نشریه بحوث فی اللغه العربیه
سال سیزدهم شماره 2 (پیاپی 25، پاییز و زمستان 1400)

Language is a means of communication among human beings. Such communication among non-native and/or native language users can be facilitated through language learning and teaching. Language education professionals have developed guidelines for teachers and learners to measure the linguistic performance of these two groups. One of the prestigious international frameworks established in the field of foreign language teaching and assessment is the ACTFL (American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages) proficiency guidelines developed by a team of foreign language education professionals. The Arabic speaking skill, along with listening, is one of the main language skills  used to orally communicate with Arabic speakers. Non-native students majoring in Arabic Language and Literature learn the required vocabulary and structures/styles to speak Arabic. But many of them face challenges in applying what they have learned when speaking Arabic. The present study, in particular, attempts to find an answer to the following two questions: What is the proficiency level of undergraduate students of Kharazmi University majoring in Arabic Language and Literature based on ACTFL guidelines for assessing speaking skill? What difficulties do Arabic language majors face in learning Arabic?  The statistical sample of the study consisted of 30 undergraduate senior students majoring in Arabic Language and Literature at Kharazmi University, Tehran. To determine the students’ speaking level and discover the reasons for their possible deficiencies, a field (qualitative) research was conducted while adopting a descriptive and inductive approach. The research instruments included both the test and observation. The most prominent finding of the research was that while Arabic students take a total of 12 credits under the courses of Listening and Speaking 1 to 3 as well as Language Lab 1 to 3, they do not achieve a desirable level of speaking skill. There are many reasons for this weakness among which one can point out limited hours and credits allocated to the courses on language skills. The test results in particular revealed that the students did not perform well in the speaking skill. The contributing factors were the lack of confidence in speaking Arabic, fear of making lexical mistakes while speaking, and insufficient daily use of Arabic, among others.

Music is a tool of connection between words and meanings. Through music, the audience can communicate better with the creator of the literary work and become aware of his inner feelings and emotions. As much as the connection between words and the meanings is better, the music that arises from it sits better in the hearts and causes the audience to be overjoyed. The present study examines the structure of musical harmony in the ode Fe Rehab al-Hussein</em> in the divan of the contemporary Iraqi poet, namely, Abdul Razzaq Abdul Wahid. The ode has a beautiful rhythmic structure and expresses the poet's sincere and sad feelings towards the supreme leader of the martyrs Imam Hussein and his family (AS). In the present study, the author examined some characteristics in the ode while providing an introduction to the importance and position of the ode as well as an introduction to the elements of external and internal rhythm by using a descriptive-analytical method. The results showed that the poet has excellent poetic and musical skills in a way that its author has been able to express the meanings in his mind through the art of rhythm, harmony, and musical coherence between the structure and theme in the poem desirably and prominently. This shows his creative power in using literary tools.

Modern linguistics has made significant progress in the study of language, and this development has led to a change in linguistic concepts in terms of communication tools in both linguistic and social contexts. This phenomenon has led to various interpretations of text and speech. Roman Jacobson is the main theorist of the theory of linguistic communication, which is the most important modern linguistic theory. He divides the linguistic and communication structure between individuals based on six elements of communication operations and six linguistic tools. These tools are studied according to the six elements. The study of modern novels is one of the important topics in literature and is a fruitful topic for study by researchers and critics. The novel is also one of those literary materials that is directly related to linguistic and social communication and also includes description and dialogue, so applying the style of communication tools to the novel is important in terms of literary criticism. In this descriptive-analytical study, the authors studied the novel the Musician of the Clouds by  Ali Badr by presenting examples in which the accurate and very good use of an expression has been observed in the shadow of linguistic communication tools based on Jacobson's theory. The results showed that the descriptions and dialogues in the novel were appropriate for the purposes of our study l. An  important result of the study was that the novel the Musician of the Clouds has a wide area in the field of linguistics. It was observed that dialogue is based on communication operations in terms of six theoretical principles as well as six communication tools. In this sense, it a balance between linguistic elements and communication tools has been created.

Whoever knows the Arabic language can recognize clearly that the Holy Quran is a literary text with no example in terms of fluency and eloquence. As a result, it influences listeners and reciters because it enjoys stylistic, artistic, and aesthetic specialties. Therefore, it is worth analyzing the text of the Holy Quran to discover its beautiful characteristics and elements. The SurahAl-Jathiyah is one of the most beautiful chapters of the Holy Quran in terms of form and content, starting with the letters ‘Ha Mim’ along with the words ‘Allah’ and ‘Ayaat’ being frequent in it. This research aims to study the SurahAl-Jathiyah (meaning crouching) using a descriptive-analytical approach from a stylistic perspective in terms of three layers of phonics, linguistic construction, and semantics. On the first layer, phonetic features that have higher frequencies play a role in creating musicality and rhythm and make hearts fond and ready for the obedience as well as complementing the meaning. In terms of linguistic construction, through the study of other stylistic features such as the precedence and delay, repetitions, questions, omissions, and definite and indefinite articles, it was shown that the Holy Quran has used stylistic features well in order to beautify the speech and show miracle in its expression. The accuracy in the selection of words, use of synonyms, antonyms, and homonyms were also among other impressive stylistic features of the Holy Quran.

Writing skill is one of the language skills in teaching Arabic in Iranian Universities. Some courses are dedicated to teaching this skill in Arabic. Nevertheless, students still face problems in writing in Arabic and experience linguistic and written errors at various educational levels. Therefore, in the present study, the authors tried to analyze linguistic and writing errors of 20 MA theses submitted to the Department of Arabic Language Teaching Tarbiat Modares University. The study was conducted to provide solutions for reforming the Arabic teaching curriculum, especially the writing skill in Iran, and reducing errors of students in the future. The descriptive-analytical and error analysis methods and statistical analyses were used. The results showed that the linguistic errors in these theses were 1005 errors. Syntactic errors were the most common language errors, and the errors related to the additional words (prepositions) were mostly grammatical. Other common errors were spelling errors, errors related to the humazat, alqate morphological errors, errors related to the detection of definite (marefah) from indefinite (nakarah), semantic errors, and the use of non-functional words and phrases in the Arabic language. Then, the interpretation of the errors revealed the traces of interlingual interference. Some of the most important causes for making errors by students in their theses were Arabic language teaching methods, educational environment, Arabic language difficulties and rules, the indolence of students, and lacking sufficient knowledge about some language rules. 

Some Turkish researchers believe that the roots of the Arabic prosody meters go back to ancient Turkish folk poetry. They believe that the meters of the Turkish prosody are not based on the Arabic prosody. The meters of the Arabic prosody have become the only meters for Persian poetry after the poets of Persian literature became acquainted with Arabic prosody. Therefore, no trace of the old syllabic of the Pahlavi and Middle Persian languages remained. However, Turkish poets used the prosodic meters alongside the local syllabic meters. This descriptive-analytical study intends to address the similarities and differences that exist between the meters of Turkish poetry and Arabic prosody and tries to answer the question about the extent of the Turks’ commitment to their prosodic meters and the extent of theinfluence of the Arabic prosody in their poetry. The results show that whileArabic prosody meters are based on the number of syllables and the proportionality of the spellings and the equal parts (length and shortness), Turkish poetryis based on an equal number of spellings in each part of poetry. There is a lot of difference in the use of some Arabic poetic measures influenced by the Arabic prosody. Among the similarities between the two kinds of literature is that the monorhyme in the poetry of both languages is considered a kind of figurative speech, and we noticed that the meter used is very close to the Turkish syllabic meters.

The Arabic Language Teaching Branch was established at the Master’s level in recent years, which tries to bridge a deep gap in teaching this language in educational institutions, schools, and universities. However, there is still a big problem that has hindered the way to achieve the goals of this new branch. The most important of which is the loss of appropriate theoretical resources. The course on teaching methods of listening and speaking is among the most important educational courses in this branch. There are some theoretical resources in teaching the Arabic language skills in Arab countries that may be used in teaching this course. But do these resources include the necessary specifications to qualify students to teach these skills and to identify important issues and challenges in teaching Arabic? To answer this question, the present study tries to take an evaluative look at some of these sources using qualitative and quantitative content analysis methods. The study population consisted of eleven books on methods of teaching Arabic language skills that were authored in Arab countries. The study found that some of these resources provide useful lessons in some axes, such as the objectives of listening, pronunciation, and teaching grammar, but they lack appropriate theoretical principles to teach the rest of the axes. Most of these resources are characterized by the generalization and presentation of theoretical principles in a descriptive presentation without a critical view of the important issues and challenges of teaching skills.

Stylistics is a critical linguistic approach that attempts to deconstruct the linguistic structure of the text, describe its components, and reveal its most prominent features. Stylistic means exploring the linguistic components of literary texts and invoking them beyond form. The present stylistic study, with a descriptive-analytical approach, seeks to investigate Al-Ajmi's poem ‘Martyrs Square’ at four levels: phonetic, grammatical, rhetorical, and semantics. He composed the poem during the Egyptian Arab Spring revolutions which encouraged the Egyptian people to rise and criticize the authoritarian government of Mubarak. One of the most important findings of the study at the phonological level is that the loud and intense voices of the poem prevail over the whispered and soft-hearted tone because of its revolutionary nature. The author of the present study has also noticed at the grammatical level the presentation of what is due to delay and delaying what is entitled to a presentation, to intensify the significance of what was presented. At the morphological level, the study revealed an intensification of present-day verbs to evoke the reality of life in Egyptian society. It also revealed the predominance of two types of pronouns over the formulation of the poem, namely ‘k-na’ (نا-ک). The pronouns also revealed a dialectical duality between the people and the authority, and each added to the poem's semantics and rhythmic richness. At the rhetorical level, the authors noticed the abundance of structural sentences, especially the recursive sentences and the interrogation of ‘km’. In most of the calling sentences, the caller was either the people to carry out the revolution or Hosni Mubarak to step down from power. The poet also used the word ‘km’ to tell about the reality of the Egyptian people’s life and their human experiences. At the semantic level, the poem’s vocabulary was consistent with its content, which calls for revolution and depicts the grievances of the authority, and the hope for the future and the overthrow of the regime.

Over the past two decades, the teaching of Arabic in Europe,  and France in particular, has made significant progress for several reasons, notably geopolitical ones. Indeed, since the terrorism of Al-Qaeda and Daesh has begun to strike within Europe and the United States, and since the American invasion in Iraq aiming at fighting terrorism, several institutions have set up teaching the Arabic language. While individuals’ and state institutions’ interest in the Arabic language has been beneficial, it has in the meantime been detrimental, because it directly associates the Arabic language with Islam and does not consider it as a regular language among many others. In France, although the beginning of the teaching of Arabic is historically linked to colonial times, it was gradually dissociated from this bias and settled as a purely academic teaching in universities. The present study proposes a historical reading of this teaching and discusses its current state in French universities. It focuses on the teaching of Arabic literature from its syllabi in relation to the cultural and political situations that Europe, in general, and France, in particular, are experiencing.

Language is a comprehensive system and form of style that influences the understanding of the author's point of view. It can be said that the set of styles formed in the linguistic system of the main structure is formed in the worldview. The Holy Quran as a linguistic system consists of different and similar styles. Each similar style leads to the formation of the same semantic domain in meaning. This idea is taken from the principles of the theory of linguistic relativism which is characterized by two versions: the strong version is an extremist form that believes language determines the worldview and shapes culture, while the weak version considers language as a relative role that may affect the formation of the worldview and culture. The present study investigates the worldview of the Holy Quran in the framework of the styles formed with a focus on the semantic field of cognition. This article deals with the semantic domain of cognition from the perspective of words (shakk, zaam, zann, hasab, aghle, fekr, tadabbor, arafah, basarah, shaarah, faghahah, alamah) in the general Quranic system based on a descriptive-analytical approach and relying on statistical methods. Adhering to the weak version of this theory as the main premise of the research, this article seeks to clarify the worldview theory and extract it from the general structure formed in the Qur'anic system. The most important conclusion that can be pointed out is that the main structure of the cognitive domain in the Quran depends on the formation of four circles (al tasavor, al ghle, al edrak, and al elme). The al aghle circle is like a river from which the al edrak circle emerges and eventually leads to the sea of true and complete cognition represented by the al elme circle.

The term syntax refers to the laws governing linguistic structures that are known and lead to the correctness of speech and the integration of verbal rules. Grammarians have written the rules and origins of the Arabic language with care and depth because the Arabic language is the language of the Holy Qur’an and it is rich in many respects. In the present study, the authors investigated the methodology used by Ibn al-Dahhan in his book Sharh ul-Doros fi Al-nahv. In this study, we presented an introduction to Ibn al-Dahhan, and his methodology in explaining this book using the descriptive-analytical method, and tried to show Ibn al-Dahhan's approach and his interest in the basics of grammar and his stance towards the opinions of grammarians. Sharh ul-Doros fi Al-nahv by Ibn al-Dahhan contains examples and interpretations of Arabic grammar. This book contains many examples that are easy for the reader to understand. The most important aspects of the book are providing examples and much evidence. These help readers and learners to understand the topic and facilitate their understanding of the materials. Among the methodological features of Ibn alDahhan are the abundance of representation in morphological and grammatical issues and paying attention to divisions in explaining the text. Also, among the salient features of Ibn al-Dahhan’s approach in Sharh ul-Doros fi Al-nahv is his interest in gathering evidence from various sources such as the Holy Qur’an, Arabic poetry, proverbs, etc. according to the doctrines and the fundamentals of grammar. The results of the present study showed that Qur’anic verses in Ibn alDahhan’s book ranked first in terms of numbers with regard to poems and proverbs. He did not frequently cite the hadiths of the Prophet. He cited Arab proverbs to confirm the rule, or to demonstrate the weakness of what was inferred by dissenting opinions on various topics. Ibn alDahhan referred to the opinions of the grammarians of the Kufists and the Basrians and avoided delving into the differences of the grammarians. Since Ibn al-Dahhan elaborated his explanation for students and young people, it is not surprising that he avoided engaging in grammatical disputes. The results also showed that he presented grammatical opinions in three ways: 1) attributing sayings to their speakers and referring to the doctrine of grammarians in grammatical matters, which indicate his vast knowledge of the opinions of the former; 2) referring to the grammatical doctrines, directly or indirectly, and rejecting erroneous opinions; and 3) explaining the opinions contrary to the grammarians without referring to their authors. In many of his views, he agreed with the views of the Basrians, especially Sebawayh, Khalil, and Akhfash.