Proficiency effects on L2 Arabic refusals

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-53 ◽  
Author(s):  
Khaled Al Masaeed ◽  
Naoko Taguchi ◽  
Mohammed Tamimi
Keyword(s):  
Social Distance ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Advanced Level ◽  
Spoken Discourse ◽  
Standard Arabic ◽  
Completion Task ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Refusal Strategies ◽  
Spoken Arabic ◽  
Modern Standard

Abstract This study examined the relationship between L2 proficiency and (1) appropriateness of refusals, (2) use of refusal strategies, and (3) multidialectal practices in performing refusals in Arabic. Using a spoken discourse completion task (spoken DCT), data were collected from 45 learners of Arabic at three different proficiency levels and from 15 Arabic native speakers. The situations used in the spoken DCT varied in power and social distance (i.e., refusing a friend’s request to lend money, refusing a neighbor’s request to lend a car, and refusing a boss’s request to stay late to work extra hours). Findings generally revealed a positive relationship between proficiency and L2 Arabic learners’ appropriateness, use of refusal strategies, and multidialectal practices in their refusals. However, results showed that native speakers solely employed spoken Arabic (i.e., the dialect), while learners relied heavily on Modern Standard Arabic. Analysis of refusal strategies showed that native speakers tended to provide vague explanations in their refusals except when refusing the neighbor’s request, whereas the learners preferred to provide specific reasons for their refusals. Moreover, advanced-level learners were substantially verbose; as a result, their refusals could be perceived as lecturing or criticizing their interlocutor. This paper concludes with implications for researching and teaching L2 Arabic refusals with special attention to multidialectal practices.

Cross-dialectal variation in Arabic: Competing prestigious forms

1987 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 359-367 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hassan R. Abd-El-Jawad
Keyword(s):  
Social Groups ◽  
Standard Variety ◽  
Adequate Description ◽  
Sociolinguistic Variation ◽  
Dialectal Variation ◽  
Standard Arabic ◽  
Arabic Sociolinguistics ◽  
Informal Settings ◽  
Spoken Arabic ◽  
Modern Standard

ABSTRACTMost researchers of Arabic sociolinguistics assume the existence of a sociolinguistic continuum with a local vernacular at the bottom and the standard variety at the top. Those researchers seem to equate the terms “prestige” and “standard”; consequently, they tend to consider Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) as the only prestige variety in all settings. This article presents evidence showing that if an adequate description of sociolinguistic variation of spoken Arabic is to be met, it is necessary to posit not only one standard speech variety, MSA, but also other prestigious local or regional varieties which act as local spoken standards competing with MSA in informal settings. It will be shown in the reported cases that in certain contexts speakers tend to switch from their local forms – though these latter may be identical to MSA – to other local features characteristic of other dominant social groups and that happen to be marked [–MSA], These local prestigious norms act like the standard spoken norms in informal settings. (Diglossic model, prestigious varieties, stereotypes, dominant social groups, competing standards, spoken Arabic).

scholarly journals Pronunciation Problems among Palestinian English Major Students in Hebron University

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
First Language ◽  
Consonant Clusters ◽  
Modern Standard Arabic ◽  
Standard Arabic ◽  
English Major ◽  
Arabic And English ◽  
Modern Standard

The purpose of this research is to identify few common pronunciation mistakes among Palestinian English major students in Hebron University and the factors that cause these problems. The paper discusses selected phonetic and phonological problems related to specific consonants and vowels besides problems related to pronunciation of consonant sequences. The participants of this study were 120 English major students from Hebron University. The instruments used for collecting the data were a questionnaire and a recorded pronunciation test. In addition to the previous instruments, interviews were conducted with eight students and two instructors. The findings of the study revealed that Hebron University English major students have difficulties in pronouncing English consonants that are not part of Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) such as [ŋ], [p], [ɫ], [ɹ], [ʒ], [tʃ] (though some consider [ŋ], [ɫ], [ʒ], [tʃ] as allophonic variants and are used in the different dialects of Arabic), problems in consonant clusters(epenthesis), silent letters, and vowels that have more than one pronunciation. During the interviews, the interviewees pointed various reasons for their errors and suggested some solutions to some of these pronunciation problems. Among the mispronunciation reasons mentioned are: interference from Arabic and the lack of correct models, exposure to native speakers, and practice. The researchers concluded that learners' errors are caused by several linguistic factors, such as the disparity between Arabic and English sound systems, the effect of spelling on pronunciation, the influence of the first language (L1) on the second language (L2), and English vowel inconsistency. Finally, ideas to overcome some of the pronunciation problems are suggested.

scholarly journals Competing Pressures in Diglossia: Avoiding Colloquial Elements in Writing Modern Standard Arabic

1970 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
pp. 146-168
Author(s):  
Alexander Magidow
Keyword(s):  
Avoidance Behavior ◽  
Regional Variation ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Multiple Choice ◽  
Modern Standard Arabic ◽  
Negative Interference ◽  
Standard Arabic ◽  
Positive Interference ◽  
Modern Standard

This article investigates speaker choice of variant lexemes and structures when writing in formal Modern Standard Arabic, using a multiple-choice survey that was distributed to 28 native speakers of Damascene Arabic. The study finds that speakers tend to avoid elements that are common in their local colloquial dia-lect, even if they are attested and permissible in Modern Standard Arabic, what might be called “negative interference.” However, in some cases interference from the colloquial form is so strong that speakers appear to be confused as to which form is correct (“positive interference”), and when given the choice, prefer to avoid problematic forms altogether. These results suggest that there are a number of competing pressures in diglossia, supplementing previous studies which have primarily found evidence of positive interference from the local dialects on Modern Standard Arabic. This study concludes that this avoidance behavior may explain the historical robustness of diglossia, as well as some of the regional variation that occurs in Modern Standard Arabic.

Morphosyntactic Transfer from a Spoken Heritage Dialect to the Standard Variety

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 202-233
Author(s):  
Reem Faraj
Keyword(s):  
Heritage Language ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Control Groups ◽  
Heritage Speakers ◽  
Standard Arabic ◽  
The Third ◽  
Third Person ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Third Person ◽  
Modern Standard

This study examines cases of morphosyntactic transfer from Syrian Arabic to Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) in the production of heritage speakers who are not only bilingual (L1 Syrian Arabic, L2 English), but also diglossic; Syrian Arabic is their heritage language (HL), and MSA is the form they learned in school. Two control groups, native speakers of Syrian Arabic and learners of MSA, were also included. The proposal presented here is that adolescent heritage speakers of Syrian Arabic have a more developed Syrian Arabic grammar, which results in- transfer to MSA, and that degree and duration of input-output and exposure to both varieties impact the type and number of non-target forms in the production of the studied heritage group. The goal is to find the extent of such transfer, how it is manifested, and whether it is also related to sentence and subject type or other factors. The focus of this study is verbs in SV and VS sentences in MSA, where the subject is a nominal DP and the verb is in the third person. The agreement patterns in VS and SV sentences are asymmetrical in MSA but they are not in Syrian Arabic. The SV order in MSA reflects different agreement patterns with both genders and all three numbers, whereas in Syrian Arabic there is one default non-singular verb form. In this paper I provide a formal account of the differences among the agreement patterns in MSA and Syrian Arabic within the Minimalist framework. Using this approach, a morphosyntactic transfer of agreement features from Syrian Arabic to MSA is argued to be a transfer of T0 features. The results demonstrate that errors in the MSA verb produced by the heritage speakers differ from those of MSA learners and that more than half of the heritage speakers’ errors are compatible with morphosyntactic agreement forms in Syrian Arabic. These findings provide evidence for transfer from Syrian Arabic to MSA. It is possible that when three linguistic systems are competing (L1, L2, and L3) and where L1 is the most dominant, L2 is less developed than L1 but more developed than L3, and L2 and L3 are typologically close, transfer takes place from L2 to L3. More research to address this question is needed. The study contributes to the understanding of agreement in heritage speakers’ production and the phenomenon of transfer in bilingual and diglossic situations.

The impact of phonemic and lexical distance on the phonological analysis of words and pseudowords in a diglossic context

2004 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 495-512 ◽  
Author(s):  
ELINOR SAIEGH–HADDAD
Keyword(s):  
Stimulus Word ◽  
First Grade ◽  
Lexical Status ◽  
Standard Arabic ◽  
Target Phoneme ◽  
Arabic Speaking ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Spoken Arabic ◽  
Modern Standard

The study examined the impact of the phonemic and lexical distance between Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) and a spoken Arabic vernacular (SAV) on phonological analysis among kindergarten (N=24) and first grade (N=42) native Arabic-speaking children. We tested the effect of the lexical status of the word (SAV, MSA, and pseudoword), as well as the linguistic affiliation of the target phoneme (SAV vs. MSA), on initial and final phoneme isolation. Results showed that, when words were composed of SAV phonemes only, the lexical status of the word did not affect phoneme isolation. However, when MSA and pseudowords encoded both SAV and MSA phonemes, kindergarteners found MSA words significantly more difficult to analyze. Comparing children's ability to isolate SAV versus MSA phonemes revealed that all children found MSA phonemes significantly more difficult to isolate. Kindergarteners found MSA phonemes that were embedded within MSA words even more difficult to isolate. Results underscore the role of the lexical status of the stimulus word, as well as the linguistic affiliation of the target phoneme in phonological analysis in a diglossic context.

scholarly journals Language attitudes in Algeria

2018 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 144-172 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kamal Belmihoub
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Transfer ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Language Attitudes ◽  
Economic Opportunity ◽  
Standard Arabic ◽  
Political Status ◽  
Item Questionnaire ◽  
Second Year ◽  
Modern Standard

Abstract This article examines language attitudes among Algerian first and second year engineering students at an Algerian university. A sample of 101 participants responded to a 51-item questionnaire. The results of the questionnaire showed a strong preference of Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), English, and French by native speakers of Algerian Arabic (Derja). Native speakers of Tamazight (a Berber language) preferred MSA, English, French, and Tamazight. Participants were divided on many questions regarding MSA and Tamazight. It was also found that respondents favored English as a useful vehicle of economic opportunity and knowledge transfer. An overwhelming majority of respondents viewed multilingualism in Algeria positively. Interestingly, both Derja and Tamazight native speakers unanimously rejected promoting Derja to an official political status, and they indicated support for the teaching of English and French in school. Possible motives behind the attitudes are discussed and implications are suggested.

scholarly journals The encounter of two cultural identities: The case of social deixis

2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 344-365
Author(s):  
Magdaléna Bilá ◽  
Alena Kačmárová ◽  
Ingrida Vaňková
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Identity ◽  
Social Distance ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Discursive Practice ◽  
Relationship Type ◽  
Relationship Types ◽  
Native Speakers Of English ◽  
Specific Culture ◽  
Social Deixis ◽  
The Relationship

In contact with foreign environment, the encounter of two (or more) cultures is common in situations with an incompatible cultural aspect. A typical example is T-V distinction. In most languages, mainly European ones, conveying social deixis oscillates between two poles: T and V forms. Present-day English is the only mainstream language with the absence of morphological markers for conveying T/V relationships. The present research examines the concept of expressing social distance in Slovak and in English, languages respectively having and lacking overt T/V markers, in order to specify the distinctiveness of English vs. Slovak lingua-cultural identity and/or discursive practice of the respective culture with regard to expressing social distance. This is done in two steps. Firstly, the underlying concepts (a lingua-cultural identity, social distance, T/V forms) are studied by means of the conceptualizing scheme (Kačmárová, Bilá, Vaňková 2018); its essence lies in accounting for and in aligning four sub-processes: frame establishment, encoding (pre-understanding), contextualization (salience), and code configuration. The conceptualization process utilized a set of principles (adopted from Clyne, Norrby & Warren 2009). Secondly, based on the theoretical results, the questionnaires were designed. The questions for native speakers of Slovak examined the preferences in the usage of T vs. V forms; the questions for native speakers of English examined the preferences in the usage of informal vs. formal ways of communication. The present study indicates that the conceptualizing process may as well be of hierarchical nature. Thus, the mere conceptualization of T vs. V or informal vs. formal may emanate from the conceptualization of social distance in terms of a set of principles, the conceptualization of the specific principle in terms of the relationship types, the conceptualization of the relationship type in terms of a specific culture and the conceptualization of a culture-specific relationship type through language means (T or V).

scholarly journals Investigating Arabic Pragmatic Markers in Spoken Discourse: A Literature Review

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 48
Author(s):  
Yaseen Azi
Keyword(s):  
Literature Review ◽  
Arabic Literature ◽  
Pragmatic Approach ◽  
Spoken Discourse ◽  
Standard Arabic ◽  
Pragmatic Markers ◽  
Theoretical Approaches ◽  
Dialectal Arabic ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Modern Standard

Generally speaking, the current paper demonstrates a detailed and critical exploration of Arabic pragmatic markers (PMs) in spoken discourse. Although there seems to be less agreement on the topic of the particular phenomena that the current study is addressing, my study will use the term PM instead of discourse marker (DM). For clarity, it should be identified that a PMs in this study is “most commonly used as a general or umbrella term covering forms with a wide variety of functions both on the interpersonal and textual levels” (Zienkowski, Östman, & Verschueren, 2011, p. 227); therefore, DMs or any other linguistic elements with discourse functions are considered as a subtype of a PM (see Fraser, 2009; Aijmer,2013). Based on the literature review, treating the phenomena as PMs will provide us with a more comprehensive approach towards the study of that particular phenomena in Arabic dialects; such an approach does not only focus on texts, but also incorporates social, cultural, and linguistic aspects of the contexts into our analysis of the phenomena. Briefly, the structure of this paper will be divided into the following sections: a definition of pragmatic markers, theoretical approaches of PMs, PMs in the Arabic literature, variations in Arabic, a variational pragmatic approach and PMs, treatment of PMs in Arabic literature, PMs in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), PMs in Dialectal Arabic, and conclusion.

scholarly journals PRAGMATIC COMPETENCE OF THE YEMENI EFL LEARNERS

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ahmed Qasem H. Al-Khadhmi ◽  
Mirza M. B. ◽  
Abdullah Ali Al-Eryani
Keyword(s):  
Speech Act ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Analytic Approach ◽  
Pragmatic Competence ◽  
Written Discourse ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Completion Task ◽  
Native Speakers Of English ◽  
Refusal Strategies ◽  
Loading Scheme

<p>The present study aimed at investigating the pragmatic competence of the Yemeni Non-Native Speakers of English (YNNSs) through examining their performance in the speech act of refusals. The study followed the qualitative comparative analytic approach. For the purpose of attaining the required data for this study, forty (YNNSs) and forty American Native Speakers (ANSs) of English were involved. The questionnaire used for collecting data from the participants was a written Discourse Completion Task (DCT), which was developed by Beebe et el. (1990), employed for collecting the data related to the use of refusal strategies by the two groups of participants in English. The data collected from DCT was analyzed by using a loading scheme adapted from Beebe et al. (1990). This study revealed that the Yemeni NNSs were not pragmatically competent enough in English. In spite of the similarity between the two groups in their use of refusal strategies, the differences between them were more apparent. The total number of strategies used by the American NSs was almost double those used by the Yemeni NNSs in all refusal situations. This study recommends that instructors should design contextualized, task-based, oral activities and integrating the intercultural aspects of language into ELT textbooks. </p><p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/edu_01/0895/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>

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