Almost every upper- and middle-class family in Saudi Arabia has a foreign housemaid who does the housework and takes care of the children. This study aims to find out whether foreign housemaids have an impact on children's acquisition of Arabic, the children's first language. Surveys with 300 mothers with children under the age of six revealed…

In an era where the English language has become dominant in all fields and is the prevailing language worldwide, many Arab parents and intellectuals are wondering about the optimal age to start teaching their children English. Should they speak to their children in English at an early age? Should they enrol their children in a pre-school that…

This study explores the similarities and differences between English and Arabic numeral-based formulaic expressions, and difficulties that student-translators have with them. A corpus of English and Arabic numeral-based formulaic expressions containing zero, two, three, twenty, sixty, hundred, thousand…etc., and another corpus of specialized…

A corpus of 300 compounds, i.e. expressions containing "Om" and "Abu" in Arabic was collected and analyzed. Translation students were asked to translate a sample of expressions containing "Om" and "Abu" to English. Results showed that although, "Om" and "Abu" in Arabic literally mean…

Clipping is a word formation process in which a word is reduced/shortened to one of its parts as in exam, math, grad, lab, Sue while still retaining the same meaning and same part of speech. Clipping is classified into: (i) Initial clipping: phone (telephone), net (Internet); (ii) Medial clipping: fancy (fantasy), ma'am (madam); (iii) back…

This study aims to identify the similarities and differences between English and Arabic color-based metaphorical expressions, to identify translation students' difficulties and their translation strategies. A corpus of English and Arabic color-based metaphorical expressions was collected and compared. It was found that English and Arabic…

This study explores how sectarian language prevalent on Arabic media shapes common Arab people's perceptions of sects such as Sunni, Shiites, and others. A sample of Arabic sectarian expressions was collected from social media, print media and TV channels. A sample of students and faculty was surveyed. Sectarian language was analysed according to…

The present study aimed to describe and evaluate the current assessment practices prevalent in the different translation courses offered at the College of Languages and Translation (COLT). A sample of specialized translation final exams in 18 translation subject areas was collected. Each final exam was analyzed in terms of the following: (1) # of…

Son and daughter metaphorical expressions are common in general as well as technical languages. This study explores the similarities and differences between English and Arabic ibn (son) and bint (daughter) expressions, and the difficulties that student-translators have with them. A corpus of English and Arabic general ibn (son) and bint (daughter)…

This study aims to: (i) describe the different meanings and contexts in which Arabic "dar" and "bayt" and English "house" and "home" expressions are used; (ii) compare "dar," "bayt," "house" and "home" expressions and give examples of expressions that are identical in…

In Saudi Arabia, English is taught starting from kindergarten at National Public and Private Schools. At International schools, English is the medium of instruction. This study aims to explore how parents promote children's language development, their evaluation of their children's proficiency level, which language the children use in…

Sixty-eight undergraduate translation students received direct instruction in the features of news headlines and news stories. A week later, they took a test that required them to identify the syntactic and lexical features of a sample of news headlines and news stories, supply deleted word, and substitute punctuation marks, infinitives, and block…

This study investigates the effect of Facebook on Arabic language attrition, i.e., decrease in language proficiency, as exhibited in the use of Colloquial instead of Standard Arabic, use of foreign words although Arabic equivalents exist, and committing spelling errors. A sample of Facebook posts and a corpus of spelling errors on Facebook were…

Aims: Since many Saudi ESL students studying abroad have limited vocabulary and grammar knowledge and poor reading comprehension skills, this article proposes the integration of linguistic landscapes (LLs) in teaching English to Saudi students studying abroad to supplement the English language courses and textbooks they study. Definition of LLs:…

A sample of political expressions that have been common in Arab media since the Arab Spring in 2011 was collected from TV newscasts, online news websites and social media pages. Analysis of their structure, denotative and connotative meanings revealed the following features: (i) Use of lexical hybrids ([foreign characters omitted]; (ii) revival of…