A comparison of the textual structures of Arabic and English written texts : a study in the comparative orality of Arabic
The aim of this thesis is to show how patterns of cohesion and text development differ in English and Arabic, and in doing so add to the growing literature showing that Arabic is still very much an oral language, at least in comparison with English. That is to say, Arabic tends to be written as if to be spoken, whereas English is written as if to be read. The approach taken is quantitative, and stands within the Systemic Functional Model of Grammar, the Textual Component of which has been modified to take into account some of the insights gained by Prague School research into Functional Sentence Perspective. The cohesive analysis, supported by statistical evidence, shows that: 1. Arabic tends to avoid ellipsis. 2. Substitution is a marginal phenomenon in both English and Arabic texts of the type analyzed. However, English tends to use it more than Arabic. 3. The addresser and the addressee are given a higher profile in the Arabic texts than in the English texts. 4. Arabic seems to use a higher proportion of pronouns than English. 5. English displays more use of cohesive synonym items than Arabic. 6. Arabic displays more lexical string repetition than English. 7. Arabic displays more repetition of clause structure
Williams, Malcolm Paston
Arabic/English written texts
A comparison of the textual structures of Arabic and English written texts : a study in the comparative orality of Arabic. The aim of this thesis is to show how patterns of cohesion and text development differ in English and Arabic, and in doing so add to the growing literature showing that Arabic is still very much an oral language, at least in comparison with English. That is to say, Arabic tends to be written as if to be spoken, whereas English is written as if to be read. The approach taken is quantitative, and stands within the Systemic Functional Model of Grammar, the Textual Component of which has been modified to take into account some of the insights gained by Prague School research into Functional Sentence Perspective. The cohesive analysis, supported by statistical evidence, shows that: 1. Arabic tends to avoid ellipsis. 2. Substitution is a marginal phenomenon in both English and Arabic texts of the type analyzed. However, English tends to use it more than Arabic. 3. The addresser and the addressee are given a higher profile in the Arabic texts than in the English texts. 4. Arabic seems to use a higher proportion of pronouns than English. 5. English displays more use of cohesive synonym items than Arabic. 6. Arabic displays more lexical string repetition than English. 7. Arabic displays more repetition of clause structure
comparison textual structure arabic_english write_text study comparative orality arabic aim_show pattern cohesion_text development differ english_arabic add_grow literature show arabic still much oral language least comparison_english say arabic tend write_spoken whereas_english write read take quantitative stand within systemic functional model grammar textual component modify take_account insight gain prague school functional sentence perspective cohesive analysis support statistical evidence show arabic tend avoid ellipsis substitution marginal phenomenon english_arabic text_type analyze however english tend use arabic addressee give high_profile arabic_text english text arabic seem use high_proportion pronouns english english display use cohesive item arabic arabic display lexical string repetition english arabic display repetition clause_structure