General Linguistics

Course Main Objective

to understand the concept of philology and its importance and subjects; learn about language: its origin, evolution, functions, relation among its branches and the position of Arabic language among world languages in general and semitism in particular and be acquainted with the phonetic, morphological, syntactic and semantic characteristics of Arabic language and methods of its growth; explain impact of Islam and recent effects on Islam and the Arab scholars’ efforts in field of phonology in the past and at present.

Course Learning Outcomes

• 1. Knowledge and Comprehension
•    1.1 Determine the origin and evolution of language and its characteristics, branches and the position of Arabic language among other languages.
• 2. Skills 
  
•    2.1 Analyze methods of Arabic language through its factors of growth or its contemporary problems.
•    2.2 Use technology and the web in achieving the course requirements and follow up any recent developments in the field including Arabization and terminology.
• 3. Values 
• 3.1 Assume responsibility of well self-learning, teamwork and leading work in the course of phonology.
• 3.2 Observe scientific integrity in performing assignments achieving traits of responsible citizen.

Course Content

• An introduction to the course and its requirements
• The concept of phonology in the past and at present, introducing language and its functions and characteristics and the difference between language and dialect and levels of linguistic usage.
• Modern linguists'' efforts including:
• Definition of linguistics and its subject, goals and main branches and the difference between philology and linguistics.
• Linguistic methodologies (descriptive, historic, comparative, standard, contrastive...)
• Linguistic parsing (phonetic, morphological, syntactic, semantic).
• Theories of language origin, human multilingualism and its division into language families and subfamilies, features of Semitic languages and their relation with Arabic language, the southern Arabic Language, the obsolete Arabic dialect and the modern standard Arabic language.
• Origin of modern standard Arabic language and its evolution:
  a- Impact of Islam on its vocabulary, structures and styles and its influence on other languages.
  b- The most important features of Arabic language regarding phonetics, structures, stylistics and investment of features in Arabic language learning.
  c- The most important features of Arabic language regarding phonetics, structures, stylistics and investment of features in Arabic language learning.

• The phenomena and styles and the factors affecting growth and improvement of linguistic wealth.
• a- Dervication, b- synonyms, c- homonyms, d- antonyms, e- Arabized, generated and intruder words.
• The importance of developing terms (terminology) and its methods and means, a brief about term banks all over the world and their inputs in KSA
• The factors affecting Arabic language nowadays: media, differences between modern standard Arabic and colloquial Arabic, the negative impact of the colloquial Arabic on the modern standard Arabic, the invitation to write in Latin letters.
• Issues of linguistics: linguistic duality and its consequent problems, the spoken language and the written language and difference between each other.

Textbook (s) 

- Abdel Tawaab, Ramadan. Chapters on Arabic Philology. Al-Mutanabi Bookstore, Dammam. 1st ed. 1433H-2012AD.
- Al-Rajhi, Abdou. Chapters on General Linguistics. Dar Al-Marefa, Alexandria, 1st ed., 2016.

Course ID: ARAB 202