ARABIC LANGUAGE MOD.1

This is one of the distinctive courses for the degrees in “Languages, Cultures and Societies of Asia and Mediterranean Africa” (China, Japan, and Korea) and in “Ancient Civilisations: Literature, History and Archaeology” and aims to provide students the first methodological tools for studing the Arabic language from a linguistic and a sociolinguistic point of view.
Objectives of the course are: to develop the capacity for reflection on the Arabic language and culture, and to provide the basic methodological tools for the linguistic analysis, focusing in interlinguistic comparison in the case of the students coming from degrees centered in Asian languages (Chinese, Japanese and Korean).
The cultural and communicative contents of the course will demonstrate very useful too in the case of the students of the Ancient Civilisations’ degree.
Reaching these objectives will allow the student to learn the basis of the Arabic language and to acquire the necessary items for a further indepth study of Arabic language and its culture.

Acquisition of basic linguistic knowledge and competencies (A1 level of the CEFR) in Modern Standard Arabic:

1. Knowledge and comprehension.
- Knowldege of the orthographic and phonetic systems of the Arabic language.
- Knowledge of the essential morphosyntactic structures of MSA and of the basic lexical items needed in essential communicative exchanges.
- Knowledge and understanding of a repertoire of expressions and routine formulae used in performing basic speech acts (greetings, introducing, asking basic questions) and consciousness of the pragmatic devices in developing adequate communicative exchanges.

2. Ability to apply knowledge and understanding.
- Ability in reading, understanding, and translating simple texts in Modern Standard Arabic.
- Ability in producing aural and written simple phrases in Modern Standard Arabic.
- Ability in participating succesfully in basic communicative exchanges in Arabic.

As indicated in the concerned Graduate Program

- The sociolinguistic situation in the Arab World: regional and standard varieties of Arabic.
- The orthographic and phonetic systems of Arabic.
- The name: gender, number, case, determination.
- Personal and demonstrative pronouns.
- The verb: imperfective flexion (form I).
- Basic syntactic structures: ism wa-ṣifa and iḍāfa.
- The nominal phrase.
- The simple verbal phrase (imperfective tense).

Deheuvels, L.-W. (2011). Manuale di arabo moderno con esercizi e cd audio per l'ascolto. Edizione italiana a cura di Antonella Ghersetti, volume 1, Bologna, Zanichelli.

Manca, A. (1989). Grammatica teorico-pratica dell'arabo letterario moderno, Roma, Associazione Naz. Amicizia Italo-Araba.

Additional learning materials provided by the teacher.

Written exam:
- syntactic analysis, morphology and vocabulary questions.
- translation of a short text from Arabic to Italian.
- Translation of short sentences from Italian to Arabic.

- Frontal and interactive lessons.
- Peer coaching activities

Italian

written