Contrasting major derivational features in Arabic and English

الملخص EN

This paper identifies what specifically is easy and what specifically is difficult for native Arabic-speakers in their acquisition of English derivational morphology.

This has been done by identifying major derivational similarities and differences between standard written Arabic and standard written English through contrastive analysis (CA).

The concepts of CA are initially called upon to account for the fact that Arabic is a language of productive derivation while English is a language of more than one source of word-formation; borrowing, compounding, and derivation.

Secondly, morphology is subject to avoidance phenomenon by foreign learners.

Hence, the predictive value ofCA, in this paper, should be very helpful for English teachers to Arab speakers learning English and other foreign learners, language acquisition researchers, applied linguists (especially CA researchers), methodologists, and textbook-writers.

CA provides us with a body of information which is helpful in the preparation of instructional materials, syllabuses, the classroom techniques, and tools for foreign language acquisition.