28732 - Arabic Language and Literature I (LM)

Academic Year 2019/2020

Learning outcomes

At the end of the course, students will have acquired a basic knowledge of Arabic Language and will be able to understand and produce simple sentences in Arabic. Moreover, they will be able to expose (in Italian)  the course contents, both in in oral and written form, also with reference to the relevant bibliography.

Course contents

The course will be divided into two parts, which will be strictly interconnected: Arabic Language, and History of Arabic Literature.

Language

Students will be taught basics of Classical Arabic Language (CLA) and Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) in reading, writing, phonetics, morphology, syntax and vocabulary, so as to develop the necessary skills for an effective use of CLA/MSA in simple communication tasks, such as translating/producing short written texts and bunderstanding/producing” short oral texts. Basic grammar: main forms of nominal declension; first conjugation form of verbs (both in perfect and present tenses); so-called "deaf" and "weak" verbs. .

Some basic notions of history and sociolinguistic of the Arabic language, with special focus on the themes of diglossia and linguistic variation.

History of Literature
An introduction to the history of Arabic literature will be provided, from pre-Islamic times (VI-VII centuries)  to the first Abbasid period (VIII-IX centuries).  The following items will be paid special attention: pre-Islamic poetry, the Koran; The formation of the Adab genre; social representations on gender, religious diversity and ethnic diversity as reflected in literary works.

IMPORTANT WARNING FOR STUDENTS ENROLLED IN COURSE 28732 - ARABIC LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE 1 (LM) - 6 CFU

The 6 CTU Course "Arabic Language and Literature 1 (LM) - Code 28732" is held together with the present course. Students enrolled in Course 28732 are kindly invited to contact the Teacher to agree upon appropriate adaptations of the final exam program.


Readings/Bibliography

COMPULSORY READINGS FOR BOTH ATTENDING AND NON-ATTENDING STUDENTS

Arabic Language

1. CECERE, Giuseppe, Quaderni di Esercitazione di Lingua Araba, (PDF booklet uploaded in the Teacher's Website), p. 1-20.

2. VECCIA VAGLIERI, Laura, Grammatica teorica-pratica della Lingua Araba, vol. I, Roma, Istituto per l'Oriente. .

Old edition (WHITE Cover): p. 50-80; 109-112.

Or the same issues in other textbooks (e.g.: The new edition of Veccia-Vaglieri new edition; Deheuvels; Durand...), to be agreed upon with the Teacher.

3.MION, Giuliano, La lingua araba, Roma: Carocci, 2007, p. 15-27; 37-59.

4. Audiovisual materials from the Online Experimental Course "Sabily (Open Source), Lessons 1 to 10.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvN0n14B5Kk&list=PLst_9DvzyL5lRWdPwDG-6D0Q21z00dP85

Arabic Literature:

1. AMALDI, Daniela, Storia della letteratura araba classica, Bologna: Zanichelli, 2004, p. 1-6; 9-30; 31-46. 

ADDITIONAL COMPULSORY READINGS FOR NON-ATTENDING STUDENTS

Arabic Language

ANGHELESCU, Nadia, Linguaggio e cultura nella civilità araba, (traduz. it. Michele Vallaro), Torino: Silvio Zamorani editore, 1993.

N.B.: Non-attending Students are kindly invited to contact the Teacher in order to agree on times and ways for carrying out their individual "context analysis" (see below, Section "Teaching Methods") and, if needed, to define personalized bibliographical suggestions in the light of their own individual learning project.

OPTIONAL ADDITIONAL READINGS FOR ATTENDING AND NON-ATTENDING STUDENTS ALIKE

Suggested Readings For "Beginners":

1. For those who have no prior knowledge of the history of the Arab world, reading of the following handbook is strongly recommended:

SILVERSTEIN, Adam J., Islamic history. A Very Short Introduction, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010 (Italian translation: Adam J. Silverstein, Breve storia dell'Islam, Rome: Carocci, 2013).

2. For the language part, no preliminary knowledge is required. However, anyone who wants to get an overview of the main issues related to the study of the Arabic language and the main features of this language is invited to fully read the text by Giuliano MION mentioned above.

Teaching methods

Language

An original teaching methodology is proposed. The grammatical approach which is "traditional" in academic teaching of Arabic language, mainly oriented to develop student's passive skills in written communication (translation from Arabic into Italian), is combined with the mostly inductive and mimetic approach proposed by the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (Learning / Teaching / Assessment).

The latter's guidelines have been of course reviewed according to the peculiar characteristics of the Arabic language and the special objectives of the course.

IMPORTANT NOTICE: CONTEXT ANALYSIS

In compliace with the guidelins provided by the CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages), the operational methodology will be further developed on the basis of a thorough “context analysis”. This will be aimed at identifying each student's individual educational needs, as well as their previous linguistic skills (included in languages other than Arabic), their own favored learning style, in order to build didactic projects as individualized as possible.

 

Assessment methods

Final Exam Structure

The final exam consists of two tests: a written one, with use of the dictionary, and an oral one.

Both the written and the oral test will be evaluated on a scale of thirty. The final mark of the exam will result from the arithmetic average of the results of the written test and the oral exam.

The written exam

The written exam will assess the student’s command of Arabic language, at the level required by the Course, with reference to the following main skills:

  1. Understanding written messages in Arabic;
  2. Translating written messages from Arabic into Italian
  3. Producing written messages in Arabic.

For these reasons, the student will be submitted some different tests (concerning the abovementioned different skills ( translating a short text from Arabic into Italian or vice versa; comprehension tests; completing sentences; conjugating verbs etc.). Time of the written exam: 2 hours.

The written exam being preliminary to the oral exam, students getting a mark lower than 18/30 will not be admitted to the oral exam.

The oral exam

The oral exam will assess the student's command of the material studied in the course. The student will be asked to provide a linguistic and historical commentary on selected texts among those analysed by the teacher during the course and will be judged on his/her ability to summarise and critically discuss topics raised in the course, making use of the exam bibliography and the course tools provided.

The assessment will thus consider the student's:
- competence in commenting on the selected texts, i.e. in identifying, translating and contextualizing them;
- knowledge and understanding of the topics covered;
- ability to summarise and analyse themes and concepts;
- familiarity with the terminology associated with the subject and his ability to use it effectively.

Top marks will be awarded to a student displaying an ability to provide a full-fledged linguistic and historical commentary of the selected texts and an overall understanding of the topics discussed during the lectures, combined with a critical approach to the material and a confident and effective use of the appropriate terminology

Average marks will be awarded to a student who has memorized the main points of the material and is able to summarise them satisfactorily and provide an effective critical commentary, while failing to display a complete command of the appropriate terminology.

A student will be deemed to have failed the exam if he/she displays significant errors in his understanding and failure to grasp the overall outlines of the subject, together with a poor command of the appropriate terminology.

 

Teaching tools

Textbooks will be integrated with a wide range of other tools, mostly relying on Arabic sources (audiovisual, press, literary texts, as well as religious, legal, economic and political texts).

Office hours

See the website of Giuseppe Cecere

See the website of Ilaria Cicola

SDGs

Quality education Gender equality

This teaching activity contributes to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals of the UN 2030 Agenda.