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6 - Models of Arabic Pronunciation

from Part I - Arabic Applied Linguistics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 September 2021

By
Kassem M. Wahba
Edited by
Karin Ryding  and
David Wilmsen
Karin Ryding
Affiliation:
Georgetown University, Washington DC
David Wilmsen
Affiliation:
American University of Beirut
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Summary

Kassem Wahba argues for paying equal attention to the phonology of the dialects in the teaching of Arabic as a foreign language, noting, not without some frustration, that the conceptions of what constitutes Arabic or the legitimate study thereof were determined by the medieval grammarians of the language, who collectively defined what was to become the Arabic of formal writing and declamation, paying little heed to dialect variation in the language. Regardless, students of the language in the twenty-first century need to and want to learn how to use Arabic as it is spoken and written, which means, he argues, reconceiving how the phonology of Arabic is taught to include dialect variants as legitimate realizations of underlying historical forms.

Keywords

pronunciationteaching Arabic as a foreign language (TAFL)pronunciation modelsStandard Arabicvernacular Arabicsequential model of teaching Arabicintegrated model of teaching Arabic
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Arabic Linguistics , pp. 127 - 152
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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