The majority of research on Arabic-speaking students of English focuses on comparative contrastive analysis of the Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) inventory of sounds versus the inventory of sounds of Standard English. This article intends to shed light on the flaws of using MSA as the base for comparison, while suggesting a new and more practical approach of using the inventory of sounds of Local Dialect Arabic (LDA) as the basis for comparison. Thus, for the purpose of teaching pronunciation to Arabic-speaking ESL students, ESL teachers need to refer to the inventory of sounds in LDA rather than that of MSA for the following reasons.

1. Using the inventory of sounds of MSA can be misleading.

First, MSA has no native speakers; the MSA inventory of sounds represents no Arabic-speaking person’s inventory of sounds. In fact, it is agreed that Arabic speakers learn and study MSA in schools; MSA is specifically used for writing and very formal speech settings such as the news (Procházka, 2006). Nonetheless, all Arabic speakers, regardless of their socioeconomic status, use their variety of LDA for daily use. Of concern to this article are formal speech settings because pronunciation issues appear in settings such as broadcast news, national and international conferences, and court hearings. When in one of these settings, an Arabic-speaking person uses her LDA variety inventory of sounds (i.e., her own pronunciation) to pronounce all things MSA. In other words, the MSA inventory of sounds will not appear in any formal speech settings. [1] Consequently, news broadcasted from 2M in Morocco and news broadcasted from Al Arabiya in Saudi Arabia, although both in MSA, are distinguished from each other due to the differences in the inventory of sounds of each variety of LDA or, simply put, differences in pronunciation.

Second, MSA contains sounds that not necessarily all LDA varieties have. As stated, the MSA inventory of sounds does not represent any native speaker of Arabic. For example, MSA has the /θ/ sound; however, Egyptian and Moroccan LDA varieties, just to name a couple, do not have this sound. Therefore, if an ESL teacher were to compare the inventory of sounds of MSA with that of Standard English, she would come to the conclusion that /θ/ would not be problematic for these Arab ESL students. However, this is not a true assumption simply because neither of these varieties of LDA have the /θ/ sound. Consequently, this ESL teacher would be ignoring an essential pronunciation lesson for these students.

On the other hand, although some sounds are present in different LDAs, they are absent from the inventory of sounds of MSA. For instance, although /t͡ʃ/ has a strong presence in the inventory of sounds of Iraqi LDA, it is not present in MSA. Subsequently, consulting the sound inventory of MSA and giving a lesson on the pronunciation of /t͡ʃ/ to Iraqi ESL students would not be a proper use of time for a teacher.

2. The inventory of sounds of LDA is real.

First, the LDA inventory of sounds represents the inventory of sounds of real native speakers. When consulting the inventory of sounds of LDA varieties, an ESL teacher can have reliable knowledge of what her Arabic-speaking ESL student can pronounce under normal circumstances. Therefore, assumption plays no role. The ESL teacher will know which sounds to focus on and which sounds to pass by.

Second, a wide variety of research has been done and is available on different varieties of LDA, from cities in Morocco in the west to different cities of Iran[2] to the east as well as many other varieties in between. Therefore, the response “I speak Arabic” would not suffice for a shrewd ESL teacher. An informed ESL teacher would go beyond the general term Arabic and inquire about the LDA of a student. Then she can easily consult the inventory of the sounds of the student’s LDA and plan her pronunciation lessons accordingly.

Third, ESL teachers will be efficient in their efforts to teach pronunciation to their Arabic-speaking ESL students. When an ESL teacher compares the inventory of sounds of Standard English with that of the LDA variety of a student, she will be more efficient in her pronunciation teaching and lesson planning. For instance, she will not spend time teaching the /g/ sound to Kuwaiti students, while overlooking the /ð/ sound with Algerian students.

Ending Thoughts

There is no doubt that awareness of the MSA inventory of sounds has some benefits for ESL teachers. The first benefit is regarding vowels. The inventory of vowels is almost the same across the Arab world as well as MSA. The second benefit comes into play when dealing with Muslim Arabic-speaking students. There is a high possibility that although these students do not necessarily adhere to MSA sounds in their daily lives, they have been exposed to these sounds through religious and Qur’anic studies. However, as stated above, the inventory of sounds of MSA does not represent any native speaker, it lacks some sounds that are present in different LDAs, and it contains some sounds that are absent from the inventory sounds of some LDAs. Therefore, awareness of the MSA inventory of sounds is beneficial but not sufficient. In order for ESL teachers to be more efficient, it behooves them to plan their pronunciation lessons according to the LDA inventory of sounds.

References

Procházka, S. (2006). Arabic. In K. Brown (Ed.), Encyclopedia of language and linguistics (2nd ed., pp. 423-431). Boston, MA: Elsevier.

Ingham, B. (1997). Arabian diversions. Studies on the dialects of Arabia. Reading, England: Ithaca Press.

[1] Regarding Muslim Arabic-speaking persons, efforts might be made to pronounce the Qur’anic verses using the MSA inventory of sounds.

[2] Iran has a small population of Arabs with their own distinctive LDA. Examples are Khuzestani and Abadani. For more information see Ingham (1997).

Hedieh Najafi holds a PhD in educational leadership and policy studies from Arizona State University, where she currently teaches ESL in the American English and Culture Program. Her research interests focus on immigrant language maintenance and shift as well as practices in ESL classes.

Said Najafi-Asadollahi, an Arabic professor, is the founder of the Department of the Arabic Language and Literature at Alameh Tabatabi University. His research interests focus on lexicography, phonology, grammar, and history of the Arabic and Persian languages.