LINGUA ARABA

Knowledge and Ability to Understand:

The student is expected to acquire adequate and in-depth theoretical and practical knowledge in the philological-linguistic field useful for the design of educational paths as well as for the decoding of verbal and iconic language of editorial products written in Arabic language. The aim of the course is to achieve an adequate level of linguistic competence, both written and oral, as well as a global understanding of the cultural, historical and linguistic specificities of the Arabic language.

Ability to Apply Knowledge and Comprehension:

The student will be able to deal with the analysis of Arabic texts after having acquired the necessary critical-methodological tools. Furthermore, they will be able to convey the acquired literary and linguistic knowledge in different communicative contexts and master the main techniques and the most common multimedia tools for learning foreign languages.

Autonomy of judgement:

The student will be able to compare elements of his/her own language and culture with those of the Arabic language and culture, highlighting their differences and similarities, free from the conditioning of an ethnocentric perspective. The student will also be able to critically examine the different cultural and sociological aspects of the applications of the Arabic language in its variants.

Communicative skills:

The student will be able to express him/herself, formulating complex statements, in everyday and professional contexts. They will be able to interact with interlocutors of different linguistic levels in structured or emergency contexts as linguistic-cultural mediators between the Arabic language and culture and their own.

Ability to learn:

The student will develop a method of study suitable to continue independently the learning and deepening of the Arabic language. They will be able to direct their critical interpretation skills towards a clear recognition of the essential factors of a process and their possible development, also in view of the creation of wide-ranging cultural and interdisciplinary projects. The student will also be able to use the most advanced technological tools in order to select the most authoritative sources of updates.

Teaching will be conducted through lectures, seminars and group activities.

The course is divided into four main themes: History of the Arabic language, Dialectology, Variety and Variation, and Sociolinguistics. In addition to a theoretical introduction, each topic will be treated through the analysis of Arabic texts.
In particular, the following will be observed:

• The Arabic grammatical tradition;
• Classification of dialects and historical dialectology;
• Diglossia, triglossia and median varieties;
• Code-switching and leveling;
• Linguistic variation;
• Language and ideology;
• Reading, analysis and translation of texts and essays.

• Aguadé J., 2018, “The Maghrebi Dialects of Arabic”, in Arabic Historical Dialectology, Linguistic and Sociolinguistic Approaches, Oxford: Oxford University press, pp. 29-63.
• Bassiouney R., 2020, Arabic Sociolinguistics – Topics in Diglossia, Gender, Identity, and Politics, 2^nd edition, Washington DC: Georgetown University Press. (Capitoli 1-3, pp. 10-157 e Capitoli 5-6, pp. 228-344).
• Bhenstedt P., Woidich M., 2018, “The formation of Egyptian Arabic dialect area”, in Arabic Historical Dialectology, Linguistic and Sociolinguistic Approaches, Oxford: Oxford University press, pp. 64-95.
• Durand O.,2008, Dialettologia araba. Introduzione, Roma, Carocci. (Parte prima, capitoli 1-14, pp. 39-185; Parte seconda, capitoli: 20-21, pp. 219-263; 24, pp. 281-292; 27-28, pp. 303-324; 31, pp. 333-338; 34-35, pp. 353-380.)
• Holes C., 2018, “Introduction”, in Arabic Historical Dialectology, Linguistic and Sociolinguistic Approaches, Oxford: Oxford University press, pp. 1-28.
• Mion G., 2018, La lingua araba. Nuova edizione, Roma, Carocci Editore.
• Youssi A., 1983, “La triglossie dans la typologie linguistique”, in La Linguistique, vol. 19, Fasc. 2, pp. 71-83.

Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics (Kees Versteegh et al., eds.), Leiden, Brill:

• Dialect Geography (Peter Behnstedt), pp. 583–593, vol. 1
• Dialects: Classification (Heikki Palva), pp. 604–613, vol. 1
• Middle Arabic (Jérôme Lentin), pp. 215–224 vol. 3
• Modern Standard Arabic (Ernest N. McCarus), pp. 238–262, vol. 3

Dictionary:

R.Traini: “Vocabolario arabo-italiano”, Roma IPO, 1965-1973 (e successive ristampe).

Arabic texts and further material will be provided on Studium.