Course Description
A continuation of Advanced Conversation and Composition in Standard Arabic I, including instruction in grammar, reading comprehension, and composition. Emphasis on practice in spoken modern standard Arabic at the level of an educated speaker, stressing both the ability to narrate events and express ideas orally and in writing.
Additional Requirements for Graduate Students:
Written and oral presentation of an original scholarly research
paper in Arabic utilizing what students have learned in class
and involving also substantial research in secondary literature
found through JSTOR and the Index Islamicus, and in primary
Arabic texts held in the UGA library, obtained through
interlibrary loan, or located within online libraries. Graduate
students will critique each other's writing before handing it
in. In addition, the instructor will meet solely with the
graduate students outside of class once every three weeks in
order to discuss class topics at a greater depth as well as
their research for their papers.
Athena Title
ADV CNV CMP ARAB II
Prerequisite
ARAB 2004 and ARAB 4201/6201
Undergraduate Pre or Corequisite
ARAB 3006
Semester Course Offered
Offered spring
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Course Objectives
This course is designed to build upon Advanced Conversation and Composition in Standard Arabic I in that it will provide the students with experience in reading, comprehending and discussing texts that represent some of the best examples of the Arabic language. It will encourage them to learn how to organize their thoughts in Arabic towards being able to achieve paragraph-like discourse. At this level the student should learn to interact in formal and informal contexts and understand the difference between the two.
Topical Outline
I. Discussion & composition: The history of Arabic grammar and linguistic studies. The Arabic lexicon and the harkat jama al- lugha. Arabic semantics and root forms. II. Discussion & composition: Islam and Politics, the rise of political parties in the Middle East. Ism al-isharat, ma as a pronoun and hollow verbs; Quadrilateral verbs and their forms. III. Discussion & composition: The Heritage of Islam: Classical and Popular. Texts ranging from philosophy and theology to the popular figure of Juha and his wisdom teachings. Learn to tell a story in Arabic. Conditional sentences, defective conditional sentences and adverbial clauses. IV. Discussion & composition: The Arab World and the West: Arab influence in the West and the points of intersection in history. Compound sentences, uses of the accusative, apposition, circumstantial clauses, and attributive circumstantial clauses. V. Discussion & composition: Arabic Poetry: The history of the Arabs from the standpoint of poetry. Pre-Islamic poetry to the free verse of Ahmad Amine. Imperative, participles, nouns expressing a single action, verbal substantives, and verbs with hamza. VI. Discussion & composition: Development and Progress in Arab Society: The rise of petroleum-based economies versus the traditional societies based on agriculture. Clauses with the subjunctive, attributive relative clauses, weak verbs and their forms. VII. Traditional Islamic studies: a view of Islam from the edge. Madrasa culture and the world of the ulema - how have they impacted the world view of Muslims today? Negation, coordinating conjunctions, participles, vocative particles, and radical verbs.
Syllabus