The discourse structure of English and Arabic, with particular reference to the syntactic, thematic and grounding structures of newspaper editorials
This study aims to investigate aspects of the discourse structure of English and Arabic in general and political editorial argumentative texts in particular. Three major notions are examined and compared: subordination and coordination, thematic structure, and grounding (foreground and background). Arabic nominal and verbal sentences and clauses are also examined and compared. In this study, the data, which represent twenty four newspaper editorials taken from two English and Arabic newspapers (twelve editorials from each language), are qualitatively and quantitatively analysed. At the syntactic level, the analysis shows that English editorials use relatively simple and short sentence structures. Arabic editorials, by contrast, employ complex structures. Subordinate clauses are less common in English than in Arabic. Arabic uses coordinate clauses more than English does. The analysis also shows that Arabic editorials use more nominal sentences (SVO sentences) than verbal ones (VSO sentences). These two sentence types also differ in their employment of adjunct and disjunct clauses and phrases. At the thematic level, Arabic displays more complex thematic structures than English. The analysis also shows that there
Alharthi, Nasser Raddad
The discourse structure of English and Arabic, with particular reference to the syntactic, thematic and grounding structures of newspaper editorials. This study aims to investigate aspects of the discourse structure of English and Arabic in general and political editorial argumentative texts in particular. Three major notions are examined and compared: subordination and coordination, thematic structure, and grounding (foreground and background). Arabic nominal and verbal sentences and clauses are also examined and compared. In this study, the data, which represent twenty four newspaper editorials taken from two English and Arabic newspapers (twelve editorials from each language), are qualitatively and quantitatively analysed. At the syntactic level, the analysis shows that English editorials use relatively simple and short sentence structures. Arabic editorials, by contrast, employ complex structures. Subordinate clauses are less common in English than in Arabic. Arabic uses coordinate clauses more than English does. The analysis also shows that Arabic editorials use more nominal sentences (SVO sentences) than verbal ones (VSO sentences). These two sentence types also differ in their employment of adjunct and disjunct clauses and phrases. At the thematic level, Arabic displays more complex thematic structures than English. The analysis also shows that there
discourse structure english_arabic particular_reference syntactic thematic ground structure newspaper editorial study aim_investigate aspect discourse structure english_arabic general political editorial argumentative_text particular three_major notion examine compare subordination coordination thematic_structure ground foreground background arabic nominal_verbal sentence clause also_examine compare study data represent newspaper editorial take english_arabic newspaper twelve editorial language qualitatively quantitatively analyse syntactic level analysis_show english editorial use relatively simple short sentence_structure arabic editorial contrast employ complex structure subordinate_clause less common english_arabic arabic use coordinate clause english analysis also_show arabic editorial use nominal sentence svo sentence verbal vso sentence sentence_type also differ employment adjunct clause phrase thematic level arabic display complex thematic_structure english analysis also_show