The Effect of Arabic Diglossia on Children’s Early Literacy

Abstract

Background: Diglossia has become a common situation that is pertinent to many languages, but also distinct to the Arabic speaking countries. The diglossic nature of Arabic is considered to be a key cause of the difficulties that students face in learning the StA language. The aim of this study is to explore the effect of Arabic diglossia on the language development of individuals and to identify the impact of Arabic diglossia on early literacy amongst children.

Method: A systematic review of the literature conducted a search for the following databases to find all of the relevant articles, PsycINFO; ERIC; SCOPUS; and Web of Science published in peer-reviewed journals in the last ten years. A flow diagram of PRISMA was used to visually summarise, eliminate irrelevant articles, and screen a process. A quality assessment of articles using the Critical Appraisals Skills Programme (CASP).

Result and Conclusion: After eliminating duplicates, a total of 49 studies were found and 10 studies met the inclusion criteria. For all the studies included, the overall sample size was 2402 participants, of which 1418 (59%) were female and 984 (41%) were male. The findings obtained from analyzing data in the literature-based around the research questions: “What is the impact of Arabic diglossia in early literacy amongst children?”. This study selected the ten most relevant articles to produce information for exploring the topic. After considering the strengths and limitations of the articles, it was determined that as a collective, current research suggests that a significant difference between the spoken and written Arabic that a child is exposed to can make early literacy acquisition more difficult. In conclusion, future studies should potentially extend and investigate Arabic Diglossia in a wider context.