Investigating Arabic: Current Parameters in Analysis and Learning

This book offers a wide range overview of current research issues in Arabic linguistics, extending from the general to the specific. It includes in depth investigations of theoretical and applied topics that are of interest to general and Arabic linguistics: computational analysis of Arabic, Arabic dialectology, acquisition of Arabic as a native language, learning and teaching Arabic as a first or foreign language, sociolinguistic analysis of Arabic, and the status of Arabic in European academe. Despite the seeming diversity of the topics, they fall thematically into two major inter-related categories, analysis and learning. Each chapter is a thoughtful reflection of a major current trend in the study of Arabic.

Alaa Elgibali, Ph.D. (1985) in General Linguistics, University of Pittsburgh, is Professor of Arabic linguistics and Teaching Arabic as a Foreign Language at the American University in Cairo. He has published in several areas of Arabic linguistics, including Arabic as First Language: A Study in Language Development and Acquisition (Khanjy, 2003).