scholarly journals Attention to spectral and temporal cues in vowel perception among native speakers of Arabic and English

1990 ◽  
Vol 88 (S1) ◽  
pp. S53-S53 ◽  
Author(s):  
Murray J. Munro
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Vowel Perception ◽  
Temporal Cues ◽  
Arabic And English

Arabic and English genitive constructions

2014 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 163-190 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ibrahim Al-Shaer
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Contrastive Analysis ◽  
British English ◽  
Syntactic Variation ◽  
Semantic Function ◽  
Intuitive Judgments ◽  
Arabic And English

It is well documented that there is a one-to-many relationship between Arabic and English genitival constructions. However, it is unclear whether, given this syntactic variation, such constructions show equivalence in semantic function. For this purpose, a corpus-based contrastive analysis of these genitive constructions in a bilingual novel is carried out. As a prelude to a quantitative and qualitative inspection of the data, the (non)interchangeability of the alternative English genitives is determined by eliciting intuitive judgments from 10 linguistically naïve native speakers of British English. Quantitatively, the study shows that the Arabic genitive almost covers the semantic functions expressed by the various English genitives found in the corpus. Qualitatively, the study reveals that the flexibility derived from the English genitive variation, as opposed to the fixed word order of the Arabic genitive, allows the speaker to convey additional meaning. However, the Arabic genitive which employs various formal devices such as overt markers of case, gender, number, definiteness and person can express the same semantic functions. These features render Arabic functional with one genitive and require English to vary its genitive relative to certain phonological, syntactic, semantic and pragmatic conditions.

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 Arabic English Code Switching among Saudi Speakers

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ahmed Ibrahim Alsalami
Keyword(s):  
English Language ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Code Switching ◽  
Code Mixing ◽  
Working People ◽  
Training Courses ◽  
Arabic And English ◽  
High Level ◽  
Better Than

Many studies have been conducted on code-switching worldwide, but few were carried out on Saudi context. Therefore, this study inquires the use of code-switching among Saudis who speak both Arabic and English to identify the reasons of code-switching and to know the significant differences regarding gender, age, qualification, and level of English. The study raises two questions. They are: 1) What are the reasons of code-switching of Saudis as native speakers of Arabic? And 2) Are there significant differences for code-switching of Saudis as native speakers of Arabic due to gender, age, qualification, and level of English? A descriptive-analytical approach has been adopted, and SPSS program is used. A questionnaire (30 items) was distributed to a sample of 426 Saudis. Findings showed that those with high-level proficiency combined Arabic and English languages more due to their awareness of English language expressions and found English vocabulary more expressive and delivered their ideas better. Moreover, working people used code-switching extensively. Furthermore, postgraduates were found to be better than others. Additionally, genders were both exposed to the same circumstances. Finally, individuals among all age groups combined both Arabic and English languages due perhaps to several reasons. Therefore, the researcher recommends that it might be better to study the significance of forming training courses to keep the interest of natives to take pride and use it in all aspects of life. Finally, the researcher suggests conducting another study on investigating code-switching among instructors in EFL classrooms and exploring code-mixing since there are few studies.

Cross-Cultural Pragmatic Failure in Jordanian Media Discourse

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 347-358
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Pragmatic Competence ◽  
Cultural Communication ◽  
Cultural Backgrounds ◽  
Cross Cultural Communication ◽  
Communication Breakdown ◽  
Pragmatic Failure ◽  
Culture Start ◽  
Arabic And English

Cultural differences are brought to attention basically in cross-cultural communication where members of each culture start to compare and contrast their culture to the cultures of their addressees. While some cultures like Arabic can be described as high context cultures for basically depending on non-verbal communication, other cultures might be low context cultures for relying basically on words. In cross-cultural communication, i.e. communication between speakers from different cultural backgrounds, speakers are not expected to find it difficult to understand their addressees as long as they have the required semantic and pragmatic competence. The present study examines the occurrence of cross-cultural pragmatic failure in a Jordanian social drama focusing on how pragmatic failure might contribute to communication breakdown. It is an attempt to identify aspects and sources of pragmatic failure in both Arabic and English, and to investigate how cultural factors might influence language use of native and non-native speakers. Keywords: Pragmatic failure; cross-cultural communication; politeness; sociolinguistics.

Medical rhetoric: A contrastive study of Arabic and English in the UAE

English Today ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 38-44
Author(s):  
Abdullah Khuwaileh
Keyword(s):  
Medical Research ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Functional Information ◽  
Research Writing ◽  
Medical Rhetoric ◽  
Contrastive Study ◽  
Medical English ◽  
Native Speakers Of English ◽  
Arabic And English ◽  
Research Recommendations

THE AIM of this paper is to study the rhetorical use of tense and voice in research writing undertaken in both English and Arabic medical research. Six reports (three by native speakers of English, three by native speakers of Arabic) were analysed, all being typical of texts containing functional information. Moreover, several medical prescriptions were also analysed. The analysis showed important differences between medical English and medical Arabic, in terms of tense, voice and the use of modals. The study concludes with a number of practical and research recommendations.

Effects of perceptual training on second language vowel perception and production

2015 ◽  
Vol 37 (5) ◽  
pp. 1175-1199 ◽  
Author(s):  
SOLÈNE INCEOGLU
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
American English ◽  
Training Group ◽  
Auditory Training ◽  
Perceptual Training ◽  
Vowel Perception ◽  
Training Groups ◽  
Nasal Vowels ◽  
Facial Gestures

ABSTRACTThis study investigates whether audiovisual training leads to greater improvement in perception and production than auditory training. The participants (n= 60) were American English native speakers enrolled in intermediate French courses. They received audiovisual training, audio-only training, or no training, and were tested at pretest and posttest on their perception and production of French nasal vowels. The results suggest that both training groups improved significantly from the pretest to the posttest, but that the differences between the audiovisual and audio-only groups were not statistically significant. However, the production of the audiovisual training group improved significantly more than the production of the audio-only training group did, suggesting that seeing facial gestures leads to greater improvement in pronunciation.

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