The use of English articles by advanced Arabic speakers

Abstract

This study examines the fluctuation in the use of articles by Advanced Arabic Learners (AALs) of English language. Both English and Arabic languages have definite articles, but Arabic lacks an overt indefinite article in its system. The participants in this study were 60 AALs of English, including 30 AALs in the United Kingdom (UK) and 30 AALs in Saudi Arabia. The data related to the accuracy of the use of articles and fluctuation between definiteness and specificity was obtained through a Forced-choice elicitation task adopted from (Ionin et al.,2004). The results showed that no significant fluctuation could be found between the AALs in the UK and AALs in Saudi Arabia regarding the two contexts of [+definite, -specific] and [–definite, +specific]. Moreover, the participants’ overall use of the was better as compared to their use of a in all contexts. The results also showed that both groups of participants performed accurately in the definite contexts. However, AALs in Saudi Arabia performed significantly lower in the indefinite contexts. AALs in the UK showed better performance in the use of the in the definite context and a in the indefinite context. Consequently, the results of this study indicate that L1 influence and naturalistic input exposure are essential in overcoming the misuse of articles in L2, especially in the case of AALs.