1. Zulu orthography and reading Sandra Land CAE UKZN
British Association for Applied Linguistics Language in Africa Special Interest Group
Seminar: Reading in African Languages: Developing literacies and reading methodologies January 2014

2. This study Looked at competent adult readers of Zulu text
as they silently read authentic continuous texts in isiZulu.
Their eye movements were recorded on each of four texts.
Immediately after reading each text, the reader and researcher observed and discussed in detail the recorded movement of her point of focus on the electronic text in a stimulated recall process.
This study attempts to contribute to understanding of the process of silent reading of authentic continuous texts in isiZulu, the most widely spoken indigenous language in South Africa.
Competent readers were sought through a public invitation to people who saw themselves as proficient readers of isiZulu to participate as readers, and invitations were sent directed to local lecturers of isiZulu, journalists on a Zulu language newspaper, and publishers of Zulu texts, since they were likely to read Zulu texts in the course of their work, and to have become competent through extensive practice.
Approximately 60 people responded to the invitation and underwent the screening test, and 27 of them were selected as research participants. The search for sufficiently fast readers was widened by extending the invitation to a post graduate class (Bachelor of Education Honours) of almost 60 students, nearly all of whom were teachers in traditionally Black schools, and to learners at the top of their grade in isiZulu at a high performing local high school. 6 from approximately 45 Honours students who took the screening test were selected, and 5 from 48 high school students. Thus all in all, approximately 150 people underwent the screening test, of whom 38 were purposively selected as participants in the study. The equipment could not be adjusted to suit three of these, probably because of the type of reading glasses they wore, and the recordings of a further two were rejected as outlier scores, on the basis of their unusually high number of fixations. This study is based on the scores of the remaining 33, all of whom are first language isiZulu speakers. All of the group reported that they read Zulu text, either regularly or from time to time, although most stated they read mainly in English. Two of the group (both journalists on a Zulu language newspaper) reported that they read substantial amounts of text in isiZulu every day in the course of their work, some of the teachers and lecturers that they regularly read and marked students’ assignments written in isiZulu, and like the others in the group, read Zulu newspapers or books. The group ranged from 16 years old to 61, and included:
15 women and 18 men
24 professionals (11 of whom were part time post grad students), 5 full time university students and 4 scholars.

3. The process Took one hour for each participant; used the Visagraph eye
movement recording system,
which samples eye position
60 x per second.
Participants read with a mask, and knew they were being recorded
But at least texts were authentic, on paper held by the reader at a comfortable distance, in natural light.
Readers sat in ordinary chairs, could move their heads and assume a natural reading posture.

4. Findings
Data shows the same inverse relationship between reading speed and number of fixations and regressions as other languages
Scores on each text show the same inverse relationship between reading speed and number of fixations, and reading speed and number of regressions that is seen in other languages.

5. Easier vs more difficult texts
A comparison of the top graph showing readers’ performance on one of the two easier texts with the lower graph showing readers’ performance on one of the two more difficult texts shows how readers’ reading rate decreased, and the number of fixations and regressions increased on the more difficult texts.

6. Findings Average reading rate of 106 wpm / 815 letters pm
(cf. 300 wpm /1400 lpm = competent reading in English)
25% of words were recognised instantly, but less than 1% were skipped (cf. 25% - 30% of words skipped in English
3. 6 fixations per second (cf. 5 fixations ps in English)
Average saccade length was 4 letters (cf. approximately 8 but up to 17 letters in English)
Average of 1 regression every 24 letters (cf. 1 regression every 50 letters in English)

7. Relative to other languages using the Roman alphabet:
measured in characters per minute, Zulu text takes longer to read;
its readers’ fixations last longer;
its readers make far more frequent regressions;
its readers’ saccades are very short;
fewer words are skipped.

8. Automaticity
24.5% of words (averaging 6.5 letters, and most made up of a stem with 2 affixes) were instantly recognised by most top readers
23.5% of words (averaging 11 letters or more) were read with multiple fixations and /or regressions by most top readers.

9. Why this pattern? Poorly developed reading skills?
SA’s education system has many challenges
Exposure to print may be less than optimal
Maybe even the best readers could be better.
it is difficult to find readers who have highly developed reading skills in isiZulu, and it is possible that only the speedier few of the readers in this sample demonstrate eye movement patterns that truly characterise highly developed skills of reading in isiZulu. Many African children have very limited exposure to literacy in their homes (Pretorius & Mampuru, 2007), and reading is rarely well taught in schools that have traditionally served speakers of isiZulu, as our Annual National Assessment tests show. Compounding the difficulty of a poor foundation is that most readers have limited exposure to Zulu text, and might not read it for the sustained hours necessary to develop advanced reading skills. In South Africa most reading in school and beyond is in English, and environmentally there is much more exposure to English text than to text in indigenous languages.

10. Highly adept reader

11. Less adept reader (multiple fixations)

12. Less adept reader (many regressions)

13. The orthography? Word length?
Structure and conjoined writing system of isiZulu make for long words – average word length in texts used here was 7.73 letters.
In European newspapers average word length is 4.6 letters in English, 4.7 in Danish, 4.9 in Swedish, 5.6 in German and 7 in Finnish.
English has an extremely irregular relationship between its phonemes and the letters used to represent them;
Because of this, and because of its opaque orthography, English might be particularly conducive to the exercise of automaticity, and particularly fast, efficient reading.

14. Agglutination?
IsiZulu is an agglutinative language, with a conjoined writing system.
Many word forms are long and complex with short morphemes clustered round central word stems, e.g:
ngi/nga/ka/li/hlangan/is/i (I had not yet gathered together)
kwa/ku/ngo/wo/ku/phatha (it was to take care of)
a/yi/si/shiya/galo/lu/nye (literally: ‘that which leaves one digit’, in other words ‘that were nine’).

15. Effect of agglutination in text
One of the texts used in this study begins:
Wawunezindlu ezingamaqhugwana amathathu wakhiwe ngaphansi kwegquma
He had three houses that were traditional huts built at the base of a hill
The 6 Zulu words take up more space than 15 words in the disjunctive orthography of English.

16. Psycholinguistic grain size?
In a consistent and transparent orthography, readers process relatively small grain size units of text Readers’ short saccades – only 4 letters (cf. up to 17 in English)- suggests that they are processing small grain size text elements. Small grain size processing of text might be the optimal reading strategy for agglutinative languages?
If one accepts the logic of psycholinguistic grain size theory, readers of Zulu text rely on small grain size units of text to reconstitute meaningful language from text. This is a reading strategy that readers of transparent orthographies are most likely to develop since it is clearly a dependable strategy and the quickest route to accurate reading (Ziegler and Goswami, 2005, p. 17). However, once reading competence is developed, processing small grain size units of text may inevitably be a slower reading process in comparison with a process that relies on larger grain size units of text, in orthographies that lend themselves to this reading strategy, such as English and French.
“Masingavumeli ukuthi izilimi zakulelizwe zishabalale,”
(Let us not allow the languages of this country to be destroyed)
Frost (dir 5) The Orthographic Depth Hypothesis suggests that shallow orthographies can easily support a word-recognition
process that involves the printed word’s phonology. This is because the phonologic
structure of the printed word can be easily recovered from the print by applying a simple
process of phonological computation. The correspondence between spelling and pronunciation
in these orthographies is simple and direct, so that a reader of these orthographies
can easily assemble an accurate representation of the word intended by the writer.
In contrast, in deep orthographies like English or Hebrew, readers are encouraged to
process printed words making use of larger units.

17. Not much inter-word heterogeneity?
Zulu has: A concord system No double consonants No contiguous vowels No unvoiced letters All words end in a vowel Possible letter groupings are constrained Particular combinations of letters (e.g. kwa, ku, nga, zi) recur frequently sometimes with different meanings May make visual recognition of words relatively slow?
Kwakungenye intambama lapho selibantubahle; kusentwasahlobo iminduze seyiqalile ukuqhakaza, mhla ngiqalayo ukuyizwa inguquko empilweni yami
Another may be its low number of permissible syllables that recombine in numerous possible permutations, a feature that possibly makes for relatively high visual homogeneity among meaningful units of text, and hence relatively slow discrimination between words.
There are far fewer permissible combinations of letters than there are in English, and the long words of isiZulu are composed of differing permutations of a limited number of frequently recurring syllables. Thus the same combinations of letters (e.g. zi, ku, ka, nga, or ngu) recur frequently in words that might or might not be semantically related, resulting in a much higher degree of homogeneity amongst Zulu word forms than there is amongst English words. Distinction between words that are visually similar is more difficult and slower than between words that are more obviously dissimilar. Thus this homogeneity is likely to compel readers to use cues such as context in more time consuming processes than are necessary for readers of languages whose more heterogeneous word forms allow readers to rely on large grain size text units.

18. Absence of tonal markers?
Tone modifies meaning in isiZulu, e.g.
Lenkomo ingahlatshwa
Absence of tonal markers in text may cause ambiguity which must be resolved by readers by referring to context and trying out different options.
Zulu orthography carries no tone markers. Therefore readers must seek cues for meaning in other sources such as context, and there is a high degree of potential for confusion in relation to the many morphemes which are homographic but differ completely in meaning according to their tone.
an ambiguity which presumably would leave its recipient in a bit of a quandary if the communication was sent in a note. It would be reasonable to propose that this extra searching for cues might be the reason for some of the reading patterns identified in this study, such as the high frequency of regressions in comparison with English.
Thanks to Mr Ndela Ntshangase, lecturer in isiZulu at UKZN, for this example.

19. Wathi “Ngingahle ngiye empini ngingase ngingabuyi ngifele khona
Wathi “Ngingahle ngiye empini ngingase ngingabuyi ngifele khona. Uma ngingabuyanga, ungakhathazeki. Ngiwenzile amalungiselelo okuthi umesisi anibheke nezingane zakho." Umama ngalesosikhathi wayekhulelwe. Wazibula ngamawele.
He said “I may go to war and I may not come back, I may die there. If I don’t come back, don’t worry. I’ve arranged for my wife to look after you and your children.” Mother at that time was pregnant. She gave birth to twins.

20. Strategies of these strong readers
Tried out pronunciations mentally
Paused to integrate the sense of what they were reading
Reread to ensure they had the right sense
Visualised descriptions in the text
Used images and other information in their memories to build a mental representation of the content of the text.
MG - problem is Zulu is like that – the sentences can be so long - If you didn’t - if you missed half way through what you were reading you’ve got to go right back to the beginning [of the sentence] and read it again - so that’s why I probably will keep going back and forth
NN Yes the vocabulary, I can just see that we talking about a certain season and people coming from the meeting. But iminduze, libantubahle those kind of words are too …
SL They are archaic now? What do you think you do when you come to a word that you are unfamiliar with. Do you say it in your head? Do you want to say it aloud?
NN I’m tempted to say it aloud.
TM Yes, it is not exactly similar because when you read fast you will be like; wazibulala ekhulelwe [ she killed herself while she was pregnant] then that was a shock to me which made me to re read the sentence, then when I repeat the sentence I realize that they talking about ukuzibula ngamawele.

21. Tendency of weak readers
Poor readers get used to not understanding text and stop expecting or trying to make sense of it.
e.g. “I would have been alright if I had been reading aloud”

22. What teachers need to do
Lift new readers above labouring with the mechanics
Use MTL proficiency in making sense of text
Clarify the difference between the way alphabet is used in English and Zulu
Drill short high frequency words that can be read automatically

23. Teach unpicking of morphemes and strategies for quick accessing of meaning
Give practice in spotting shifts in meaning encoded in shifts in morphemes
Teach mental ‘sounding out’ in order to cope with homographs and lack of tonal markers

24. Teach active visualisation of features described or alluded to in texts
Teach why and how information is inferred – use of concords and Rose’s R2L method
Practice both silent and reading aloud strategies in class; teachers need definite ideas about short exercises in silent reading
Use comprehension exercises that are cognitively engaging.

26. Point of focus on electronic text