31199 - Arab Language and Linguistics 2

Academic Year 2020/2021

  • Docente: Ines Peta
  • Credits: 9
  • SSD: L-OR/12
  • Language: Italian

Learning outcomes

At the end of the course the student has good morphosyntactic and communicative skills. He understands and produces simple texts related to familiar topics, communicates in activities that require exchange of information on different common topics and is able to express opinions, feelings, hopes and projects. He is competent in the four language skills described in the parameters set by the Council of Europe. His acquired skills are located between levels A2 and B1 of the Common European Framework of Reference. He also knows the main cultural characteristics of classical Arab civilization and is able to analyze short authentic texts of the time belonging to different genres, recognizing their morphosyntactic structures and specific terminology.

Course contents

The course consists of two parts: practical language class (prof. Sana Darghmouni) and official course (prof. Ines Peta).

Practical language class (prof. Darghmouni)

The course aims to acquire the morphosyntactic aspects of the Arabic language at the intermediate level. In particular, the students will study the derived forms of the verb, the relative clauses, kāna and his sisters, inna and his sisters. Students will also expand their communication skills, with particular regard to the ability to exchange information and express opinions, feelings and sensations. Finally, the course aims to implement the translational skills from Arabic to Italian acquired by students during the first year as well as to introduce the translation of short and simple sentences from Italian to Arabic.

Official course (prof. Peta)

The course aims to stimulate a linguistic and cultural reflection on the classical Arab civilization through the theoretical description of the main characteristics of the latter and the guided analysis of authentic texts belonging to different genres. In particular we will examine literary works in poetry and prose, philosophical, theological and juridical treatises, hadīths, texts of Muslim-Christian polemical literature. In this way, students will strengthen their morphosyntactic and lexical skills and their translation skills, gaining awareness of the inseparability of the language-culture link.

Readings/Bibliography

Bibliography of the practical language class (prof. Darghmouni)

- S. Darghmouni, Kalima / parola. Lezioni di scrittura e grammatica araba con esercizi, vol. 2, Mondadori, Milano 2019.

- E. Baldissera, Dizionario Italiano-Arabo e Arabo-Italiano (Seconda Edizione), Zanichelli, Bologna 2014.

- Texts provided by the teacher and available on IOL platform.


Bibliography of the official course

- A. Hourani, Storia dei popoli arabi, Mondadori, Milano: Part I - Part II

- H. Toelle e K. Zakharia, Alla scoperta della letteratura araba, dal VI secolo ai nostri giorni, ARGO, Lecce, 2010: Part I

- A. Ventura, L'islam sunnita nel periodo classico (VII-XVI secolo), in Giovanni Filoramo (a cura di), Islam, Laterza, Bari 2018 (digital edition).

- C. D’Ancona (a cura di), Storia della filosofia nell’Islam medievale, 2 voll., Einaudi, Torino 2005.

- Authentic Arabic texts provided by the teacher and in-depth material available on IOL platform.

Teaching methods

Due to the Covid-19 emergency, and following the decision taken by the Department of Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures, this course will combine in the first semester two teaching methods:

a) Live online (50% of lessons). All students will attend online. Lessons will be held on the Microsoft Teams platform.

b) Live on-site and online (50% of lessons). Students will be required to alternate on-site and online shifts in order to ensure the necessary form of social distancing.

In the second semester, health situation permitting, the lessons will return live on-site.

Compatibly with this, the course will include:

1) Frontal lessons

2) Interactive lessons

3) Activities in pairs and / or in groups

Assessment methods

The exam is composed of the following parts:

a) a written test and an oral exam with the tutor (prof. Darghmouni)

b) An oral exam with the course professor (prof. Peta).

a.1) The written test with the tutor is structured as follows: proof of comprehension of a short text and verification of lexical skills (30% of the value of the final evaluation), exercises to verify morphosyntactic skills (30% of the value of the final evaluation), translation of a short text from Arabic to Italian and of short sentences from Italian to Arabic (40% of the value of the final evaluation). The use of the dictionary is permitted. Global execution time: 2 hours and 30 minutes.

a.2) The oral exam with the tutor consists of reading a vocalized text and answering simple questions in Arabic on the text and / or on one of the topics covered during the course.

b) The oral exam with the course professor will consist in: 1) reading and translation 2) morphosyntactic and lexical questions 3) theoretical question on contents. To the vote of this exam will contribute the average between the written test and the oral exam performed with the tutor.

Teaching tools

Audio / video texts, power-points and other materials provided by the teachers.

Office hours

See the website of Ines Peta