LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 11 : 4 April 2011
ISSN 1930-2940

Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. A. Sharada, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         Lakhan Gusain, Ph.D.
         Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D.
         S. M. Ravichandran, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         L. Ramamoorthy, Ph.D.

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A Study of Arabic Interference in
Yemeni University Students' English Writing

Yahia Ahmed Qaid, M.Ed. in ELT, Ph.D. Candidate
L. Ramamoorthy, Ph.D.

Abstract

This study aimed to analyse and describe features of Arabic interference in paragraph writing by Yemeni university English students in the academic year 2009/2010 semester 1 at Amran and Hodeidah Universities.

Four levels of Arabic interference, namely, the missing Verb to be, the missing indefinite articles (a/an), word-order and subject-verb agreement were analyzed from samples of the students' paragraph writing.

It was found that the absence of 'be' and indefinite articles 'a/an' in the Arabic language led the Yemeni students to make errors in using them. The difference between Arabic and English word order leads the learners to make errors and, because of literal translation of Arabic words into English mainly represented features of L1 lexical interference in the students' written English.

Keywords: Arabic interference, interlingual errors, language transfer

Introduction

Arabic is the official language in many countries, including Egypt, Iraq, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Morocco. Arabic is also the language of the Qur'ran, so Muslims of all nationalities, such as Indian, are familiar with it.

There are many Arabic dialects, but there is one version that is taught in schools and used by the media across the Arab world.

Within each country, often in quite small areas, a wide variety of colloquial dialects have developed, differing from one another, not only in pronunciation, but also in common lexical items and, to some extent, in structure . The differences from one country to another are more marked than differences between UK, US and Australian English.

As it is a Semitic language, its grammatical structure is very different from that of Indo-European languages. There are far fewer areas of facilitation, and far greater areas of interference. This must be borne in mind when Arabic speakers are mixed with foreigner students.

The Three-Consonant Root in Arabic

The basis of Arabic language is the three-consonant root. A notion such as writing, cooking or eating is represented by three consonants in a particular order. There is a large potential for errors of interference when Arab learners produce written or spoken English.

All words (parts of speech) are formed by combining the three-root consonants with fixed vowel patterns and, sometimes, an affix. Arab learners may be confused by the lack of patterns in English that would allow them to distinguish nouns from verbs or adjectives.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Yahia Ahmed Qaid, M.Ed. in ELT, Ph.D. Candidate
Department of Linguistics
University of Mysore
Mysore 570 006
Karnataka, India

Also Faculty Member, Department of English
Hajjah University
Hajjah
Yemen qaid555@yahoo.com

L. Ramamoorthy, Ph.D.
Central Institute of Indian Languages
Manasagangotri
Mysore-570006
Karnataka
India
ramamoorthy_ciil@yahoo.com

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