Dominance of Foreign Words over Arabic Equivalents in Educated Arab Speech

N

7

Linguistic Borrowing; Semitic Languages; Language Usage; Language Attitudes; Second Languages; Preferences; English (Second Language); French; Arabs; Oral Language; Computational Linguistics; Language Tests; Translation; Sociolinguistics; Global Approach; Influence of Technology; History; Social Status; Student Attitudes; Teacher Attitudes; College Faculty; College Students; Educational Attainment; Psycholinguistics; Social Influences; Foreign Countries

The study investigates educated Arab's preference for using foreign words in Arabic oral discourse. A corpus of commonly used English/French words was collected. A sample of language and translation students and faculty was tested and surveyed to find out whether they were familiar with the Arabic equivalents to foreign words commonly used, reasons for preferring to use foreign words, although Arabic equivalents exist, and the effects of this phenomenon on Arabic and education. Results showed that instructors identified 56% of the Arabic equivalents to foreign words on the test, whereas students identified 52%. Students gave more accurate Arabic equivalents. The participants gave historical, sociolinguistic, technological and globalization factors that affect the preference of foreign words to Arabic equivalents, in addition to brevity, poor knowledge of Arabic equivalents, especially new coinages. They think it is more prestigious to use foreign words, "everybody is doing it" and "it's a habit". Foreign words attract customers' attention more than native words, and more customers can be reached worldwide.

As Provided

2021

ED614058