schools, and these

schools are further weakened as high-achieving students leave them in great numbers

(Habib, 2001). Nevertheless, attitudes to education, research and professionals' reports

indicate that Ethiopian children and their parents are highly aware that succeeding in the

educational system is of great importance and one of the major means of social

mobility, and they have high motivation for their children’s success in school (Lifshitz

et al., 1998). Levin et al (2003) show that Ethiopian students who regard their efforts to

acquire Hebrew positively, use Amharic and support the maintenance of their home

language, have better academic achievements.

Although the above studies point to the difficulties of the Ethiopian students in

the study of language, other studies showed that narratives, fables, legends and the use

of proverbs are very important among Ethiopian Jews, and are used in everyday

communication in Amharic (Ben Ezer, 1992; Nezer & Polani, 1988; Rozen, 1999).

These findings are consistent with the results of other studies on oral cultures which

display restricted use of reading and writing along with a rich variety of poetic and

narrative genres of expression (Derive, 1994; Finnegan, 1970; Levin, 1965).

17

From a socio-cultural perspective, some researchers have tried to explain

children’s narratives either by presenting the “speech genre” as the specialized

discourse form of the child’s group or community (Bakhtin, 1986) or by their previous

exposure to narratives (Michaels & Collins, 1984; Pontecorvo & Orsolini, 1996).

Researchers have recently begun to consider social and affective factors in children’s

speaking and writing (Daiute & Griffin, 1993; Nicolopoulou, 1996). The assumption in

all these studies is that cultural values influence what a speaker-writer determines as

important when telling or writing a story. Blum-Kulka (1993) explored cultural

diversity in dinner table conversation narratives of Jewish-American families and Israeli

ones. She found differences between the narratives of the two communities in the

content of story telling, in child involvement and in spatial and temporal distance in

telling stories. Bavin (2003) showed that adult speakers of Warlpiri (an Australian

Aboriginal language) use a lot of path marking with a locative noun, a case marker, a

verbal affix or a proverb in their stories, since in their culture, location, paths and

directions are highly valued. A study by Invernizzi and Abouzeiad (1995) suggests that

narrative is a primary means by which children develop the voice of their own culture.

Some studies showed that children produce narratives that reflect their cultural

linguistic norms and values. Children from two different cultural backgrounds (Ponam

Island and American) differed significantly in their structural components while re-

telling stories in English. The Ponam Island children wrote detailed factual recalls, but

omitted affective and moral elements, evidently, because their culture entails ritualistic

recitation of important events and regards morals as superfluous and tricks as

unexpected. The American children, on the other hand, condensed their recalls to the

gist of the story and always included the “main idea”, resolution, and consequence

supported by general impressions and evaluations. Kuntay and Nakamura (1993)

examined the use of narrative evaluative devices. They showed that Turkish and

Japanese narrators avoided making explicit evaluative comments. Relatedly, differences

were also found between Japanese and English-speaking children telling a personal

narrative: the Japanese children spoke succinctly about a collection of experiences

rather than elaborating on any one experience in particular, a finding which the authors

attribute to the high value of short narratives in Japanese society (Minami & McCabe,

1991; 1995). Clearly, the older members of the community socialize the children into

producing culturally specific narrative discourse by teaching and modeling the standard

norms and appropriate language forms for this discourse

18

Like these studies, the present study regards cultural background as a crucial

contextual factor in text production. Cultural values play an important role not only in

what people include in their texts, but also in whether they are willing to produce a

particular kind of text. A pilot study revealed that Ethiopian children were reluctant to

tell a personal-experience narrative. This reluctance occurred whether the researcher

was a non-Ethiopian or an Ethiopian adult. This could be explained as an expression of

the “honor code”, a cultural pattern which inhibits speaking in front of one’s elders or

strangers as an expression of respect (Ben Ezer, 1992; 1999). Therefore, I assume that

the differences between the various SES backgrounds will be mainly connected to the

thematic content in the children's' narratives. As the above studies show, narrators of

different cultural backgrounds are the exponents of norms, attitudes, and behaviors of

their own specific communities. This study recognizes the multiplicity of ways in which

meaning is made in a variety of cultural contexts. Such recognition emphasizes the

symbolic representation of the worth of the cultural group far beyond the particular

written texts.

This study is based on the conviction that factors conventionally associated with

low SES such as ethnic background, family income, or parents’ level of education are

not the sole factors in determining children’s language potential. Accordingly, the study

will probe, by means of a specially constructed questionnaire, a range of other

background factors in the subjects’ home and school environments, including attitudes

towards writing and towards their native language, their writing experiences and home

literacy activities. Coupled with this questionnaire designed specifically to address these

issues, a detailed linguistic analysis of the written text production of students from two

different low SES backgrounds (Ethiopian and non-Ethiopian) should provide us with

the means for characterizing what it takes to become a proficient writer in these

environments.

A further assumption underlying this study is that both immigrant and native-

speaking children from similar SES backgrounds will manifest similar behaviors in

their school-based language activities. This idea is forcefully argued by Laparra (1999),

but to the best of my knowledge, the proposed study is the first to address these issues

directly by means of carefully controlled linguistic analysis of the texts composed by

children from similarly low SES, but culturally distinct backgrounds.

Following this hypothesis, I further assume that there will be no differences

between children from different SES backgrounds with regard to general cognitive

19

development, as manifested in global text structure. Thus, on the one hand, aspects of

language use such as overall discourse organization in construction of narrative

compared with expository texts and in differentiating between them, should be similar

across population. On the other hand, there will most likely be differences in low SES

use of linguistical forms in both lexicon and morpho-syntax. Such differences can be

explained by environmental factors, which have an impact on literacy skills, such as

home background, cultural norms and school settings in which these children

function.

20

Chapter Two: Research Design and Methodology Introduction

This chapter describes the methodology and research design used in collecting

and analyzing the database of the study. The chapter starts with a general background

to the study (Section 2.1) followed by a description of the research populations (2.2),

a review of language teaching in the schools (2.3), procedures for data collection

(2.4), methods of transcription (2.5), and categories of analysis and research

predictions (2.6).

2.1 General Background This section describes the original crosslinguistic project from which the

present study derived and the procedures and findings of a pilot study, which

preceded the final research study (2.1.1). The second part delineates and motivates the

overall conceptual framework within which the present study was undertaken (2.1.2)

2.1.1 The original project and pilot research study

The overall design and procedures of data elicitation for this study were adapted

from a large-scale international research project on developing literacy and text

production abilities ("the original project")1. The main goal of the original project was

to understand how schoolchildren and adolescents construct monologic narratives and

expository texts in writing and in speech in comparison with highly literate adults.

The project investigated how monolingual, native speakers of seven different

languages including Israeli Hebrew, from mainstream, well-educated, middle- to

upper-middle class backgrounds, and attending mainstream schools, deploy linguistic,

cognitive and communicative resources to adapt their texts to different circumstances

1 As noted in Chapter 1, the study, entitled "Developing Literacy in Different Contexts and Different Languages" was funded by a Spencer Foundation major grant to Ruth Berman.

21

(narrative versus expository texts and written versus spoken discourse). Preliminary

results of the original project are presented in two issues of a special volume of the

Journal of Written Language and Literacy, edited by Berman and Verhoeven (2002).

Its aims, procedures and major crosslinguistic trends are described in detail in the

introductory article to the first issue (Berman & Verhoeven, 2002, pp.1-44). In

addition, findings for each of the seven languages in the study are analyzed in relation

to the shared theme of expressing discourse stance in a special issue of Journal of

Pragmatics (Berman, in press). A series of studies on the Hebrew data-base appear in

Aisenman, (Ed), 1999, while others have been published and/or are in press (Berman,

2001b; Berman & Nir, submitted; Berman & Katzenberger, submitted; Katzenberger

& Cahana-Amitay, 2002). In addition, and of particular relevance to the present study,

are two recently completed M.A. theses that applied similar methods of data-

elicitation on different populations. One investigated low SES children in the same

age-groups as mine who attend schools that are known for their rigorous academic

demands and high scholastic achievements (Salmon, 2002). The other examined

bilingual immigrant students of highly literate Russian origin who attend well-

established schools and had been speaking Hebrew for at least 8 years prior to data

collection (Rabukhin, 2003).

The main goal of the present research was to examine how low SES children

of different ages and from different ethnic backgrounds (Ethiopian and non-

Ethiopian) write monologic narrative and expository texts. The present study followed

the devised and carefully tested crosslinguistic project in overall conception and

research design in order to ensure maximum comparability of results from diverse

populations. My study was, however, modified in several important ways to meet its

underlying purpose and the particular research goals, which it pursued.

The design of the present study was adapted from the original project as

follows: (1) It included only schoolchildren, without a comparable group of adults

(for reasons detailed in section 2.3. below). (2) In contrast to participants in the

original study, the children were from relatively uneducated, low SES backgrounds –

one of Amharic-speaking Ethiopian parentage and the other consisting of native

speakers of Hebrew from similarly low SES backgrounds. (3) The study elicited only

written and non-oral texts, again for reasons specified in the section dealing with the

research population (2.3); (4) And it extends the original design by means of a

detailed and specially devised literacy questionnaire aimed at providing relevant

22

information about the research groups. As noted, these modifications suited the

overall goals of the study, and were supported by extensive piloting among

schoolchildren from backgrounds similar to the target populations.

The pilot study was conducted with 16 schoolchildren of Ethiopian and non-

Ethiopian parentage living in the same poor neighborhood and attending the same

schools. All participants in the pilot study were of low SES backgrounds and the

schools they attended were defined (as further detailed below) as of relatively lower

standards and academic achievements compared with the participants in the original

project both in Israel and abroad. As in the original project, the participants in my

pilot study were each required to produce four different texts: a written and a spoken

personal experience narrative and a written expository essay and a spoken class talk

on the same topic of interpersonal conflict. However, most of the Ethiopian children

proved reluctant to speak, or to produce any kind of oral text, especially when asked

to do so by a non-Ethiopian adult. In this, they differed markedly not only from the

middle-class subjects of the original project, but also from their non-Ethiopian peers

in the pilot study.

Piloting further revealed that the literacy questionnaire that had been used with

the Israeli subjects of the original project proved very difficult for all the children

from low SES background. Unlike the children of the original project, all the students

participating in my pilot study needed considerable help and direction in order to

answer the questions on the original literacy questionnaire, which required subjects to

describe their reading, writing, and other literacy-related activities both at school and

after school hours. As a result, it was decided to construct a separate questionnaire,

specially designed for the present study, which would take into account the

difficulties encountered in our pilot study (See, further, Section 2.7)

2.1.2 Overall conceptual framework

A piece of discourse reflects a piece of life. Thus, an analysis of texts that

relate to a complex human phenomenon such as interpersonal conflict cannot be

confined to the methods of a single discipline. Rather, in approaching such pieces of

discourse, a multidisciplinary approach is called for. Such a methodology is

particularly appropriate and even necessary in the case of texts written by grade

school children and adolescents from different backgrounds and ethnic origins. An

interpretation of immigrants' texts requires a contextualized framework for

23

understanding of crosscultural encounters. In other words, a multifaceted description

is needed to shed light on such complicated human experience (Denzin & Lincoln,

1994). Such a description is anchored in insights deriving from a range of disciplines

including linguistics, literacy studies, sociology, anthropology, education, and

psychology. In the present study, an integrated research approach of this kind was

applied by combining linguistic, socio-cultural, and educational perspectives. These

different perspectives provide a basis for an interconnected clustering of

interpretations and so allow fresh and richer insights into the research findings. In

keeping with this orientation, the study combines quantitative measures of the kind

associated with research in education and the social sciences and qualitative,

culturally motivated analyses together with structural analyses of linguistic forms and

constructions associated with the domains of general linguistics and Hebrew language

studies.

2.2 Research Population

The study investigates two different, though related research populations:

children of Amharic-speaking Ethiopian parentage (henceforth “the Ethiopian”

participants) and their native-Hebrew-speaking peers (“the non-Ethiopian subjects”),

both of similarly low SES background. Participants were selected so as to allow for

maximum comparability with the subjects of the original project, and particularly with

the Hebrew-speaking Israeli sample of that project. However, in contrast to the

original, Hebrew-speaking population, all the subjects in the present study come from

the same disadvantaged neighborhood in the outskirts of a large city in central Israel.

Schoolchildren were taken from the same three age groups as in the original project:

4th grade elementary school children, aged 9 to 10 years (labeled G), 7th grade junior-

high students aged 12 to 13 years (labeled J), and 11th grade high-school students

aged 16 to 17 years (labeled H). This yielded a breakdown of 16 Ethiopian children

[ETH] and 16 non-Ethiopian [NETH] in each age group. The two research groups

had an even number of boys and girls over all, but we were not able to balance each

group for sex, since it was impossible to find three such groups of Ethiopian children

at the same grade levels and residing in the same neighborhood throughout the

country. This did not seem too important to me, since sex did not turn out to be a

significant factor across the variables and the different countries in the original project

24

(Berman & Verhoeven, 2002, pp. 27). Students rated by their class and language

teachers as under-achievers in language studies were excluded from the study, as were

children suffering from known developmental or learning disabilities as reported by

the school counselors.

Table 1 shows the breakdown of the 96 participants in the study, in terms of

background (Ethiopian /non-Ethiopian), sex, and age and level of schooling.

Table 1 Breakdown of research population by origin, sex, and grade level

Ethiopian [N=16] Non- Ethiopian [ N=16]

Grade level Girls Boys Girls Boys

G (grade school) 9 7 10 6

J (junior-high) 7 9 7 9

H (high-school) 12 4 11 5

Total 28 20 28 20

All the subjects from both the Ethiopian and non-Ethiopian groups were taken

from the same grade level at the same school, in order to minimize possible effects of

school ideology or of specific methods for teaching writing and other language-

related skills between different schools and across different school systems. The three

schools (grade-school, junior-high, and high-school) attended by the subjects all

belong to the religious sector of the Israeli state school system. Evidently, the

Ethiopian children and adolescents were directed to the religious state education

system, which caters for students of religious or what is regarded as “traditional”

background (Weil, 1988, pp.125-126). To gain relevant background information, the

inspectors, principals, and counselors of each of the schools were asked to define their

schools on a three-level scale: high, average, and low, according to the following four

factors: (1) socio-economic level of the students’ home background; (2) academic

achievements of the students measured by standardized national language tests in

relation to national norms; (3) availability and use of adequate learning materials,

current programs and innovative educational projects; and (4) level of resources

available from the local authorities. All the educators that were consulted without

exception defined their students as members of low-income families, with high

25

percentages of unemployment, and relatively limited schooling, whose parents had a

maximum formal education of nine years of school. They ranked school resources and

facilities as low, while academic achievements and resources were defined as low to

average. The breakdown of student population in the three schools that participated in

the study was as follows: half of the grade-school students were of Ethiopian origin,

and in junior-high and high-school, only 30% were of Ethiopian origin.

The present study was confined to three age groups, or three levels of

schooling, in contrast to the original project, which included university graduate-level

adults. The reason for this was that it was almost impossible to find a sufficient

number of adults of Ethiopian background, who met the two criteria of speaking

Hebrew for eight years prior to the time of data collection and of having graduated

from university in Israel or elsewhere.

2.2.1 The Ethiopian group

All the Ethiopian children are of recent-immigrant origins and are raised in

multilingual settings. Two-thirds of the children in this group (35) are Israeli-born,

while one third (13) were born in Ethiopia. The vast majority of these subjects

reported that they speak at least some Amharic, but most of them (83%) reported that

they could not read or write in Amharic. Participants in the study had all spoken

Hebrew for at least the past eight years. This criterion was based on a study showing

that accommodation towards native-like linguistic behavior is reached after eight

years of stay in the host or target-language community (Blum-Kulka & Olshtain,

1984). Thus, the issue of “language” is not listed as an independent background

variable for the following reason. Hebrew, as the language of the Israeli school

system in general and the schools attended by members of both research populations

in particular, is defined in the present context as the shared “first language” or “L1” of

both the Ethiopian and non-Ethiopian subjects. In the present context, following

Polinsky (1997) and Romaine (1995), we define this not as the first language acquired

by children, typically the “home language”, but rather their “primary” or dominant

language. Thus, Hebrew is the main language of the country, and hence of the

subjects’ surroundings in the neighborhood and, most importantly, in the school.

All the parents of the Ethiopian children were born in Ethiopia, with Amharic

as their native language. School files revealed that parents of the Ethiopian subjects

26

averaged less than two years of formal schooling in their country of origin. In

contrast, in filling out the literacy questionnaires (Section 3.18), about two thirds of

their children reported that their parents could read and write Amharic, and one third

reported that they were able to read and write in Hebrew.

Teachers reported that the Ethiopian children take less part in class

discussions than the other students in the same class. As noted, in the Ethiopian

tradition, young people are inhibited from talking in the presence of their elders as a

signal of respect (Ben Ezer, 1992). An Ethiopian educational counselor explained the

children's disinclination for speaking in front of adults as yielding to a cultural

dictum. He told me that when an Ethiopian father sends his son to school, he says to

him: "Remember, my son, when you attend school, you go to ‘buy’ and not to ‘sell’".

This implies that a "good" student listens obediently and silently to the teacher

without expressing his or her knowledge by speaking in public. Their teachers

confirmed that they are also familiar with the Ethiopian children's reluctance to speak

in class. As a result, they prefer to evaluate their Ethiopian students' school

achievements mainly through their written work, rather than on the basis of their rare

oral output. The very short oral texts produced by the Ethiopian children in the pilot

phase of this study, coupled with their reluctance to speak with the young Ethiopian

man and woman, who conducted the pilot study, supported the teachers’ perceptions.

Consequently, it was decided for purposes of the present study to compare only

written texts of both the Ethiopian and the non-Ethiopian groups.

2.2.2 The non-Ethiopian group

Nearly all (92%) of the non-Ethiopian subjects were Israeli-born. Two were

born in Eastern Europe, but came to Israel as babies. At least half of their parents

were also Israeli-born. The rest emigrated from North Africa, with a few from Eastern

Europe. In marked contrast to the Ethiopian parents, information from school files

revealed the parents of this group as having an average of nine years of formal

education. Their children reported that all of their parents could read and write

Hebrew. The vast majority of the non-Ethiopian subjects (92%) also reported that

they spoke Hebrew in their homes. This breakdown is typical of the make-up of the

Israeli population in general, particularly in less advantaged neighborhoods. It is also

typical of the schools that service them. And it contrasts markedly with the Israeli

27

population of the original project, who were all third-generation and monolingual

speakers of Hebrew both of whose parents had both completed at least high-school

and often had further education as well.

2.2.3 The external control group for the literacy questionnaire

In addition to the two research groups, a third group of schoolchildren was

also asked to fill out the literacy questionnaire. This was done because the

comparison-population of the Israeli participants in the original project was given a

much more limited literacy questionnaire than the subjects of our study. The

“controls” for the literacy questionnaire were Israeli-born children of high SES

background in the same age groups and at the same levels of schooling as the research

groups, all from Hebrew-speaking, middle-to upper-class home backgrounds. In

addition, they were all above average, high achievers in school language studies, with

an average grade score of 95 (equivalent to A+ in the American school system). Their

school files revealed their parents as highly literate in Hebrew, with an average of

fifteen years of formal schooling.

This group was included in order to compare the responses to the literacy

questionnaires by children from varied backgrounds and with differential language

skills. This comparison provided a broad characterization of socio-cultural and

demographic variables, attitudes and literacy-based activities of children of low

compared with high-SES backgrounds.

2.3 Language Teaching in the Research Populations Schools

Israel as an immigrant-absorbing country has traditionally adopted a

monolingual ideology in relation to language teaching. Immigrants' Hebrew

proficiency was considered a key for their acculturation and integration into Israeli

society. Moreover, they were expected to forget their own languages as a sign of

loyalty to the country and of their assimilation to the Israeli community (Spolsky,

1995; Spolsky and Shohamy, 1999). Minority groups were even indoctrinated by

societal institutions to use no other language apart from Hebrew (Harshav, 1993).

This pattern of learning Hebrew at the expense of immigrant languages resulted in a

process of language shift, in the sense of the loss of most home languages of

28

immigrants arriving in Israel during the last hundred years (Ben Rafael, 1994, 2002).

In recent years, the Ministry of Education has supported a gradual change in

this ideology, expressing a new, less monolithic ideology. In the Language Education

Policy published by the Israel Ministry of Education in 1996, immigrants (especially

those from the two major groups of Russians and Ethiopians) are to be encouraged to

maintain their home languages in the course of their acquiring Hebrew. However, this

shift in policy towards a more open acceptance of multilingualism and language

maintenance has not been implemented in many educational institutions (Spolsky &

Shohamy, 1999).

Responses to the teachers’ questionnaires (Section 2.4.7) revealed that the

language teachers (who teach Hebrew literature, composition, and grammar) in the

three schools still believe in the hegemony of Hebrew. They also do not make use of

texts (in Hebrew) relating to Ethiopian Jewish culture or narratives typical of this

community. The teachers do not encourage the Ethiopian children to maintain

Amharic and they discourage them from using the language in oral interactions with

their friends in school. Some teachers rated Amharic as a low prestige language

compared to Hebrew or even to the home languages of other minority groups. The

language teachers also did not use any written texts in Amharic and no ethnic music

or even songs in Amharic were broadcast during school breaks. None of the teachers

knew more than three words or expressions in Amharic, although some of them had

been teaching Ethiopian children for as long as ten years.

With regard to the teaching of writing, the language teachers were revealed as

using conservative methods of instruction and relying on old, well-established

learning materials. In grade school, none of the teachers had adopted recently

developed, newer learning materials for teaching of writing. Nor had the different

language teachers in the school developed an integrated language program with

common goals for all students. Similar findings emerged for the junior-high-school,

where the language teachers could not define common goals for the teaching of

writing in their school. Moreover, none of them used the recently published language

book recommended by the Ministry of Education. The high-school language teachers

made wide use of teaching materials that they had developed on their own, aimed

mainly at rote practice of grammar. Various teachers used different books in the same

age-grade, and they did not share the same norms for defining language success. Only

two teachers had taken part in an in-service language-training course during the year

29

prior to data collection.

2.4 Data Collection Procedures

The research design involved six components: four were conducted with

students in class or individually; the fifth was a structured questionnaire for

interviewers; and the sixth, a questionnaire for teachers. Three of the four student

components were held in class, introduction to the task; personal questionnaire;

writing of the two texts; while the literacy questionnaire was conducted individually

by an adult interviewer. In all four parts of the study, the original procedures and

instructions were adapted as noted, from the original project, and geared especially to

the cultural needs and norms of Ethiopian subjects.

2.4.1 Introduction to the task

To start with, the overall aims and procedures of the study were explained in

detail to each class in order to overcome the typical reluctance of Ethiopian

immigrants to cooperate with research about themselves and their community. In the

Ethiopian community, the qualities of doubt, mistrust, suspicion and caution are

highly regarded. Children are warned against the danger of being naןve in this respect.

Ethiopians are also expected not to share personal details of their life with others.

Negative feelings such as seeking vengeance, anger, and envy are kept to oneself

(Ben-Ezer, 1992; 2002). Given these major features of Ethiopian social interaction,

there was a risk that the theme of “interpersonal conflict”, which formed the basis for

eliciting personal-experience narratives in the original project, would constitute an

insurmountable source of difficulty for the participants in the present study 2 and the

entire research design could have been undermined. In order to overcome the issue of

trust, the researcher presented herself as a “friend”, where a friend in this context is

2 In fact, earlier versions of the original crosslinguistic project showed that this topic failed to elicit personal-experience narratives of interpersonal conflict from participants from the northern countries such as the Netherlands and even more markedly Sweden. Accordingly, in the final version of the crosslinguistic project, participants in these countries were asked to tell and write a story about a situation where someone had helped extricate them from a difficult situation (Berman & Verhoeven, 2002).

30

defined as somebody who first and foremost can keep a secret (Ben Ezer, 2002b).

Accordingly, all subjects were assured of complete confidentiality, and told that no

information concerning their participation in the study would be given to their

teachers.

In order to overcome the Ethiopian children’s reluctance to share negative

personal feelings, another important Ethiopian behavioral code was activated. This

cultural code requires every member of this community not to refuse an authority

figure, even when one disagrees with or does not accept what this figure says (Ben

Ezer, 1999). The school and student counselors were asked to encourage collaboration

with the researcher by motivating their students to do their best in performing the

task. They did so by being present during data collection and also by stressing the

prestige of the participation as the “Israeli representatives in an important

international research project”. They made it clear that the school authorities expected

the students to cooperate with the researchers, but that their performance would not

constitute a factor in teacher evaluation or school grades.

To ensure that subjects understood the key terms relating to the variables of

the study, the introduction to the task, which used the same instructions as in the

original project, was supplemented by a short discussion concerning the differences

between a narrative and an expository text -- a procedure that had not been found

necessary in the original project. Subjects were then encouraged to ask questions,

most of which related to the confidentiality of the data. The researcher ended the

introduction by thanking them for their cooperation. Subjects were then presented

with the same short video clip without words as was used in the original project,

showing scenes of different kinds of unresolved conflicts of a moral, social, and

physical nature in a typical culturally neutralized school setting

2.4.2 Personal data sheet

Following the introduction to the task, each student was given a short personal

data-sheet to fill out in writing – stating name, sex, age, home-address, class, and

school. The aim of this short questionnaire was to verify details given by the school.

31

2.4.3 Text production:

All participants produced two texts, in two different orders, following the

original design: half the subjects (group A) first produced an expository text and then

a narrative text (order A), and the other half (group B) first produced a narrative and

then an expository text (order B). Both texts were produced during the same class

session, but elicitation was conducted in separate classrooms - one for group A and

the other for group B.

In order to elicit narratives, subjects were asked to write a story describing an

incident that had happened to them personally, in which they had experienced

problems with somebody else. In order to elicit expository texts, subjects were asked

to write a composition in which they discussed the topic of problems between people.

This method intentionally mirrored the class-like atmosphere of a school-based task

[See Appendix II]. Adult investigators, Ethiopian and non-Ethiopian, who were

introduced as “helpers” to the students during the introduction to the task, were

available for each row in each classroom, in order to answer questions, and to ensure

that students were not confused or upset.

2.4.4 Literacy questionnaire

The literacy questionnaire of the original project was expanded considerably

to meet the particular goals of the present study and the general nature of the research

populations. Its main goal was to shed light on school and home variables and

attitudes towards language and identity, which may affect language proficiency. For

example, the questionnaire probes the subjects’ attitudes towards Hebrew, towards

writing, and towards their native language (following the examples in Akinçi, 1999;

Ben Raphael, Olshtain & Gist 1994; Donitsa-Schmidt, 1999; Molokandov, 1999).

Second, the questionnaire investigates the writing behaviors of the target populations

based on guidelines published by the Israeli Ministry of Education (1999) for the

required literacy skills in first grade. Third, it surveys home literacy activities, along

lines proposed by Lahire (1995) in working with lower SES populations in Britain. In

addition to relying on personal experience with the school system and administration,

I also consulted with ten Israeli researchers and educators in relevant domains,

including: developmental psychology, education, educational evaluation, Ethiopian

culture, linguistics, literacy, and sociology. This was done in order to include

questions concerning socio-linguistic, educational, and psychological variables

affecting text-production abilities in the new version of the questionnaire. The first

32

version of the revised questionnaire was piloted among several children of different

ages from the same backgrounds as the research populations. It proved too long and

tedious for them, and a shorter third version was constructed. This was then

successfully tried out on several children at the same ages as the final research groups.

The final version of the research questionnaire contains 24 open-ended and multiple-

choice items relating to attitudes to language, writing behaviors and home literacy.

Each student was required to fill out a questionnaire in writing. In order to

lighten the load on the children, the questionnaires were administered on a one-to-one

basis during a meeting with a supporting investigator, held one to three days after text

production. Subjects were allowed to choose which one of eight available adults they

wished to work with. The eight interviewers were divided by sex (four women and

four men), by age (four in their twenties and four in their forties), and by origin (four

Ethiopians and four non-Ethiopians). This was done in order to provide positive

origin and sex-role models, especially for the Ethiopian children, who are inhibited

from talking in the presence of strangers as a mark of respect (Ben Ezer, 1992; 1999).

I believed the Ethiopian children would feel more at ease if they were able to share

personal details concerning their homes with a familiar adult from their own

community and sex. Ascher (1991) proposes the participation of race and sex role-

models in grade schools. His review of over twenty programs for African-American

boy students led him to recommend those which included male African-American

classroom teachers, adults from the community and also older students to help young

students of the same race and sex. Along these lines, subjects in the present study

were free to choose which interviewer to work with out of eight adults, divided

equally by race and by sex. Each subject sat opposite the interviewer at a small table

where he or she filled out a questionnaire in writing. Subjects were allowed to ask the

interviewer to read out and/or to explain the questions to them.

The literacy questionnaire was analyzed according to the following domains:

1) level of success in Hebrew language studies, 2) proficiency in writing, 3) attitudes to

writing activities, 4) level of proficiency in Amharic, 5) attitudes to writing and

definition of the proficient writer, 6) language attitudes, 7) interviewer information on

the questionnaire as a task, 8) parental background, and 9) home literacy. Each domain

was evaluated according to age and origin and in terms most relevant to the general

purpose of the study – the impact of literacy and literacy-based experiences on

students’ perceptions and attitudes.

33

2.4.5 Interviewer questionnaire

Each of the eight interviewers filled out a short questionnaire for each subject

that he or she accompanied regarding the subject’s conduct in the course of

performing the task. The questionnaire contained information about how much and

what kind of help each student needed, the time it took to fill out the questionnaire,

and how difficult it was for him or her. Each interviewer was also asked to write his

or her own general impression of how the subject handled the task. The interviewers'

protocols describing the contents of the interview provided essential cultural context

regarding the children's behavior while filling out the literacy questionnaire.

2.4.6 Teacher’s evaluation sheet

The class language teachers (that is, teachers of Hebrew language, grammar,

composition, and/or literature) filled out an evaluation form for each student. They

were asked to give each student an average grade on his or her level of general

achievement in Hebrew language studies, including composition and literature.

Grades were ranked on a scale from 50 to 100, as accepted in the Israeli system, as

follows: 50 (fail), 60 (fair), 70 (average), 80 (good), 90 (very good), 100 (excellent).

This is roughly equivalent to the scale used in the U.S. school system:

50 = F, 60 = D, 70 = C, 80 = B, 90 = A. This was done in order to examine whether

the teachers evaluate the Ethiopians' and the non-Ethiopians' language proficiency in

similar ways.

2.4.7 Teachers' reports on the teaching of writing

The language teachers were also asked to report on the specific learning

materials they used in class for teaching writing. In addition, they were asked to

specify three topics or goals they focus on in the course of their teaching (e.g.,

introducing composition genre differentiation, writing abstracts and summaries,

underlying key concepts etc.).

2.5 Transcription

34

The present study adopted the methods for text transcription used in the

Hebrew sample of the original project, with the aim of achieving maximum

comparability across the two data sets, and in order to describe general developmental

tendencies in different research populations (Berman & Verhoeven, 2002). Following

the basic CHAT format designed for the original project of child language data in the

Child Language Data Exchange Systems (CHILDES), as described in MacWhinney

(1995; 2000), the CHAT method of broad phonetic transcription serves as a base for

the CLAN system of language analysis programs, and so was adopted in the present

study. As in the Hebrew sample of the original study, here too, the transcription was

adapted to suit extended texts produced by schoolchildren and adults, to represent

written as well as spoken texts, and to accommodate a language with a non-Latin

system of orthography. The method of transcription applied in the original study for

these purposes proved fully appropriate to the present study (for an example of a

transcribed text see Appendix II).

Two different versions for each text were produced in the original project: a

replica or “mirror” version representing the text as closely as possible in the form

produced by the subject and a standardized or "stripped" version that omitted or

corrected deviations such as pauses, hesitations, filler syllables and repetitions in speech

and spelling errors and deletions or corrections in writing. The present study used only

the standardized version for each of the two texts, since its focus was on the written texts

as products of the text construction process. It was therefore decided in advance not to

include subjects' spelling as a variable of analysis. On the other hand, the original

handwritten texts (that is, the “mirror” versions) were used for further examination of

"writing as a notational system" (Ravid & Tolchinsky, 2002) to compare the spelling of

the subjects of this study with those of the subjects in the Hebrew sample of the original

project (Nir-Sagiv, 2002).

35

2.6. Categories of Analysis and Associated Predictions This section describes and motivates the categories established for analyzing

the data-base, supplemented by relevant research hypotheses relating to the major

independent variables of the study: (1) Development -- three levels of age and

schooling; (2) Genre or text type -- narrative or expository; and (3) Origin --

Ethiopian or non-Ethiopian children of low SES background -- in many cases

compared with their mainstream peers. The predictions relating to each variable in

each category are based on several sources. First, they rely heavily on prior research

regarding language and discourse abilities of such populations in Israel and abroad –

as discussed in the preceding chapter and elaborated here below. Second, they take

into account findings of the original project for subjects in the same age-groups but

from middle-to upper-class, well-educated backgrounds – mainly although not only

from the Hebrew sample of the original project. Third, they rely on extensive piloting

conducted as background to this study. As a fourth source of input for my predictions,

I take advantage of my own close familiarity and lengthy professional experience with

the Israeli school system, curriculum construction and educational practices in

general, and work with children of disadvantaged backgrounds and of Ethiopian

extraction in particular.

This study involves different categories and domains of analysis which have

been shown to be relevant to and even diagnostic of developing literacy and text-

writing abilities. These include both "bottom-up" analyses at the level of lexical items

and internal clause structure as well as more global "top-down" analyses of overall

text length and discourse structure. The domains analyzed include the following: text

length as measured in terms of number of words and clauses per text (2.6.1);

syntactic complexity - measured in terms of number of words per clause, interclausal

syntactic packaging, and types of linking devices in clause packaging (2.6.2); lexical

richness - as defined in terms in terms of lexical density, or proportion of content

words per text (2.6.3); thematic content - what topics subjects chose to refer to as

expressed by the lexical content of their texts (2.6.4); violations of linguistic norms -

as measured by (a) grammatical errors, (b) lexical infelicities, and (c) register mixing

(2.6.5); and global text construction - in terms of overall discourse structure, text

components and organization of information in the text (2.6.6).

36

2.6.1 Text length

Text length was measured in terms of number of words and clauses per text.

In line with a key motif of the original project, which highlighted the critical role of

the lexicon in developing deployment of morpho-syntactic structures and text-

production abilities (Strömqvist, Johansson, Ragnarsdóttir, Aisenman & Ravid, 2002;

Cahana-Amitay & Sandbank, 2000; Ravid & Cahana-Amitay, in press), this study

used the word as a basic unit of analysis. Any lexical analysis needs to start out by

specifying a basic unit of demarcation in the form of a “lexical item” and by defining

a “word”, generally recognized as the basic building block of any language. Yet both

are extremely difficult to define (Anderson, 1983; Berman, 2001). In view of

problems of principle in demarcating and defining linguistic lexical elements and

difficulties encountered in this respect in the original project (Berman, 2002;

Strömqvist et al., 2002), it was decided to adopt a conservative traditional

orthographic convention in specifying what constitutes a word, corresponding to what

is termed in Hebrew teyva literally, ‘box, crate’, used to refer to a written word. This

ensured consistency in transcription with written conventions and also yielded

comparability between our data base and the Hebrew sample of the original project.

Following the method of segmentation in the original project, a lexical item

was defined as any element separated from the preceding and following elements by a

space in the transcription of both narrative and expository texts (Berman, 2001).

Special account was taken of the fact that in Hebrew, the definite article ha- ‘the’, the

prepositions le- ‘to’, be- ‘in’, mi- ‘from’, ke- ‘as’, and the conjunctions ve- ‘and’, še-

‘that’ are orthographically bound to the following word. For example, the complex

string vekšehaish (ba) = ve-k-še-ha- ish ' and-as-that-the-man (came)' = ‘and when

the man(came)’ was coded as one word. These orthographically bound morphemes

were specially marked with the symbol ^ in order to allow for listing them as distinct

lexical items, corresponding to their European counterparts, which are written as

separate words.

The term "lexical item" was extended from “a word” to include multilexemic

strings consisting of more than a single transcribed word in the case of set, formulaic

or idiomatic expressions of the kind that are typically semantically unanalyzed, and

which often have monolexemic counterparts. Examples of such lexicalized

expressions include bound compounds like bet sefer ‘house-of book = school’, baal

bayit ‘master-of house = landlord’ and other multi-word expressions like af~pa'am

37

‘no time = never’, af al pi xen ‘but on mouth-of so = even so’ (Aisenman & Berman,

2000; Berman, 2001). Appendix II illustrates how texts were divided into words.

Analysis was also conducted on the clause as the basic unit for syntactic

analysis on two levels of syntactic organization - within and across clauses.

Following Labov (1972), the clause was chosen as a basic unit of text segmentation in

two large scale crosslinguistic and developmental studies – one on oral narratives of

children aged 3 to 9 years compared with adults (Berman & Slobin, 1994) and also in

the original project dealing with oral and written narratives and expository texts

(Berman & Verhoeven, 2002). In both these studies, the clause -- defined as "a

unified predicate describing single situation (an activity, event or state)" (Berman &

Slobin, 1994, p.660) -- proved to be a reliable, developmentally diagnostic, and

psychologically real unit of analysis across languages, modalities, and genres. In the

present study, like in the original project, the clause served in place of the behavioral

unit of an “utterance” as the boundary for the "textline" as defined in the CHILES

transcription conventions (MacWhinney, 1995, 2000). Based on the conventions of

text segmentation applied in the original project, texts in the present study were

divided into clauses. Three native speakers of Hebrew with training in linguistics

divided all the texts into clauses. All cases of disagreements were discussed and

resolved. Inter-judge agreement was 99.5%.3

The present study followed the CHAT conventions as described in the

CHILDES procedures for language production analysis for coding each unit of

analysis on a separate coding tier.

2.6.1.1 Text length as measured by number of words per text

Text length, as noted, measured in terms of number of words and clauses per

text increases with age. Scott and Windsor (2000) showed that even school-age

children with language learning disabilities write longer texts with age. The following

predictions were specified with respect to text length as measured by number of

words:

• Text length was expected to increase with age, especially between 7th to

11th grade in both research groups, in line with what was found for the

3 I am indebted to Nurit Assayag and Bracha Nir for their help in this connection.

38

crosslinguistic subjects (and see, too, for oral narratives, Berman & Slobin,

1994, page 31).

• The narratives of the research groups were expected to include more words

than the expository texts across age-groups, again in line with findings for the

crosslinguistic population.

• Country of origin was not expected to make a difference in this respect,

since the two research groups share similar literacy environments, both at

home and at school, of the kind that are critical to vocabulary development.

For this reason, too, country of origin was not expected to be a differentiating

factor between the two research groups, across all measures of vocabulary

development (number of words, number of content words, lexical density,

etc.).

• With regard to population, I predicted that the texts of the crosslinguistic

subjects would in general include more words – and more different words --

than those of the low SES children, since upper SES gradeschool children are

known to have larger vocabularies than their lower-class counterparts (Anglin,

1993; Hart & Risley, 1995). Moreover, high SES children have the advantage

of more varied written language experiences and richer literacy environments

both in their schools and their homes (Dickinson & Tabors, 1991, 2001; Duke,

2001).

2.6.1.2 Text length as measured by number of clauses

Text length was measured in a range of related studies by number of clauses

per texts, and this measurement was found to be sensitive to age and genre in Hebrew

as in other languages (Berman & Ravid, 1999; Berman & Slobin, 1994; Berman &

Verhoeven, 2002). I therefore predicted for the present study that (1) average number

of clauses would also increase with age and (2) average text length would be higher in

the expository texts, (3) I predicted that there would be no differences between the

two research groups, who were expected to reveal the same general school-related

abilities, since they attend the same school system, they share the same classes in

language and the same language teachers, and they have similar backgrounds of low

literacy. (4) With regard to the different populations, following studies showing that

the narrative development of minority children may be hampered – particularly in the

39

host language -- due to restricted channels of input (Akinçi, 1999; Akinçi et al 2001;

Verhoeven in press), I predicted that text length as measured by average number of

clauses would be higher in the original project than in the research populations of this

study.

In sum, with regard to overall text size in my sample I expected the two

measures of text length, in words and clauses, to show the same patterns across the

populations.

2.6.2 Syntactic complexity

This study lies in the domain of "later language acquisition", since it examines

the language production of children well beyond the preschool years, from age 9 years

up. Language development can be characterized in terms of increasing complexity

and explicitness in general and greater syntactic complexity and coherency in

particular. Later syntactic development is attested by qualitative and quantitative

increases in appropriate syntactic constructions for a variety of genres (Berman &

Verhoheven, 2002; Nippold, 1998; Ravid, 2003). This increase in amount and kind of

syntactic constructions is manifested in longer and more complex text length (Berman

& Ravid, 1999; Berman & Verhoheven, 2002; Salmons, 2002). Even though

preschool children have established grammars with a varied range of syntactic

constructions including in Hebrew (Berman & Dromi, 1986), complex syntax

continues to develop during schooling and into adulthood (Scott, 1995). During these

years language users become more and more familiarized with linguistic features

typical of the written language of various text types (Gillis & Ravid, in press), and

learn how to deploy these structures appropriately in the context of extended

discourse (Berman, 1996, 1998; Berman & Slobin, 1994). In written language, clause

length increases from approximately five words per clause in fourth grade to eight

words per clause by twelfth grade (Hunt, 1965). Thus, the syntactic development of

proficient writers is expressed in the scope and quality of their particular choice of

syntactic means from the available repertoire of linguistic forms and constructions. In

a functional, discourse-oriented perspective, the hierarchical organization of

information is reflected by means of the skillful and appropriate deployment of

complex syntax. Consequently, proficient writers organize their ideas not only in the

form of linear chaining, but as hierarchically packaged constructions.

40

Along these lines, syntactic complexity in this study is measured both in terms

of number of words per clause, interclausal syntactic packaging and types of linking

devices in clause combining. The number of words (as defined above) per clause has

been shown to reflect increasing density of packaging of more information inside a

given syntactic unit in the form of more words per package and more phrases per

clause (Saltzman & Reilly, 1999). With regard to syntactic complexity measured by

number of words per clause, I predicted an increase with age, and in expository texts

compared with narration I also predicted that this measure would not be sensitive to

origin, but would be sensitive to population. Thus, it would be lower in both the low

SES research population in my study compared with the subjects of the original study.

2.6.2.1 Connectivity or clause-combining as measured by clause packages

In an attempt to further examine later syntactic development as attested by

diverse and complex syntactic architectures, each text was also segmented into text

units termed Clause Packages- a unit of analysis established in the original project,

and termed originally "L(onger)units" (Aparici, Tolchinsky & Rosado, 2000; Cahana-

Amitay, submitted; Cahana-Amitay & Berman, 1999; Cahana- Amitay & Sandbank,

(2000); Katzenberger, 1999; Kriz, Reilly & Saltzman, 2000; Verhoeven et al, 2002).

L(onger) units, as defined in the original project, take into consideration not only

syntactic, but also thematic and discourse properties in defining clause linkage or

inter-clausal connectivity. They extend what is known in the linguistic and discourse

literature as clause linkage (Haiman & Thompson, 1988), syntactic packaging

(Berman & Slobin, 1994: pp. 538-554), or connectivity (Berman, 1998).

Segmentation of texts into clause packages was based on the criteria proposed in the

above studies for Hebrew.

Thus, clause packaging is taken to throw light on how speaker-writers

organize or package information in texts. The ability to use more complex packaging

reflects the attempt of more proficient writers to create more tightly organized and

integrated combinations of information within the boundaries of a single "sentence",

and enables speaker-writers to present more information as background or secondary

compared with others by means of "the subordination of event component to a high

point and the conflation of event-complex" (Berman & Slobin, 1994, p.538).

41

In the earlier crosslinguistic study of oral narrative development, the amount of

interclause linkage per text, defined as "syntactic packaging", increased

quantitatively, and also qualitatively in terms of scope and type of packaging devices

with age (Berman, 1998). Berman showed a consistent age-related rise in overall

amount of subordinate clauses by children in different discourse languages. Cahana-

Amitay (2003) found that the scope of clause packages in the narratives of the

Hebrew sample of the original study, measured by clause/clause package ratio, was

not sensitive to development since it remains constant across ages and modalities. On

the one hand, these findings match Kess' claim that combinations of over three

clauses are difficult to process (Kess, 1993). Rather, on the other hand, the internal

structure and organization of the clause inside the packages - so called "syntactic

architecture" - change markedly with age and literature.

Against this background, as in the original study, I predicted that clause

packaging, measured by number of clauses per clause package would remain constant

with age in both research groups. On the other hand, with respect to the variable of

genre, I predicted that, clause packages would be longer in the expository texts since

these in general reflect greater linguistic complexity (Ravid, in press). As before, with

regard to population, I expected to find shorter clause packages in both low SES

research groups across genres.

2.6.2.2 Linking devices in clause packaging

As a second measure of inter-clausal syntax (in conjunction with lexical

usage), I also examined the linking devices that is, the kind of connection elements

used to link one clause to another. "Linking devices" in clause packaging were ranked

along a continuum in descending order of explicitness and transparency: syntactic <

syntactic-discursive < discursive . Syntactic links include all forms of subordination,

for example in an expository text of a junior-high non-Ethiopian girl: im xaver shelxa

loh ohev] she (subordination complement) ^ata pogea bo o kol miney dvarim] az

(juxtaposition) al ta' asu zot] ki az (subordination adverbial) ze yaxol ligrom

le^meriva alimut recax ve^xu ' if a friend of yours does not like that you hurt him and

such things, so don't do it, because then it might cause a quarrel, violence, murder

etc.'.4 Syntactic links also include coordinating conjunctions that occur between

4 In transcribing Hebrew examples, as before, I used a broad phonemic transcription. The subordinated markers are underlined. The examples are followed this time by only a standardized free translation.

42

consecutive clauses with a shared subject, and serve for grouping clauses together in a

package. e.g: in a narrative of high-school Ethiopian boy- leaxar miken hem hitvakxu

al kax] ve-basof hem hitxilu lariv al kax, 'later they argued about it and finally they

began fighting about it', Shay kam al raglav ve-רrac be-mehirot le-beyto, ' Shay got

up on his feet and ran home quickly', in an expository text of the same boy- lefi da'ati

carix lemager et tofa'at ha-alimut ve-lifol le-shipor ha-xevra, ' in my opinion there is

a need to demolish the phenomenon of violence and to act for the improvement of

society'.

Syntactic-discursive links included coordination of different-subject clauses,

e.g. in a narrative of an Ethiopian high-school girl - aval besofo shel davar aviha

halax l-tipol psixologi ve hem xazru le-shigra normalit, ' but finally her father went

for psychological therapy and they returned to the normal routine'.

Purely discursive links included discursively juxtaposed clauses; e.g. in a

narrative of an Ethiopian high-school girl- kvar shalaxnu axat la-shniya katavnu

mixtavei hitnaclot ve-slixa, 'already (we) sent each other (we) wrote letters of

apologies and forgiveness'.

Cahana-Amitay (2003) found a clear difference in the transparency of clause

packages in the narratives of the Israeli children compared with those produced by

adults. The adults used more syntactic devices alongside clearly identifiable discourse

relations. The links between clauses were primarily syntactic across the age groups.

I predicted the research groups would follow the subjects of the original study and

also primarily use syntactic links, which would increase with age.

With regard to genre, I predicted that the expository texts would include more

varied types of links. This is because the hierarchical discursive relations expressed in

expository texts are reflected in tight syntactic packaging in terms of embeddedness

and dependence. (Matthiessen & Thompson, 1988; Cahana-Amitay & Sandbank,

2000). Regarding the different populations, I also expected the middle class subjects

to include more varied types of links especially in their expository texts. This

prediction is based on the fact that upper-class children have a more developed

repertoire of syntactic means, which they properly deploy while producing different

types of texts. In comparison, the expository development of low SES children is

stagnated due to restricted channels of input.

In the present study a specialist in linguistics and two native speakers with

training in linguistics divided all the texts into clause packages independently. All

43

cases of disagreements were discussed and resolved. Reliability as measured by inter-

judge agreement reached as high as 99% 5. All clause packages were marked and

counted.

2.6.3 Lexical richness

Later-language lexicon is characterized by a more complex and larger lexical

inventory (Anglin, 1993; Gillis & Ravid, 2003). In this study lexical richness is

measured by lexical density - in the sense of relative proportion of content words per

text. This measure was used in research contrasting the modalities of speech and

writing (Halliday, 1985; Ure, 1971). Written discourse was characterized as having a

higher "lexical density", as measured in terms of higher percentages of content words

– items in the major lexical classes of noun, verb, adjective -- per total number of

word tokens in a text. It seems that lexical information is more important in written

discourse, since meaning has to be inferred only from the words of the text itself.

Lexical density was applied to examine the effect of modality in the English, Hebrew,

Icelandic, and Swedish data of the original project (Strömqvist et al, 2002). Lexical

density was defined in their study as “the proportion of content words to total number

of words, where a content word is a noun, a verb (excluding auxiliaries and copula),

an adjective, or a word derived from one of these” (p. 48). Results showed that the

written texts consistently scored higher on lexical density with age. In addition,

lexical density was used as a measure of text comprehensibility or text explicitness.

De Vries (1998) used lexical density as an accurate readability measure, and

demonstrated that there is a correlation between low lexical density and

comprehension test scores. Thus, less densely packed texts are more easily

comprehended, particularly among non-proficient readers.

Following the definition in the study of Strömqvist et al (2002), I decided to

measure the proportion of content words or “open-class items”, in the (written)

database of my research, since these items are known to be the primary bearers of

semantic or referential content in a text (Berman, 1988, 2001; Landau & Gleitman,

1985; Maratsos, 1988). As such, content words constituted the basic units for analysis

of lexical density in the present study.

5 I am indebted to Dalia Cahana-Amitay and Bracha Nir for their help in this connection.

44

In order to ensure reliability of the definition of “content words” in the present

study, judgements of the researcher of this study were compared with those of a

specialist in Hebrew language and linguistics and another native speaker of Hebrew

with training in linguistics. All three independently divided all lexical items in the

database of the two research populations into the following four lexical classes:

nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs derived from adjectives (e.g., be-yesodiyut

‘with-thoroughness = thoroughly”, following the conventions used in the original

project. Inter-judge agreement reached 100% 6

The following predictions were specified with respect to lexical density as

measured by proportion of content words to total words per text.

Lexical density with regard to development

The growth rate of these content words was expected to increase with age.

This prediction is based on Verhoeven’s (1994) analysis of spontaneous speech and

picture descriptions of Turkish children living in the Netherlands, between ages 6 to 8

years, which revealed an age-related advance in the use of content words in Dutch as

a second language. And on the original project conducted by Strömqvist et al. (2002),

which also found significant differences in relative proportion of content words as a

function of age. Text length was expected to increase with age, especially between 7th

to 11th grade in both research groups, in line with what was found for the

crosslinguistic subjects (and see, too, for oral narratives, Berman & Slobin, 1994,

p. 31).

Lexical density with regard to genre

With regard to genre, lexical density was expected to be higher in the

expository texts, which tend to a greater density than narratives (Berman &

Verhoeven, 2002; Ravid & Cahana-Amitay, in press).

Lexical density with regard to origin

Again, lexical density was not expected to be sensitive to country of origin, for

the reasons noted earlier with respect to text length.

Lexical density with regard to population

With respect to population, I expected to find a higher lexical density in the

texts of the middle-class subjects of the original project compared with both the

6 I am indebted to Marit Sternau and Bracha Nir for their help in this connection.

45

research populations, and that this would apply across both the narrative and

expository genres. This prediction is based on research showing that low SES children

lag behind middle-class students in command of vocabulary, as measured in different

ways. For example, low-income fourth-grade children in the United States were

shown to slip below expected achievements in reading, and this is particularly marked

in tests of vocabulary (Chall & Snow, 1988). Hart and Risely’s (1995) longitudinal

analysis of early preschool children’s vocabulary from 42 families of different SES

backgrounds showed that at three years of age, the child with the smallest vocabulary

of the children from professional families had a significantly larger vocabulary

compared with children from welfare families. Weizman (1995) examined the

vocabulary of 53 low-income pre-schoolers in the Boston area from the point of view

of vocabulary knowledge needed for literacy success at school in interaction with

their mothers from preschool into early schoolage. Her findings suggest that even

though some low-income children are exposed to quite sophisticated and varied

maternal vocabulary input, their generally limited exposure to a wide and advanced-

level word stock is likely to condemn them to what she terms “literacy failure”. In

Israel, Kemp (1984) also found gaps between junior-high-school students from

different SES backgrounds, in terms of vocabulary and concept knowledge measured

by synonyms, exceptions, opposites, idioms and definitions.

2.6.4 Thematic content

An underlying assumption of this study is that culture is a significant source of

meaning construction and of self-identity. Many researchers considered the

importance of personal story-telling for the development of self in different cultural

contexts (Bruner, 1986, 1990; Miller, Fung & Mintz, 1996; Sperry & Sperry, 1995),

since the “narrative is acknowledged to be a primary means by which children

develop the voice of their own culture” (Invernizzi & Abouzeid, 1995, p. 3). In a

personal-experience narrative, the speaker-writer's identity and behavior respond to

socially established expectations. These expectations reflect how belonging to a

certain ethnic group may affect the speaker-writer's action in particular domains of

life (De Fina, 2000). Consequently the texts constructed by children from different

cultures and backgrounds can be expected to differ mainly in the thematic content

they choose to write about, and the content of their narratives will reflect the norms

and accepted behaviors of their community.

46

The common belief is that the main function of the home languages of

immigrants is to serve for inter-group communication and for expressing their

ethnicity (Extra & Verhoeven, 1993). This study adopts the view of scholars who

assume that the narratives of immigrants that are told in the non-home language (in

this case, Hebrew), may also serve as a means for communication between members

of the shared ethnic group, on the one hand, and the general society (Israel), on the

other. In this encounter between communities and cultures, the narratives in the non-

home language may function as a potential means for self and/or collective

identifications (De Fina, 2000).

In order to specify “thematic content”, I decided to rely on the use of content,

open-class words as defined in the preceding section, as a tool for analysis of

narrative text content. This represents (to the best of my knowledge,) an original

attempt to provide a quantitative measure to describe the content of the topics referred

to in the narrative texts -- although a partly similar procedure was adopted in a recent

study of nominalized content of the predicates in the English and Hebrew texts of the

crosslinguistic sample (Ravid & Cahana-Amitay, in press).

Thematic content of the narrative and/or expository texts in our sample were

analyzed for thematic content – as measured by use of content words – along several

dimensions, including reference to physical aggression and violence, family and home

situations, reliance on the school-based scenes shown in the video clips, and so on (as

outlined in Sections 2.6.4.1 to 2.6.4.4 below).

2..6.4.1 Thematic content with regard to content words expressing physical

aggression

The first prediction with regard to thematic content was that children from

low SES backgrounds would use more nouns, verbs, and adjectives expressing

physical aggression in comparison to their high SES peers. Reports show that low

SES children are more exposed to situations of violence and to physical and mental

abuse in their families and in their immediate surroundings than are their higher-class

peers (Dileonardi, 1993; Sherman & The Children's Defense Fund, 1994). Lev-

Weisel (2001) also used thematic-content analysis in comparing Israeli first graders

from poor backgrounds with children from wealthy families, with regard to their

perception of socio-economic status and future careers. She found that children from

poor families reported more about violent behavior of their parents, and even used

more expressions of physical aggression in negative terms (such as “they do not hit

47

me”) when describing positive relations in their families. And the highly relevant

study of Walton and Brewer (2002) of 364 narratives of inner-city 4th and 6th graders

about a personal experience with interpersonal conflict shows that, with age, children

in the high-risk neighborhood were more likely to write about physical aggression and

acts of violence, in contrast to children attending a moderate- to low-risk school,

whose narratives showed a decline in reference to such topics from 4th to 6th grades.

With regard to the Ethiopian group, around one-fifth (21%) of Ethiopian

children are known to the social services as being in direct risk situations, that is, as

suffering from neglect by their parents, as exhibiting behavioral or functional

problems at school or at home, and suffering from violence perpetrated by their

parents or witnessing domestic violence. This rate of children at risk in the Ethiopian

community is three times higher than among the overall population of Israeli children

(Habib, 2001). I further expected that low SES children would write more about their

experiences in violent situations, since they are more accustomed to talking about

them either to their friends or to their school counselors. This prediction is based on

personal communication with the school counselors of the children of the study, who

confirmed my intuitions, noting that these students usually initiate more meetings

with them in which they expose more such information than high SES children

attending other schools where they worked.

To test this prediction, all the open class items (content words) in the lexicon

of the present study and all those in the Hebrew sample of the original project were

classified as “plus or minus aggression”. This was done by myself in consultation

with several educated outsiders, who generally agreed with my evaluations. The

relevant measure which this yielded was a comparison of + aggressive vocabulary.

2.6.4.2 Thematic content with regard to family members

Another prediction relating to thematic content was that the narratives of low

SES subjects would include more references to conflict events which had occurred in

their homes involving family members than subjects in the middle-class Hebrew

sample. This prediction holds for both Ethiopian and non-Ethiopian low SES children

since these children, as noted, are more exposed to violent situations in their

immediate surrounding. With regard to the Ethiopian subjects it is well known that

they have high respect for their enlarged multi-generational families, and usually feel

obligated to its members’ well-being and to comply with the traditions and

requirements of their culture (Ben Ezer, 1992; Erlich, Kaplan & Salmon, 2002). As a

48

result, they tend to identify themselves above all with their families, making it likely

that they will refer to their home and family in their self-experience narratives. In

addition, as noted, low SES children are more accustomed to sharing information

about conflicts in their homes with their school counselors. In this they differ from

children from high SES background who regard this kind of information as more

private and as a source of possible shame.

2.6.4.3 Thematic content with regard to reliance on the video clip

Vocabulary was also used in order to ascertain to what extent the expository

texts of low SES children include descriptions from the scenes shown in the video

clip, which depicted different conflict situations in a school setting. As noted, the

video served as a trigger for producing texts with a shared thematic content

(Section 2.4.1). Subjects were explicitly instructed not to rely directly on the contents

of the video clips in their writing. The prediction was that, as in the original project

(Berman, 2000; Tolschinsky et al, 2002), the younger children would rely more

directly on the video in their expository texts than the older ones.

I also wanted to find out whether background origin would make a difference

in this respect. Here the prediction was that the Ethiopian subjects would regard the

video scenes as if they were the set saying, culturally accepted axioms, or proverbs

which often precede a story with moral typical of oral cultures. African proverbs, as a

technique of verbal expression of abstract ideas through compressed and allusive

phraseology, are interwoven with other aspects of linguistic and literacy behavior

(Finnegan, 1970). Proverbs as an anecdote in a nutshell must be seen as arising from

the context, thus in these cultures there is no proverb without a situation. As noted,

proverbs have a distinct structural and concise form, and are distinguished by the

popular acceptance of the truth tersely expressed in them. In some cases proverbs are

also used to express group identity in an almost explicit manner. Hazan-Rokem

(1993) showed that proverbs are often used when a particular ethnic group of relative

newcomers, in possession of a distinct cultural heritage and well-defined cultural

repertoire, actively and directly directs communication to the receiving society.

With respect to narrative content as a function of country of origin, stories that

begin with proverbs are often told for internal community communication in the

Ethiopian culture. These stories are aimed at teaching moral obligations, norms and

standards to the members of the community. Such proverbs are highly important and

represent the main ideas of the story (Ben Ezer, 1992; Noy, 1988; Rozen, 1999). I

49

therefore predicted that the Ethiopian subjects would refer more to the specific

contents of the video scenes in constructing their narratives than would their lower

SES non-Ethiopian peers. These specific contents, like the proverbs, might represent

significant normative ideas or authoritarian prescriptions for them.

2.6.4.4 Thematic content with regard to affronts to honor

Vocabulary was also used to find out whether the two research groups differ

with regard to reference to affronts to honor. It was predicted that low SES children,

especially of Ethiopian parentage, would refer more in their narratives to remarks or

behavior offensive to their self-respect than would the middle-class peers in the

original project. This prediction is based on research comparing Israeli children from

high-income families with children from poor backgrounds, which shows that the

latter are more exposed to mockery and humiliation in their immediate school

surroundings and in the community at large (Lev-Wizel, 2001). Moreover, reports on

children from disadvantaged backgrounds indicate that they are subject to neglect,

maltreatment, and mental abuse on the part of their parents (Dileonardi, 1993;

Sherman & The Children's Defense Fund, 1994).

In addition, some studies showed that belonging to a certain ethnic group may

affect the content of the stories people tell. For example, the content of personal

experiences of Mexican workers in the U.S.A. indicates that these immigrants use

ethnic identity as a central identification category of self and others in their stories

(De Fina, 2000). This study supplied an additional support to my prediction that the

Ethiopian children would make more reference to affronts to their own or their family

honor, since in the Ethiopian community offences to someone's dignity, impertinence,

insults or humiliations are highly unacceptable and are reprehensible types of

behaviors (Ben Ezer, 1999).

2.6.5 Violations of linguistic norms

In view of the generally low level of literacy and formal schooling that

characterizes the backgrounds of both research populations and the fact that the

Ethiopian subjects are of Amharic, non-Hebrew speaking backgrounds, the present

study undertook an analysis of deviations from standard Hebrew usage. Following

Berman’s (1999) model of level of non-native language proficiency as defined along a

50

continuum from obligatory rules of morpho-syntactic structure (“core grammar”) via

lexical convention to discourse-motivated and culturally-determined factors of

language use, three types of violations were specified: morpho-syntactic constructions

(Section 2.7.1), lexical usage (2.7.2), and register mixing (2.7.3).

2.6.5.1 Grammatical errors

Three types of morpho-syntactic errors were defined: in grammatical

agreement (marking of gender, number and person concord between subject and

predicate and between noun and adjective); choice of prepositions; and overuse of the

generic subordinating conjunction še- ‘that’, for example, in place of the more

specific form kše- ‘as-that = when’.

Children acquiring Hebrew as a first language gain basic command of

grammatical agreement marking of gender, number and person, and they make correct

use of a range of different prepositions by early preschool age. Moreover, their

proficiency in these domains increases with age and level of literacy (Berman, 1997b;

Dromi, 2002; Kaplan, 1983; Ravid, 2002).

Based on these studies, my first prediction regarding grammatical accuracy

was that grammatical errors would decrease with age and with development of the

lexicons of the non-Ethiopian subjects, for whom Hebrew is a first language.

In contrast, with regard to background origin, I expected grammatical errors

to be more pervasive in the Ethiopian grown-ups than among the non-Ethiopians,

since the Ethiopian children are less exposed to literate and formal Hebrew in their

homes, and most of their parents do not read or write Hebrew. Moreover, most of the

Ethiopian subjects acquired Hebrew as a second language, since they were born in

Ethiopia (Section 2.2.1). Thus, this kind of comparison between the two research

groups might shed light on the role of home backgrounds in linguistic proficiency.

With regard to the different populations, I assumed that grammatical errors

would be higher in both of the two research groups than in the original project. This

prediction is based on research which showed that school age children from

advantaged homes do consistently better on language-based tasks, in the sense of

being closer to the norms of educated Hebrew usage in a range of different

morphological and morphophonological features of written Hebrew than those from

disadvantaged backgrounds (Schwarzwald, 1978, 1981). Further, environment

51

variables in the preschool educational systems of high SES children (nursery schools

and kindergartens) were shown to have a positive effect on the development of the

vocabularies and decontextualized language skills of these children in comparison to

their peers from lower socio-economic backgrounds (Dickinson & Tabors, 1991;

2001).

In an attempt to look at the extent of grammatical error in low SES children, I

also compared results with another group of comparison. The goal of this comparison

was to shed light on the schools' success in teaching basic grammar as an essential

component of proficient writing and academic achievement in the humanistic subjects

studied at school in general. This group of comparison consisted of 42 low SES,

Israeli born students of the same age groups who were all native speakers of Hebrew.

This research, like the present study, also adapted the overall design and methods of

data elicitation from the original project (Salmon, 2002). The students in Salmon's

study, unlike the research study, attend schools of high scholastic achievements and

academic demands. Their schools were defined as high on all the following seven

factors, except SES and class size: 1) socio-economic level of the students

2) percentage of teachers with academic education 3) academic achievements of the

students measured by national norms 4) level of the municipality resources in the

schools 5) application of adequate learning materials, current programs and

innovative educational projects 6) class size measured by 13-17 students or 22-30

students per class 7) counseling system which uses professional teachers and

programs for students with special needs. Research on learning environments of

schools serving low-income and those serving high-income children showed

considerable differences between them. Duke (2000) characterized the differences of

print environments in these populations not only by means of amount of literate

activities, but also by means of their quality and variety. She visited first grade

classrooms in some very high- and very low-SES schools in the Boston area looking

at the kinds and amounts of print experiences. She found classroom libraries in low-

SES schools were about 40% smaller than those in high SES schools. Moreover, in

the low SES classes fewer books were added during the year. The children in low-

SES classes used books less often and in fewer ways. In comparison, high-SES

classrooms displayed more and more varied types of printed material. The teachers in

these classes more frequently called attention to books, and also integrated them with

topics of study. In these more advantaged school environments, students were also

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given more choice in their reading. The children were more likely to have a high

degree of authorship in their writing and were more likely to write for audiences

beyond the teacher. Hycock (2001) estimated that less effective teaching is one of the

main causes of the achievement gap between high and low SES children.

Based on these studies, I predicted that with regard to schools' success in

teaching language, low SES children in relatively disadvantaged school systems

would make more errors in grammar and lexicon than children of low SES

backgrounds attending well-established schools that are known to provide a high level

of education.

As a further check on language usage at this level, the heads of the language-

teaching teams in the research schools were asked to report what they considered

common grammatical errors or deviations in the Hebrew used by teachers in the

schools. This was done in an attempt to find out whether grammatical misusages and

non-standard language of the students can be related to their linguistic input not only

at home but also at school.

2.6.5.2 Lexical infelicities

Deviations from conventional lexical usage in terms of preciseness and felicity

of vocabulary selection were defined here as deviations from collocational

appropriateness (single words or multilexemic expressions) in a given clause in the

form of combination of words that strike the reader-hearer as deviating from accepted

or conventionalized native usage. The term “collocations” is used mainly in British

linguistics as referring to “habitual word accompaniments”. Thus, Firth (1957) defines

collocations as representing lexical relations along the syntagmatic axis, in the sense

of the ability of a given word to combine with other words. In the same spirit, Lyons

(1977) devotes an entire section headed “Syntagmatic lexical relations” to the topic of

“collocational restrictions”, which he illustrates at some length by comparing the

English verb ride with its apparent German counterpart reiten. Collocations are

defined in a dictionary of linguistics as “two or more words, considered as individual

lexical items used in habitual association with one another in a given language”

(Hartmann & Stork, 1972, p. 41). The researchers further point out that “every

individual word in a language has its range of collocations which limits its meaningful

usage, and equivalent words in different languages rarely, if ever, have the same range

of collocations”. Along similar lines, Crystal (1985) defines a collocation as “a term

53

used in lexicology to refer to the habitual co-occurrence of individual lexical items”

(1985, p. 55).

The criteria proposed by these characterizations of collocations note that they

are non-compositional, non-substitutable, and non-modifiable. As a result,

collocations cannot be translated from one language to another, nor can they alternate

words within or across set expressions. This is shown by the illformedness of such

possible sequences as raise war or wage peace in place of conventionalized wage war

or by an analogous expression used by a Hebrew-speaking high-school student in a

comparable sample to the present one (Berman & Ravid, 1999) who wrote le-hashrot

shalom ‘to-immerse (in) = to-inspire peace’ in place of the conventional collocation

le-hashkin shalom ‘to-instil peace’. Such usages strike a discordant or “creaky” note

(from the Hebrew term xarika ‘creaking, grating’), in the syntactic or lexical context

in which they occur, and so yield a sense of bizarreness, even though the speaker-

writer’s intention and the (intended) semantics of the expression are usually clearly

understandable.

Research into command of collocational usage among second language

learners shows that they have difficulty in acquiring collocations in the target

language. One explanation for this is related to interference or negative transfer from

the first language, due to inappropriate reliance on L1 lexical usages, particularly in

translating tasks (Baths & Eldaw, 1993; Biskup, 1992; Farghal & Obiedat, 1995).

Another reason given for collocational errors of second language users is attributed to

lack of culturally related knowledge of collocations (Teiliya Bragina, Oparina &

Sandomirskaya, 1998). One of the goals of the second language researchers was to

help teachers to identify effective an way of promoting phraseological competence in

English. Such studies are aimed at improving second language learners’ proficiency in

lexical expression. To the best of my knowledge, the present study is the first to look

at collocational “discordances” or inappropriate usages in L1 speaker-writers, where,

following Polinsky (1997) and Romaine (1995) the term “L1” refers not necessarily

to the first or home language, but to the dominant language in the sense of the primary

language of use - typically the school language as in the present study. The decision to

examine typical collocational violations in my database arose from my sense that the

language of texts produced by low SES speaker-writers in their main language was

not exactly “ill-formed” in the sense of violating target language grammar. Rather, it

54

contained numerous deviations from linguistic appropriateness, and that seemed to be

largely a matter of lexical usage.

I therefore examined collocational violations of students at different levels of

schooling in the process of becoming proficient writers in their dominant language.

Again, as far as I know, this topic has not been studied to date from a developmental

perspective with a discourse-anchored methodology. Underlying this analysis is the

assumption that, as pointed out by Crystal (1995), appropriate use in collocations of

particular lexemes is dependent on native-like intuitions, the sense of or feeling for a

language, an ear for what is idiomatically correct or usage-appropriate known as

sprachgefühl. Haller (1988) defines sprachgefühl as an intuitive certainty or sureness

of touch resulting from talent, experience and analogizing. This is revealed when a

speaker-writer deals with language both in linguistic production and in the meta-

linguistic evaluation of what is linguistically right and proper. Schulte (1988) suggests

that people can develop their sprachgefühl by extending their lexical repertoire, which

implies that choosing the appropriate word is itself a kind of strategy which can to

some extent at least be taught or learned. Native speakers gifted with a well-

developed sprachgefühl typically have command of an extensive vocabulary and rich

experience with language use in diverse contexts, which might quite generally reflects

a certain level of “linguistic literacy” (Ravid & Tolchinsky, 2002). An interesting

feature of deviations from collocational appropriateness, which presents a challenge

to any analysis, is that while native speakers judges sense that something is amiss

when they encounter such a deviation, they have a hard time specifying exactly where

the infelicity lies or what is its source.

Against this background, I conducted a pilot study on a sub-sample of the texts

collected for the present study, by presenting examples of “discordant” usages to a

group of graduate students and researchers in Hebrew language and general

linguistics, selecting instances of what appeared to me intuitively “misusages” but not

necessarily “errors”. Following this, together with another researcher, an expert in

Hebrew language and linguistics 7, we marked up all expressions in the database that

each of us independently considered deviating from conventional usage, discounting

errors in basic grammar and anaphora. Rejecting all instances that one or both of us

did not agree on, we reached a total of nearly 100 such expressions.

7 I am indebted to Nurit Assayag for her insight and help in this connection.

55

Since lexical usage and collocational appropriateness are among the most

highly language-particular and conventionalized features of a language, I did not even

attempt to translate the expressions under discussion here. Instead, I hope to provide

some feeling for what is involved by analyzing selected examples, which seem to be

particularly indicative of the phenomenon. An example is the expression used in the

narrative of an Ethiopian high-school girl: še-yiheye ba-tinok eyze-še-hu pega 'that-

will-be in-the-baby some-kind-of stigma’ = ‘, that the baby will-have some kind of

defect'. In standard Hebrew, the correct restricted collocation is lelo pega 'with no

defect', and not še-yiye pega, the way it was used in this example8; a second example

is from a the same narrative of the above Ethiopian high-school girl who described a

woman’s behavior as: isha ha-sotיmet et pane-ha ‘woman who-shuts ACC face-her

= a woman who shuts her face’ (cf. conventional li-stom et ha-pe ‘to-shut

(someone’s) mouth’, with the higher-register bound form paneha used for ‘her-face’

rather than everyday ha-panim shela ‘the-face of-her’, but in a totally non-normative,

unconventional collocation, one which mixes this high register usage with the low

level, even slang expression li-stom et ha-pe). In the Ethiopian culture, emotional

restraint is considered a virtue, while open expression of emotions is considered taboo

in human relations, as noted by Ben Ezer, 1999. Thus, a woman who “shuts her face”

is one who complies with the norms of her culture. A third example from the narrative

of a non-Ethiopian high-school girl writing about a quarrel between friends is: še-ota

yalda adayin pgu’a gam mimeni lamrot ha-slixot ‘that-same girl (is) still offended by

me too, in spite-of the-pardonings’, where the last word is a misuse of the term for

religious penitential prayers said on a Jewish holiday, in place of conventional

hitnatsluyot ‘apologies’ or the related, more colloquial and yet more appropriate še-

bikashti mimena slixa ‘I asked from-her (a) pardon = I said I was sorry’.

These kinds of lexical infelicities were divided into six sub-categories: (1) use

of a single inappropriate word, as in this last example in the previous paragraph;

8 In transcribing Hebrew examples, I use a broad phonemic transcription representing standard, but colloquial rather than normative Hebrew pronunciation; words are stressed on the final syllable unless marked by an acute accent as having non-final stress; hyphens in the Hebrew transcription stand for morphemes that form part of the next word which are separated by spaces in European languages, but form part of the next word in standard Hebrew orthography; the relevant violation of lexical or collocational convention is underlined; and examples are first given a literal, morpheme-by-morpheme gloss (the label ACC stands for the accusative direct-object marker et); and this is followed by a standardized free translation.

56

(2) inappropriate free collocations as in use of the term for a religious ritual in the

second example; (3) inappropriate combinations of words in set, restricted

collocations, as in shutting her face instead of her mouth; (4) conventional

collocations in an appropriate context (5) over-collocation, in cases where an entire

expression is used rather than an appropriate part of it; and (6) under-collocation, the

converse, where only part of the a collocation is used in place of the entire expression.

In order to apply a restricted collocation correctly and appropriately, the

speaker-writer must have encountered and internalized these more complex lexical

forms at some time in his or her past experience, since it is not usually possible to

figure out the meaning of their separate components without prior learning. As a

result, people who misuse such set expressions can be assumed to have access to a

relatively sophisticated, high-level, and extensive lexical repertoire from which to

select or invent items that occur in collocation with one another, but they may be

unable to use them in a way that precisely encodes the meaning they wish to convey.

For example, use of an expression like raise war indicates that the high-school girl

who wrote this has some vague or partial knowledge of the conventional expression

wage war, or at least some familiarity with the relevant semantic notion she wished to

express. This type of linguistic usage involves a special kind of creativity or lexical

innovation and indicates that the writers are in fact in the process of developing their

sprachgefühl. In comparison, at this advanced stage of developing language

proficiency, learners may not be sure whether they know something and how well

they know it. In such cases, speaker-writers do not themselves appear to be aware of

the fact that they are violating conventional usage, since there is no evidence that they

attempt to correct or change these discordant or inappropriate expressions. Besides,

the accuracy with which learners assess their knowledge and use of language could be

a function of lexical knowledge and/or cultural background.

Laufer and Yano (2001) showed that university students in Israel, China, and

Japan who demonstrate better command of the lexicon and a larger vocabulary are

able to assess their own performance more accurately when they encounter unfamiliar

words in English as a second language than are students with smaller vocabularies

and a less advanced lexical repertoire. Moreover, the Japanese learners in their study

exhibited the lowest mismatch between perceived and objective lexical understanding,

while the Israeli students, coming from a culture where unwillingness to admit

ignorance or failure is common, exhibited the largest mismatch.

57

Against this background, I predicted that the Ethiopian students, who belong

to a culture similar to that of the Japanese, where caution and modesty are virtues,

would carefully select their words and would adhere to familiar lexical items. This

might lead them to commit fewer lexical infelicities than their Israeli-born non-

Ethiopian peers. Besides, the Ethiopian students might have less developed lexical

repertoires to select from, since they are less exposed to more literate or formal

Hebrew in their immediate surroundings. It should be noted, however, that an

important component in Amharic in a conversation dealing with serious or important

issues is the use of expressions aimed at disguising the real sense of what speakers are

saying in order to highlight their underlying or hidden intentions. As a result, the use

of hints and double meanings or innuendoes and ambiguities are highly respected

devices in the Ethiopian community (Levine, 1965). An Amharic speaker-writer who

makes rich use of idiomatic expressions, proverbs, set collocations, and a variety of

related rhetorical devices tends to be highly regarded (personal communication with

Dr. Anbessa Teferra, a specialist in Amharic languages). The Ethiopian subjects in

this study might thus be expected to transfer this marked preference for richly varied

use of a highly flowery vocabulary from Amharic to Hebrew. This could be the

source of a relatively large number of lexical infelicities in their texts, since these

subjects have not fully mastered high-level literate Hebrew.

Against this information, I expected that the middle-class subjects from the

original project would reveal fewer lexical infelicities, since students of more

educated, higher-class backgrounds are known to score higher on vocabulary tests

than their low SES peers (Chall & Snow, 1988), and also on innovative language use

as measured by lexical coinages (Kemp, 1984). Further, as noted earlier, children

from higher-SES backgrounds also demonstrate more familiarity with rare vocabulary

items than their low SES peers (Hart & Risley, 1995).

2.6.5.3 Register mixing

All lexical infelicities were further specified for level of language usage or

register, where “linguistic register” is used in the sense of level of linguistic usage,

ranging from everyday casual or colloquial style to highly formal, carefully monitored

forms of expression (Biber, 1995; Ferguson, 1994). Specifically, all instances of

“register mixing” were noted, where this refers to use of colloquial, everyday

language (single words or multilexemic expressions) in the same context -- within the

58

boundaries of a single clause – as high-level, formal usages. This procedure was

adopted as part of the analysis of general lexical development and proficiency, to

evaluate the socio-communicative skills of low SES children. The aim was to

ascertain whether the subjects in this study are able to use a variety of linguistic

patterns suitable to different contexts and social situations in constructing monologic

texts, since consistently appropriate and accurate register selection is a very late-

developing and highly sophisticated type of language knowledge (Berman, 1999).

The prediction was that the Ethiopian subjects would produce more register mixing

than the non-Ethiopians, for reasons related to their possibly more marked tendency to

violate norms of lexical appropriateness in general. Similarly, I predicted that low

SES children would produce more register mixing than their middle-class peers in the

original project, since Israeli schoolchildren of low SES background were found to

show more difficulties in adopting different style of usage in the appropriate situations

than middle- to high-SES children (Davis, 1978; Kais, 1979; Kemp, 1984; Shtal,

1977).

2.6.6 Global text construction

The top-down analysis of discourse refers to the whole text as its unit of

analysis as a whole. In the present study the analysis focuses on the global text

structure and its function. The aim of this analysis is to identify developmental

differences interacting with genre across the different populations. This top-down

analysis is based on the assumption that there is an internalized narrative schema

characterized by a canonic structure having a setting, an episode(s) and a coda

(Berman, 1997c; Berman, 2001; Labov,1972, 1998; Van Dijk, 1980). In comparison,

the expository text does not have a universal schema. Moreover, the structure of this

type of text is not as well defined as the structure of the narrative. Although there is

no canonical structure for the expository text, some researchers describe it in terms of

introductory “core” propositions, which are elaborated by illustrative or delimiting

“satellite” discourse elements (Fox, 1978; Matthiessen & Thompson, 1988). Britton

(1994) describes the structure of the expository text as “move on” statements, which

introduce a new topic, “expand” which develops the already introduced topic, and

“unitize” which summarizes information previously mentioned.

An adequate examination of narratives and expository texts requires

comparable units of analysis. The original project used the opening and closing

59

elements of the two types of texts as comparable units of analysis (Berman &

katzenberger, submitted; Tolchinsky, Johannssen & Zamura, 2002). Tolchinsky et al

found that the analysis of opening and closing elements of texts produced by the

English, Spanish and Swedish participants in the crosslinguistic project showed that

the youngest subjects in the study already had the ability to open narratives in a

canonical way. In addition, only the more mature subjects could open expository texts

with a direct reference to the topic, as a means of introduction. Berman and

Katzenberger (submitted) used the opening of the narratives and expository texts as a

window on the text as a whole. They examined the openings in terms of discourse

functions (background information in narratives and introducing the topic in

expository texts), organizational pivot (temporality in narratives and generality in

expository texts), and linguistic forms (verb tense and predicate semantics in

narratives and nominal structure and content in expository texts). They found that the

openings to narrative texts emerge as better constructed at an earlier age than

openings to expository texts. In comparison, fully proficient openings are produced

later in development for both types of texts.

I wanted to refer to the texts as wholes, so I followed Katzenberger's model

(Katzenberger, submitted b). She divides the two types of texts into three obligatory

analogous components representing functional segments of discourse. The three

segments are beginning, middle and end. In narrative, the beginning is the setting,

which typically presents the temporal, spatial and motivational framing of events, the

middle narrates the events, and the end provides a resolution (with or without a coda).

In expository text, the beginning serves as the introduction, which typically presents

the text topic, the middle expresses the idea(s) on this topic, and the end contributes a

conclusion.

In this study, I consider the ability to produce text global structures a universal

cognitive one, which does not depend on population and origin. This cognitive ability

is a part of every human being’s competence. Following this proposition and based on

the results on the Hebrew sample in the crosslinguistic study, I predicted that the

ability to construct global text structures would not be sensitive to population. I also

predicted this ability to increase with age and level of literacy and schooling. I further

predicted that the ability to produce global structures is more accessible to the

younger children in the narrative texts. With regard to genre, I predicted the ability to

produce global structures would develop latter in the expository texts.

60

In the present study, all the texts were divided individually into three

components by two judges: an expert in discourse analysis and myself. Inter-judge

agreement was about 92%9. The scope of each component of global text structure was

measured in terms of number of clause packages. I predicted that text components'

length would increase with age. With regard to genre, I predicted that the number of

clause packages per each component would be higher in the expository texts.

Regarding the different populations, I predicted the text component's length would not

be sensitive to origin and population.

Katzenberger (submitted a) also suggests three levels for the organization of

the flow of information in both types of text. The first level is characterized as linear

or a minimal level, a level in which the text is pair-wise ordered. In narrative texts this

level contains at least two chronologically ordered events, while a linear expository

text contains a nucleus followed by at least one complement. A partially hierarchical

level is defined as a text, which contains global and local-level elements (content

and/or structure). In a narrative, the global level introduces the problem and/or

presents its resolution. In an expository text the global-level introduces and/or sums

up the main idea(s) in a form of an explicit abstract generalization. The third fully

hierarchical level is characterized by a bi-directional interplay of flow of information

between generalizations and specifics, which is explicitly marked by linguistic means.

In a narrative text, the problem and its resolutions are presented and the retrospective

story-teller’s point of view is marked. In comparison, in an expository text the main

idea(s) and its summary are presented using an explicit abstract generalization.

Transition from core to satellite elements is usually explicitly marked by linguistic

means, like the expression bederex~agav ‘by the way’ to signal a digression from the

topic.

Katzenberger and I tried this analysis on the written texts subjects of the

original study with the aim of finding effects of age and genre on global text structure

(Schleifer & Katzenberger, 2001). We found that all the narratives of the subjects

from the original study, even those of the 4th graders, had partially hierarchical

structures. In comparison, expository text construction lagged behind that of

narratives across all subjects. Therefore, I predicted that organization of information

would increase with age and that the young subjects of the research study would use

9 I am indebted to Irit Katzenberger for her insight and help in this connection.

61

more complicated levels of organization of information in their narratives before

using them in their expository texts. I also predicted that organization of information

would not be sensitive to origin and population.

In this study, a special coding was used for global text structure for both text

types. The opening component of the narrative (setting), which contains information

about the place, time, opponents (the characters in a state of conflict), state of affairs,

and motivation for story telling and elements of the story script, was coded as

OPEN:SET. The middle component of the narrative (episode/s), which contains at

least two chronologically ordered events, was coded BOD:N (narrative). The closing

component (resolution, and or coda), which contains resolution to the problem and

sometimes also refers to the beginning and to the motivation for story-telling, was

coded in the same method as CLO:RES. Expository texts in this study were also

divided into three analogous components. The opening component is “introduction”,

which contains information about the main idea/s and was coded OPEN:INT by the

same rational. The middle component (core proposition) contains supplementary

elaborations and illustrations to the main idea, and was coded BOD:E (expository).

The closing component is characterized by conclusions, summaries and occasionally

connections to the main idea/s and was coded CLO:CON (See Appendix II).

62

Chapter 3: Results

The overall goal of this study was to understand how schoolchildren of

different ages and from different cultural and socio-economic backgrounds write

monologic narratives and expository texts. Two sets of data were elicited: 1) Written

narratives and expository texts, and 2) questionnaires examining school and home

literacy and attitudes towards language. The written texts yielded a corpus of 192

texts: 2 texts x 32 subjects (two research groups - 16 Ethiopians and 16 non-

Ethiopians in each age group) x 3 age groups. The literacy questionnaires consisted of

114 texts (96 questionnaires from the two low SES research groups and 18

questionnaires from a middle-high SES control group). Results of the analysis of the

written texts are presented in Part 1 of this chapter and of the literacy questionnaires

are presented in Part 2. Each part begins with a description of the measures in each of

the two sets of results.

Part 1: Results of the Written Texts

Introduction

The database of this study includes 192 texts: 96 narratives and 96 expository

texts. Results are presented below for the database of 192 texts (half narrative, half

expository) following the order in which categories of analysis and predictions were

described in Chapter 2. I start by presenting an analysis along three dimensions:

measures of text length (Section 3.1); syntactic complexity (3.2) in terms of number

of words per clause, (2) number of clauses per clause packages and (3) number of

types of linking devices; and lexical richness (3.3) in terms of lexical density

measured by number of content words per text.

A more qualitative measure is thematic content (3.4) as measured by four

indicators: (1) percentages of expository texts with references to the scenes from the

video, (2) percentages of content words (Ocs) expressing physical aggression, (3)

percentages of narratives describing conflict in the subjects’ homes and (4)

percentages of the narratives with references to affronts to honor.

The next analysis (Section 3.5) presents three types of violation of linguistic

norms: grammatical errors, lexical infelicities and register mixing. Global text

construction (3.6) is presented in terms of overall discourse structure (an opening, a

63

plot and a closing), by text component length (measured by number of clause

packages per text component), and also in terms of organization of information

(measured by three levels of organization of information). The last section includes an

overall summary of the results (3.7).

Each section begins with the data concerning the relevant research predictions

followed by a comparison between the two low SES research groups: the Ethiopian

and the non-Ethiopian subjects across age and genre. This part is followed by a

comparison between the original subjects of middle-class background, and the

Ethiopian and non-Ethiopian subjects as one low SES group. Wherever possible, a

third comparison of all the low SES research subjects with another group is provided

relating to low SES subjects who attend well-established schools (Salmon, 2002).

Multivariate analyses of variance were calculated whenever possible across

these measures, relating to factors of age and grade level (G= Grade school, 4th

grade; J= Junior high school, 7th grade; H= high school, 11th grade), genre (Narr=

narrative, Exp= expository); origin (Eth= Ethiopian, NE= non-Ethiopian) and

population (research study, original study).

All the data was divided into clauses, clause packages, clause types, global

text components, and types of violation of linguistic norms by at least two judges.

Interrater reliability as measured by degree of agreement between judges ranged

between 92.3%-100% across these variables.

3.1 Text Length In this study text length was measured by number of words, and by number of

clauses (Section 2.61).

3.1.1 Text length in words

Table 2 describes text length by means of number of words per text across age,

genre and origin. As expected, text length increases with age. For means of words in

the narratives, a between group ANOVA yields significant effect of age

F(2,90)=58.97, p<.001. Contrast analysis between 4th grade and 11th grade yields

significant effect F(1,90)=99.30, p <.001, and also between 7th grade to 11th grade

F(1,90)=76.05, p <.001. For means of words in the expository texts, ANOVA yields

significant effect of age F(2,90)=94.65, p<.001. Contrast analysis between 4th and 7th

grade yields significant effect F(1,90)=6.40,p <.05, and between 4th grade and 11th

64

grade F(1,90)=168.39, p <.001, and also between 7th grade and 11th grade

F(1,90)=109.15, p <.001. For means of words ANOVA with repeated measures yields

significant effect of genre F(1,93)=19.43, p<.001.

There is a clear developmental pattern for text length for all types of texts such

as mean number of words increases with age across the two groups. Moreover,

narratives are longer than expository texts across the board. Narrative texts average

125 words per text in the Ethiopian and 109 in the non-Ethiopian compared with 78

and 88 respectively in the expository texts. Moreover, this inter-genre difference in

number of words is more marked in the Ethiopian narratives and in the expository

texts of the non-Ethiopians. The development of changes in number of words also

differ in the two research groups: the high school group of Ethiopians shows a greater

increase in length in their narratives from 7th grade to the 11th grade, whereas the non-

Ethiopian group shows a more rapid shift in length in both their narratives and

expository texts from gradeschool to junior high. There is no significant difference

between the two research groups across origin with regard to text length.

Table 2 Means and standard deviations number of words per text, by age,

genre and origin

Ethiopian non-Ethiopian Age N=16 Narrative Expository Narrative Expository G SD

57.8 (32.9)

33.8 (17.4)

50 (34.4)

25.1 (17.9)

J SD

66.2 (31.6)

54.7 (22.1)

83.9 (55)

57.2 (32)

H SD

253.3 (113.8)

147.3 (65.3)

193.9 (92.1)

183.5 (64.2)

Compared with the data of the original study (henceforth "crosslinguistic " in

figure 1 etc.) for mean number of words in the narratives, ANOVA yields a

significant effect of population F (1,149)=24.01, p<.001, but not in the expository

texts. Unexpectedly, the mean number of words in the narratives of the research group

(109.1) is significantly higher than that of the original study (67.3). Moreover, the

65

mean number of words in the expository texts of this research group (88.64) is higher

than the one of the original group (74.6). In both studies, there is a major difference in

mean scores between junior high and high school, suggesting that the gross amount of

text producing increases sharply at this age range. Further, the mean number of words

in the narratives is higher than in the expository texts in the research groups, while the

reverse is true in the original group.

Figure 1 Comparison of mean number of words by genre and population

3.1.2 Text length in clauses

Text length was also measured by number of clauses. Table 3 gives mean

number of clauses per text across age, genre and origin. As expected, for mean

number of clauses in the narratives ANOVA yields significant effects of age

F(2,90)=52.55, p<.001. Contrast analysis between 4th grade and 11th grade yields a

significant effect F(1,90)=89.17, p <.001, and also between 7th grade and 11th grade

F(1,90)=66.87,p <.001. For mean clauses in the expository texts ANOVA also yields

a significant effect of age F(2,90)=63.72, p<.001. Contrast analysis between 4th grade

and 7th grade yields significant effect of age F(1,90)=6.75, p <.05, and between 4th

Text length: Number of words

89

109

67

75

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

Expository

Narrative

Research Crosslinguistic

66

grade and 11th grade F(1,90)=116.93, p <.001, and also between 7th grade and 11th

grade F(1,90)=67.49, p <.001. For means of clauses ANOVA with repeated measures

yields a significant effect of genre F (1,93)=40.28, p<.001. As expected, mean

number of clauses increases with age; narratives (24 in the Ethiopian group and 21 in

the non-Ethiopians) across the board have more clauses per text than expository texts

(14 in both groups). There is no significant difference between the Ethiopian and the

non-Ethiopian group with regard to number of clauses per text.

Table 3 Means and standard deviations of clauses per text, by age, genre and

origin

Ethiopian Non-Ethiopian Age N=16

Narrative Expository Narrative Expository

G SD

12.1 (6.6)

7.1 (3.7)

10.1 (6.8)

4.7 (2.9)

J

SD

13.2 (96.8)

10.6 (4.5)

17.3 (11.4)

10.9 (6.1)

H

SD

47.8 (21.9)

24.5 (11.7)

36 (16.4)

27.6 (10.6)

In comparing the original data with these data for mean number of clauses in

the narratives (in figure 2), an ANOVA yields a significant effect of population

F(1,149)=33.19, p<.001.Again, the mean number of clauses in the narratives of the

research groups (22.5) is significantly higher than the one in the original study (11.7).

In comparison, again unexpectedly, text length in the expository texts proved to be

insensitive to population. The mean number of clauses in the research study (14.4)

was not significantly higher than in the original study (12.2). Thus, the length of the

expository texts, in terms of number of clauses is similar across low SES and middle

class populations, whereas the length of the narratives is higher in low SES groups

and not as expected in higher SES groups.

67

Figure 2 Length of texts in mean number of clauses by genre and population

3.2 Syntactic Complexity Syntactic complexity was measured by number of words per clause, by

number of clauses per clause packages, and by number of types of linking devices in

each package classified into syntactic, syntactic-discursive, and discursive links (See

Section 2.6.2).

3.2.1 Syntactic complexity in terms of number of words per clause

Table 4 shows the mean number of words per clause for the independent

variables of age, genre and origin. Unexpectedly, syntactic complexity measured by

number of words per clause increases with age only in the expository texts. There is

no significant effect for age in the narratives. As expected, this measure of syntactic

complexity in the expository texts, ANOVA yields significant effect of age

F(2,90)=6.35, p<.01. For mean number of words per clause, ANOVA with repeated

measures yields significant effect of genre F(1,90)=10.95, p<.01, around 5 words per

clause in expository texts in the 5th grade, and 7 words per clause in high school.

In sum, there is no significant effect of genre in the non-Ethiopian group

regarding this measurement of syntactic complexity. As expected, mean number of

words per clause increases with age, but only in the expository texts. In the course of

Text length: Number of clauses

14.4

12.2

22.5

11.7

0

5

10

15

20

25

ExpositoryNarrative


68

schooling, especially between junior high and high school (5.3 compared with 6.8),

there is some increase in children's clause construction, mainly in expository texts,

while there is almost no development in their narratives, in this respect. The Ethiopian

highschoolers show greater range of means of words per clause in their expository

texts than the non-Ethiopians. There is no significant difference between the

Ethiopian group and the non-Ethiopian group with regard to syntactic complexity

measured by number of words per clause.

Table 4 Means and standard deviations of words per clause, by age,

genre and origin


Narrative Expository Narrative Expository G

SD

4.8 (1.1)

4.9 (1.1)

4.8 (.8)

5.5 (2)

J

SD

5.1 (1)

5.3 (.9)

5 (.9)

5.4 (1.5)

H

SD

5.3 (.75)

6.8 (3)

5.4 (.8)

6.7 (1.1)

In comparison with the original data for mean number of words per clause in

the narratives and in the expository texts, ANOVA yields a significant effect of

population F(1,149)=10.00, p<.01. As expected, the mean number of words per clause

in both the narratives and in the expository texts in the original group (5.8 and 6.3) is

higher than in the research group (5 and 5.8). Mean number of words per clause

seems to be highly diagnostic for age, genre and population. Not only does it

neutralizes the effect of text length, it also reflects increased clause-internal density

and syntactic complexity.

69

Figure 3 Comparison of mean number of words per clause by genre and population

Similar analyses were conducted with populations of low SES children, who

attend well-established schools (Salmon 2002). A comparison of means of number of

words per clause measured by the same method of word counting (as in the Salmon's

study) showed that low SES children in poor school systems averaged fewer words

per clause (Narr. 3.8, Exp. 4.2) than low SES children in good schools (Narr. 4.2,

Exp.5) across genre.

3.2.2 Syntactic complexity in terms of interclausal packaging

Syntactic complexity was also measured by number of clauses per clause

packages, and by the types of linking devices (syntactic, syntactic-discursive, and

discursive) in each package.

Syntactic complexity: Number of words per clauses

5.8

6.3

5

5.8

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Expository

Narrative


70

3.2.2.1 Number of clauses per clause package

Syntactic complexity is measured by number of clauses per clause package. Table

5 gives the mean number of clauses per clause package (CP) by age, genre and origin. As

expected, for means of clauses per CPs in the narratives, ANOVA yields a main effect of

age F(2,90)=29.75, p<.001.Contrast analysis between 4th grade and 7th yields a significant

effect F(1,90)=16.63, p <.001, between 4th grade and 11th grade F(1,90)=59.43, p <.001,

and also between 7th grade and11th grade F(1,90)=13.18, p <.001. For means of CPs

length, ANOVA with repeated measures yields significant effect of Genre F(1,93)=10.90,

p<.001. As expected, mean number of clauses per clause package generally increases with

age across genre. Narratives (2.1 in the Ethiopian group versus 2.2 in the non-Ethiopian

group) across the board have less clauses per CP than expository texts (2.7 in the

Ethiopian group versus 2.8 in the non-Ethiopian group).

There is no significant difference between the Ethiopian group and the non-Ethiopian

group with regard to number of clauses per clause package.

When the variable of text length is neutralized the prototypical clause

packaging in text production in both the original study and in this research lie within

the scope of two or three clauses.

Table 5 Means and standard deviations of clauses per CPs, by age, genre and origin



G SD

1.7 (.3)

2.1 (1.4)

1.5 (.3)

2.2 (.7)

J

SD

2.2 (.5)

2.4 (.7)

2.1 (.5)

3 (1.7)

H

SD

2.4 (.3)

3.7 (2.9)

3 (1)

3.2 (1)

3.2.2.2 Types of linking devices in clause packages

The types of linking devices in each package were counted and classified into

three categories: syntactic (SY), syntactic-discursive (SYD), and discursive (D).

Syntactic links included all forms of subordinators and coordinators of same-subject

71

clauses with and without ellipsis; syntactic-discursive links included coordinators of

different-subject clauses; purely discursive links were those that initiated discursively

juxtaposed clauses, and packages of a single clause in length (See Section 2.6.2.2 for

details and examples). The proportion of each of the three groups of links was

calculated out of the total number of links.

Table 6 gives types of links as a function of age, genre and origin. As

expected, syntactic links increase with age. For mean syntactic links in the narratives

ANOVA yields a significant effect for age F (2,90)=12.19, p<.001. Contrast analysis

between 4th grade and 7th grade yields a significant effect F(1,90)=14, p <.001, and

also between 4th grade and 11th grade F(1,90)=21.73, p <.001. For mean syntactic

links in the expository texts ANOVA yields a significant effect for age F (2,90)=3.73,

p<.05. Contrast analysis between 4th grade and 7th grade yields a significant effect

F(1,90)=7.41, p <.01. For mean syntactic-discursive links in the narratives there is no

significant effect for age. For mean syntactic-discursive links in the expository texts,

ANOVA yields a significant effect for age F (2,90)=3.56, p<.05. Contrast analysis

between 4th grade and 11th grade yields significant effect F(1,90)=7.08, p <.01. For

mean discursive links in the narratives, ANOVA yields a significant effect for age F

(2,90)=18.56, p<.001. Contrast analysis between 4th grade and 7th grade yields a

significant effect F(1,90)=22.78, p <.001, and also between 4th grade and 11th grade

F(1,90)=32.09, p <.001. For mean discursive links in the expository texts there is no

significant effect for age. For means of syntactic-discursive links, ANOVA with

repeated measures yields significant effect of genre F (1,93)=14.49, p<.O01. For

means of discursive links, ANOVA with repeated measures yields significant effect of

genre F(1,93)= 41.81, p<.001.

The distribution of clause links indicates that with age there is a development

in overt lexico-syntactic marking of inter-clausal connections across genre. In the

narratives, there is also a development of discourse-markers relations with age and

level of schooling indicating children's increasing abilities to employ a range of

different expressions. Syntactic-discursive and discursive links are also sensitive to

genre and occur more in the expository texts than in the narratives.

72

Table 6 Means and standard deviations of the three types of inter-clausal links

(out of the total number of links), by age, genre and origin

Ethiopian Non-Ethiopian


Age N=16

SY SYD D SY SYD D SY SYD D SY SYD D G

SD .3

(.1) .02

(.06) .02 (.1)

.3 (.1)

.01 (.03)

.7 (.7)

.2 (.1)

.1 (.1)

.3 (.2)

.03 (.01)

.01 (.04)

.3 (.4)

J

SD

.4

(.1)

.07

(.07)

.1

(.09)

.3

(.1)

.02

(.04)

.7

(.7)

.4

(.1)

.06

(.06)

.1

(.1)

.4

(.1)

.03

(.07)

.4

(.4)

H SD

.4

(.08)

.05

(.04)

.1

(.08)

.4

(.1)

.03

(.03)

.6

(.4)

.5

(.1)

.07

(.04)

.1

(.08)

.4

(.1)

.05

(.03)

.8

(.6)

In comparison to the narratives of the original study the same trend is observed

with regard to syntactic links, which increased with age. On the other hand, unlike in

the original study the syntactic-discursive links in the narratives do not decrease with

age, but stay almost the same. With regard to the discursive links in the narratives,

they increase with age in this study, but stay almost the same in the original study.

3.3 Lexical Richness in terms of Lexical Density Lexical richness was measured in terms of lexical density calculated as

number of content words out of the total number of words.

The lexicon was analyzed into the lexical category of content words called Open

Class items (OC), which include nouns, verbs and adjectives (See Section 2.6.3).

Table 7 shows mean number of content words across age, genre and origin.

As expected, the number of content words increases with age. For mean number of

content words in the narratives ANOVA yields a significant effect for age

F(2,90)=55.76, p<.001. Contrast analysis between4th grade and 11th yields a

significant effect F(1,90)=91.83, p <.001, and between 7th and 11th grade

73

F(1,90)=74.55, p <.001. As expected, for mean number of content words in the

expository texts, ANOVA yields a significant effect for age F(2,)=98.88, p<.001, and

for the interaction Age x origin F(2,90)=3.23, p <.05. Contrast analysis between 4th

grade and 7th grade yields a significant effect F(1,90)=4.09, p <.05, between 4th and

7th grade F(1,90)=170.66, p <.001 and between 7th and 11th grade F(1,90)=121.88, p

<.001.

A clear developmental pattern can be observed for all types of texts. ANOVA

with repeated measures yields a significant effect for age F(2,90)=108.86, p<.001.

Contrast analysis between 4th grade and 11th grade yields a significant effect

F(1,90)=183.37, p <.001 and between 7th and 11th grade F(1,90)=140.35, p <.001,

suggesting that the gross amount of content words increases sharply with age.

For mean number of content words ANOVA with repeated measures yields a

significant effect for genre F(1,90)=17.01, p<.001, for the interaction genre x origin

F(1,90)=4.64, p <.05 and for the interaction genre x age x origin F(2,90)=6.18,

p <.01.

In the non-Ethiopian group, content words are sensitive to age and genre. In

comparison, in the Ethiopian group content words are also sensitive to age, but

unexpectedly, unlike the non-Ethiopian group, their expository texts contain fewer

content words than their narratives. There is no significant difference between the

Ethiopian and the non-Ethiopian group regarding the overall number of content

words.

Table 7 Mean number of content words and standard deviations by age,

genre and origin

Ethiopian non-Ethiopian Age N=16 Narrative Expository Narrative Expository

G SD

25.12 (13.53)

15.12 (8.66)

21.68 (15.50)

11.81 (8.60)

J SD

27 (12.79)

21.37 (8.39)

16.68 (20.75)

23.25 (12.27)

H SD

99.75 (43.41)

61.56 (24.57)

77.12 (38.95)

79.56 (29.31)

74

Like the original study, this study found that content words are sensitive to

age. Content words occur more in the expository texts. Unexpectedly, when

comparing means of content words across genre in both studies, (figure 4) it shows

that the means in this study are higher (44 and 35) than the original study (24 and 32).

Again unexpectedly, the means of the content words in the expository texts are almost

the same across populations.

Figure 4 Comparison of mean number of content words by genre and population

Counting of the content words per clause was also done to measure lexical

complexity and density. Table 8 shows the number of content words per clauses

across age, genre and origin. Unexpectedly, content words in the narratives seem to be

insensitive to age since ANOVA does not yield a significant effect.

As expected, for means of content words per clause in the expository texts

ANOVA yields a significant effect for age F(2,95)=4.45, p<.05. Contrast analysis

between 7th and 11th grade yields a significant effect F(1,90)=8.61, p<.01. As

expected, the content words in the expository texts are sensitive for age and level of

schooling. For means of content words per clause ANOVA with repeated measures

Number of content words

35

32

44

24

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

50

Expository

Narrative


75

yields a significant effect of genre F(1,90)=16.92, p<.001 and a significant effect for

the interaction between genre x age F(2,90)=3.42, p<.05.

As expected, content words are sensitive to genre; expository texts are more

dense than the narratives. My assumption that content words per clause would

increase with age was confirmed only in the case of the expository texts.

Table 8 Mean number of content words per clauses and standard deviations by age,

genre and origin

Ethiopian non-Ethiopian Age N=16


G SD

2.18 (0.62)

2.24 (1.01)

2.10 (0.43)

2.62 (1.27)

J SD

2.11 (0.45)

2.10 (0.45)

1.94 (0.36)

2.27 (0.77)

H SD

2.12 (0.30)

2.86 (1.30)

2.16 (0.44)

2.95 (0.73)

A comparison to the original study shows that, as expected, the number of

content words per clause is sensitive to genre: F(1,149)=28.01, p<.001. It is higher

both in the narratives and in the expository texts of original study ( Narr. 2.18,

Exp.2.79) than in the research study ( Narr. 2.1, Exp.2.51).

Figure 5 shows the development of number of content words per clause across genre

in the two populations

76

Num. of content words per clauses

2.51

2.79

2.12.18

0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

Expository

Narrative


Figure 5 Comparison of means of content words per clause by genre and population

Lexical density was calculated as the percentage of content words or "open

class" (OC) out of total number of words. Table 9 shows lexical density by age, genre

and origin. Unexpectedly, for means of lexical density, an ANOVA with repeated

measures yields a significant effect of genre only in the non-Ethiopian group,

F (1,90)=4.31, p<.05.

Mean lexical density in the expository texts (0.43) is higher than in the narratives

(0.4). On the other hand, the mean lexical density of the narratives of the Ethiopian

group equals that of their expository texts (0.42).

There is no significant difference between the Ethiopian and the non-Ethiopian group

regarding lexical density.

77

Unexpectedly, with regard to lexical density, there is no significant difference

between the research study and the original study. In both the non-Ethiopian group

and in the original study, lexical density is higher in the expository texts. ANOVA for

means of lexical density in each age group was also performed in order to compare

the two studies in each grade. For lexical density in the narratives in the 4th grade it

yields a significant effect for population, F (1,5 0)=4.95, p<.05. The mean for lexical

density in the research study (0.44) is higher than in the original study (0.38).

ANOVA with repeated measures yields a significant effect for genre, F (1,5 0)=4.98,

p<.05 . The mean for lexical density in the expository texts of the research study

(0.45) is higher than in the original study (0.43).

For lexical density in the narratives in the 7th grade, the same pattern is found.

ANOVA yields a significant effect for population, F (1,5 0)=9.60, p<.05. The mean

for lexical density in the research study (NM=0.40) is higher than in the original study

(NM=0.36). ANOVA with repeated measures yields a significant effect for genre,

F (1,5 0)=14.59, p<.001. A reverse pattern occurs with regard to the expository texts.

Table 9 Means and standard deviations of lexical density by age,

genre and origin

Ethiopian non-Ethiopian Narrative Expository Narrative Expository

Age N=16

OC OC OC OC G

SD

.45 (.06)

.4 (.1)

.43 (.04)

.4 (.07)

J SD

.4 (.05)

.3 (.05)

.3 (.03)

.4 (.05)

H SD

.3 (.04)

.4 (.04)

.3 (.05)

.4 (.04)

The mean for lexical density in the expository texts in the research study

(0.40) is smaller than in the original study (0.42). A significant effect for the

interaction of population x genre is also found, F (1,5 0)=10.33, p<.01.

In the 11th grade, lexical density across genre an ANOVA did not yield a significant

effect for population. On the other hand, ANOVA with repeated measures yields a

78

significant effect for genre, F (1,5 0)=15.97, p<.001. As in the 7th grade, the mean for

lexical density in the expository texts of the research study (0.42) is smaller than the

one in the original study (0.44).

In sum, although there is no significant difference between the two studies

with regard to lexical density, a closer examination shows that in the 4th grade, the

two types of texts are denser in the research study, while with age and level of

schooling the expository texts of the middle-class subjects of the original study are

denser, and reveal greater lexical density than those of the two research groups.

Figure 6 shows the development of lexical density across genre in the two

populations.

Figure 6 Comparison of means of lexical density by genre and population

3.4 Analysis of Thematic Content

Thematic content examines what children choose to write on the topic of

interpersonal conflicts (See Section 2.6.4).

Lexical density: OCs per total tokens

0.38

0.43

0.36

0.37

0.32

0.34

0.36

0.38

0.4

0.42

0.44

ExpositoryNarrative


79

3.4.1 Reference to the video

The subjects were shown a wordless video clip depicting different conflict

situations in a school setting, after which they were requested to produce a narrative

and an expository text in writing. The video served as a trigger for producing texts

with a shared thematic content. This analysis was conducted on expository texts only

(for reasons see Section 2).

As expected, Ethiopian children referred more to the video scenes (in their

expository texts) than the non-Ethiopians - 39% of the Ethiopian subjects, in

comparison to 20% of the non-Ethiopian subjects. In the non-Ethiopian group, most

of the subjects who referred to the video scenes were in junior high (60%). In the

Ethiopian group the reference to the video scenes was the same in all three age groups

(33%).

3.4.2 Reference to physical aggression

The category of content words "open class" (OC) was used to examine

reference to physical aggression, like dakru ' they stabbed'. They served as a measure

of thematic content. All the OCs in the lexicons of the three groups were marked

either + or - in reference to physical aggression, in an attempt to find the proportion of

words expressing physical aggression from the total number of OCs of each group.

The Ethiopian group had 15.9% OCs marked as + aggression in their lexicon,

similarly to the non-Ethiopian group (16.4%), compared with 11.2% of the OCs

marked as such in the lexicon of the original study. Thus, the prediction that subjects

from low SES would include more expressions of physical aggression in their texts

was confirmed.

3.4.3 Reference to the location of conflicts Content words were also used to identify references to the subjects' homes as

the location of the conflicts between people. Nine of the non-Ethiopian subjects wrote

about conflicts in their homes, as compared to only two of the Ethiopian subjects,

whereas none of the subjects in the original study wrote about conflicts in his/her

family. My prediction that low SES would refer more to conflicts inside the family

was partly confirmed. It seems that the low SES non-Ethiopian subjects (most of them

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in high-school) find it acceptable to write about conflicts in their families, while most

of the Ethiopian subjects do not.

3.4.4 Reference to affronts to honor Content words were also used for measuring references to an important norm

of the Ethiopian community - avoidance of affronts to honor. Fifty-two percent of the

Ethiopian adolescents, compared to only 10% of the non-Ethiopians, wrote personal-

experience narratives telling about affronts to one's honor: ha^ rocxim meabdim et

ha^kavod shel ha^mishpaxa shelahem 'the murderers loose the honor of their families'

3.5 Violation of Linguistic Norms

Berman’s (1999) model defines the level of non-native language proficiency

along a continuum from obligatory rules of morpho-syntactic structure (“core

grammar”) via lexical convention to discourse-motivated and culturally-determined

factors of language use. Following this model, three types of violations were

specified: expressing morpho-syntax, lexical usage, and register mixing. All

violations of linguistic expressions were marked and analyzed (See Section 2.6.5).

3.5.1 Grammatical errors

Three types of morpho-syntactic errors were defined: in grammatical

agreement marking of gender, number and person, choice of prepositions and overuse

of the generic subordination še- 'that' for example in place of the more specific form

kše- ‘as-that’ = when. All the grammatical errors were categorized and counted.

Table 11 shows the total amount of grammatical errors across age and origin.

Unexpectedly, the number of grammatical errors increases with age in the non-

Ethiopian group. The same trend occurs in the Ethiopian group, where more

grammatical errors occur in grade 7 and in grade 11 compared to the non-Ethiopian

group. All the Ethiopian 11th graders and also 75% of the 7th graders are not Israeli-

born, and so, although they are considered native speakers of Hebrew, they have not

been using Hebrew since birth, and therefore have fewer years of exposure to the

language.

In the non-Ethiopian group, grammatical errors increased between the 7th and

the 11th grade. In the 4th grade, where all the children including those of Ethiopian

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origin are Israeli-born, the non-Ethiopian group has almost twice the number of

grammatical errors as the Ethiopian group.

Table 10 Total amount of grammatical errors by age and origin

Age N=32

Ethiopian non-Ethiopian

G 23 40 J 54 36 H 130 71

Total 207 147

Table 11 shows the three most common types of grammatical errors across age

and origin. The first type refers to agreement marking of gender, number and person

(Agr), the second to choice of prepositions (Prep), and the third to overuse of the

generic subordinator še- ‘that’, for example in place of the more specific form kše-

‘as-that’ = 'when'.

Table 11 Percentages of the three common grammatical errors by age and origin

Ethiopian Non-Ethiopian Age N=32 Agr Prep še Agr Prep še

G

8 26 26 38 15 25

J

52 22 11 33 27 9

H

40 15 8 46 28 7

With regard to grammatical errors, the most frequent are in verb number,

gender and person agreement in both research groups. In comparison, in Salmon’s

(2002) study the only significant deviation was in overuse of the generic subordinator

še, which is similar in all three populations. The Ethiopian subjects err more in choice

of prepositions, while the non-Ethiopians err more in the marking of agreement.

A comparison of means of grammatical errors per clause between the two populations

showed no difference (an average of 0.1). Thus, it seems that low SES children from

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good schools show similar grammatical accuracy to low SES children from poor

educational systems.

The first two types of grammatical errors in the research study also point at an

interaction between syntax and lexicon, since they can be attributed to either or both

the grammatical and lexical levels of language structure.

The heads of the language teams in the schools report that the commoner type of

grammatical error in teachers' speech is in marking of agreement.

3.5.2 Lexical infelicities

These types of violations of lexical expressions refer to deviations in the

lexicon in terms of precision and felicity of vocabulary selection. Lexical infelicities

refer to deviations from collocational appropriateness (single words or expressions) in

a given clause, which strike the reader-hearer as deviating from accepted or

conventionalized native usage. For example: še-ota yalda adayin pgu’a gam mimeni

lamrot ha-slixot ‘that-same girl (is) still offended by me too, in spite of the

pardonings' where the last word is a misuse of the term for religious penitential

prayers said on a Jewish holiday, in place of conventional hitnacluyot ‘apologies’ or

the related, more colloquial and yet more appropriate še-bikashti mimena slixa ‘I

asked from her (a) pardon = I said I was sorry'.

All lexical infelicities were marked, counted, and categorized into six sub-

categories: (1) use of a single inappropriate word, (2) inappropriate free collocations,

(3) inappropriate restricted collocations, (4) appropriate collocations in an inadequate

context, (5) over-collocation - use of a collocation where only a part of it is needed

and (6) under-collocation - use of only a part of the appropriate collocation. All

lexical infelicities were further marked only for high literate register, in an attempt to

describe the context in which such deviations, are produced.

Table 12 shows the number of lexical infelicities across age, genre and origin.

As expected, a clear developmental pattern occurs with regard to lexical infelicities.

Moreover, it seems that this phenomenon does not occur in the early years of

schooling, but rather is typical of high-school students. Lexical infelicities seem to be

sensitive to genre, since the non-Ethiopian group has about three times more lexical

infelicities in their expository texts than in their narratives. A lesser but similar pattern

is found in the Ethiopian group.

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The lexical infelicities marked as high literate register (see Section 2) were

higher in the expository texts of the Ethiopian group (52%), while only 42% of them

were marked as such in the narratives. An opposite trend is found in the non-

Ethiopian group, where 78% of the lexical infelicities marked as high register

occurred in the narratives, while only 32% in the expository texts.

Table 12 Number of lexical infelicities by age, genre and origin

Ethiopian Non-Ethiopian Age N=16 Narrative Expository Narrative Expository

G

_ _ _

_

J

3 _ 1 3

H

16 21 14 37

Total = 94 19 21 15 40

In order to construct a comparable sample of relative measure of complexity,

16 texts of the original study were matched to those of this study by mean number of

words per clauses. Table 13 shows the number of lexical infelicities in the original

study across age and genre. As expected, a comparison of lexical infelicities with the

original study shows that this phenomenon is far more pervasive (94 compared with

14) among low SES subjects. Two subjects of the original study in the 4th grade

produced lexical infelicities in their expository texts, in comparison to none of the low

SES subjects. These infelicities increase with age and with the writer’s level of

literacy and proficiency across populations, and occur mostly in the 11th grade. Half

of the lexical infelicities in the expository texts of the original study, and a third in the

research study seem to accompany a deliberate attempt of the writers to raise the

register.

84

Table 13 Number of lexical infelicities in the original study by age and genre

Original study Age Narrative Expository

G N=16

_ 2

J N=16

1 2

H N=16

5 4

Total= 14 6 8

Table 14 shows the sub-categorizations of the lexical infelicities in the research study

and in the original study (See Section 2.6.5.2). Most of the lexical infelicities in both

studies occurred in restricted collocations, which can be characterized by the high

literate register.

Table 14 Number of the sub-categorizations of the lexical deviations by population

Population Single

inappropriate word

Inappropriate free collocation

Inappropriate restricted collocation

Appropriate collocation inadequate context

0ver- collocation

Under- collocation

Total

Research study

26 21 26 11 3 1 94

Original study

2 4 8 14

3.5.3 Register mixing

Register mixing refers to usage of colloquial everyday language with high

style expressions (single words or multilexemic expressions) in a given clause. All

such deviations were marked and counted. Table 15 shows the number of register

mixing across age, genre and origin. Unexpectedly, the total number of register

mixing in the non-Ethiopian group is equal across genre. In comparison, the Ethiopian

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subjects have more register mixing in their narratives. As expected, register mixing is

more common among the Ethiopian subjects, who have more such deviations than the

non-Ethiopians.

Table 15 Number of cases of register mixing by age, genre and origin

Ethiopian Non-Ethiopian Age N=16 Narrative Expository Narrative Expository

G

13 10 7 4

J

13 15 14 11

H

14 10 4 10

Total = 125 40 35 25 25

Table 16 shows the number of register mixings in the original study across age

and genre. As expected, register mixing seems to be sensitive to population. The

original group has less of such register mixing (M=7) than the research groups

(M=10.2). It seems that the original group is more aware of register appropriateness

and consistency across genre, since they have fewer such deviations in their

expository texts (2) and fewer in their narratives ( 0.27), compared to the research

groups (Exp 9.5, and Narr. 0.67) respectively.

Table 16 Number of cases of register mixing in the original study by age and genre

Original study Age N=16 Narrative Expository

G 3 2 J 1 1 H 9 5

Total=21 13 8

In sum, the scope of lexical infelicities and register mixing is rather small,

especially in the original data. Nevertheless, in terms of amount of deviations, both

groups have 1.5 times more deviations in register mixing than in lexical infelicities

across genre. In terms of deviance from native norms, low SES subjects have 3 times

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more lexical infelicities and register mixing than the subjects of the original study. It

seems that inconsistencies of register are more frequent among low SES subjects,

while middle-high SES subjects appear to have better mastered the task of precision

and felicity of lexical selection. In terms of register, the production of lexical

infelicities seems to be accompanied by a deliberate attempt to raise the level of

language use. Moreover, the native speaker-writer (middle-high SES, and of

Ethiopian origin) seems to produce more register mixing when writing a personal

experience narrative. The original subjects seem to have better abilities to produce

well-structured texts in writing, with conventionalized lexical items, and also better

native speaker-writer socio-communicative skills, which ensure the appropriate level

and type of language usage.

3.6 Global Text Construction

A “top down” approach was used to examine genre, origin and population

differences and also developmental changes in the production of global text structure

in terms of overall discourse structure, text component length and organization of

information in the text (See Section 2.6.6).

3.6.1 Text Components

The analysis of global text structure uses three obligatory analogous text

components for both text types. With regard to the narrative about interpersonal

conflicts, the setting contains information about the place, time, protagonists (the

characters in a state of conflict), state of affairs, motivation for story telling and

elements of the story script. The middle component of the narrative (the events or

plot, episodes) contains at least two chronologically ordered events, while the closing

component (resolution) contains a resolution to the problem and sometimes also a

coda that refers back to the beginning and to the motivation for story telling.

In comparison, in expository texts the opening (the introduction) contains

information about the main idea(s) to be discussed. The middle contains

supplementary elaborations and illustrations to the ideational core, while the closing

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component (conclusion) is characterized by conclusions, summaries and occasionally

refers back to the main idea(s)

Table 17 shows the global text structure in three components: openings (OP),

text center (TC) and closings (Cl) by age, genre and origin. For the openings,

ANOVA with repeated measures yields significant effects for genre F(1, 90)=25.058,

p< .001, for age F(2,90)=22.807, p<.001, and for the interaction between genre x age

F(2, 90)=9.561, p< .001, genre x origin F(1, 90)=4.451, p<.05, and genre x age x

origin F(2, 90)=3.712, p< .05. For the core propositions ANOVA with repeated

measures yields significant effects for genre F(1,90)= 32.946, p<.001, for age

F(2,90)=21.655, p< .001, for the interaction between genre x age F(2,90)=4.092,

p<.05 and for the interaction between genre x age x origin F(2,90)=7.450, p=.001.

For the closings ANOVA with repeated measures yields significant effects for genre

F(1,90)=12.049, p=.001 and age F(2,90)=32.783, p< .001.

As expected, the ability to construct narratives and expository texts including

all three text components increases with age. Moreover, the global text structure for

the narrative is more accessible to younger children than for the expository text,

which seems to be well-constructed only in high school. Openings are constructed at

an earlier stage of development than closings; openings and closings emerge earlier in

narratives than in expository texts. Most of the subjects in junior high produce

openings in their narratives, while about half of them still find it difficult to construct

openings in their expository texts. It seems to be a difficulty in constructing closings

across genre even among the high-school students. The non-Ethiopian subjects begin

to produce closings across genre earlier and construct more of them across age in

comparison to their Ethiopian peers. Thus, genre seems to be a relevant factor in

relation to age differences in global text construction. There is no significant

difference between the Ethiopian group and the non-Ethiopian group with regard to

global text structure.

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Table 17 Numbers of texts containing each of three text components

by age, genre and origin


Age N=16

OP CN CL OP CN CL OP CN CL OP CN CL G 14

16

8

9

16

0 16

16

7

6

16

0

J 16

16

7

9

16

2

15

16

14

7

16

7

H

Total

16

46

16

48

13

28

15

23

16

48

13

15

16

47

16

48

12

33

16

19

16

48

13

20

3.6.2 Text component length

Text component length was measured in terms of number of clause packages

per text component. Table 18 shows mean number of CPs in each text component.

(opening, core proposition and closing) by age, genre and origin. As expected, for the

openings in the narrative texts a t test shows a significant effect for age

F(2,93)=16.938, p<.001. For the openings in the expository texts a t test yields a

significant effect for age F(2,93)=12.04, p<.001. For the core propositions in the

narrative texts a t test shows a significant effect for age (2,93)=13.032, p<.001. For

the core propositions in the expository texts a t test yields a significant effect for age

F(2,93)=12.04, p<.001.For the closings in the narrative texts a t test shows a

significant effect for age F(2,93)=11.160, p<.001. For the closings in the expository

texts a t test yields a significant effect for age F(2,93)=35.350, p<.001. As expected,

text component length, measured by number of CPs per text component, is sensitive

to age across genre.

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Table 18 Means and standard deviations of CPs in each text component

by age, genre and origin


Age N=16

OP CN CL OP CN CL OP CN CL OP CN CL G

SD 1.3 (1)

5.1 (2.6)

.6 (.8)

.6 (.6)

3 (1.6)

.06 (.25)

1 (.6)

4.1 (3.1)

.6 (.8)

.5. (.5)

1.8 (1)

0

J SD

1.2 (.5)

3.8 (2.5)

.5 (.6)

.8 (1)

3.6 (1.6)

.1 (.5)

1 (.3)

5.8 (4)

1.1 (.8)

.6 (1)

3.3 (2.1)

.5 (.7)

H

SD 5.6 (3)

12.3 (7.6)

2.1 (1.6)

2.1 (1.6)

4.7 (3)

1.7 (1.1)

3 (2.3)

7.2 (3.8)

1.8 (2.1)

1.8 (2.1)

5.8 (3.4)

1.3 (1.1)

On the whole, there is no significant difference between the Ethiopian group and

the non-Ethiopian group with regard to text component length. Nevertheless, a

comparison of the narratives of the two groups (especially in the 11th grade) shows

that the Ethiopian subjects have more CPs per text component, especially in their

openings and core propositions. Consequently, their narratives intuitively seem to be

denser.

Text construction has a clear developmental pattern. Global text constructions

are learned and constructed throughout the school years especially between junior-

high and high school. Canonical narrative structure is acquired earlier than global

expository structure. Construction of well formed openings and core propositions in

the narratives, which contain more CPs than those of the expository text, occur during

the early years of schooling. Closings seem to be the most difficult and the last to be

constructed across genre. Even during the final years of schooling some subjects have

difficulties in constructing well formed closings in their expository texts.

3.6.3 Levels of organization of information

Text structure was also examined in terms of a more qualitative analysis of

three levels of information organization: the linear (L), partially hierarchical (PH),

and fully hierarchical (FH) levels based on Katzenberger's model (submitted a). At the

linear level adjunct clauses or pieces of information are organized in a pair-wise

fashion; at the partially hierarchical level the text contains both global and local-level

90

a

a

elements of content and/or structure; and at the fully proficient level there is a graded

flow of information between general and specific, and also global text organization

and flow of information explicitly are marked by linguistic means. These levels were

examined in both types of texts.

Table 19 shows global text structure in terms of three levels of information

organization: linear (L), partially hierarchical (PH), and fully hierarchical (FH) by

Age, Genre and Origin. As expected, for the linear level, ANOVA with repeated

measures yields significant effects of genre F(1,90)=12.273, p=.001, of age

F(2,93)=13.444, p<.001 and for the interaction between genre x age F(2,90)=12.273,

p<.001.

For the partially hierarchical level, ANOVA with repeated measures yields significant

effects of genre F(1,90)= 735.423, p<.001, of age F(2,93)=6.007, p<.01 and for the

interaction between genre x age F(2,90)=224.577, p<.001.

For the fully hierarchical level, ANOVA with repeated measures yields a significant

effect of genre F(1,90)=12.273, p=.001, of age F(2,93)=13.444, p<.01 and for the

interaction between genre x age F(2,90)=12.273, p<.001. As expected, the levels of

information organization are sensitive to age and genre. The ability to construct a

partially hierarchical ordered expository text, which contains both global and local-

level elements, develops between junior high and high school. Almost none of the 7th

graders construct even a partially hierarchical expository text (except two Ethiopian

students and one non-Ethiopian). Moreover, almost none of the subjects in this study

constructed a fully hierarchical and explicitly marked expository text (except one non-

Ethiopian high-school student.). In comparison, a third of the population in high

school constructed fully hierarchical narratives; and the non-Ethiopian group

constructed more such texts than the Ethiopian group. All 4th graders constructed

partially hierarchical narratives. There is no significant difference between the

Ethiopian and the non-Ethiopian group with regard to levels of information

organization.

91

Table 19 Numbers of texts including Linear (L), Partially Hierarchical (PH),

and Fully Hierarchical (FH) levels of information organization by age, genre, and

origin


Age N=16

L PH FH L PH FH L PH FH L PH FH G

- 16

- 16

- - - 16

- 16

- -

J

- 16

- 14

2

- - 16

- 15

1

-

H Total

- -

13 45

3 3

3 33

13 15

- -

- -

9 32

7 7

4 35

11 12

1 1

The openings of the original texts across genre were also examined by the

same method as above and by the same judges in terms of the three levels of

information organization: the linear (L), partially hierarchical (PH), and fully

hierarchical (FH) levels. Table 20 shows global text construction of the original data

in terms of three levels of information organization by genre and age. With regard to

population, there is no significant difference between the original subjects and both of

the two research groups with regard to global text structure. All fourth graders

constructed partially hierarchical narratives, while only about a third of the high-

school children constructed fully hierarchical narratives. Only two high-school

subjects constructed a fully proficient rhetoric expository text.

Table 20 Numbers of texts of the original data including Linear (L), Partially

Hierarchical (PH), and Fully Hierarchical (FH) levels of information organization by

genre and age

Narrative Expository Age N=20

L PH FH L PH FH

G

-

-

-

20

-

-

J

- 20

- 17

3

-

H

Total

- 13

33

7 7

-

37

18

21

2 2

In sum, all populations show similar production abilities of text structure across age

and genre.

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3.7 Summary of Results of the Written Texts

All the above findings suggest that the measures of text construction applied

here: text length, clause packaging and syntactical links are sensitive to age. Thus, the

results of this study confirm the results of the original study with regard to

development. For text length, there is a clear developmental pattern for both types of

text. Text increases in length with age and level of schooling as measured by number

of words, and number of clauses per text. Development of text length is also sensitive

to genre. Narratives are generally longer than texts in the expository genre in number

of words and of clauses. Syntactic complexity measured by number of words per

clause and number of clauses per clause package also increases with age. With regard

to genre, a reverse pattern emerges for mean length of clause and for mean length of

clause packages compared with mean length of texts: Expository texts have more

words per clause, and more clauses per clause package.

On the one hand, origin is not significant regarding text length, syntactic

complexity, lexical richness, and global text construction. Both research groups

exhibit similar behavior regarding these measures. On the other hand, regarding

grammatical errors, the Ethiopian subjects produce more such errors than their non-

Ethiopian classmates

With regard to population, low SES students use a lower number of words per

clause and fewer content words per clause across genre, when text size is neutralized.

They also display less proficient usage in lexical selection and in discourse

conventions than the middle-class children of the original study. Consistencies of

register seem to be especially difficult to access for low SES students.

Similar results between students from different socio-economic backgrounds

were found with regard to clause packaging, lexical density, and global text

construction. In addition, no differences were found in terms of grammatical accuracy

between low SES children from poor educational systems and low SES children who

attend well-established schools.

Thematic content also emerges as sensitive to population. Students seem to

include in their personal-experience narratives themes that refer to their immediate

surrounding and to common norms and behaviors of their community.

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Part 2: Results of Literacy Questionnaire

3.8 Introduction As noted, the second database consists of 114 questionnaires (96 of the two

low SES research groups and 18 questionnaires of the middle-high SES control

group). This “literacy questionnaire” was designed specifically for this study,

extended and elaborated from a preliminary design used in the original study (see

Appendix I). The original design, which served as the basis of the literacy

questionnaire, included only open-ended questions. The literacy questionnaire used in

this study consists of 24 items (both open-ended and multiple-choice). It was

expanded considerably to meet the particular goals of the present study, and to

provide an informative profile of the research population. The main goal of the

questionnaire was to elicit responses that would shed light on literacy-related

activities at home and in school, and on attitudes towards language of children from

different backgrounds. All these variables may affect language proficiency.

This individually tailored background and literacy related questionnaire is a

special type of discourse, which forms an important part of modern bureaucratic life.

Immigrant children are familiar with this type of text since they often function as go-

betweens for their parents in contact with bureaucratic institutions, so they have some

experience with filling out questionnaires.

The questionnaire was administered to each student individually. In addition to

the two research groups, a third group of 18 schoolchildren was also asked to fill out

the literacy questionnaire. These were Israeli-born children of high SES background

in the same age groups and school levels as the research groups. All the children in

this control group spoke Hebrew at home. They were all high achievers in school

language studies. The parents of the children in the control group were highly literate

in Hebrew, with an average of fifteen years of formal schooling.

An adult interviewer (investigator/facilitator) was present throughout the

proceedings. Once subjects had completed the task, the adult interviewer fulfilled a

short questionnaire for each subject about his/her conduct in the course of performing

the task (Section 3.16). Information provided by students in response to the

questionnaire was supplemented by two additional sources of information: 1) an

evaluation sheet filled out by class language teachers for each student, and 2) data

94

entered on students’ personal files by their parents when they enrolled in the school.

These tools were implemented in order to further verify and check the data from the

literacy questionnaire.

The data derived by these means (student questionnaire, supplementary details

provided by interviewer, teacher evaluation sheets, and school files) were analyzed

according to criteria relating to the two main independent variables of the study: age

and origin. In addition, where relevant, teacher evaluations were compared with

student self-perceptions in each domain.

A qualitative descriptive analysis was chosen to gain a ‘holistic’ overview of

the studied phenomena. This analysis was used in order to obtain an insight into the

students’ particular attitudes towards writing, their perceptions of home literacy

activities and their day-to-day writing behaviors in school. This kind of data, about

the students’ general, linguistic and familial background, is qualitative in nature and

cannot be quantified nor measured. Moreover, it represents how some actors in some

contexts deal with some issues (Miles & Huberman, 1994, p. 22). Most analyses of

such phenomena are done using words rather than numbers (pp. 6-7). The

questionnaire deliberately contained a relatively large number of open-ended

questions. The analysis, therefore, is essentially qualitative rather than statistical in

nature. This is in spite of the fact that the analysis sometimes refers to quantitative

distributional data. Each domain is evaluated in terms most relevant to the general

purpose of the study - the impact of literacy and literacy-based experiences on

students’ perceptions and attitudes. Each of the nine following topics representing the

variables investigated by means of the literacy questionnaire is discussed in a separate

section:

1) Level of success in Hebrew language studies is assessed by teacher evaluations of

language achievements (Section 3.9).

2) Proficiency in writing is assessed by both teacher and student evaluations of

narrative, expository and questionnaire writing (Section 3.10).

3) Attitudes to writing activities are assessed by the students’ evaluations of their

command and liking of a specific list of activities, and by their ranking of the

difficulty of these activities (Section 3.11).

4) Level of difficulty of the various writing activities is evaluated by the students'

choice of the easiest and the most difficult writing activities out of a list of ten

(Section 3.12).

95

5) Level of proficiency in Amharic is evaluated by the students’ evaluations of their

speaking, reading and writing of the language (Section 3.13).

6) Self-perception of what characterizes the proficient writer is evaluated by context

analysis of the students’ responses into eight categories (Section 3.14).

7) Attitudes towards Hebrew and the children’s home language were evaluated by

students’ acceptance or rejection of statements describing this issue (Section 3.15).

8) Interviewer information on the questionnaire as a task was assessed by the

interviewer’s general impression, time required to fill out the questionnaire, student’s

need for help and interviewer’s evaluation of task difficulty (Section 3.16).

9) Parental background was assessed by parents’ reports on their years of formal

education and country of birth (Section 3.17).

10) Home literacy was assessed by parental command of reading and writing in their

native language and in Hebrew, home-based literacy activities, and sources of

assistance while encountering difficulties in writing (Section 3.18).

A summary of the results of the literacy questionnaires ends the second part of the

chapter describing the results (Section 3.19).

3.9 Success in Hebrew Language Studies

Success in Hebrew language studies was assessed by teacher evaluations of

language achievements.

3.9.1 Teacher evaluations of language achievements

Language teachers were asked to give each student an average grade on his/her

level of achievement in Hebrew language studies, including composition and

literature together. Grades were ranked on a scale from 0 to 100, as is accepted

practice in the Israeli school system, as follows: 50 (fail), 60 (fair), 70 (average), 80

(good), 90 (very good), 100 (excellent). This is roughly equivalent to the following in

the U.S. school system: 50 = F, 60 = D, 70 = C, 80 = B, 90 = A.

Teachers assigned very similar grades for Hebrew language studies to

Ethiopian and non-Ethiopian students across the three grades (grade school - 4th

grade, junior-high - 7th grade, high-school - 11th grade). All groups rated a score of

around “average” to “good”. This was particularly marked in the youngest and oldest

groups. The mean scores in the 4th grade (73 for Ethiopian students and 70 for non-

Ethiopians), and in the 7th grade (71 for Ethiopian students and 70 for non-Ethiopians)

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are almost identical. A somewhat greater difference is found in the 11th grade (75 for

the Ethiopians and 83 for the non-Ethiopians). Moreover, the wide range of scores in

both groups is very similar: from 55-95 in the Ethiopian group and from 45-95 in the

non-Ethiopian. That is, both groups showed similar intra-group variability or

individual variation. Their language teachers typically rated both groups of students as

around what is considered “average” or somewhat better than “passable” in the Israeli

school system.

3.10 Writing Proficiency

Teachers and students were asked to rank students’ proficiency in writing,

evaluated in terms of the ability to write narrative and expository texts and to fill out a

questionnaire. This was assessed by a four-point scale where low is described as “find

it very hard”, through “find it hard”, “do well”, and high described as “do very well”.

3.10.1 Teacher evaluations of narrative writing

This section describes the evaluations of the language teachers of the narrative

writing of the Ethiopian and non-Ethiopian students. The teachers of the 4th graders

identically evaluated both groups around “average” between “find it very hard” to “do

well”. The teachers of the7th graders rated the Ethiopian students between “find it

very hard” to “do well”, in comparison to the non-Ethiopians were rated as “do well”.

The teachers of the 11th graders identically evaluated both groups around “average”

between “find it very hard” to “do well”.

3.10.2 Teacher evaluations of expository text writing

The evaluations given by the language teachers are typically lower than for

narratives, and they are the same across the two groups: 4th grade - both groups rated

the same around “find it very hard”. Seventh and 11th grades - between “find it very

hard” to “do well”. The findings show that expository ratings improve with age.

3.10.3 Teacher evaluations of questionnaire writing The language teachers also evaluated the ability of their students to fill out

questionnaires. The results show that scores are typically higher than for both

narratives and expositories, and again they are the same for both Ethiopian and non-

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Ethiopian in the two lower grades: 4th and 7th grades - both groups rated the same

around “average” between “find it very hard” to “do well”. 11th grade - the Ethiopian

students rated “do well” - slightly higher than the non-Ethiopian students who rated

between “find it very hard” to “do well”.

In sum, with regard to general language achievement as evaluated both by the

students themselves and by their teachers, there is little difference between the level

of writing proficiency that teachers evaluate their Ethiopian and non-Ethiopian

students respectively as evaluated by their teachers. Again, across the three grades and

all three types of writing activities, both groups rated as by and large average, neither

group being close to failing nor close to excellent.

3.10.4 Student evaluation of narrative writing

The students were asked to evaluate their own writing proficiency in narrative,

expository, and questionnaire type texts. The students rated their writing proficiency

on the same scale as was used by their teachers, a four-point scale going from a low

described as “find it very hard”, to “find it hard”, “do well”, “do very well”.

Students consistently rated their narrative writing abilities at a higher level than did

their teachers. Most students rated themselves between “doing well” to “doing very

well”, with non-Ethiopians ranking themselves better on the average than Ethiopian

students in the two lower grades, but with Ethiopian high-schoolers ranking

themselves better than their non-Ethiopian peers.

3.10.5 Student evaluation of expository writing

The students were also asked to assess their ability to write expository texts on

the same scale used for assessing their narrative writing. Ethiopian students in all

three age groups assessed their abilities slightly lower than the non-Ethiopians. Both

groups rated themselves as “doing well” in all age groups. Here too, students

consistently rated their expository writing abilities at a higher level than their

teachers.

3.10.6 Student evaluation of questionnaire writing

With regard to filling out questionnaires, the Ethiopian and the non-Ethiopian

students in all three age groups similarly evaluated their ability; the Ethiopian and the

non-Ethiopian 4th graders rated themselves around “doing well”. Both groups of 7th

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and 11th graders rated themselves as “doing very well”. Again, students consistently

rated their questionnaire writing abilities as higher than did their teachers.

On the whole, across the three types of writing tasks, the two groups of students

accredited themselves with relatively similar scores between “do well” and “do very

well”, and they typically evaluated themselves higher than their teachers.

Students were also asked to estimate their general writing skills in Hebrew.

This was assessed by a four-point scale going from a low described as “fair” (literally,

in colloquial Hebrew ‘lo kol kach tov’ = ‘not so good’) through to “good”, and on to

“excellent”. With regard to general writing skills in Hebrew, both Ethiopian and non-

Ethiopian students across the three age groups rated themselves quite similarly.

Approximately half of the entire population (24 out of a total of 48 Ethiopian students

and 24 out of the 48 non-Ethiopian students) rated their Hebrew writing as

“excellent”. A third of the Ethiopian students (17 out of 48) and a quarter of the non-

Ethiopians (12 out of 48) reported that they write Hebrew well. In comparison, few

Ethiopian students (7 out of 48) ranked their Hebrew writing as “fair” or “not very

good” compared with rather more non-Ethiopians (12 out of 48).

In all age levels, both groups rated themselves quite similarly. Over half of the

students in the 4th grade in both groups (11 Ethiopian and 9 non-Ethiopian out of 16

each) reported that they write Hebrew well to excellently. The bulk of the 7th graders

in both groups (14 Ethiopian and 13 non-Ethiopians out of 16 each) reported the

same. All the Ethiopian students and nearly all of the non-Ethiopians (14) in the 11th

grade also ranked their writing similarly, as “good” to “excellent”.

On the whole, across the ages both groups evaluated their writing very

similarly. High-school students expressed a better estimation of their writing skills,

and most of them regard themselves as “good” to “excellent” writers.

3.11 Writing Abilities and Attitudes

Students reported on their liking and command of various writing activities.

These activities could be done either in school or at home. They were also asked to

choose the easiest and the most difficult activity from the same list of writing

activities.

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3.11.1 Attitudes to and command of writing activities

Students were asked to express their attitude towards various writing activities.

The writing activities listed in the questionnaire included: 1) copying from the

blackboard, 2) writing answers to questions, 3) writing a story, 4) writing a summary,

5) writing an expository text, 6) filling out a questionnaire, 7) writing a letter, 8)

writing a poem, 9) writing entries in a diary, and 10) writing personal notes and

messages. Students were asked to indicate whether they like a given activity “very

much”, “quite a lot”, “a fair amount” or “not at all”. These attitudes were then

compared to the same student’s evaluation of his/her command of, or facility with

each of the above writing activities. The students were asked to indicate their

command of these writing activities using the same scale.

A comparison of the students’ reports on their attitudes and command of the

various writing activities shows very considerable variability. A Spearman’s

correlation test was conducted only for activities corresponding to the same types of

text the subjects produced: writing a story, writing an expository text and filling out a

questionnaire. The results show no correlation between how students describe their

attitudes to these three types of writing activities and their actual command of each

activity. Thus, the students do not necessarily like the same writing activities they

perform best.

3.12 Level of Difficulty of the Various Writing Activities Students were asked to mark one activity out of the following as the easiest

and one as the most difficult respectively: 1) copying from the blackboard, 2) writing

answers to questions, 3) writing a story, 4) writing a summary, 5) writing an

expository text, 6) filling out a questionnaire, 7) writing a letter, 8) writing a poem, 9)

writing entries in a diary and 10) writing personal notes and messages. Across the

population, the task that was rated easiest by most students was that of “copying from

the blackboard”: one third of the entire research population (19 out of 48 Ethiopian

students, 13 out of 48 non-Ethiopians, and 6 out of 18 control students alike). Most

students rated “Writing poetry” as the most difficult writing activity across the

different groups; (29 Ethiopian students and 25 non-Ethiopian students out of 48

each), and one third of the control group (5 students out of 18). In other words, all

three groups of students have similar attitudes to what kind of writing activities they

view as relatively more or less difficult.

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3.13 Proficiency in Amharic of the Ethiopian students

Most of the Ethiopian students (two-thirds) reported that they spoke Amharic

with their parents. Students were also asked to rate how good their knowledge was of

Amharic in speaking, reading, and writing. They were asked to rank it on a scale of

“excellent” to “very good”, “good”, “mediocre”, and “not at all”. Very few of the

Ethiopian students (only 5 out of the total 48) reported that they do not speak Amharic

at all. Moreover, one-quarter (12 out of 48) reported that they speak good to excellent

Amharic (with relatively more of the 4th graders and 11th graders giving themselves

this high evaluation than the 7th graders).

In contrast to the high rating they generally gave to their oral proficiency, the

bulk of the students (40 out of 48) rated their reading and writing in Amharic much

lower, between “none at all” to “mediocre”. This is consistent with a general finding

that two thirds of the Ethiopian population in Israel neither read nor write Amharic

(personal communication with Dr. Anbessa Teferra, a linguist expert in Amharic

languages).

3.14 Attitudes to Writing The questionnaire included items designed to elicit the students’ view of why

writing is important, and what they consider to be “good writing”.

3.14.1 Why writing is important

Students were asked to express their view on the importance of writing, by

writing a response to the following question: “Do you think it is important to learn

how to write? Yes/No. Explain why.” Their responses were analyzed according to

the following categories:

1) Cognitive enrichment: For example, “writing can help you discover things about

yourself”, “you cannot think without it”, “you learn things through it”.

2) Self-expression: “you can pour out things which are in your heart”, “writing is a

means of expression”, “to express feelings”.

3) Instrumental or practical motivations: “to write letters to the bank”, “in order to fill

out a work application form”, “so that when you’re a grown-up and your children ask

you to write something, you won’t have to say ‘I don’t know how’ ”.

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4) Vague generalities: “necessary in daily life”, “it is useful”, “you would miss out on

things (if you don’t know how to write)”.

The third category, instrumental motivations stating that writing is a means of

achieving certain practical ends, was the most highly favored by the three groups.

More subjects did so among the research groups than the Control group; 29 Ethiopian

students out of 48 and 27 non-Ethiopians out of 48, compared with less than half of

the control group 8 out of 18. In the non-Ethiopian group and the control group there

is an age-related shift from a clear preference for instrumental reasons at the younger

ages to other categories in the highest age group (in 4th grade 12 out of 16 non-

Ethiopian students and 4 out of 6 control students gave an instrumental reason, while

only 4 non-Ethiopians and 2 control students did so in 11th grade). Cognitive

enrichment responses rate three times more in the control group (one-third of their

responses) than in the two research groups (16% and 12% of the Ethiopians and non-

Ethiopians respectively). Reasons of “cognitive enrichment” are not given at all by

4th graders in the control group, while 5 Ethiopian 4th graders and 3 non- Ethiopians

out of 16 in each age group chose this category. Self-expression rated the lowest

proportion of response in all three groups, and was not used by a single one of the

research group students in the two lower grades. Vaguely general statements

accounted for around 10% of the Ethiopian students’ responses and 30% of the non-

Ethiopians’ responses and the controls’. Only the non-Ethiopian students show an

age-related shift from nine vague general statements in 4th grade to only four such

statements in 7th grade. The other populations have an even number of such

statements in all the age groups.

In sum, in attitudes regarding the importance of writing, instrumental reasons

are highly preferred across the population, especially in the younger age groups. Self-

expression ranks higher at the junior-high group. In comparison, cognitive enrichment

rates mainly among the control group students.

3.14.2 What makes a good writer?

The students were asked to define what they considered to make a proficient

writer, as follows: “Think about a person who writes well. What is good in this

person’s writing? What is special about this person’s writing?”. Responses were

divided into the following categories:

1) Communicativeness: “writes for the others”, “enters into the spirit of the reader”.

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2) Writer-oriented activity: “ [writes] for himself”, “enjoys the act of writing”.

3) Content: “easily understood, you do not need to devote much thought to what the

writer wanted to say”, “writes about interesting topics”.

4) Use of language: “rich vocabulary”, “literary expressions”.

5) Organizational structure: “the writing is well organized”, “the writing has a

beginning, a middle, and an end”.

6) Command of writing conventions: “without spelling mistakes”.

7) Has good/clear handwriting: “has a nice handwriting”.

8) Page layout (paragraphing, line spacing, etc.): “keeps to the lines”, “makes even

spaces between the lines”.

Command of writing conventions in general and “has a good/clear

handwriting” in particular were the favored responses of around half of all the

students in the two research groups (23 Ethiopians, 25 non-Ethiopians out of 48 in

each). In contrast, only a quarter of the control group students (4 out of 18) chose this

category. Again, this changes with age in the control group, where only 4th graders

mention “handwriting” as a factor in their responses. Other aspects of writing

conventions, mainly spelling, account altogether for most of the responses of the 4th

and 7th grade research groups, but of almost none of the control students. Very few

students; only two Ethiopian students, three non-Ethiopians, and one 4th grader in the

control group chose page layout. Language use is mentioned as a major property of

good writing by as high as one third and nearly 20% of the high-school Ethiopian and

non-Ethiopian students respectively. In contrast, only several control group students at

junior as well as high school age gave this response. Only high-schoolers mentioned

"content" as a characteristic of good writers. More control group students (5 out of

18) chose this category in comparison to the Ethiopian students (6 out of 48) and their

non-Ethiopian peers (7 out of 48). Communicativeness is also selected far more by

control students (8 out of 18) than by the other two groups (4 out of 48). Again, the

control students start referring to this category by junior-high school. In comparison,

only high-school students in the two research groups also chose this category. Only a

few high-school students across the three groups referred to text organization.

In sum, high-school students across the population, but most particularly in the

control group, specify “features of writing as a special discourse style” as

characteristics of the proficient writer. Such features are: communicativeness, content

and language use. Whereas features of “writing as a notational system” (Ravid &

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Tolchinsky, 2002) are typical of evaluations of younger grade-school children. Such

features are mainly handwriting and command of writing conventions.

3.15 Language Attitudes Students were asked to indicate their attitudes to language use in Israel,

comparing Hebrew and other languages used by immigrant groups. They were asked

to express their opinion on the following statements, from “totally agree”, “agree”,

“disagree”, down to “totally disagree”. The following are the statements expressing

the different attitudes towards Hebrew and other language use in Israel: “In everybody

should talk only Hebrew”, “It is important for immigrants to continue speaking their

native language”, “In a public place, new immigrants should not talk in their native

language", “You don’t have to know Hebrew in order to get along in Israel”, "You

want to feel Israeli you have to know Hebrew”, “It is important to speak the language

at home in order to stay in contact with the family”. The opinions “agree” and “totally

agree” were counted together as were “disagree” and “totally disagree” in an attempt

to form a clearer and more dichotomous picture from the various responses.

Preservation of the native language (“it’s important for immigrants to continue

speaking their native language”) is supported by over two-thirds of all the students.

An even higher proportion (around 85%) expressed support for using the language at

home. Between two-thirds to three-quarters of the younger children also expressed

support for the statement “If you want to feel Israeli you have to know Hebrew”.

However, with age, in all three groups, fewer students agree with this. Around half the

students in all three groups across ages agree that the use of Hebrew is needed in

order to get along in Israel.

Relating to Hebrew dominance in schools and use of a language other than

Hebrew in public places, the students of the research group expressed more

conservative attitudes. Two thirds of them favor Hebrew only in schools and around

one half favored only Hebrew in public places. In comparison, 16% to one quarter of

the control group students expressed similar opinions on these two issues.

In sum, it seems that with age there is more tolerance and acceptances of language

variability in immigrant and non-immigrant youth.

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3.16 Interviewer Information on the Questionnaire as a Task

The information in this section is taken from the reports given by the

interviewers after they had finished interviewing each student. By “interviewers”

here, reference is made to the Ethiopian and non-Ethiopian adults who conducted the

fieldwork and met the students on a one-to-one basis for filling out the questionnaire.

Each of them was asked to fill out personal details and then to provide information on

how their interviewees handled the task. Before filling out the questionnaire, students

in the two research groups were given the option to fill out the questionnaire in the

presence of any one of eight interviewers. These adults were divided by sex (four

women and four men), by age (four in their twenties and four in their forties), and by

origin (four Ethiopians and four non-Ethiopians). This was done in order to make the

Ethiopian children feel more at ease to “share” personal details concerning their

homes with a familiar adult from their own community and sex. (Students in the

control group had no choice, they were all interviewed by the investigator herself, an

Israeli-born, non-Ethiopian woman). Students in the two research groups revealed

almost identical preferences with regard to interviewer’s age and gender. More than

half chose a young interviewer and two thirds chose a female interviewer. The

majority (around two thirds) preferred a non-Ethiopian interviewer, and there was

almost no difference between the Ethiopian and non-Ethiopian students in this

respect.

The data in this section are based on the interviewers’ reports provided in

writing at the end of each interview. They were asked to specify how long it took their

students to fill out the questionnaire, how much help students needed in performing

the task, and how difficult students seemed to have found the task. They were also

asked to write their general impression including any important details or

interpretations. This was done in order to obtain information ‘from the inside’, which

might lead to an insight into the unique adults' perceptions.

3.16.1 Time required to fill out the questionnaire.

The average amount of time required by the Ethiopian students to fill out the

questionnaire came to 28.5 minutes – (ranging from 15 minutes to 55 minutes). The

non-Ethiopians averaged 24.5 minutes (ranging from 22 minutes to 27 minutes). The

control students were the quickest (average time 19.7 minutes). They were also the

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most homogeneous (ranging from 18 minutes to 21 minutes), taking on average 8 to

10 minutes less time to complete the task than the two research groups at all three age

grade levels. In terms of age, the 4th graders needed the most time in all three groups,

taking 4 to 5 minutes more, on average, to complete the task than the children in both

the two older groups.

3.16.2 Need for help

Interviewers were asked to rate how much help students needed in order to

perform the task by indicating the number of times students addressed them with

questions or queries about the contents of the questionnaire and what they were

supposed to do. Responses were ranked as follows: “did not need any help"; "needed

a little help" (turned to the interviewer 3 times); "needed considerable help" (turned to

the interviewer 4 or more times).

Responses to these items yielded the following picture. Fourth graders across

the three groups required an identical amount of assistance (averaging 3 queries or

requests for help). In contrast, in the two higher age groups, students in the control

group asked for more help (2.6 on average) than did the others (1.8 on average from

the Ethiopian students). Across the three age groups, the mean amount of assistance

(ranked from a high of four down to zero) is almost identical in the three populations

(2.4 for the non-Ethiopian research group, 2.5 for the controls, and 2.6 for the

Ethiopians).

Interviewers further noted in their reports that the Ethiopian children turned to

them not so much because of difficulty they encountered in filling out the

questionnaire, but rather as an attempt on the part of the students to obtain more

details about the context of this mutual activity. For example, “ why did you choose

our school and not another one?", "Are there many Ethiopian researchers in your

university?", "Do you have Ethiopian friends where you work?", "Where are you

going to publish the results?", "Do you think that we (the Ethiopians) are good

students?". In contrast, students in the control group used the investigator as a source

of relevant information concerning the task, in order to perform it more efficiently.

For example, they posed questions of clarification such as “Why are you asking that?,

Do you want to know what kind of writing activities I perform at home?, Are you

interested in specific examples or generalizations?".

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In conclusion, the amount of assistance, defined as the number of times

students addressed the interviewer with questions or queries, is almost identical in all

the groups. There seems to be a difference in the purpose of the Ethiopians’ and the

non-Ethiopians’ questions. While the non-Ethiopian queries are task-oriented, the

Ethiopians’ are aimed at information about the interviewer and general information

about the context of the research.

3.16.3 Task difficulty

Interviewers were asked to impressionistically rate the level of the difficulty

the questionnaire presented to students, as follows: “What is your impression of the

difficulty the questionnaire involved for the student?” They rated their impression

according to the following evaluation: "The student had no problems filling out the

questionnaire"; "the student filled out the questionnaire with ease"; "the student had

some difficulty in filling out the questionnaire"; " the student had great difficulty in

filling out the questionnaire".

Students in the control group in all three age groups were rated as not having

any difficulty at all in filling out the questionnaire (a mean level of 1.0 on a scale of 1

to 4). They also reported that both research groups at all three ages coped with the

task quite easily, but rated the Ethiopian students as having slightly more difficulty

than their non-Ethiopian peers (2.0 on average for the Ethiopians, 1.8 for the non-

Ethiopians).

In sum, the interviewers reported that according to their impression, filling out the

questionnaire was quite an easy task for all the students. They added that the control

students had less difficulty performing this task than the two research groups.

3.17 Parental Background Data related to parental background refers to the responses given by students

concerning their parents’ country of birth, and level of formal education.

3.17.1 Parents’ country of birth

Almost all the Ethiopian students reported that their fathers were born in

Ethiopia (except for one). Around half the non-Ethiopian fathers are Israeli born and

the other half were born in North Africa or in Europe. In the control group, two thirds

of the fathers are Israeli born and the other third in Eastern Europe or other western

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countries (only one father was born in North Africa). Countries of origin of mothers

reveal a similar picture: all but one among Ethiopian students were born in Ethiopia;

more than half the non-Ethiopian mothers are Israeli born, with the rest mainly from

North Africa (around a quarter), and a few from Eastern Europe. Almost all the

control group mothers (80%) are Israeli born.

The parental origin of the three groups thus reflects patterns of new versus

established immigrants. The Ethiopian parents are predominantly newcomers who

immigrated to Israel from the late eighties, a third of the non-Ethiopian parents

immigrated to Israel around the fifties and most of the control group children have

parents who are Israeli born. Thus, most of the non-Ethiopian parents and the control

parents can be considered as “veteran” Israelis.

3.17.2 Parents’ level of formal education

Information regarding the parents’ level of formal education was derived from

the number of years that parents reported on themselves as having attended school at

the time that they registered their children in the school system. Results reveal

considerable variability between the groups in this respect. The Ethiopian fathers

report a mean of 1.9 years of schooling while the non-Ethiopian fathers, who live in

the same neighborhood, and whose children attend the same schools as the

Ethiopians, report a mean of 8.8 years. In even more marked contrast, the bulk of the

(highly selective) fathers of the children in the control group all completed at least

high-school, and the bulk report they have some years of formal academic education.

Much the same picture emerged for mean years of schooling of the children’s

mothers in all three groups. Again, there are great inter-group differences in this

respect: (8 years between Ethiopian and non-Ethiopian mothers and 14 years between

the research and the control group mothers on average). Ethiopian mothers report a

mean of 1.6 years of schooling, and none of them have high-school education. The

non-Ethiopian mothers all finished junior-high, and have on average 9.1 years of

school. On the other hand, all the mothers of children in the control group finished

high-school and some have higher education. These differences in parental level of

education also reflect new versus established immigrant patterns. The system of

formal schooling in Ethiopia is least developed, while the Israeli school system is

more advanced than that attended by most Jews in North Africa.

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3.18 Home Literacy

The information in this section is taken from students’ responses to questions

concerning the languages in which their parents read and write, types and amounts of

reading and writing activities carried out in their homes, and people they turn to for

help when they encounter difficulty with their writing.

3.18.1 Languages of reading and writing

Children were asked to answer the questions “In which languages do your

parents read?” and “In which languages do your parents write?”.About two thirds of

the Ethiopian fathers were reported as reading and writing in Amharic, with only a

half reading and writing in Hebrew. In contrast, the vast majority of non-Ethiopian

fathers (95%), and all the control group fathers read and write in Hebrew. Two

Ethiopian students reported that their fathers read but do not write Amharic. One

Ethiopian student reported that his father reads but cannot write Hebrew. A very

similar picture emerges for mothers’ reading and writing: 60% of the children in the

Ethiopian group reported that their mothers read and write Amharic. About one

quarter reported that their mothers know how to read and write Hebrew. In

comparison, nearly all the non-Ethiopian mothers (95%) and all the control group

mothers read and write Hebrew. Again, as with their fathers, one Ethiopian student

reported that his mother reads Hebrew but does not write the language.

Worth noting is the fact that the Ethiopian students’ reports on their parents’

reading and writing in Amharic are not consistent with a general finding concerning

the Ethiopian Jews' proficiency in Amharic. An expert in Amharic languages, Dr.

Anbessa Teferra, estimated that two thirds of the Ethiopian population in Israel can

not read or write in Amharic (personal communication).

3.18.2 Home-based reading and writing activities

Students were asked to give examples of different types of reading and writing

activities carried out in their homes. To this end, they were given open-ended

questions as follows: “Give some examples of things your family has read at home

over the past week”, “Give examples of what your family has written at home over

the past week”. Responses were divided into the following text types: For reading

activities: letters: regular mail, e-mail and Internet; television subtitles; storybooks;

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other books, school-related materials and newspapers. For writing activities: notes;

lists; school-related material; work-related material; letters; don’t know and none.

The data in this section is analyzed only by origin because the analysis by age

yields a high variability of the subjects' reports. All the students note reading mainly

newspapers, in nearly all homes of children in the control group homes (90%), in half

the Ethiopian homes and in a third of the non-Ethiopian homes. Reading of books is

the second most common reading activity in all the homes: in three-quarters of the

control group, half the non-Ethiopians, and one third of the Ethiopian homes.

The third most common reading activity is reading subtitles on television (two-thirds

of the control group, half of the non-Ethiopian group and one-third of the Ethiopian).

Reading of study-related material is the fourth most common reading activity in half

of the control group homes, in a fifth of Ethiopian homes and in a tenth of the non-

Ethiopians ones. Only a few Ethiopian students and a few non-Ethiopian students

mentioned reading of storybooks at their homes while around a tenth of control

students reported on it. Reading e-mails and using Internet is reported by a third of the

control group and by only 2 non-Ethiopian students. The Ethiopian students do not

report on reading done on the computer. Only a few Ethiopian and non-Ethiopian

students reported on reading letters in their homes. The students in the control group

did not mention such a reading activity at all.

Students also reported on the types of writing activities conducted in their

homes. The following trend emerges: approximately one tenth of the Ethiopian

students and a few non-Ethiopians could not specify any type of writing activities

conducted in their homes. Students in both research groups noted primarily letter

writing in a third of the Ethiopian and the control students’ homes and in a quarter of

the non-Ethiopian homes. None of the control students and only a few of both

research groups reported on letter-reading in their homes. Writing of study-related

material is the second most common writing activity: in a half of the control group

homes, in a fifth of the non-Ethiopians, and in a tenth of the Ethiopian homes. The

third most common writing activity is writing of work related material in around a

third of the control group students’ homes, while only a few non-Ethiopians and one

Ethiopian student also observe it in their homes. Note that reading of work-related

material was not mentioned by any of the students. Writing on the computer was not

mentioned by any of the students in the three groups. Note that a third of the students

in the control group report on reading done on the computer in their homes. Writing

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of lists and notes is reported by a fifth of the non-Ethiopian and the control group

students. In comparison only a few Ethiopian students also report on such types of

writing in their homes.

In sum, it appears that in all the groups reading at home is mainly aimed at

enjoyment and is done for pleasure (reading of papers, T.V. subtitles and books). In

addition, only in the upper-class homes the common purposes of writing are studying

and communication (writing of study and work-related material and letters). These

writing activities are usually obligatory and required by others. The two research

groups seem to observe almost the same amount of reading and writing activities in

their homes. In comparison, the control group students observe more a greater variety

of literacy activities, and their family members are more engaged in doing them.

3.18.3 Sources of assistance

Sources of assistance refers to the more general context in which students

engage in writing activities. Specifically, students were asked to indicate what they do

and whom they turn to for help when they encounter difficulty with writing. Siblings

are mentioned as the people they turn to for help among around 15% of the research

population, both Ethiopian and non-Ethiopian, but by none of the control group.

Parents are listed by around one third of both “veteran” Israeli groups, non-Ethiopian

and controls alike, but by almost none of the Ethiopian students. Friends are listed by

a third of the Ethiopian and by only a fifth of the non-Ethiopian and control group

students. Teachers are most given as the people all the students turn to for help: two

thirds of Ethiopian students, 40% of the control group students, and a third of non-

Ethiopians. In other words, students in the research populations turn mostly to their

teachers for help with writing difficulties. Next the “veteran” Israeli groups most turn

to their parents, while the Ethiopian students ask their friends for help more than their

parents.

3.19 Summary of the Results In conclusion, the results presented here derive from four different sources:

a) students’ responses to the questionnaire,

b) interviewers’ reports,

c) language teachers’ evaluations,

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d) parental reports on their own formal education.

Information is provided about the language experiences of students both inside and

outside of school, about their attitudes towards language in general and towards

writing in particular, and about home literacy.

The main results show that both research groups from low SES backgrounds

are quite similar, as far as language achievements, attitudes towards writing and even

literacy are concerned. These students are rated by their language teachers as

“average”. At home they mainly observe newspapers being read and letters being

written. They generally define writing as a notational system aimed at achieving

specific and practical instrumental goals and characterized mainly by its conventions

such as spelling. In addition, both research groups show the same preference towards

the kind of interviewer they prefer working with. Thus, it seems that the two research

groups appear to have very similar images of themselves as members of the school-

going population, as Israelis, and as people required to function in a world where

“linguistic literacy” is important for success.

In contrast, the control high SES group differs markedly from the two research

groups in all the above respects. They are rated by their language teachers as

“excellent”. At home their parents are more educated and they observe their family

members occupied with writing study and work-related material - some done on the

computer. They also tend to define writing as a special discourse style aimed at

developing one’s cognition and self expression and categorized by its content,

organization, language use and communicativeness. Thus, it seems that the control

students are more successful in school, and they observe more various and complex

literacy activities in their homes. Moreover, they define writing not only as a

notational system aimed at achieving practical goals, but rather like a more abstract

process, which can serve as a tool for self expression and cognitive enrichment. With

age, students from all backgrounds evidently come to share this last definition of

writing. Certain other developmental trends, which emerged, are that, with age,

students express more tolerance towards language diversity, and they have a higher

opinion of their own writing skills.

Across the age groups all the subjects from the different backgrounds express

the same opinions as to the easiest and the most difficult writing activities. All of

them also share higher self-evaluations of language achievements than the ones given

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by their language teachers. Moreover, students and teachers alike evaluate that

expository writing is more difficult and more poorly performed than narrative writing.

Where reading at home is concerned, all the students report on newspapers as the

primary reading activity. All students also report that they primarily turn for help to

their teachers when having problems with their writing. According to the

interviewers’ reports the questionnaire was quite an easy task for all the students.

However, the Ethiopians needed rather more time to fill it out and the control group

did this far more quickly across the board. The subjects’ behavior during the task

reflects the normative modes of behavior and attitudes of their culture to this activity.

In sum, the literacy questionnaire provides us with the means for

characterizing what is involved in "becoming literate" in different socio-cultural

environments. Such a profile is indispensable especially for the recently immigrated

Ethiopian children, since there are no studies concerning home literacy of the

Ethiopian community.

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Chapter 4: Discussion

The final chapter of this study is devoted to interpretation of its findings

complemented by comments on new directions for research and practice arising from

the results. The chapter is divided into two parts: a summary of findings from the

analysis of the subjects' texts and the literacy questionnaires (Section 4.1). This

section presents findings concerning linguistic and communicative behaviors that are

either shared or differ across populations ending with relevant comments on

methodological implications for further research and/or recommendations for

intervention by educators and teachers.

Section 4.2 elaborates on four key themes relating to issues of particular

relevance to the main goals of my study and suggests directions for further research in

relevant domains. The first of these themes - more is not necessarily better - relates to

the amount of verbal outputs as a characteristic typical of the language use of low

SES children. The second theme - early distinctiveness late command of genres -

seems to describe a shared developmental stage across populations in the process of

acquiring proficiency in writing. The third topic - research involvement of community

representatives - relates to a methodological issue, which I found to be of prime

importance in the process of analyzing texts written by members of different cultures.

Although this issue was discussed at some length in the section on methods (Section

2.4.5), I elaborate on it here in view of its relevance to both collection and

interpretation of data. The fourth theme - what makes writing communicative? -

reflects my conviction that effective interaction between writers and readers is a

critical feature of literate language use. The four themes are discussed below in light

of their relevance to this study, and in each case I conclude by considering

methodological implications for researchers and/or educators 11.

11 In order to maintain flow of discourse, this chapter avoids mention of relevant research literature except a few items not previously mentioned in this study. Elsewhere the reader is referred back to the sections where works were cited in earlier chapters.

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4.1 Overview of the Research Findings

This study presents two sets of analyses. The first is a detailed linguistic analysis

of 192 written texts of Israeli low SES Ethiopian and non-Ethiopian schoolchildren

from the same three age groups, compared with their middle class peers of the same

groups and grade levels. The second set of analyses describes similarities and

differences in language proficiency, in literacy activities, and in attitudes at school

and at home, that are liable to affect the language use of children from different

backgrounds. This information on background factors was gathered by means of 114

literacy questionnaires12.

The two sets of findings together provide an integrated insight into the

development of children’s writing and serve to characterize what is involved in

“becoming literate” in different socio-cultural environments. The following

discussion thus aims: (1) to teasing apart the variables of age, genre, origin, and

population with evidence from different populations which differ from the original

study in which middle-class "mainstream" Hebrew native speakers were investigated;

(2) to establishing a profile of lexical, syntactic and thematic repertoires that which

characterize and differentiate the written language use of schoolchildren of different

ages across two discourse genres; (3) to identifying the complex interaction between

factors of cultural conventions, environmental literacy, attitudes towards writing, and

parental backgrounds elements affecting children's linguistic usage.

4.1.1 Patterns shared by the Ethiopian and non-Ethiopian subjects

Results from the two sets of analyses confirm the main research assumption to

the effect that immigrant and native-speaking children from similar low SES

backgrounds manifest similar writing behaviors across age and genre. Moreover,

analysis of their home and school literacy-related activities, their language

achievements, and attitudes towards writing also show no significant differences.

These findings do not support the popular view which equates Ethiopian origin with

12 The research population consisted of 96 subjects, each of whom produced 2 texts.

The questionnaire was administered to the 96 research subjects and additional 12 controls.

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lower literacy interests and achievements compared to native speakers of Hebrew.

Moreover, the findings of this study indicate that some parental characteristics which

other studies view as affecting children's language proficiency (as detailed in Section

1.3) are less significant as has been claimed in relation to the writing proficiency of

low SES children from different cultural backgrounds. The parental characteristics at

issue here were measured by years of parental formal education (7 years difference

between non-Ethiopian and Ethiopian parents) and parental proficiency in Hebrew

(about half of the Ethiopian parents do not read and write Hebrew, in comparison to

95% proficiency in Hebrew in the non-Ethiopian group). The lack of obvious impact

of these two very different elements in home background leads me to believe that the

students’ own experience in literately-related activities at home and/or at school might

be more significant for the development of their text production abilities than the

formal education or writing proficiency of their parents. Since most complex literate

experiences occur in school, it is also probable that teaching is more influential than

home environment with regard to the development of writing in low SES children.

In order to tease apart these variables further research is required that would

examine attitudes to language and learning of low SES families from different cultural

backgrounds. Such research would need to consider parental perceptions of learning

in general and language achievements in particular together with investigation of

parental support and stress on intellectual development.

4.1.2 Patterns shared by low and middle-class populations

The findings of this study show no difference between children from different

SES backgrounds with regard to social-cognitive and higher-order information

processing and metacognitive skills of the kind that are required for global text

construction. Thus, the findings of this study are consistent with those of the original

study in which the youngest subjects, like those in the research study, proved well

able to write adequate narratives with well-constructed openings and episodes. In

addition, the subjects of this study like their "mainstream" peers manifested canonical

construction of narrative earlier than of expository texts - most likely for similar

reasons, since even preschoolers are exposed to and can produce narratives, whereas

expository texts are typical of school language and literacy. Moreover, for children in

all the populations the closing is the hardest and the last to be acquired. Production of

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well-constructed narratives does not mean having the ability to organize the

information in these texts at a fully hierarchical level - and indeed only about one

third of the high-school children across the populations organized the information in

their narratives in a fully proficient hierarchical organized fashion. Taken together,

these results confirming findings from earlier research as described in Section 2.6.6 to

the effect that such high order information processing in narrative continues to

develop up to and beyond adolescence revealing greater and protracted construction

and comprehension of complex literacy-type texts (Kaplan, 2003).

Production of global expository structure reveals similar patterns across the

populations. It seems that all children acquire this ability only in the course of

schooling. The ability to engage in pre-planning of an entire expository text as

evidenced by appropriate topic introduction emerges generally between junior-high

and high-school age, since about half the students in the junior-high group of both

research and comparison populations still fail to write well-constructed openings in

their expository texts. In fact, even high-school children are not able to produce fully

organized expository texts, since they fail to provide a gradated flow of information

between general statements and specific comments, nor do they explicitly mark such

transitions by appropriate linguistic means. In addition, the ability to sum up ideas by

referring back to the main idea or generalization stated in the opening of the text is an

even late development one which only emerges in high-school. Data from the

comparison publications suggest that only adult writers are capable of organizing

information at such a level in the course of expository text construction. As noted in

Section 1.2. constructing a “good” expository text requires complex and highly

developed cognitive and linguistic abilities, such as the ability to coherently

formulate, organize and give verbal expression to ideas, the command of linguistic

means to express abstract content, metalinguistic awareness and self-monitoring of all

the above (Berman & Katzenberger, in press).

In terms of linguistic rather than discourse criteria, lexical density (measured

by number of content words per total number of words) and clause package length

(measured by number of clauses per clause package) were also found to be similar

across the populations. A prototypical clause package lies within the scope of two to

three clauses, and is insensitive to age and population. These two aspects of language

use might also represent universally shared abilities that are part of text construction. I

had thought middle-class children would score higher on these measures, since they

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have more developed vocabularies (Section 2.6.2). The results indicate that these

abilities may be less connected to the size and scope of children’s lexicons, but rather

relate to general patterns of information organization. These shared patterns would

also explain the similar behavior of all the children with regard to levels of

information organization in both the narrative and expository texts. Memory

limitations might also play a role in this respect suggesting that extended research

across populations and in different languages is needed in order to confirm the

hypothesis that the ability to construct a well-formed piece of discourse involves

general cognitive processing in the organization of information that goes beyond

language-specific types of knowledge.

4.1.3 Patterns shared by low SES subjects from poor educational systems and

low SES native-speaking subjects in well-established schools (comparison to

Salmon, 2003)

No difference was found with regard to grammatical accuracy as measured by

number of grammatical errors per clause between low SES children from poor

educational systems and low SES children attending well-established schools (Section

3.5.1). Thus, these findings are not in line with my initial prediction, that low SES

children attending well-established schools would have less grammatical errors. The

heads of the language staff in schools attended by low SES children in the research

population reported that the language teachers tend not to correct the children’s

grammatical errors, so as not to impair their motivation to take part in the lessons of

their own free will. Besides, the teachers themselves were heard to produce

grammatical errors, mainly in verb agreement. Two of the heads of the language staffs

suggested that the teachers do this in order to adjust their way of expression to that of

their students in believing that they are developing positive feelings of students

towards teacher and creating a more congenial, less threatening atmosphere in their

lessons. In addition, the curriculum of grammar teaching in Israel, has paid little

attention to corrections of grammatical errors since the eighties, nor is there a specific

section on this topic in the matriculation examinations (Shalom, 1999). Thus, it seems

that low SES children produce more grammatical errors especially in verb agreement,

since they extract them from the language input they hear in their immediate

surroundings, both at home and in school. More research on the language use of

children from different SES environments with regard to specific types of

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grammatical errors is needed in order to investigate the connection between language

input and grammatical error.

In terms of teaching strategies, teachers especially those of low SES children, I

feel, should be encouraged to correct grammatical errors, since low SES children are

exposed to grammatical inaccuracies not only at home but even in school. Teachers

need to provide a model to the correct use of language so as to promote their students’

awareness that complying with linguistic rules and conventions is a necessary step to

becoming proficient writers. The effect of schooling on grammatical error of low SES

children can be examined in schools where teachers emphasize the importance of

grammatical accuracy.

Another finding of this study is that low SES children who attend well-

established schools produce more words per clause than their peers from the same

SES background attending less achieving schools. These findings are consistent with

my prediction and may point to the significance of teaching in promoting writing

skills of low SES children. More research using a representative sample that includes

statistical analyses is needed in order to confirm such an assumption.

4.1.4 Effect of schooling in immigrant low SES subjects from poor educational

systems and immigrant subjects attending well-established schools (compared to

Rabukhin, 2003)

In an attempt to examine the effect of school and of literate background, a

recent study using the same methodology as mine, shows that low SES Russian

immigrant students, who have been raised in literate families and attend well-

established schools produce well-organized narratives and expository texts and use

rich literate language. In order to examine the effect of school on the language

achievements of the Ethiopian children, similar research is needed. Such a population

is harder to achieve since a large proportion of the Ethiopian parents do not read and

write either in Amharic nor in Hebrew, and their children attend low-achieving

schools (Habib, 2001).

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4.1.5 Different language skills of the Ethiopian and non-Ethiopian subjects

The results of this study confirmed that the Ethiopian adolescents at junior-

high and high-school have more grammatical errors than their non-Ethiopian peers.

Although they are considered native speakers of Hebrew, since they have been using

the language for at least eight years, their deficit in exposure to literate language

seems to be the reason for their variability in performance concerning grammatical

accuracy. In contrast, 4th graders of Ethiopian origin have fewer grammatical errors

than their non-Ethiopian peers evidently because they were all born in Israel like their

non-Ethiopian classmates. It seems that when these two groups of children are all

Israeli-born and attend the same educational institutions, Ethiopian children are as

good as and even better in mastery of core grammar. In fact they might have even

transferred the demand for linguistic accuracy from Amharic to Hebrew, which is an

important norm in their culture.

Comparison of lexical density in the two research groups shows that the

Ethiopian children manifest identical means of lexical density in their narratives,

while the expository texts of the non-Ethiopian children show higher lexical density.

One explanation could be that in comparison to their non-Ethiopian peers, Ethiopian

children have less developed genre distinction due to less exposure in their homes to

written language. Another interpretation could be that due to their extensive

experience in listening to narratives in their homes they have developed better

abilities to produce narratives.

In particular terms, this suggests schools dealing with immigrant children from

this background need special attention to developing the students' command of non-

narrative texts that are so critical for academic success.

4.1.6 Different patterns in the three populations

The results of the present study point to SES as an important factor in

linguistic proficiency, since both research groups (immigrant and non-immigrant)

from low SES used fewer words per clause and fewer content words per clause across

genre (Section 3.2). The low SES groups of this study also displayed less proficient

usage in lexical selection, in discourse conventions and in register consistency

compared with the middle class children of the original study (for a discussion

concerning these results see section 4.2.1 below). Thus, the results of this study add

new insights on what characterizes the differences in language use between the two

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populations. Interestingly enough, the results of this study indicate that SES is

sensitive to lexical richness but not to lexical density. Thus, the ability to use rich

language might be related to both formal learning and direct teaching either at home

or at schools, while the ability to use more content words might be related to general

cognitive development. A recent Israeli study also shows that socio-economic status is

the main predictor of language achievements in immigrant students as compared to

native speakers (Levin et al, 2003). They show that in Hebrew it takes 8-11 years for

immigrants to reach achievements similar to native speakers.

4.1.6.1 Thematic themes

The results of this study confirm the prediction that differences in thematic

content would be sensitive to population (Section 2.6.4). Children from different

backgrounds differ in what they choose to write about, and children from the same

background tend to rely on their mutual cultural repertoire in telling stories and

writing texts. My study is consistent with prior research on personal oral narratives

showing that it is a type of discourse used as a means of presenting one’s self-identity

to society (Section 3.4). Further, a typical tradition in story telling regards personal

experienced stories as a channel whereby narrators position themselves and are

positioned by others as the representatives of their cultural heritage, and they do this

via the specific thematic content they select. The findings of my study show that

around half the Ethiopian children wrote about affronts to their honor in comparison

to only 10% of the non-Ethiopian children. In this the non-Ethiopian low SES

subjects are far more similar to their middle-class "mainstream" peers. It seems as if

the "voice" of the Ethiopian culture is echoed in the children's narratives. This “voice”

acknowledges the Ethiopian children’s socialization and acquisition of one of their

culture’s most important norms - the honor code. Moreover, the children "tell" the

others that by Ethiopian standards, affronts to someone’s honor are considered as a

reprehensible type of behavior. This is in fact a message to the Israeli society sent by

members of a minority group. The Ethiopian children note what is culturally non-

canonical and "tell" the receiving society what ought to be done about it.

Another example of difference in thematic content is the refraining of

Ethiopian children from mentioning conflicts in their homes. It seems that they

expressed a cultural norm that prohibits sharing with outsiders information about the

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private life of their family members. Such information is usually kept to oneself and is

shared only with friends who have proven their ability to keep secrets.

In addition, the texts of low SES children in general contain more content

words that express physical aggression than middle-class children (Section 3.4.2).

This is probably because children raised in high-risk neighborhoods either in Israel or

abroad are more exposed to situations of violence in their immediate surroundings.

Consequently, they tend to report more about violent behaviors by using expression of

aggression than upper SES children (Section 3.4.2).

In conclusion, it seems that children express their cultural norms in their

writing behavior. In order to build positive communication in a multicultural society

each of its members should be attentive to such cultural messages. Developing more

quantitative measures for measuring thematic content would enable researchers to

examine this issue by less subjective methods.

4.1.6.2 Avoidance of talk

The results of the pilot study showed that the Ethiopian children refrained from

talking in front of the researcher probably because they employed a cultural decree of

refraining from speaking to authoritative figures in general, and abstaining from

initiating any conversation with them in particular (Section 2.1.1). Consequently it

was decided to use only their written texts as adequate data. This avoidance of talk

was also confirmed by the teachers of the Ethiopian children, who reported these

children tend not to take part in conversations held in class, in which an adult was

presented. This behavior was explained by Mr.Yirga Erate, an Ethiopian educational

counselor, as complying with the Ethiopian way of learning at school - an Ethiopian

student is expected only to listen attentively to the teacher and not to hurry to flaunt

his knowledge.

The results of this study also show that Ethiopian students use less lexical

infelicities than their non-Ethiopian Israeli-born peers (Section 3.5.2). This avoidance

of using linguistic expressions, not fully understood, was also explained by Mr. Yirga

Erate as complying with another accepted practice - refraining from using unfamiliar

expressions in public, until one has mastered them in private. Thus, it is better for a

member of the Ethiopian community to keep silent than to make mistakes in front of

others.

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All the above behaviors seem to reflect specific socio-cultural practices in

learning situations. The results of this study show that Ethiopian children need more

time to fill out questionnaires across age (Section 3.16.1). They need this time in

order to overcome the typical suspicion and caution characterizing Ethiopian

normative modes of behaviors. These results support Ben Ezer (1992) who claims that

the “internal time” of the members of the Ethiopian community is different to that of

others Israelis. They take more time to perform tasks during group dynamics and also

during psychological treatment. Their relaxed, unhurried pace characterizes their

working and learning. Thus, it seems that cultures also differ in their orientation and

perception of time, consequently more time on tests and during interactions with

figures of authority is recommended to members of a community who perceive time

in such a way. In my opinion the extra time that should be given to Ethiopian students

on tests would allow establishment of trust and complying with the politeness norm

that prevents them from getting straight to the point (Section 2.2.1).

Some studies on different cultures point to difference in communicational

behaviors at school. Phillips (1983) describes a specific minority behavior, which

contradicts the conventional practice of non-Indian teachers in the U.S. She shows

that these teachers of Indian children often misunderstand the Indian cultural aspects,

especially those that go beyond semantics. Cultural difference in communicational

behaviors, like non-verbal communication confuses teachers and students alike. On

the one hand, the teachers interpret and assess the children’s seemingly “inattentive”

behaviors as rude and as a sign for their inability to learn. On the other hand, the

children use them for expressing their respect for their teacher, and their

unwillingness to express competitive behavior towards their friends. These modes of

behavior reflect important values in the Indian culture. Moreover, the children

consider the teacher’s high voice and demand for direct eye contact as an invasion of

privacy, an act of defiance, or a demonstration of lack of trust (Smith, 1984; Phillips,

1983). Ben Ezer (1999) reports similar behaviors in the Ethiopian community.

Physical gestures of honor, like avoiding direct eye contact with elder members of the

family or figures of authority such as teachers, are preferred values in this community.

As in the Indian culture, direct gazing into the eyes is considered insolent and is

castigated. The teachers of the Ethiopian subjects in this study confirm that their

Ethiopian students manifest such behaviors in class.

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4.1.6.3 Cultural conventions of structures

In some cases social-cultural orientations serve also as examples of structures

by which a particular culture expresses meaning using a specific type of discourse

component. The following example refers to the extensive reference of the Ethiopian

children to the video scenes, as part of the discussion on how the Ethiopian culture

expresses main ideas in moral stories by means of proverbs. In this example the socio-

cultural orientation is reflected in the relation between the type of a discourse

component and its function. In the Ethiopian culture, a proverb often begins a moral

story. It indicates the adequate moral judgement to a specific story telling situation

(Ben Ezer, 1992; Noy, 1988; Rozen, 1999). 13

As noted in the original study, the subjects were shown a short wordless video

clip depicting different conflict situations in a school setting. The video clip served as

a trigger for producing texts with a shared thematic content. The children were

explicitly instructed not to refer to the content of the video in their writing. In spite of

the prediction that the Ethiopian children would refer more to the video clip, it was

decided to keep the same methodology used in the original study in order to allow

comparison between the research and the original studies. The findings show that,

indeed, about 40% of the Ethiopian children in comparison to only 20% of the non-

Ethiopians referred to the conflict scenes in their expository texts. I think the

Ethiopian children regarded the video scenes as if they were proverbs, which precede

text construction. They paid more attention to them, in order to pin point the requested

moral. Thus, researchers should be aware that any text structure might also be cultural

specific with regard to where main ideas are expressed. Such information may be

relevant to data collection procedures.

Along similar lines, Ethiopian high-school children produce more clause

packages per narrative component especially in their settings and episodes. These

children belong to a culture where oral narratives are used as a central means of

socialization and education. Sometimes the same story is told to teach several

different morals. In order to clarify to the listener which is the “right” moral, the

13 In oral African societies proverbs are used as an indirect means of conveying

morals. For example, in western Kenya and northern Uganda the use of proverbs as an indirect style of moral indicating is more highly valued among speakers of Western Nilotic languages than the direct style typically adopted in Western cultures. (Personal communication with Prof. Edith Bavin, who examined motivation for language changes in Western Nilotic languages).

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storyteller begins his or her story with a proverb and/or elaborates the context of the

story in the setting or the episodes by means of a lot of details. In these cultures clear

stated morals are not used, but rather are left for the listener to figure them out for

him/herself. The cultural norm of avoiding specifically articulated conclusions might

be the explanation why the Ethiopian subjects wrote less closings than their non-

Ethiopian peers. It seems the Ethiopian subjects acquired the conventional pattern of

story-telling in their community, while their non-Ethiopian peers are more used to the

western way of expressing morals in the final part of a discourse.

In conclusion, cultural background serves as a rich context for interpretation,

understanding and recall of specific elements found in texts. When analyzing different

types of discourse the researcher should be familiar with cultural variables, which

might affect text production.

4.1.7 Home literacy

With regard to home literacy, the responses to the literacy questionnaires in

this study show that upper-class children observe more various and complex literacy

activities in their homes. These activities include writing for studying or writing of

work-related materials - some done on the computer. Low SES children observe letter

writing mainly by family members, who do not use computers for writing (Section

3.18.2 ). In the research literature, evaluation of the child's literacy-related

environment is generally done by direct observations of the variety of stimuli in the

child's home that enable him/her to act in the realm of literacy (Bradley & Carldwell,

1979). An Israeli study used such measure for examining the literacy-related

environment of low SES preschoolers (Aram, 1998). In general, the researcher found

that in all low SES homes there were writing implements and in most of them (66%)

there were at least ten children's books.

A similar research using anthropological methods of direct observations has

not been done yet in the Ethiopian community. Such a research using naturalistic

observations of literate activities carried out in homes of these children is hard to

employ, since members of this community express caution and reluctance in

cooperating with researchers on practices carried out in their homes. Without such

research it would be difficult to scientifically confirm the assumption of a relation

between home literacy and language proficiency.

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4.1.8 Attitudes towards writing

The results of this study show that the two groups also differ with regard to

attitudes towards writing (Section 3.14). The low SES children tend to define writing

as a notational system aimed at achieving practical instrumental goals. In comparison,

the upper-class children generally define writing as a mode to express one’s ideas and

feelings, and as a means to develop one’s thinking. These may be affected by the

students' own experience in writing. For example, Levi (1991) who examined the

writing of sixth graders which showed that half the children wrote texts out of school

mainly for practical instrumental purposes, mostly directed to their teachers or school

friends. Writing for self-expression or communicating with others was not common.

The tendency of low SES children to define writing primarily as a notational

system may also be related to differences in focus in the teaching of writing.

Examination of the amount, type, and uses of print activities in first grade classes in

different SES environments in the U.S showed substantial differences (Duke, 2001).

High SES students spent a larger percentage of print time with extended texts, and

had more opportunities to develop agency as print users, for example to write for

audiences beyond the teacher. In comparison, low SES students devoted a greater

proportion of time to text at the letter, word and phrasal/sentential levels. Anyon's

(1981) study showed that different school curricula and different content instructions

influenced the definition of knowledge in various socioeconomic school settings.

Working-class students defined knowledge with a concern for personal meaning using

the terms "practical", and "mechanical", whereas in "executive elite" schools students

defined knowledge in terms as "academic, intellectual, rigorous". I think that similar

research on the potential influence of differences in literacy instruction on the

conceptualization of writing could help to explain why low SES children acquire

different attitudes towards writing in comparison to high SES students. Particularly,

the question why only children of highly advantaged and literate backgrounds define

both knowledge and writing as connected to reason and to intellectual development?

The "instrumental" approach of low SES subjects appears, to my regret, to be in line

with the by-now discredited approach by Bernstein in the 1960 (Section 1.3), as well

as in line with the ideas of the Israeli scholar Frankenstein (1976) on lower-class

children being incompetent of abstract thinking.

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The results of this study also show that only upper class children define writing

as a mode to express the writer’s thoughts, feelings and also the values of his culture.

I believe high SES subjects develop such attitudes because their parents put a great

emphasis on the importance of writing. Different parental mediation of writing in the

different populations was proven to affect children’s definition of writing. Aram

(1998) showed that one of the central contributors to the mother's mediation of

writing in low SES population in Israel is related to the way the mother presents

written language in instructional interaction with her preschool child, expressed in the

way the mother analyzes the word and explains the principles and rules of language to

the child. Few such explanations have been found among less literate mothers. Along

similar lines, Korat and Levin's (2001) study of the nature of mother-child

collaborative text writing, maternal pedagogical beliefs, and children's independent

text writing in two socio-economic (SES) groups showed that spelling issues occupied

a more dominant place in interaction among low SES than genre, monitoring of text,

and other discursive or linguistic domains. The claim made in this study that

difference between low SES and high SES populations lies in parental perceptions of

literacy is also based on the study of Fitzerald, Spiegel and Cunningham (1991) who

found that low SES less literate parents regard the development of literacy only as

acquisition of skills and rules of reading, while more literate high SES parents regard

it as a cultural process.

Additional research is needed to clarify the relation between attitudes to

writing and writing proficiency. Whatever the results of such studies, it is clear that

teachers in general and language educators in particular should expose their students

to a variety of writing activities and openly discuss the contribution of these activities,

especially to their learning, thinking, and preserving their cultural heritage. Such an

experience is critical since low SES children seem not to acquire familiarity with the

written language as a discourse style without external intervention. Familiarity with

writing and written language both as a discourse style and as a notational system is

crucial in providing young language users with an important extra-linguistic source of

language relevant knowledge: the encounter with a variety of genres (Gillis & Ravid,

in press). This encounter with language characteristics typical of various text types is

a necessary step in acquiring linguistic literacy (Ravid & Tolchinsky, 2002). Thus,

extended material-based experiences with a variety of texts is important. However,

these class activities alone will not be sufficient to address lower levels of literacy

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achievement among low SES students. Such interventions should be followed by

discussions on the contribution of writing to achieving practical goals, and its

potential for self-expression and cognitive enrichment. In other words, in order to

educate students to higher levels of literacy, teachers should increase both the amount

and type of texts which are available, used and elicited in the classroom environment,

and so also enhance the opportunities of their students to develop control as readers

and writers. In addition, teachers should also help their students to develop attitudes

that regard writing as an important tool for reasoning.

4.2 The Four Themes The following is a discussion of four key themes which have emerged from

this study: (1) more is not necessarily better; (2) early distinctiveness, late command

of genres; (3) research involvement of community representatives; and (4) what

makes writing communicative?

4.2.1 More is not necessarily better

This section deals with a marked characteristic of the language use of low SES

children - the unexpected phenomenon of "verbosity", that is lots of verbal output.

The results of the present study show that mean number of words across genre was

significally higher in the low SES groups than in the middle class group. Moreover,

mean number of content words in the narratives was also significally higher in the low

SES groups (Section 3.3). I had expected opposite results, since upper-class children

have more developed lexicons and usually score higher on vocabulary tests than low

SES children (Section 2.1.1). One explanation could be the higher motivation of the

low SES groups to cooperate with the researcher and to do their best during the

process of text production. This collaboration arose out of deliberate attempts to foster

this motivation by culture-oriented adaptations in the methodology of data collection.

Subjects’ text production was encouraged and positively promoted by detailed

explanation of the purpose of the study; promise of full confidentiality; and the

presence of respectful authority figures during data collection, prior to its inception.

Another explanation might be that low SES subjects have more developed abilities to

produce narratives as a means of communication, since oral narratives are more

prevalent in their communities as a vehicle for expressing idea and messages

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(Section 2.2.1). An additional reason might be pragmatic failure, due to unintentional

lack of adherence to normative rules of writing behaviors. Blum-Kulka and Olshtain

(1986) found that deviation from native norms of utterance length might be a potential

cause for pragmatic failure. Their comparison of the number of words used by non-

native and native speakers showed that non-natives used significally more words per

utterance. They explained this phenomenon of “too many words” (determined by

normative native use) in terms of a pragmatic failure caused by different expectations

of the non-native speakers regarding the normative amount of talk. This pragmatic

failure characterizes the learners’ lack of confidence in their communicative

competence, and is caused by inadequate awareness of specific cultural norms of

pragmatic appropriateness. They conclude that “the less confident you are that you

can get the meaning across, the more words and contextualized information you use”

(Blum-Kulka & Olshtain, 1986, p. 177). Along similar lines, Scott (1988) claimed

that sentence length should not be considered as an indicator of syntactic

development, especially if conciseness is important. Thus, verbosity does not

necessarily mean proficiency, and longer texts are not always better. On the contrary,

overindulgence in words may create a lack of appropriateness and make the

interlocutor less patient. The language use of the proficient writer is content-directed

and implicit and avoids verbosity by not including unnecessary details. That is, it

follows the Gricean principle of being informative and not redundant (Grice, 1975).

Along similar lines, this study shows that native speaker-writers from low SES

background are probably unsure of their effectiveness to produce communicative

written discourses, since their written production still suffers from verbosity. It also

seems that low SES writers are unaware of their superfluous use of words, since the

ratio of number of words in their texts and those of the subjects of the original study

increases with age. Thus, verbosity is evident especially among high-school students.

On the one hand, these writers possess the necessary linguistic knowledge to put their

ideas into words. On the other hand, they seem to be even less confident than their

middle-class peers that they can get their meaning across. Their over-lengthy texts

produce as a result a sense of impatience in the native-speaker reader. This is a sign

that writer and reader do not share the same norms of quantity in writing, and cause

for miscommunication and breakdown in the interaction. In sum, the difference

between the two populations should not be attributed to the relative scopes of their

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lexicons, but rather to their level of communicative competence and/or to their

awareness of regulative norms of literacy.

An interesting finding is that when text size is neutralized, the subjects of the

original study use more words per clause across age groups. These findings show that

verbosity, as an indication of pragmatic infelicity, should be measured by deviation

from norms of text length, rather than from utterance length. Analogously to what

Brown (1973) and his colleagues found for mean length of utterance as a diagnostic of

early preschool linguistic development, so mean length of clause in texts produced at

school age is a clear indicator of later language development (Chafe & Danielewicz,

1989; Halliday, 1988; Saltzman & Reilly, 1999). In this respect, the middle-class

children show higher achievement than their low SES peers.

Two features also point to communicative problems of low SES children. As

noted, it seems that children use “more words” when they have difficulties in getting

the meaning across. This inappropriateness appears not only at the level of isolated

words, but also how words are combined into set phrases or collocations. This study

indicates that collocational appropriateness can serve as a criterion for accuracy and

fine-tuning of lexical usage. Deviations from collocational appropriateness (both

single words and multilexemic expressions) were common in our database. These

lexical infelicities which strike the reader as deviating from accepted or conventional

native usage show a clear developmental pattern in this study being typical of high-

school students, and not found at all in the texts of fourth graders, and relatively rarely

in the junior-high school texts. Further, Ethiopian children produce fewer lexical

infelicities than their non-Ethiopian peers, and middle-class children do so less even

than their low SES peers.

One explanation for this phenomenon may be that the writers do not appear to

be aware of the fact that they are violating conventional usage, since there was no

evidence that they attempt to correct or change these discordant or inappropriate

expressions. That is, they seem to be lacking the requisite monitoring skills or

“executive control” abilities for proficient written expression of their ideas. On the

other hand, these writers do have access to a relatively sophisticated, high-level, and

extensive lexical repertoire. From this repertoire, they select (or even sometimes

invent) items that neighbor on (but do not precisely convey) the intended meaning.

This type of linguistic usage involves a special kind of creativity or lexical innovation.

It indicates that the writers are in fact in the process of developing their

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"sprachgefühl", and that they are working on precision and elegance of vocabulary

selection. Thus, being literate means not only having access to a rich repertoire of

words, styles, and codes, but also the ability to control them (Bialystok, 1986).

Besides, this study revealed that lexical infelicities typically occur in situations where

writers were attempting to raise the linguistic register, which they use. “Register” is

used here in the sense of level of linguistic usage, ranging from everyday casual or

colloquial style to highly formal, carefully monitored forms of expression. These

speaker-writers seem able to use a variety of linguistic patterns suitable to different

contexts and social situations in their language (Biber, 1995; Ferguson, 1994). The

fact that these attempts are sometimes unsuccessful suggests that these students do in

fact have considerable awareness of written language "as a special discourse style"

(Ravid & Tolchinsky, 2002), since they produce more "discordancies" in their

expository writing, which are characterized by complex linguistic expressions along

with a variation of linguistic register. But evidently, low SES children have not yet

developed a fully mature communicative awareness, since the results of this study

show that they produce three times more instances of register mixing in their writing

compared with "mainstream" children (Section 3.5.3).

Low SES children in this study, as in other studies, lack command of

conventionally appropriate forms of expression as shown by their use of the lexicon

of the target language. In this, they reveal lack of an ability confined to highly literate

language users - the inability to monitor one’s linguistic output so as be fully in

keeping with a given communicative situation. Thus, the fourth graders do not

produce lexical infelicities since their lexicons are still underdeveloped. Ironically, it

keeps them closer to native norms of lexical usage. In comparison, the low SES high-

school children deliberately attempt to use “elegant” or formal language. This not yet

fully literate attempt leads them to violate appropriateness. In comparison, upper-class

children typically use simpler or more everyday forms of expression in such contexts,

and so avoid inappropriate usage. The occurrence of discordant lexical collocations

should thus not be attributed to lack of metalinguistic awareness per se. On the

contrary, production of lexical infelicities especially by high-school children points to

the consolidation of their reflective metalinguistic powers in language (Karmiloff-

Smith, 1986, 1992) during this age and their rhetorical expressiveness (Slobin, 1977).

The occurrence of discordant lexical collocations seems, rather to be connected to

lack of two other, related types of knowledge. The first is linguistic proficiency in

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terms of mastery of a full repertoire of expressive and rhetorical options in the target

language. This lack of mastery may be the reason why the Ethiopian children produce

fewer lexical infelicities. From a cultural viewpoint, the Ethiopian children might

have transformed their L1 norm of vocabulary accuracy and specificity from Amharic

to Hebrew (Section 2.2.1). A second factor underlying lexical infelicity might be

literacy-engendered monitoring of one’s own linguistic output. This control over

linguistic variation, which is a major characteristic of linguistic literacy, seems not to

be fully developed in low SES high-school children in general.

In conclusion, conventional lexical selection shows fine-grained properties of

developing text production abilities, and so serves as a good diagnostic tool for

examining textual maturity. Along similar lines, teachers should look at the children’s

unconventional lexical selection not only as errors, but as expressions of the

children’s implicit knowledge about the lexicon, and as steps in the long way

adolescents still have to go in the development of writing skills. Developing a feel for

language and an ear for idiomatic appropriateness probably requires extensive

exposure to contextualized literate language usage at home and in the school. Where

this is lacking, as the case of the research populations of this study, opportunities need

to be sought and provided elsewhere - by encouraging genuine communicative

reading and writing activities as part of education in the language arts. It is not clear,

however, if rote-learning and rote-teaching of lists of set expressions is the way to

overcome these deficiencies. Like Schulte (1988) I believe that although choosing the

appropriate word is probably something a person either has or lacks, it is a technique

which can be taught to some extent. Children can elaborate their vocabulary usage by

continuous practice. Teachers should find indirect ways of encouraging their students

to develop their linguistic awareness. Exposing their children, especially those from

low SES backgrounds to different types of texts, ones which use rich lexicons and

different registers, may contribute to the development of their “sprachgefühl".

A more detailed examination of the reasons behind SES differences with

regard to lexical selection is needed. The attitudes of the different populations towards

the value of lexical accuracy should also be probed in order to find possible relations

between vocabulary selection and usage and proficient text production.

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4.2.2 Early distinctness late command of genres

A common developmental pattern emerged across populations in the process

of acquiring proficiency in writing; early acquisition but late command of genre

distinctiveness. The findings of this study confirm that even low SES fourth-graders

manifest clear genre-like distinctions in constructing narratives compared with

expository texts. Fourth-graders across populations from all backgrounds construct

well-formed narratives, but have difficulty in constructing well-structured expository

texts (Section 3.6). The subjects of this research use more words per clause, more

clauses per clause package and more content words per clause in their expository texts

than in heir narratives (Sections 3.2.1; 3.2.2.1; 3.3). Content words per clause are

sensitive to age only in the expository texts. Syntactic-discursive and discursive links

in clause packages are also sensitive to genre, and are produced more in expository

texts than in narratives (Section 3.2.2.2). The increase in syntactic complexity and in

lexical richness points to a greater deployment of expressive options in expository

texts and shows that with schooling, children improve their ability to construct

expository texts more than they refine their ability to write narratives. As noted,

mastery of expository discourse structure is reached only in high-school, since this

top-down hierarchical organization is too difficult for the younger children. The

relative complexity of the expository text is also reflected in the evaluations of both

the teachers and the students, who claim that it is more difficult and that the perform

worse in expository than narrative writing (Sections 3.10.2 and 3.10.5).

Nonetheless, since the ability to write, particularly expository prose is acquired

in school and is essential for academic success, teachers especially of low SES

children, should put more emphasis on it. Research shows that direct teaching of

narrative structure facilitated the production of better narrative texts (Dickson,

Simmons & Kameenui, 1995). McGee and Richards (1985) showed that school

graders who were directly taught global text structure in general and expository global

structure in particular recalled a lot of information. I believe that explicit instruction

of how to construct well-structured expository texts, and how to coherently organize

the information they contain is critical right from the beginning of high-school, since

by this age but not before, children from different backgrounds have the required

linguistic and cognitive skills to cope with these demanding school-based literacy-

minded tasks. Teaching strategies in relation to text structure and information

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organization may have an effect on students' sensitivity to genre appropriateness,

which is a major feature of "later language development”.

Further research is needed on the affect of culture and background not only on

narrative writing, but also on expository prose in order to understand better the

development of this kind of ability in different populations.

4.2.3 Research involvement of community representatives

This heading concerns a methodological recommendation. Members of the

Ethiopian community were directly and deliberately involved in this study. This

enabled a wider cultural perspective “from the inside” as to suitable data collection

procedures as well as interpretations of the data (Section 2.4.5). Ethiopian adults

participated as part of the research team during the pilot study, which included one-

on-one meetings with the researcher for data collection. The Ethiopian children

appeared to cooperate best with a familiar adult from their own community than with

"a stranger"- the non-Ethiopian researcher whom they met for the first time. The

Ethiopian adults interpreted the children's reluctance to produce oral discourses in a

face to face interaction with the researcher as an expression of a normative sign of

respect for a figure of authority in their community. As a result it was decided to

include only the written texts as part of the research (Section 2.1). The Ethiopian

adults also participated as interviewers during data collection by means of the literacy

questionnaire, since the pilot study showed that the Ethiopian children felt more at

ease with an Ethiopian adult. Other research done in the U.S showed that participation

of Afro-American role models in class helped young Afro-American students

(Ascher, 1991). This study shows that both the Ethiopian children and their non-

Ethiopian peers expressed the same patterns in choosing Ethiopian and non-Ethiopian

adults for the literacy questionnaire task. The students, especially the Ethiopians, were

already familiar with the interviewers, and probably did not consider the non-

Ethiopian ones as "strangers" since these adults had helped them during the texts'

production. In comparison, it seems that native-born Israeli students regard the

Ethiopian adults as equally professional “teachers”, and their choice of adults is

devoid of ethnic prejudices. This is an encouraging sign for the recent process,

encouraged by the Ministry of Education, of integrating teachers from Ethiopian

origin into the Israeli educational system.

134

The Ethiopian interviewers also helped in interpreting the behavior of the

Ethiopian children towards the interviewers when filling out the literacy

questionnaire. Their sensitivity to cultural norms of behavior helped us to understand

that there are probably different reasons why Ethiopian and non-Ethiopian children

need to "interview" the adult interviewer. It seems that children of different socio-

cultural backgrounds pose questions to the adult interviewer for different reasons.

Thus, children of high SES background asked questions about the nature of the task in

order to perform it better. In contrast, the Ethiopian children elicited information

about the interviewer's intentions, attitudes and knowledge. I asked one of the

Ethiopian adults, a specialist in educational counseling, to explain this phenomenon.

He began his explanation with an Amharic proverb: “He who rushes into speaking his

mind is like a tree whose fruit prematurely ripen, so they are only useful as bird food”.

He added that he thought he knew what was going on. He told us that in the Ethiopian

community, any conversation begins unconsciously with a kind of a “test”. Before

starting to speak to the point, a feeling of mutual trust must be established. This is

done by gathering information about each other’s intentions, attitudes and knowledge.

Members of the Ethiopian community usually speak their mind only to well-trusted

people who have no ill-intentions, reflected in the way the speaker expresses his or

her respect. A respectful speaker avoids showing anger by raising his/her voice or by

making unjust humiliating or discriminatory remarks towards the other speaker or

towards his people. Refraining from using verbal insults or openly discussing private

matters or the troubles of the other is also considered polite behavior. A good

candidate for talking is someone who underestimates his own understanding

compared with the other's. If the other speaker does not comply with these norms, he

will not pass the “test”, leading to a breach of trust, and hence termination of the

conversation. This kind of behavior is typical of the basic suspicion and caution

characterizing normative modes of behavior in the Ethiopian community (Section

2.2.1). Thus, the goal of the questions of the Ethiopian children was probably to

establish a necessary feeling of trust, which is a prerequisite for any conversation

about personal information in the Ethiopian community. Hence, before testing or

posing questions to Ethiopian subjects, it is recommended that a trustful atmosphere

be established by clarifying intentions, showing respect, and relatively some

knowledge concerning the Ethiopian culture.

135

The Ethiopian adults also directed our intention to cultural messages, like the

common theme in their narratives - affronts to their honor (Section 3.3). Thus, the

participation of the Ethiopian adults helped in reaching interpretations, which are

culturally sensitive and usually inaccessible to researchers outside the specific

community under study. Hencefore, I strongly recommend that any research on

minority groups should include members of the specific community as part of the

research team.

In conclusion, “the world is not a loose collection of unconnected entities: We

are all part of the suprasystem of human society, and we are interdependent with

members of other societal subsystems throughout that larger community” (Ellsworth,

2000, p. 235). Thus, researchers, as examiners of human behaviors, should become

responsive to the different cultural aspects of text production and adjust their

methodology and interpretations accordingly.

4.2.4 What makes writing communicative?

This section deals with the main goal of this study: what it means to "become

literate" in a given socio-cultural background? Ravid and Tolchinsky (2002) define

"becoming literate" as having control over linguistic variation, possessing

metalanguage awareness, and familiarity with writing as well as written language both

as a discourse style and a notational system. This study regards a piece of discourse as

a piece of life, and supports the above definition of linguistic literacy by additional

data. The results show that understanding of the intended meaning of a written text is

better achieved by avoiding inaccuracies and ambiguity on the part of the writer, and

misunderstanding or uneasiness on the part of the reader. Both interlocutors should

ideally share similar attitudes towards written communication in general and actual

usage in particular. In every written discourse writers choose to present themselves to

the readers in their special way in accordance with the norms and values of their own

culture. The communication between the two depends on the writer's ability to

properly exploit a variety of lexical, syntactic, and rhetorical means. Text efficiency

and effectiveness also depends on the writer's ability to mark his/her text as a piece of

discourse that suits the writer's purpose and is easy to process. This is achieved by

using clearly identified and appropriate linguistic devices, strategies for marking of

information organization and global text structure. Proficient readers use these

136

markings for understanding the text, and try to reveal to whom the writer directed his

or her writing. They also look for the writer’s specific message or purpose, by being

sensitive to the cultural uniqueness of the writer and the special way of his/her culture

to put ideas into words. When these conditions are met, the two literate interlocutors

have a better chance to achieve understanding of the intended meaning.

Underlying this enterprise is the belief that in order to become fully-fledged

members of a literate society, children need to learn how to integrate writing in their

everyday life using their sensitivity to differences across text types. This is expressed

in their selected linguistic forms and words against the common ground of their own

culture.

137

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Appendix I: Literacy Questionnaire Dear Students, We are trying to learn from you how you use your language at home and in school. We hope you’ll help us and answer all the questions. You can ask the interviewer to read and to explain the questions to you. Don’t feel ashamed to ask for help. We won’t pay attention to spelling mistakes. If you have to add comments, please write them in the appropriate place. If you do not know the answers to certain questions please leave the question blank.

1. Name: ____________________ 2. My mother tongue is: ____________________ 3. The language I speak with my parents: ____________________ 4. I have spoken Hebrew for the past eight years – please circle the correct

answer: a. Yes b. No 5. I was born in: ____________________ 6. My father was born in: ____________________ 7. My mother was born in: ____________________ 8. Write in the following table the names of languages you use. How would you

describe the way you speak, read and write in these languages: 5. excellent 4. very good 3. good 2. not so good 1. not at all

Name of language

I speak I read I write

Hebrew Other languages:

9.a. What languages do your parents speak? ____________________ 9.b. Who do they speak these languages to? ____________________ 9.c. In which languages do they read? ____________________ 9.d. In which languages do they write? ____________________ 10. People read all sorts of things: books, newspapers, stories, learning materials, T.V. subtitles, etc. Give some examples of things you have read at home in the last month: ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 11. Give some examples of things your family has read at home during the last week: ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

159

12. Describe what happens when you bring home things you have written in class. Mark the appropriate column with an X:

Never Once in a while

Often Always

I tell my parents about what I wrote

I show my parents what I wrote

I read to my parents what I wrote

I save what I wrote, but don’t show it to anyone

My parents talk to me about what I have written

My parents show other people what I have written

Other:

13. Give examples for what your family has written at home during the last week. In which languages did they write? ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 14. What do you like to write? Mark an X in the appropriate column:

Like very much

Like Don’t really like

Don’t like at all

Copying off the blackboard Writing answers to questions Writing a story Writing a summary Writing an essay Filling out a questionnaire Writing letters Writing poems Writing a personal diary Writing notes Other:

160

15. To what extent do you control each of the following writing activities? Mark an X in the appropriate column:

Do very well Do well Find it difficult

Find it very

difficult Copying off the blackboard Writing answers to questions Writing a story Writing a summary Writing an essay Filling out a questionnaire Writing letters Writing poems Writing a personal diary Writing notes Other: 16. What is the easiest writing activity for you, among the above writing activities? Explain: ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 17: What is the most difficult writing activity for you, among the above writing activities? Explain: ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 18. Do you think it is important to learn how to write? a. Yes b. No Explain: ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 19. Give an example of something you have written in the past two weeks. What did you write? What did you do with what you wrote? ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 20. When you find writing difficult, what do you do? Who do you turn to? ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 21. Think about a person who writes well. What is good in this person’s writing? What is special in this person’s writing? ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

161

22. Below are some words describing feelings concerning the language your parents speak at home. Mark the words which describe your feelings towards the language your parents speak at home: (a) love (b) respect (c) proud of (d) don’t care (e) look down on (f) hate

(g) other: ____ Explain why you chose these words: ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 23. Below are statements regarding language. Mark with an X the appropriate column:

Agree completely

Agree Disagree Disagree completely

In schools everybody should talk only Hebrew

It’s important that the new immigrants continue talking in their mother tongue

In a public place it is advisable that new immigrants don’t talk in their native language

You don’t have to know Hebrew in order to get along in Israel

If you want to feel Israeli you have to know Hebrew

It’s important to speak the language at home in order to stay in contact with the family

24. As you have noticed, the questionnaire is about writing, language and the attitude towards

them. If you have anything else to add, please comment here:

____________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________

Before returning the questionnaire, please read your answers again and check if you want to add or change something.

Thank you for your cooperation

162

Appendix II A narrative text produced by an Ethiopian high school girl according to the CHILDES convention of transcription Begin

@Participants: SBJ Subject @ID: th03fn1

@File name: th03fn1.cha

@Age of SBJ: 18;6.0

@Code of SBJ: h-03

@Name of SBJ: Bracha

@Sex of SBJ: female

@Origin of SBJ: Ethiopian

@Text Type: narrative

@Order: 1

@Number of Clauses: 76

@Number of LUnits: 1

*SBJ: alimut beyn ba'al le^ isha. [+ tit[ @bg: OPEN:SET

@bg: F-LU1/NS0//MC<S-rc

*SBJ: hayu shney xaverim.

%syn: MC

*SBJ: she^ ahavu ze et ze.

%syn: S-rc

@eg: F-LU1/NS0//MC<S-rc

@bg: LU2/NS0//MC;CDS-MC

*SBJ: ha^ xaver haya ben shloshim [@30.[

%syn: MC

*SBJ: ve^ ha^ baxura hayta bat esrim~ve~axat [@21.[

%syn: CDS-MC

@eg: LU2/NS0//MC;CDS-MC

@bg: LU3/NS0//MCD

*SBJ: ha^ baxura hayta baxura adisha.

%syn: MCD

@eg: LU3/NS0//MCD

@bg: LU4/SCN//MCD

*SBJ: ve^ hi gadla be^ bayit masorti. %syn: MCD

@eg: LU4/SCN//MCD

@bg: LU5/SCN//MC;CDS-MC

*SBJ: ve^ hayta la mishpaxa gdola shesh [@6] banot shiv'a [@7] banim.

%syn: MC

*SBJ: ve^ hi hayta axrona.

%syn: CDS-MC

@eg: LU5/SCN//MC;CDS-MC

@bg: LU6/NS0//MC<S-adv;CDS-MC;MCJ

*SBJ: imah niftera.

%syn: MC

163

*SBJ: she^ [*] hi hayta bat xamesh~esre [@15.[

%syn: S-adv

*SBJ: ve^ aviha haya ish kashuax meod.

%syn: CDS-MC

*SBJ: <hu loh haya ish ixpati mi^ yeladav <.[*]

%syn: MCJ

@eg: LU6/NS0//MC<S-adv;CDS-MC;MCJ

@bg: LU7/SCN//MC;CSSE-MC<S-adv<S2_S-ds-adv>S2_S-ds

*SBJ: ve^ ha^ baxura gadla be^ meshex xamesh [@5] shanim kashe.[*]

%syn: MC

*SBJ: ve^ savla meod.

%syn: CSSE-MC

*SBJ: she^ [*] hayta tamid xoshevet./"+

%syn: S-adv

*SBJ: +" im imi hayta xaya.

%syn: S-ds-adv

*SBJ: +" ani loh hayiti sovelet kax.

%syn: S-ds

@eg: LU7/SCN//MC;CSSE-MC<S-adv<S2_S-ds-adv>S2_S-ds

@eg: OPEN:SET

@bg: BOD:N

@bg: LU8/SC//S-adv>MC

*SBJ: ve^ az she^ [*] hi higi'a le^ gil esrim~ve~axat [@21.[

%syn: S-adv

*SBJ: hi hitxila lacet imm ha^ xaver shela.

%syn: MC

@eg: LU8/SC//S-adv>MC

@bg: LU9/SCN//MCD

*SBJ: ve^ hu meod [*] baxur akshan, bagdan, kanay bimyuxad ve^ kamcan.

%syn: MCD

@eg: LU9/SCN//MCD

@bg: LU10/NSC//MC;CSSE-MC

*SBJ: be^ meshex ha^ xaverut hu haya make ota be^ xagora, be^ matate, stirot lexi [stirot+lexi.[ %syn: MC

*SBJ: ve^ haya zorek ota mixuc le^ beyto aruma.

%syn: CSSE-MC

@eg: LU10/NSC//MC;CSSE-MC

@bg: LU11/SC//MC<S-rc><S-ds

*SBJ: ve^ kol ha^ xaverim shela ve^ ha^ mishpaxa [&she^ hayu makirim oto] amru la.

%syn: MC

*SBJ: <she^ hayu makirim oto> [CE./"+ [

%syn: S-rc

*SBJ: +" loh keday lax lehitxaten imm ha^ baxur ha^ ze.

%syn: S-ds

@eg: LU11/SC//MC<S-rc><S-ds

@bg: LU12/SC//MC<S-ds;S-dsj;S-ds-cds<S2_S-ds-pcomp;S-ds-css

*SBJ: ve^ hi amra./"+

%syn: MC

164

*SBJ: +" loh nora.

%syn: S-ds

*SBJ: +" anu stam ravnu al mashu katan.

%syn: S-dsj *SBJ: +" ve^ hu hivtiax li. %syn: S-ds-cds

*SBJ: +" she^ loh ya'ase zot shuv.

%syn: S-ds-pcomp

*SBJ: +" ve^ hu baxur tov.

%syn: S-ds-css

@eg: LU12/SC//MC<S-ds;S-dsj;S-ds-cds<S2_S-ds-pcomp;S-ds-css

@bg: LU13/NSC//MC;CDS-MC<S-nf *SBJ: axrey shnatayim hem hitxatnu.

%syn: MC

*SBJ: ve^ kol ha^ mishpaxa ve^ ha^ xaverim bau.

%syn: CDS-MC

*SBJ: rak bishvil lesameax ota.

%syn: S-nf @eg: LU13/NSC//MC;CDS-MC<S-nf @bg: LU14/SC//MC;CDS-MC

*SBJ: ve^ ha^ xatuna hayta yafa.

%syn: MC

*SBJ: ve^ kulam nehenu mimena.

%syn: CDS-MC

@eg: LU14/SC//MC;CDS-MC

@bg: LU15/NSC//MCD

*SBJ: axrey ha^ xatuna hi nixnesa le^ herayon.

%syn: MCD

@eg: LU15/NSC//MCD

@bg: LU16/SCN//MC<S-rc

*SBJ: ve^ hu haya shoter. %syn: MC

*SBJ: she^ hu [*] haya mefaked be^ taxant ha^ mishtara

]taxant+ha^mishtara.[

%syn: S-rc

@eg: LU16/SCN//MC<S-rc

@bg: LU17/NS0//MC;CSS-MC

*SBJ: hu acmo haya metapel be^ inyaney ha^ alimut [inyaney+ha^alimut.[ %syn: MC

*SBJ: ve^ hu mishtamesh ba^ bayit alimut [*] imm ishto.

%syn: CSS-MC

@eg: LU17/NS0//MC;CSS-MC

@bg: LU18/SCN//MC<S-adv

*SBJ: ve^ hu haya make.

%syn: MC

*SBJ: kol od she^ hayta be^ herayon.

%syn: S-adv

@eg: LU18/SCN//MC<S-adv

@bg: LU19/NS0//MC;CDS-MC

*SBJ: hi yalda et ha^ tinok.

165

%syn: MC

*SBJ: ve^ ha^ tinok haya beseder. %syn: CDS-MC

@eg: LU19/NS0//MC;CDS-MC

@bg: LU20/NS0//MC<S-pcomp;CDS-MC

*SBJ: ha^ rofim xasheshu.

%syn: MC

*SBJ: she^ yiye ba^ tinok eyzeshu pega.

%syn: S-pcomp

*SBJ: aval lemazalam ha^ tinok haya beseder. %syn: CDS-MC

@eg: LU20/NS0//MC<S-pcomp;CDS-MC

@bg: LU21/SC//S-adv>MC;CSS-MC<S-rc

*SBJ: axrey she^ hi xazra mi^ beyt+ha^xolim.

%syn: S-adv

*SBJ: hu natash ota.

%syn: MC

*SBJ: ve^ hu yaca imm baxura axeret. %syn: CSS-MC

*SBJ: she^ gam hi hayta be^ gila.

%syn: S-rc

@eg: LU21/SC//S-adv>MC;CSS-MC<S-rc

@bg: LU22/NS0//MC;CSS-MC

*SBJ: hu hizniax et ishto.

%syn: MC

*SBJ: ve^ hu loh haya noten kesef. %syn: CSS-MC

@eg: LU22/NS0//MC;CSS-MC

@bg: LU23/SCN//MC;CSS-MC<S-pcomp[S-adv>MC[

*SBJ: ve^ hu himshix lehakot ota.

%syn: MC

*SBJ: ve^ hu haya meayem aleha.

%syn: CSS-MC

*SBJ: she^ im tesaper le^ mishu.

%syn: S-pcomp+adv

*SBJ: hu yaharog ota.

%syn: MC

@eg: LU23/SCN//MC;CSS-MC<S-pcomp[S-adv>MC[

@bg: LU24/SCN//MC<S-pcomp

*SBJ: ve^ hi biksah mimeno.

%syn: MC

*SBJ: she^ yiten la get. %syn: S-pcomp

@eg: LU24/SCN//MC<S-pcomp

@bg: LU25/SC//MC<S-pcomp

*SBJ: ve^ hu amar la.

%syn: MC

*SBJ: she^ loh yiten la get. %syn: S-pcomp

@eg: LU25/SC//MC<S-pcomp

166

@bg: LU26/SCN//MC;MCJ<S-nf *SBJ: ve^ hi savla yom va^ layla.

%syn: MC

*SBJ: loh yad'a.

%syn: MCJ

*SBJ: ma la'asot. %syn: S-nf @eg: LU26/SCN//MC;MCJ<S-nf @bg: LU27/SC//MC<S-pcomp

*SBJ: ve^ levasof hi gilta la^ mishtara.

%syn: MC

*SBJ: she^ ba'ala hu make ota.

%syn: S-pcomp

@eg: LU27/SC//MC<S-pcomp

@bg: LU28/SC//MC;CSS-MC

*SBJ: ve^ hem tafsu et ba'ala.

%syn: MC

*SBJ: ve^ hem hixnisu oto le^ beyt+sohar. %syn: CSS-MC

@eg: LU28/SC//MC;CSS-MC

@eg: BOD:N

@bg: CLO:RES

@bg: LU29/SC//MCD

*SBJ: ve^ axshav hi xaya be^ rosh shketa [*] ve^ be^ shalva.

%syn: MCD

@eg: LU29/SC//MCD

@bg: LU30/NS0//MCD

*SBJ: sof ha^ sipur [sof+ha^sipur] le^ sikum. [+ tit[ %syn: MCD

@eg: LU30/NS0//MCD

@bg: LU31/SC//S-adv>MC;CSSE-MC

*SBJ: im loh mesaprim et ha^ beaya.

%syn: S-adv *SBJ: ha^ alimut timashex.

%syn: MC

*SBJ: ve^ loh tipasek.

%syn: CSSE-MC

@eg: LU31/SC//S-adv>MC;CSSE-MC

@bg: LU32/NS0//MCD

*SBJ: baxurot xayavot liyot ba'al [*] bitxon [ba'al+bitxon] gavoha.

%syn: MCD

@eg: LU32/NS0//MCD

@bg: L-LU33/NS0//MC<S-rc

*SBJ: isha [&ha^ sotemet et paneha] ba^ sof dofeket et acma.

%syn: MC

*SBJ: <ha^ sotemet et paneha [*]> [CE.[

%syn: S-rc

@eg: L-LU33/NS0//MC<S-rc

@eg: CLO:RES

@End

]ה[אל תניח לי להפוך אדיש: רק זאת אבקש מאלוהים"

"לקמילתם של אלה שנאלצו לעזוב ולחיות תרבות אחרת

ליאון גייקו

תקציר

הכוחות המשפיעים על ההתנהגות האוריינית של מהגרים החיים בקרב קבוצות אתניות אחרות

והתעצמות תופעת ההגירה הדמוגראפייםונה נושא חשוב למחקר עקב השינויים הפכו לאחר

" להיות אורייני"מהי המשמעות של : השאלה המרכזית של מחקר זה היא. בעולם המודרני

תרבותיות על התפתחות -מחקר זה מתרכז בבחינת ההשפעות החברתיות, לפיכך? בסביבות שונות

תרבותי שלהם שונים - פה המדוברת בבתיהם והרקע החברתיכישורי שיח כתוב בקרב ילדים שהש

המטרה הכוללת של מחקר זה היא להבין . מאלה של החברה הקולטת ושל המערכת הבית ספרית

חברתיות שונות כותבים טקסטים -ומסביבות תרבותיות, כיצד תלמידים בגילים שונים

. מונוליתיים

בגיל בית , תי קבוצות של תלמידים דוברי עבריתהמחקר מנתח טקסטים כתובים שהופקו על ידי ש

הקבוצה הראשונה מורכבת מילדי מהגרים בני העדה . אקונומי נמוך- ממיצב סוציו, הספר

שתי הקבוצות . ואילו הקבוצה השנייה מורכבת מילדי ותיקים שאינם ממוצא אתיופי, האתיופית

בחטיבת ' כיתה ז, הספר היסודיבבית' כתה ד: חולקו לשלוש רמות גיל המקבילות לשלוש כיתות

; הנבדקים התבקשו לכתוב שני טקסטים בשתי סוגות. א בבית הספר התיכון"הביניים וכיתה י

שני הטקסטים עוסקים בבעיות בין . אישי והשני טקסט אקספוזיטורי-האחד טקסט נרטיבי

עמדות , תהנבדקים התבקשו למלא בכתב שאלון שבדק התנסויות אורייניו, בנוסף לכך. אנשים

הוא על התפתחות האוריינות ועל , אם כך, הדגש במחקר זה. הבית- ואוריינות כלפי שפה וכתיבה

באמצעות בחינת יכולות של תלמידים , תרבותי-תוך התייחסות לרקע החברתי, השימוש הלשוני

מחקר זה השווה את , לשם כך. בגיל בית הספר להפיק סוגים שונים של טקסטים כתובים

בחינת משתנים אלה מתייחסת לשלוש . גיל וסוגה, מוצא, תרבותי- רקע כלכלי: הבאיםהמשתנים

:אינטראקציות

אינטראקציה בין הצורות הלשוניות לבין פונקציות השיח ) 1 (

של טקסט לבין שימוש הולם בצורות לשוניות ) מטה-מעלה(אינטראקציה בין ארגון כללי ) 2(

). מעלה-מטה(ומית של בניית טקסט ובאמצעים רטוריים ברמה מק

.הבית לבין יכולות הפקת טקסטים-אינטראקציה בין אוריינות ) 3 (

רקע של הגירה או , המחקר הנוכחי אינו תומך בגישות הרווחות המשוות בהכרח מצב כלכלי קשה

היא ההנחה. השתייכות לקבוצת מיעוט עם הישגים נמוכים בשפה ועם עניין בכתיבה ובקריאה

אקונומיים שונים עשויים להיות - שדווקא ההבדלים בשימוש הלשוני של ילדים מרקעים סוציו

בחינת . קשורים להתנהגויות אורייניות ספציפיות ולאו דווקא לכשירות לשונית כללית

. האוכלוסיות השונות מבוססת על ההנחה שהן יפגינו כישורי אוריינות אחידים ושווים ברמתם

יותר יפגינו אוריינייםשכותבים , מכאן. ה יהיה הן בתוך הקבוצות והן מעבר להןהגיוון בהפק

רגישות גבוהה יותר כלפי הבדלים בין סוגי הטקסטים השונים באמצעות בחירה של צורות

יסתמכו על ,מעבר לאוכלוסיות, הנבדקים, מחד גיסא. לשוניות המתאימות לכל סוג טקסט

קוגניטיביות לבניית -ס משותף של התנסויות חברתיותדפוסים התפתחותיים המבטאים בסי

או היכולת , לדוגמה אסטרטגיות לבניית ארגון כולל של טקסט ושל המידע בתוכו, טקסטים

אוכלוסיות אלה עשויות להציג רמות שונות של , מאידך גיסא. להבחין בין סוגי טקסטים שונים

ובמיוחד בתוכן , ים ולקסיקלייםתחבירי- שימוש בצורות לשוניות ברמה של מבנים מורפו

האוכלוסיות , לכן. מחקר זה תומך ברעיון שכל כותב משקף את התרבות בה הוא חי. התמאטי

בערכים התרבותיים ובעמדות המתארים את השימוש , יובחנו בנורמות הלשוניות המקובלות

.האורייני המיוחד להן

, גדת מגוון של היבטים לשונייםדיסציפלינארית המא-מחקר זה מיישם גישה מחקרית מולטי

המחקר הנוכחי הסתייע הן באמצעי מדידה כמותיים , משום כך. תרבותיים וחינוכיים- חברתיים

, והן באמצעי מדידה איכותיים השכיחים במדעי החברה, המאפיינים את המחקר החינוכי

השתמש בנוסף מחקר זה . ובניתוחים תרבותיים בשילוב ניתוחים מובנים של צורות לשוניות

. מארז הפסוקיות ועד לטקסט השלם, הפסוקית, מרמת המילה: שכבתית של ניתוח-בגישה רב

- מטה"גישה מעין זו מתאימה למחקר האורייני של הטקסט הכתוב מכיוון שהיא משלבת ניתוח

.של המבנה הכולל של הטקסט" מטה-מעלה"לפריטים לקסיקליים עם ניתוח " מעלה

192האחת מכילה ניתוח מפורט של . תייחסות לשתי סדרות של ממצאים תוצאות המחקר מ

אקונומי נמוך בני - טקסטים שנכתבו על ידי שתי קבוצות גיל של תלמידים ישראליים ממיצב סוציו

טקסטים כתובים אלה הושוו לסדרה של . וכאלה שאינם ממוצא אתיופי, העדה האתיופית

ספר - של תלמידי בית , ייכים לקבוצת ביקורת חיצונית השה סוגהמאותו , על אותו נושאטקסטים

הטקסטים . בני אותן קבוצות גיל הלומדים באותן שכבות לימוד, ישראליים מן המעמד הבינוני

& Berman 1996; Berman)לשוני רחב היקף בתנאים דומים -הופקו במסגרת מחקר רב

Verhoeven, 2002) .לשוני- למחקר הרבנית מחקר דומהמחקר זה אימץ תפיסה כללית זהה ותכ .

בדרך זו הושגה אפשרות להשוואה מרבית בין כשירויות שפה דומות ושונות של אוכלוסיות

הסדרה השנייה של הממצאים מתארת התנהגויות אורייניות ועמדות כלפי שפה . מרקעים שונים

קע המידע על משתני הר. וכתיבה העשויות להשפיע על השימוש הלשוני של ילדים מרקעים שונים

הושוו לאלה של והדמוגראפייםאקונומיים -המשתנים הסוציו. נאסף באמצעות שאלון אוריינות

מאותן קבוצות גיל ומאותן שכבות , גבוה-מהמעמד הבינוני, תלמידים בעלי הישגים גבוהים בשפה

.לימוד

- בסביבות של רקע סוציו" להיות אורייני"ניתוח הנתונים מאפשר להגדיר מהי המשמעות של

. ומחדד את ההבנה לגבי התפתחות הכתיבה של ילדים באמצעות יצירת פרופיל, אקונומי נמוך

חשוב במיוחד לגבי אוכלוסיית הילדים בני העדה האתיופית שעלתה לאחרונה , מעין זה, פרופיל

מאחר שעד היום לא קיימים מחקרים מובנים היטב על בסיס בלשני שבדקו את , לישראל

מחקר זה הנו מחקר התפתחותי ראשוני מסוגו . אלה מביעים עצמם בכתבשבהן ילדים, הדרכים

המחקר מספק . הבית של תלמידים ממוצא אתיופי-בישראל על רכישת הכתיבה ועל אוריינות

לחוקרים בתחום הבלשנות החברתית ובתחום החינוך סדרה ראשונה נגישה וממוחשבת של

ספר ממוצא אתיופי - ידי תלמידי בית טקסטים אותנטיים שהופקו בנסיבות מבוקרות על

י "הנתונים הממוחשבים על הטקסטים הכתובים שהופקו ע. ומקבוצות מעוטות יכולת אחרות

התלמידים בני העדה האתיופית מרחיב מאגר קיים אך לא ממוחשב של נתונים על שפתם של

).2003, סלמון; 2000, ארליך(תלמידים ישראלים ממיצב נמוך

אקונומיות נמוכות - מראות שתלמידים עולים ותלמידים ילידים מסביבות סוציותוצאות המחקר

של , הבית-ניתוחים של אוריינות , יתרה מכך. מפגינים יכולות כתיבה דומות מעבר לגיל ולסוגה

התנהגויות אורייניות בית ספריות ושל עמדות כלפי כתיבה אף הם מראים על העדר הבדלים

ההשוואה עם תלמידים מהמעמד הבינוני מראה שהמבנה הנרטיבי . להמובהקים בין אוכלוסיות א

הדחיסות הלשונית ואורך מארז הפסוקיות , ארגון המידע, המבנה האקספוזיטורי הכולל, הקנוני

נראה שיכולות אלה . אקונומיים שונים-גם אם הם מרקעים סוציו, דומים אצל כל הילדים

.את הבסיס להפקת טקסטיםמשקפות דפוסי התפתחות משותפים היוצרים

תלמידים מהמעמד הבינוני , בהשוואה שנערכה במחקר גילינו שכאשר מנטרלים את אורך הטקסט

תופעה המצביעה על מורכבות תחבירית גדולה יותר -מפיקים יותר מלים לפסוקית מעבר לגיל

וכים יותר אקונומי נמוך מפיקים טקסטים אר- תלמידים ממיצב סוציו, לעומתם). 2003 ,רביד(

עקב חוסר ביטחונם ביכולתם להעביר פרגמאטימכשל , כנראה, המכילים פלט לשוני רב הנובע

, שהפקת מלל רב אינה מהווה סימן לכשירות הלשונית של תלמידים ממיצב נמוך, מכאן. משמעות

נמצא , בנוסף לכך. אלא דווקא מצביעה על חוסר האימון שלהם ביכולותיהם התקשורתיות

מכיוון שתלמידים ממיצב נמוך לא רק שהפיקו פחות מלים , רגיש לעושר לקסיקלישמיצב

אלא גם הפגינו שימוש מיומן פחות בבחירה , לפסוקית ופחות מילות תוכן לפסוקית מעבר לסוגה

. במוסכמות שיח ובשמירה על משלב מתאים בהשוואה לחבריהם מהמיצב הבינוני, לקסיקלית

אקונומיים נמוכים לגבוהים - את ההבדלים בין מיצבים סוציולא נראה שיש לשייך , לפיכך

אלא דווקא לרמה של היכולות התקשורתיות , המנטאלייםלהיקפים השונים של הלקסיקונים

.ולמודעות לנורמות מקובלות של כתיבה

ושידע תרבותי , תוצאות המחקר מראות שתרבות היא גורם חשוב התומך בהתפתחות הלשונית

הנמצאים בסוגי הטקסטים השונים , שיר לפרשנות ולהבנה של אלמנטיםמשמש כהקשר ע

-שתי האוכלוסיות מהרקע הסוציו, כל שלוש האוכלוסיות. י מבוגרים וילדים כאחד"המופקים ע

נראה . התמאטימובחנות ביניהן בהשוואה לתוכן , אקונומי הנמוך והן אוכלוסיית המעמד הבינוני

כמחצית , לדוגמה. מות התרבותיות של קהילותיהם בכתיבתםשתלמידים בוחרים להביע את הנור

נושא - " פגיעה בכבודם"מהתלמידים בני העדה האתיופית בחרו לכתוב בנרטיבים שלהם על

.המשקף נורמה תרבותית חשובה בקרב העדה האתיופית

הבית ולעמדות כלפי כתיבה נראה שתלמידים ממעמד גבוה חשופים יותר-בהשוואה לאוריינות

ומגדירים כתיבה כתהליך מופשט המכוון להבעה עצמית , בבתיהם לפעילויות אורייניות מורכבות

אקונומי נמוך חשופים בבתיהם בעיקר -תלמידים ממיצב סוציו, לעומתם. ולהעשרה קוגניטיבית

.ומגדירים כתיבה כמערכת רישום המכוונת להשגת מטרות ברות מימוש, לכתיבת מכתבים

. תרבותי לבין התפתחות האוריינות- היחסים בין מרכיבים של רקע חברתימחקר זה בודק את

במיוחד של טקסטים , המחקר מראה שבכל סביבה ניסיון רחב בהפקת טקסטים מסוגים שונים

, מכאן. הינו הכרחי להתפתחות האוריינות הלשונית של התלמידים בבית הספר, אקספוזיטוריים

ורה כיצד לבנות טקסט אקספוזיטורי מאורגן כהלכה ההשתמעות למורי השפה היא שהוראה בר

. י בני הנעורים"בתחילת התיכון עשויה לעודד טיפוח מיומנויות מעין אלה הנרכשות רק ע

בחירות , לכן. תלמידים בעלי רקע אורייני נמוך יותר מתקשים יותר בפיתוח כשירות תקשורתית

.טקסטמשלביות ולקסיקליות עשויות לשמש כלי אבחון לבשלות ה

יש צורך במחקרים נוספים על השימוש הלשוני של אוכלוסיות שונות על מנת להבין מה משמעות

, וכיצד הטקסטים הכתובים משקפים את הנורמות הייחודיות, בסביבות שונות" להיות אורייני"

. תרבותיות שונות- את העמדות ואת ההתנסויות האורייניות של אנשים מקבוצות חברתיות

אביב- אוניברסיטת תל

ש לסטר וסאלי אנטין"הפקולטה למדעי הרוח ע

ש שירלי ולסלי פורטר"בית הספר למדעי התרבות ע

בקרב ילדים ובני נוער התפתחות יכולות הפקת שיח כתוב

-ילידי ישראל ומהגרים מאתיופיה

תרבותיים-היבטים לשוניים והיבטים חברתיים

" דוקטור לפילוסופיה"חיבור לשם קבלת התואר

מאת

מיכל שלייפר

אביב-הוגש לסנאט של אוניברסיטת תל

2003אוגוסט ג"אב תשס

עבודה זו נעשתה בהדרכת

ר גדי בן עזר"רות ברמן וד' פרופ

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