This is a the material that I wrote for a contrastive analysis course that I taught to translation students. The material covers English and Arabic inflectional systems, derivational systems and word-formation.
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The current study aimed to explore derivation as a linguistic phenomenon between the English and Arabic languages and to identify its most prominent characteristics and divisions. It also sought to deduce the main similarities and differences between the two languages in this regard from both typological and contrastive perspectives. To achieve the main aim, this study adopted a descriptive analytical approach. In fact, the analysis of morphological phenomenon across disparate languages is of linguistic value, as it enriches the linguistic repertoire with some insights from comparative studies, which are considered scarce in this field. Findings of this study shows that the common features between the Arabic and English languages is that they derive new forms of words from a single root word with an association in meaning between the produced words. However, the derivation process in Arabic is more complex and diverse compared with English, in which derivation can mainly be archived through affixation. Additionally, this study revealed that the distinction between the two languages may result in some translation problems, as some derived words in Arabic have no equivalent in the English language. Accordingly, some solutions to this dilemma were suggested throughout this research, including the application of established translation techniques proposed by Newamark (1988) and other translation scholars, such as paraphrasing, transference, notes, and synonymy. Finally, it is worth noting that exploring the similarities and differences between languages has important pedagogical implications, as this might contribute to facilitating the learning and teaching process of a foreign language.
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This paper investigates Arabic and English inflectional morphology with a view to identifying the similarities and differences between them. The differences between the two languages might be the main reason for making errors by Arab EFL learners. Predicting the sources of such errors might help both teachers and learners to overcome these problems. By identifying the morphological differences between the two languages, teachers will determine how and what to teach, on the one hand, and students will know how and what to focus on when learning the target language, on the other.
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The present study aims at comparing and contrasting English and Arabic noun morphology to determine the points where they differ. These differences are the main cause of difficulty in the learning of the second language. Teaching will be directed at those points where there are structural differences. This in turn determines what the teacher has to teach and what the learner has to learn. The whole focus of the present analysis will be confined to noun morphology in both languages.
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This paper attempts a contrastive analysis of derivational prefixation of verbs in Arabic and English. It assumes a possibility of similar derivational mechanism applicable to some verbs in the two languages. The derivational systems of the two languages are at extremes, creating challenges to interested learners and researchers from both languages. The contrastive analysis method is adopted to carry out this study. A general contrast of the morphological system of the two language is provided focusing on the category of verbs in the two languages. The paper narrows its scope to one area derivational morphology, namely prefixation. A set of six prefixes from the two languages (three from each) are used the examine the derivational processing of verbs from the two languages. These are the English prefixes; a-, en-and i and their Arabic counterparts humazat alqatae (ʔ-), in-and humazat wasal (i-) respectfully. The morphological properties of these prefixes and verbs have been contrasted to reveal and identify the areas of difference and similarity of the derivation system in the two languages. Some of these prefixes affixes are found have similar function and form and have the similar morphological behavior that might set them as identical cognates .
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International Journal of Arabic-English Studies
