A Contrastive Stylistic Study of Lexicalization in Two English and Arabic prayers

Abstract

Lexicalization is a process of employing vocabulary for specific purposes. The great majority of words refer to things and experiences in the outside world and come under the category of lexical meaning, typically nouns, verbs, and adjectives. This study seeks to attempt to contrast the lexicalization of two English and Arabic prayers stylistically. The study adopts an eclectic model that integrates two approaches, one of them is Keshavarz's five contrastive analysis steps (2012), on which the study draws in analyzing the data contrastively. The second one is Leech and Short's lexical categories (2007), on which the study draws in analyzing the data stylistically. The study seeks to answer the questions of how English and Arabic prayers employ lexical categories and what lexical categories are most and least employed. In this regard, the study aims at exploring how English and Arabic prayers employ the lexical categories and accounting the most and the least employed categories. The study concludes that each prayer has its own tendency for stylistic language. English prayer depends on focusing on verbs, while Arabic prayer depends on focusing on nouns.