Between Educational and Expressive Functions in Arabic-Dubbed Anime

Abstract

This research aims to investigate the function and themes of Arabic-dubbed anime originally released between 1985 and 2020 and aired on SpaceToon. To classify the function(s) of Arabic-dubbed anime, a fifth function was proposed, i.e., educational. Unlike the expressive and informative text types, the educational text types have informative and operative qualities. Using a qualitative and quantitative descriptive analysis, the research looked at 60 opening title sequence lyrics to assess their use of rhyme, language variety, and themes. The research has found that only rhyme analysis indicated an expressive function, whereas the language variety and theme analyses indicated an educational function, leading Arabic-dubbed anime to be classified as mainly educational. Analysis of themes has shown determination, adventure and excitement to be the most occurring themes throughout the data. Themes, such as separations, destruction and Arabism, were kept to a minimum. This, however, does not mean nationalism and unity were scarce as well. In fact, the Chi-square analysis has shown that these themes occurred more than expected during the 1990s. The analysis also identified other educational themes that spiked during the 1990s, but they were less apparent in the 2000s and 2010s when some expressive themes were observed to rise. This indicates a shift of the Arabic-dubbed anime towards the expressive function since the turn of the 21st century.