Native Arabic Speakers Research Articles

When first language is not first: an functional magnetic resonance imaging investigation of the neural basis of diglossia in Arabic.

In Arabic, the language used for everyday conversation ('spoken Arabic' - SA) differs markedly from literary Arabic (LA), which is used for written communication and formal functions. This fact raises questions regarding the cognitive status of the two varieties and their processing in the brain. Previous studies using auditory stimuli suggested that LA is processed by Arabic native speakers as a second language. The current study examined this issue in the visual modality. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) responses were collected while Arabic-Hebrew bilinguals performed a semantic categorization task on visually presented words in LA, SA and Hebrew. Performance on LA was better than SA and Hebrew, which did not differ from each other. Activation in SA was stronger than in LA in left inferior frontal, precentral, parietal and occipito-temporal regions, and stronger than in Hebrew in left precentral and parietal regions. Activation in SA was also less lateralized than activation for LA and Hebrew, which did not differ from each other in terms of lateralization, though activation for Hebrew was more extensive in both hemispheres than activation for LA. Altogether, these results indicate an advantage for LA in the current study, presumably due to participants' proficiency in reading in this language. Stronger activation for SA appears to be due to the relative unfamiliarity of written word forms in SA, which could also explain differences in performance between the two languages. However, the stronger activation observed in the left parietal cortex may also reflect stronger associations among words in SA.

A cultural history of the Arabic language

This is a multimedia history of literary Arabic that describes the evolution of Arabic poetry and prose in the context of music, ritual performance, the arts, and architecture. It is written for scholars and educated readers of Arabic and Islamic culture whose first language is not Arabic. It also might be useful for native Arabic speakers who are interested in knowing how their heritage is portrayed from a global and comparative perspective. This work focuses on what is unique about Arabic compared to other major languages of the world (Greek, Latin, Hebrew, English and Spanish) and how the distinct characteristics of Arabic took shape at various points of its history. The book provides a linguistic and cultural background for understanding social and political institutions and religious beliefs and practices in the Middle East.

Standardization of nasalance scores in normal Saudi speakers

Objective. The aims of this study were to obtain normative nasalance scores for a normal Saudi population with different ages and genders, to develop nasometric Arabic speech materials, and to make cross-linguistic comparison.Subjects. Participants included 219 normal Saudi native monolingual Arabic speakers of different ages. Subjects were classified into four groups according to age and gender. Subjects did not have any history of oral, nasal, or velopharyngeal abnormality.Methods. Arabic speech samples were developed to evaluate nasalance scores, which included syllables repetition, three oral sentences, three oro-nasal sentences, and three nasal sentences. Nasalance data were obtained using Nasometer II–6400.Results. Normative nasalance values were determined. Significant differences between the male and female children groups were noticed in many parameters. Nasalance scores were higher in adults, with significant differences between all groups.Conclusion. Normative nasalance scores for Saudi Arabic speakers have been developed for both adults and children. The Arabic speech materials developed in this study appear to be easy to use and applicable for different age groups.

How do Arab Speakers Cognitively Process Malay in the Arabic Script?

Reading is one area within cognitive psychology that is rigorously studied through experiments. Cognitive psychologists describe reading as “a highly complex process” because this receptive skill depends on different sub-processes that are inter- connected with one another. While studies on reading the Arabic script in the Arabic language have been (though not thoroughly) conducted before, a study on reading the Arabic script in non-Arabic languages by native and first language speakers of Arabic has never been conducted. This paper presents results of an experiment that investigated the reading of Malay in the Arabic script by Arabic native and first language speakers.

Attitudes to English teachers' accents in the Gulf

While the spread of English as a lingua franca has led to calls for multidialectal competence, EFL learners often still consider inner circle native English speaker (NES) pronunciation as their learning goal, and may profess a preference for particular teachers based on their NES or non‐native English speaker (NNES) status. This study investigates whether a teacher's NES/NNES status may affect Omani students' level of confidence towards the teacher. Using an adapted matched‐guise technique with almost 350 students, the study reveals a preference for speakers and accents students understand to be from the UK, although students also responded favourably to Arabic native speakers. Where the NES/NNES variable remained constant, no significant difference in student's ratings of the teacher was found.

The impact of orthographic connectivity on visual word recognition in Arabic: A cross-sectional study

This study aimed at assessing the effects of letters’ connectivity in Arabic on visual word recognition. For this purpose, reaction times (RTs) and accuracy scores were collected from ninety-third, sixth and ninth grade native Arabic speakers during a lexical decision task, using fully connected (Cw), partially connected (PCw) and nonconnected (NCw) Arabic words and pseudowords. Effects of grade on word recognition (in RTs and accuracy) and word superiority were predicted to occur. Also, in the third grade, recognition of NCw was predicted to be faster and more accurate than recognition of Cw, because in previous studies NCw were assumed to be visually less complex. In sixth and ninth grades, due to the frequent exposure to connected forms, the recognition of Cw was predicted to be as fast as or faster and more accurate than NCw. The findings largely supported the first and the second hypotheses. As for the third graders, a mixed pattern was obtained, suggesting that the participants were probably in a transitional phase. The results from sixth graders clearly showed that NCw yielded the slowest response times and the lowest accuracy scores across connectivity conditions. Finally, for ninth graders, the absence of connectivity effects on the speed of processing was attributed to the use of very frequent and highly automatized words.

Further Evidence for Arabic Basic Colour Categories

The aim of this study was to describe the basic colour terms (BCTs) of Arabic and, in particular, clarify the relationship among the three Arabic terms for blue: azrock, samawee, and khuhlie that suggested a BCTs in Arabic language in Al-rasheed et al. (2013). Data were collected from adult native Arabic speakers (30 male and 27 female) age between 18 and 34 years old, with a mean age of 21.67 years (SD = 2.98). All were under and postgraduate students at King Saud University. Participants task was to group the 320 colours by similarity. Based on this result, Arabic probably has eleven basic colour terms and these correspond with Berlin and Kay’s eleven universal categories. The terms are that ahmar “red”, akhdar “green”, asfer, “yellow”, azrock “blue”, asswed “black”, abiyadh “white”, banafsagee “purple”, boartoogaalee “orange”, bonee “brown”, wardee “pink” and rassasee. In addition, the terms of particular interest—samawee (“light blue”) had the next highest claim to being basic and may deserve further investigating.

Arab Practicum Guides Code-switch to Hebrew: Attitudes, Factors and Reasons

This study tries to investigate the code-switching behavior of Arabic native speakers who live in Israel. Another objective of this study is to reveal the participants' attitude towards this behavior and the reasons and factors that lead to code-switching. The research tools are audio-tape recording and an interview with the participants. 12 respondents participated in this study; their age ranges between 25 and 60. The findings show that the participants' attitude towards code-switching behavior is neutral. Another finding is that the guides' majors influence their code-switching behavior. The most important finding is that the most frequent reasons for switching from Arabic to Hebrew are: 'Technical or scientific term' that are usually used in Hebrew, 'intensive exposure to Hebrew native speakers' communities'. The factors of carelessness, frequency and easiness also play a major role; while the reasons 'prestige' and 'drawing attention' do not play any important role. Finally, the researcher recommends that a further research on code-switching behavior of Hebrew native speakers should be conducted.

The effects of increase and variations in time presentations for second language vocabulary learning

Barcroft (2007) found opportunities for word retrieval to be advantageous during second language vocabulary learning. This study extended such a finding and investigated the effect of increased time in target-word retrieval for learning new vocabulary in the L2, as well as the effect of presentation orders of different time conditions on word retrieval. The data were obtained from 17 native Arab speakers who attempted to learn 24 new English words by viewing 24 word-picture pairs. Each picture and its corresponding word were viewed with different time lags of 0, 6 and 12 seconds between them in different presentation orders. The results showed that, although the increased time does not positively affect word retrieval, the overall findings correspond to Barcroft’s (2007) view, at least in the case of 6 seconds lag. The results also showed that the production of target words in both the control and retrieval-oriented conditions depend on and vary according to the order of presentation, particularly in the case of 6 seconds lag in which word gain is found to be highest when the lag is presented first and second.

Does bilingualism help trilingualism in phonetic perception?

Hong, Seung-ah and Jongsup Jun 2013. Does bilingualism help trilingualism in phonetic perception? Linguistic Research 30(1), 33-49. The purpose of this paper is to answer the question of whether bilingual speakers learn a third language more easily than monolinguals. For this, we narrowed down our research interest to Arabic-English bilingual speakers` perception of the phonetic contrasts in Korean. We have conducted the perception experiment in which native Arabic speakers are grouped into monolinguals and late-bilinguals of English, and are asked to discriminate a different speech sound among three Korean syllables. We cross-classified the subjects` responses in a multi-way frequency table defined by five categorical variables; i.e. group (monolingual vs. bilingual), syllable structure (V vs. hV), target stimulus position (initial vs. final), contrast pairs of Korean vowels (/a-A/, /a-e/, /A-i/, /o-A/, /u-o/, /u-i/, /i-e/, /i-i/), and response (correct vs. incorrect). The log-linear regression analysis indicates robust L1 transfer effects on L3, but we found no significant difference between monolingual and bilingual speakers. Considering the general interest in multi-lingualism among the public and people`s vague belief that bilingualism may help trilingualism, the findings of this paper have significance not only for the field of second language acquisition, but for pedagogical purposes as well. (Hankuk University of Foreign Studies).

The Interpretation of English Conditional Sentences by Arabic Native Speakers

The aim of this paper is to investigate Arabic native speakers interpretation of English conditional sentences and to find out the reasons behind that. Conditional sentences are considered one of the most difficult issues for nonnative speakers of English. They form an obstacle for both learners and teachers. The complexity of conditional sentences comes from the fact that they contain two clauses to express complex meaning using complex structure. Moreover, generally, the students spend their time learning the three main types of conditional sentences, i.e. if she comes, I will leave; if she came, I would leave; if she had come, I would have left. Consequently, they are not aware of many other variations within conditional sentences. One hundred subjects enrolled in the test. All were third year students majoring in English. Ten conditional sentences were given to them and they were asked to decide whether these sentences are grammatical or not and to correct the ungrammatical ones. It turns out that the students are not aware of such variations in conditional sentences.

Spelling Accuracy of Consonants in Arabic among Negev Bedouin Students

This study explored spelling development of the written form of Arabic among native Bedouin Arabic (BA) speakers in second, fourth, and sixth grades (N = 347) from two recognized authorities in south Israel. Specifically, this study focused on guttural (), uvular-velar (/q/ and ), emphatic ( , , and ), and dental (/t/) consonants. Three tasks were constructed for this study: real word dictation, pseudo-word dictation, and real word recognition. The results for the real word task, pseudo-word task, and the word recognition task indicated significant improvement in spelling accuracy of the consonants targeted among fourth graders, however there was no additional improvement among the students in the sixth grade. It was also found that with emphatic phonemes accuracy is significantly lower than with all other phonemic groups at all elementary grades. In addition, gender differences were observed with significantly higher scores for girls in all grades targeted for all tasks. Pedagogical implications of these findings are discussed.

Studying some elicited verbal prosodic patterns in Egyptian children

EnAbstract Background Despite the large number of native Arabic speakers, Arabic prosodic skills have not been studied thoroughly. Objectives This study aimed to examine the perceptual judgment and acoustic characteristics of some elicited verbal prosodic patterns in a group of typically developing Egyptian children aged 2 years 2 months through 5 years 11 months in order to aid in the early identification of prosodic impairment in this age group. Participants and methods The sample included 40 healthy typically developing Egyptian children aged 2 years 2 months through 5 years 11 months old. Participants were divided into two groups: group I included 20 children aged 2 years 2 months to 3 years 11 months old. Group II included 20 children aged 4 years 2 months to 5 years 11 months old. The prosodic patterns studied included socioaffective as well as grammatical patterns. The prosody of each elicited response was perceptually studied and acoustically analyzed. The results obtained were analyzed statistically using comparative and correlation studies. Results (a) Significant differences were found between the two groups with respect to the perceptual scores of all the prosodic patterns studied, except resentment and interrogative patterns. (b) Significant differences were found between the two groups with respect to acoustic values. (c) For all the studied parameters, no significant differences were found between males and females. (d) The highest mean perceptual score obtained by the studied group was that obtained for the interrogative pattern, whereas the lowest ones obtained were for exception and warning patterns. (e) A significant positive correlation was found between age and the Total Perceptual Prosodic Scores (TPPS). (f) A significant negative correlation was found between duration and most of the perceptual scores. (g) A significant positive correlation was found between frequency and most of the perceptual scores. (h) A significant positive correlation was found between energy and most of the perceptual scores. Conclusion (a) The production of different Arabic prosodic patterns is associated with changes in frequency, duration, and energy. (b) The easiest prosodic patterns to be imitated by children are the interrogative and resentment patterns, whereas the most difficult ones were the exception, disapproval, and warning patterns. (c) Elicited prosodic patterns do not differ with sex in children.

In-directness and Politeness in American English and Saudi Arabic Requests: A Cross-Cultural Comparison

This article examines the notions of (in)directness and politeness in the speech act of requests among Saudi Arabic native speakers as compared to American English native speakers. To elicit data on the requestive strategies that the two groups employed, a randomly chosen group of 30 Saudi and American undergraduate students were given a discourse completion test that consisted of twelve written context-enriched situations. The results revealed that conventional indirectness was the most prevailing strategy employed by the American sample. On the other hand, the Saudi sample varied their request strategies depending on the social variables of power and distance. The results also showed that the level of directness differed cross-culturally. American students used direct requests when addressing their friends on the condition that the request was not weighty; however, directness was the most preferred strategy among Saudi students in intimate situations where directness is interpreted as an expression of affiliation, closeness and group-connectedness rather than impoliteness.

Evaluating Face Validity of an Arabic Translation of a Food Security Questionnaire

ObjectiveFood security affects at least 1 billion people worldwide. Currently, there is a gap in validated tools available in the Arabic language to assess food insecurity. The purpose of our study is to evaluate the face validity of an Arabic-language translation of the Escala Latinoamericana y Caribeña de Seguridad Alimentaria (ELCSA), an established food security questionnaire. Our specific aims are (1) to successfully translate the ELCSA into the Arabic language and (2) to examine the face validity of the translated instrument.Design, Setting and ParticipantsThe tool was translated by native Arabic speakers and crosschecked via back-translation into the English language. Face validity was assessed via a convenience sample of 24 to 30 native Arabic-speaking participants divided into 4 to 6 groups, following Kruger's focus group protocol. Focus group interviews method was selected to observe and gather participants' perceptions of food insecurity, language interpretations pertaining to ease of language, and word choice used in the translation.Outcome Measures and AnalysisFocus group data were analyzed via textual analysis and coded into themes to allow identification of key concepts. Similarities and differences in key concepts help provide better understanding of the tool for its adequate adaptation into the Arabic language.ResultsFocus group data identified: (1) question structure must be shifted, allowing the subject of the question to precede the period asked about; (2) terminology must be simplified in most questions; and (3) all questions were considered relevant because they range in degree of food insecurity severity.Conclusions and ImplicationsThis study supports the further development of a global household food security scale.FundingNone. ObjectiveFood security affects at least 1 billion people worldwide. Currently, there is a gap in validated tools available in the Arabic language to assess food insecurity. The purpose of our study is to evaluate the face validity of an Arabic-language translation of the Escala Latinoamericana y Caribeña de Seguridad Alimentaria (ELCSA), an established food security questionnaire. Our specific aims are (1) to successfully translate the ELCSA into the Arabic language and (2) to examine the face validity of the translated instrument. Food security affects at least 1 billion people worldwide. Currently, there is a gap in validated tools available in the Arabic language to assess food insecurity. The purpose of our study is to evaluate the face validity of an Arabic-language translation of the Escala Latinoamericana y Caribeña de Seguridad Alimentaria (ELCSA), an established food security questionnaire. Our specific aims are (1) to successfully translate the ELCSA into the Arabic language and (2) to examine the face validity of the translated instrument. Design, Setting and ParticipantsThe tool was translated by native Arabic speakers and crosschecked via back-translation into the English language. Face validity was assessed via a convenience sample of 24 to 30 native Arabic-speaking participants divided into 4 to 6 groups, following Kruger's focus group protocol. Focus group interviews method was selected to observe and gather participants' perceptions of food insecurity, language interpretations pertaining to ease of language, and word choice used in the translation. The tool was translated by native Arabic speakers and crosschecked via back-translation into the English language. Face validity was assessed via a convenience sample of 24 to 30 native Arabic-speaking participants divided into 4 to 6 groups, following Kruger's focus group protocol. Focus group interviews method was selected to observe and gather participants' perceptions of food insecurity, language interpretations pertaining to ease of language, and word choice used in the translation. Outcome Measures and AnalysisFocus group data were analyzed via textual analysis and coded into themes to allow identification of key concepts. Similarities and differences in key concepts help provide better understanding of the tool for its adequate adaptation into the Arabic language. Focus group data were analyzed via textual analysis and coded into themes to allow identification of key concepts. Similarities and differences in key concepts help provide better understanding of the tool for its adequate adaptation into the Arabic language. ResultsFocus group data identified: (1) question structure must be shifted, allowing the subject of the question to precede the period asked about; (2) terminology must be simplified in most questions; and (3) all questions were considered relevant because they range in degree of food insecurity severity. Focus group data identified: (1) question structure must be shifted, allowing the subject of the question to precede the period asked about; (2) terminology must be simplified in most questions; and (3) all questions were considered relevant because they range in degree of food insecurity severity. Conclusions and ImplicationsThis study supports the further development of a global household food security scale. This study supports the further development of a global household food security scale.

Non-native Japanese listeners’ perception of vowel length contrasts in Japanese and Modern Standard Arabic (MSA)

This study aimed to compare the perception of short vs. long vowel contrasts in Japanese and Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) by four groups of listeners differing in their linguistic backgrounds: native Arabic (NA), native Japanese (NJ), non-native Japanese (NNJ) and Australian English (OZ) speakers. The NNJ and OZ groups shared the first language (L1), but differed in their familiarity with Japanese. In both Japanese and MSA, vowel length is phonemic. In contrast, vowel duration plays a more limited (although not insignificant) role in English. Of interest was the discrimination accuracy of NNJ listeners who learned Japanese as a second (L2) or foreign language in adulthood. As expected, the NA and NJ groups discriminated their L1 contrasts more accurately than all the other groups, but the NNJ listeners showed a significant shift in their perceptual behaviour and outperformed the OZ listeners who have no knowledge of Japanese in discriminating the Japanese vowel length contrasts. Furthermore, NNJ was the only group who did not differ in their discrimination accuracy for the Arabic and Japanese stimuli. Taken together, the results obtained in this study suggest that NNJ learned to discriminate Japanese vowel length contrasts to some extent, but the learning did not carry over cross-linguistically to the processing of vowel length contrasts in an unknown language.

The contribution of the two hemispheres to lexical decision in different languages.

BackgroundBoth reading words and text in Arabic is slower than in other languages, even among skilled native Arabic speakers Previously we have shown that the right hemisphere (RH) had difficulty in matching Arabic letters, and suggested that it cannot contribute to word recognition in Arabic. In this study we tested this finding directly.MethodWe used the Divided Visual Field (DVF) lexical decision (LD) paradigm to assess hemispheric function during reading. The experiment had two conditions (unilateral and bilateral). In the unilateral condition, the target stimulus was presented unilaterally to the left or the right visual field. In the bilateral condition two stimuli were presented simultaneously, and participants were cued as to which one was the target. Three groups of participants were tested: Arabic speakers, Hebrew speakers, and English speakers. Each group was tested in their native language.ResultsFor Hebrew and English speakers, performance in both visual fields was significantly better in the unilateral than in the bilateral condition. For Arabic speakers, performance in the right visual field (RVF, where stimuli are presented directly to the left hemisphere) did not change in the two conditions. Performance in the LVF (when stimuli are presented directly to the right hemisphere) was at chance level in the bilateral condition, but not in the unilateral condition.ConclusionWe interpret these data as supporting the hypothesis that in English and Hebrew, both hemispheres are involved in LD, whereas in Arabic, the right hemisphere is not involved in word recognition.

Analyzing Use of “Thanks to You”: Insights for Language Teaching and Assessment in Second and Foreign Language Contexts

This investigation of thanks to you in British and American usage was precipitated by a situation at an American university, in which a native Arabic speaker said thanks to you in isolation, making his intended meaning unclear. The study analyzes use of thanks to you in the Corpus of Contemporary American English and the British National Corpus to gain insights for English language instruction /assessment in the American context, as well as English-as-a-lingua-franca contexts where the majority of speakers are not native speakers of English or are speakers of different varieties of English but where American or British English are for educational purposes the standard varieties. Analysis of the two corpora revealed three functions for thanks to you common to British and American usage: expressing gratitude, communicating “because of you” positively, and communicating “because of you” negatively (as in sarcasm). A fourth use of thanks to you, thanking journalists/guests for being on news programs/talk shows, occurred in the American corpus only. Analysis indicates that felicitous use of thanks to you for each of these meanings depends on the presence of a range of factors, both linguistic and material, in the context of utterance.

The Role of the Syllable in the Segmentation of Cairene Spoken Arabic

The syllable as a perceptual unit has been investigated cross linguistically. In Cairene Arabic syllables fall into three categories, light CV, heavy CVC/CVV and superheavy CVCC/CVVC. However, heavy syllables in Cariene Arabic have varied weight depending on their position in a word, whether internal or final. The present paper investigates the role of the syllable in the segmentation of Cariene Arabic. It reports a psycholinguistic study; syllable monitoring that was conducted on 32 Egyptian Arabic native speakers to examine the perceptual role of the syllable in spoken connected language. Theoretical phonological studies have identified Cairene Arabic as a stress-timed language; however, psycholinguistic studies providing evidence for this theoretical finding are scarce. The present study which is a cross modal (visual and auditory) counterbalanced design, gives evidence for the role of the (CVC) syllable in the segmentation of Cairene spoken language.

Phonetically rich and balanced text and speech corpora for Arabic language

This paper describes the preparation, recording, analyzing, and evaluation of a new speech corpus for Modern Standard Arabic (MSA). The speech corpus contains a total of 415 sentences recorded by 40 (20 male and 20 female) Arabic native speakers from 11 different Arab countries representing three major regions (Levant, Gulf, and Africa). Three hundred and sixty seven sentences are considered as phonetically rich and balanced, which are used for training Arabic Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) systems. The rich characteristic is in the sense that it must contain all phonemes of Arabic language, whereas the balanced characteristic is in the sense that it must preserve the phonetic distribution of Arabic language. The remaining 48 sentences are created for testing purposes, which are mostly foreign to the training sentences and there are hardly any similarities in words. In order to evaluate the speech corpus, Arabic ASR systems were developed using the Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) Sphinx 3 tools at both training and testing/decoding levels. The speech engine uses 3-emitting state Hidden Markov Models (HMM) for tri-phone based acoustic models. Based on experimental analysis of about 8 h of training speech data, the acoustic model is best using continuous observation's probability model of 16 Gaussian mixture distributions and the state distributions were tied to 500 senones. The language model contains uni-grams, bi-grams, and tri-grams. For same speakers with different sentences, Arabic ASR systems obtained average Word Error Rate (WER) of 9.70%. For different speakers with same sentences, Arabic ASR systems obtained average WER of 4.58%, whereas for different speakers with different sentences, Arabic ASR systems obtained average WER of 12.39%.