Tuhinga Māhorahora:
a corpus of Māori writing by children
Jeanette King, University of Canterbury
Christine Brown, Resource Teacher of Māori
Mary Boyce, University of Canterbury
Aim
• to support kaiako in MME (Rau 2005)
• previous pilot by Christine Brown
• analysing words used by children in their in-class writing
• gave valuable feedback to kaiako which improved teaching practice
• to develop practices and protocols to analyse written
texts
Tuhinga Māhorahora
• Self-directed writing by tamariki in Māori medium
education classrooms
• In 2013 the writing of 70 children in year 1-8 MME was
photographed
• Over 1,200 pieces of writing
• ≈ 60,000 word tokens
• ≈ 2,100 word types
Method
• With funding from NZILBB, these pieces of writing
have been transcribed and tagged and entered into a
database
• Transcription: initially using text editors, but now with
Xml TEI Editor oXygen
Method
• Text anonymised – any name which could identify
tamariki or school replaced
• Text tagged – mostly to correct spelling corrections,
but also to tag names
Method
• Participant and transcript information also added to TEI
header
Method
• Uploaded to NZILBB’s LaBB-CAT online corpus
analysis tool
Analysis
• Search and export options in LaBB-CAT
Analysis
WordSmith
• To calculate frequency lists
Range
• To analyse use of words in relation to Brown’s
wordlists
• 9 lists of content types
• 1 list of function words
• 1 list of names the children are commonly using
• Wordlists complied from a number of Māori language
corpora
Analysis
Data
• Year 3
• 10 tamariki
• Aged 6;8 to 9 years
• 346 pieces of writing
• 13,000 words
Results
Year 3
Results
Year 3
Results
Year 3
Results
Year 3 - tokens as % of text coverage
names
words not
on lists
one
two
three
four
five
seven
function words
six
eight
nine
Results
Year 3 - types used as a percentage of Brown's lists
100
90
80
70
60
%
50
40
30
20
10
0
list 1
list 2
list 3
list 4
list 5
list 6
list 7
list 8
list 9
function
words
Frequency
Top 15 words
Frequency
Top 15 content words
Frequency
Top 15 content words
Muri
Whai muri i …
i muri i …
Alternatives
One option would be to encourage use of alternatives
• Kātahi – already being used
•
20 instances from 4 tamariki
•
but 16 from one child
• Ā, nā
•
not being used as a connective particle
List one
Words not used by tamariki:
• āta
• rite
• hau
• take
• karanga
• tīmata
• kitea
• tinana
• marama
• tohu
• momo
• whakarongo
• ora
• whakautu
• rau
Kāore
Function words
Word
gloss
number
Engari
But
6
Ahakoa
Even though
1
Ehara
Negative particle
0
Reira
Anaphoric location particle
0
Taua
Anaphoric determiner
0
English words
• 338 English words or phrases
Topics
Earthquake
Where to from here?
• Apply for funding from MOE to enable project to collect
and code data and deliver information to kaiako during
school year.
• Build up analysis tools in LaBB-CAT. Work towards an
online tool which teachers themselves can use.
• Some classrooms are now using tablets for writing
which will make collection and tagging of data even
easier.
Acknowledgements
• Kura, kaiako and tamariki
• NZILBB: Robert Fromont, Scott Lloyd
• RAs: Roberta Tainui, Caitlin Swan and Niwa Wehi
• Paul Nation’s website:
http://www.victoria.ac.nz/lals/about/staff/paul-nation
References
Brown, C. (2009). Assessing the readability of Māori language texts for
classroom use. Masters thesis. University of Canterbury.
http://hdl.handle.net/10092/4015
King, J. (2015) Metaphors we die by: change and vitality in Māori. In E.
Piirainen and A. Sherris (Ed.), Language Endangerment: disappearing
metaphors and shifting conceptualizations: 15-36. Amsterdam: John
Benjamins.
Rau, C. (2005). Literacy acquisition, assessment and achievement of year
two students in total immersion in Māori programmes. International
Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 8(5): 404-32.
Wray, A. (2002). Formulaic language and the lexicon. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511519772
CLIP
• Comparative Language Input Project
• Teacher speech
• Māori, Mayan language (Guatemala), Jeju Island
(Korea), Alaska & Philipines
• Number of words, number of sentences, noun/verb
count
Neologisms
borrowings from English
• karaima = climb
• mōro = mall
• nawhe = enough
• poita = points
• Timanaki - Chipmunks
• wikini/wikeni = weekend
Neologisms
compounds
• panunukakau = scooter
• piritau = badge
• hoari rama = light saber
• papa piro = score board
• papa āwhina = kickboard
• pekenui / papa tūpeke= trampoline
• ngongototo = vampire
Neologisms
Blends
• wairero – rap, from waiata (to sing) and kōrero (to speak)
Combination borrowing and calque
• warewhare = warehouse
• ipapa = ipad