In this essay, we critically reflect upon the ephemeral nature of theatre. Such a reflection becomes particularly important in participatory refugee theatre, since the process of participants' bearing witness to experiences of trauma and violence is emphasised as the core impetus. To this end, we investigate the experiences of Syrian young adults…

The Library of Congress has acquired the Omar ibn Said Collection, including an exceptional artifact, the autobiography of Omar ibn Said, written in ancient Arabic by an African enslaved man. In this article, I analytically examine the role of literacy in Omar ibn Said's life as informed by African cultures, ethnicities, histories, languages, and…

In teaching the tense-aspect system of English to speakers of Moroccan Arabic (MA), the teacher should take into account the reinterpretation of MA categories into English ones, the learning of new categories, the redistribution of categories, and the learning of contrasts existing in English but underdifferentiated in MA. (JB)

Discusses functional and anaphoric control in complex sentences (sentences with more than one verb) in Jordanian Arabic within the framework of Lexical-Functional Grammar. It is argued that Jordanian Arabic utilizes anaphoric rather that functional control. (18 references) (JL)

Responds to counterarguments made by Haile and Mtenje (1988) concerning explicitness, arbitrariness, and complexity as it relates to earlier criticisms of an autosegmental analysis of Arabic verb morphology and the introduction of an alternative analysis presented in Hudson (1986). (eight references) (GLR)

Describes the uniterm system of coordinate indexing and examines its applicability to the indexing of Arabic literature. Unresolved problems in semantics, thesauri development, and standardization are identified and discussed. (CLB)

Describes problems in Middle Eastern studies, focusing on: (1) the problem of access for students and faculty conducting research due to countries being completely closed or highly restrictive; (2) declines in Middle Eastern and American corporate donations to language and area studies as oil prices decrease; and (3) the difficulties inherent in…

Describes interferences from the phonologic system of Arabic in the French spoken by Arabs, using data recorded in the works of French authors from the Maghreb region. The analysis focuses on instances of interference concerning the perception and production of vowels, consonants, and syllables. (MES)

Deals with two compromise strategies: (1) embedded language islands (EL Islands), and (2) "bare forms" in code switching (CS) within the projection of complementizer. These elements are discussed within the framework of the Matrix Language Frame Model. Shows how this model provides an explanatory account for the occurrence of both EL…

The author's response to James Flege's critique (in this issue of "Language Learning") regarding earlier research on second-language timing patterns is presented. (LMO)

Advocates alternative approach to teaching of Arabic as a foreign language, which is based on integration of a spoken Arabic dialect and Modern Standard Arabic in a single course of instruction. This proposal is designed to alleviate some of the problems currently faced by Arabic programs in preparing students for the complex sociolinguistic…

In view of the confused status of French in relation to Arabic in the Maghreb countries, it is proposed that the best educational direction is to emphasize productive language and the recognition of written text in French language instruction. (MSE)

Looks at the shortcomings of the Arabic writing system and reviews some suggestions for changing it. (JT)

Discusses two problematic cases that arose when the Matrix Language frame model of codeswitching was applied to Arabic diglossic switching: a co-occurrence of system morphemes from both varieties of Arabic within a single CP; and CPs in which the word order is that of the dialect but the system morphemes are from Standard Arabic and CPs in which…

Highlights the sixth Command Language Program Manager seminar, hosted by the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center, which focused on language training opportunities that are available now as well as those that will be in the future. New initiatives discussed include an Arabic in Action course, Web-based language training, training…