Academic Year 2020/2021

  • Docente: Ilaria Cicola
  • Credits: 6
  • SSD: L-OR/12
  • Language: Italian

Learning outcomes

Through the completion of this course the student is supposed to acquire stronger abilities in the intermediate level of Arabic language. He is therefore supposed to able to approach the relevant literature and the problems related to it, by having recourse to the most updated bibliography.

Course contents

The course will be articulated in two interconnected parts, the first being preparatory to the second one: i) language and ii) Literature and History.

A) Arabic Language.

In this part of the course the student will advance in the study of the Arabic Language begun in the first year. The students will train in translation and production tasks of written texts and will practice speaking skills.

Grammatical topics of this year: 1. Name: numerals, adjectives, elative. 2. Verb: derivative forms of verbs with their conjugation and complete verbal derivation.

B) Arabic Literature

Historical desctiption of Arabic literature from the end of the Abbasid period to the literature of the Turkish period.

During the course, the texts relating to the aforementioned periods will be presented, translated and analyzed in class, so that the grammatical traits previously learned can be deeply understood and learnt.

Readings/Bibliography

Programme for the attending students:

A)Arabic Language

    1. Deheuvels L.-W., Grammatica araba. Manuale di arabo moderno con esercizi e cd audio per l'ascolto. Volume 1. Edizione italiana a cura di Antonella Ghersetti. Zanichelli, Bologna, 2010.Units 8-15.
    2. Manca A., Grammatica teorica-pratica di arabo letterario moderno.Roma, Associazione Nazionale di Amicizia e Cooperazione Italo-Araba, 1989. – pp 145-180
    3. Giuseppe Cecere, "Quaderni di Esercitazione di Lingua Araba", (dispense fornite dal Docente), p. 21-35.
    4. Audiovisual material from the online free-access Course "Sabily" , Lessons 12-17, 20-21, 26-28.

    Playlist Sabily

    In addition to the volumes indicated in points 1 and 2, exercise texts and supplementary didactic materials on specific points may be drawn from: Veccia Vaglieri L , Avino M., Grammatica teorico-pratica della lingua araba, Istituto per l’Oriente, Napoli 2011 (voll.I, tomi I e II)

B) Arabic Literature

  1. Amaldi, Storia della letteratura araba classica, Bologna: Zanichelli, 2004, p.107-190
  2. Arnim Heinemann, John L. Meloy, Tarif Khalidi, Manfred Kropp (eds.), Al-Jahiz: A Muslim Humanist for our Time, Würzburg : Ergon Verlag in Kommission ; Beirut : Orient-Institut, 2009. Pages: 3-26, 39-63, 91-123, 133-172
  • Lucia Raggetti,Gli uccelli nel Kitāb al-Ḥayawān ai Al-Ǧāḥiẓ: Fonti, Tradizione, Adab, in Quaderni di Studi Arabi Nuova Serie, Vol. 3, 2008, pp. 183-200, Istituto per l'Oriente- Roma;
  • Wadia T. al-Najim, Aristotle's book Corpus de Animalibus and al-Ǧāḥiẓ's book al-Ḥayawān, in Arabica, T.26 Fasc. 3, 1979, pp. 307-309, Brill-Leiden
  • Sherman Jackson, Al-Jahiz on translation, in Alif:Journal of Comparative Poetics, No.4, Intertextuality, 1984, pp.99-107;

For the non-Attending Students:

A)Arabic Language

  1. Deheuvels L.-W., Grammatica araba. Manuale di arabo moderno con esercizi e cd audio per l'ascolto. Volume 1. Edizione italiana a cura di Antonella Ghersetti. Zanichelli, Bologna, 2010. Units 8-15.
  2. Manca A., Grammatica teorica-pratica di arabo letterario moderno.Roma, Associazione Nazionale di Amicizia e Cooperazione Italo-Araba, 1989. – pp 145-180
  3. Giuseppe Cecere, "Quaderni di Esercitazione di Lingua Araba", (dispense fornite dal Docente), p. 21-35.
  4. Audiovisual material from the online free-access Course "Sabily" , Lessons 25-37.

Playlist Sabily 

In addition to the volumes indicated in points 1 and 2, exercise texts and supplementary didactic materials on specific points may be drawn from: Veccia Vaglieri L , Avino M., Grammatica teorico-pratica della lingua araba, Istituto per l’Oriente, Napoli 2011 (voll.I, tomi I e II)

B) Arabic Literature

  1. Amaldi, Storia della letteratura araba classica, Bologna: Zanichelli, 2004, p.107-190
  2. A literature manual to be chosen from the following list(full reading):
    • Allen R., La letteratura araba, il Mulino, Bologna, 2006;
    • Cachia, P. Arabic Literature, an overview, Routledge Curzon, Londra, 2002

    3. Arnim Heinemann, John L. Meloy, Tarif Khalidi, Manfred Kropp (eds.), Al-Jahiz: A Muslim Humanist for our Time, Würzburg : Ergon Verlag in Kommission; Beirut : Orient-Institut, 2009. Limitatamente alle pagine 3-195

    • Lucia Raggetti,Gli uccelli nel Kitāb al-Ḥayawān ai Al-Ǧāḥiẓ: Fonti, Tradizione, Adab, in Quaderni di Studi Arabi Nuova Serie, Vol. 3, 2008, pp. 183-200, Istituto per l'Oriente- Roma;
    • Wadia T. al-Najim, Aristotle's book Corpus de Animalibus and al-Ǧāḥiẓ's book al-Ḥayawān, in Arabica, T.26 Fasc. 3, 1979, pp. 307-309, Brill-Leiden
    • Sherman Jackson, Al-Jahiz on translation, in Alif:Journal of Comparative Poetics, No.4, Intertextuality, 1984, pp.99-107;
    • al-Ǧāḥiẓ, Le cadi et la mouche, Eds.:Souami Lakhdar, Ahmed Hajeri, Paris, IMA, Ipomée-A.Michel, 2001.
    • Aẕartāš Aẕarnūš and Bābak Farzāneh, Notes on Some Persian Words in the Works of al-Ǧāḥiẓ, in Arabica T. 58, Fasc. 5, 2011, pp. 436-445, Brill - Leiden.

Teaching methods

Language

Following the teaching method starded in the first yesr, a syncrasis between the two most spread strategy in L2 learning will be used:

1) The grammatical approach, the "traditional method" used in academic teaching of Arabic language: the student will develop passive skills in written communication (translation from Arabic into Italian)

2)the inductive and mimetic approach proposed by the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (Learning / Teaching / Assessment).This approach will be adapted to the specific needs of the course and to the subject, i.e. Arabic, so to allow the student to activly produce small texts and dialogues.

The operational methodology will be further developed on the basis of a thorough “context analysis”, aimed at identifying the special needs of the students of this specific course.

Assessment methods

Final Exam Structure

Students who attend at least 75% of the lessons are considered to be attending.

The final exam consists of two tests: a written one, with use of the dictionary, and an oral one. Both tets will be evaluated on a scale of 30, and the final mark will be an arithmetical average of the two.

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:

i) Understanding written messages in Arabic and producing answers to texts; ii) Translating written messages from Arabic into Italian iii) Producing written messages in Arabic in total autonomy.

For these reasons, the exam includes exercices (fill in the blanks, conjugation of verbs, comprehension, etc.) and a small translation.

Duration of the written test: 3 hours.

N.B. The written test will be evaluated on a scale of 30. Students will be admitted to the oral exam at condition of their being successful (at least 18/30) at the written one.

The oral exam

The oral exam will assess the student's command of the material studied in the course. The oral exam includes two different moments: i) a linguistic and historical commentary on selected texts among those analysed by the teacher during the course and ii) questions, where his/her ability to summarise and critically discuss topics raised in the course, making use of the exam bibliography and the course tools provided will be assested.

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.

Assestments will be awarded following this principles:

TOP MARKS

(28-30)

  • the students can to provide a full-fledged linguistic and historical commentary of the selected texts
  • the students shows an overall understanding of the topics discussed during the lectures
  • the students displays a critical approach to the material and a confident and effective use of the appropriate terminology

AVERAGE MARKS

(24-27)

  • the student has memorized the main points of the course material
  • the students is able to summarise them satisfactorily and provide an effective critical commentary,
  • the student displays an average command of the appropriate terminology

LOW MARKS

(18-23)

  • the students knows very sparsely the exam material
  • the students is able to summarise and provide a general critical commentary,
  • the student displays a limited command of the appropriate terminology

FAILED EXAM

  • the students displays significant errors in his understanding the exam material
  • the student fails to grasp the overall outlines of the subject
  • the student displays 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 Ilaria Cicola