Browsing by Author "Mekonnen, Samuel"

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    The Grammatical Competence of Adult Monolingual American English-Speaking Learners of Amharic
    (Addis Ababa University, 2010-06) Mekonnen, Samuel; Morgan, Michael (PhD)
    This paper identifies the acquisition order of seven grammatical morphemes of Amharic and analyses the most recurrent grammatical errors (phonological and morpho-syntactic errors) committed by the target group. The subjects of this study were 45 adult monolingual American English-speaking learners of Amharic as a second language at Joint Language School. They were selected via purposive sampling technique from four phases. This research employed Cross-sectional Research Design. The elicitation techniques were: (i) Structural Natural Conversation (guided by Bilingual Syntax Measure) to gather data for morpheme acquisition order analysis. In this case, both oral and written testes were given for the target group; (ii) Unstructured Natural Conversation (through picture description, storytelling and classroom speech) was used to collect the data which was utilized to analyze the regular and logical errors committed by the subjects. Following this, on one hand, the acquisition order of seven grammatical morphemes was analyzed using Group Score Method which is developed by Dulay and Burt (1974). This part of the analysis was also accompanied by two scoring systems: (i) Scoring System One: which gives 2 points for correct morpheme, 1 point for malformed morpheme and 0 point for no morpheme; (ii) Scoring System two: which awards 2 points for correct morpheme and correct vocabulary but assigns 0 point for other cases. On the other hand, the errors were analyzed based on Creative Construction and Contrastive Analysis theories. The study revealed that: (i) There is an acquisition order of grammatical morphemes. For instance, the plural marker /-očč/ and the passive marker /t -/ are acquired earliest and latest among the investigated seven grammatical morphemes respectively. (ii) The learners’ grammatical competence in Amharic phonology, morpho-syntax is low, and (iii) the errors were caused by such factors as the inconsistency in the morphological rules of Amharic, overgeneralization of the target langue rules, misapplication of rules as well as the interference of the subjects’ mother tongue to Amharic. This finding will have significant contribution: (i) to widen and develop the roles of Amharic for Ethiopian socioeconomic development; and (ii) for pedagogical purposes such as: textbook preparation, curriculum designing, teaching method development, and test items preparation. The study offered certain feasible recommendations based on the conclusion and indicated further research areas too