The phonological features of non–Arab workers' interlanguage in Iraq

Abstract EN

Interlannguge is defined as a type of language used by second or foreign language learners in the process of learning the target language ; it is an intermediate phase between first and second language.

This study aims at providing a phonological description of the Baghdadi Interlanguage (henceforth BIL) used by the Bengali workers in Baghdad province, the capital of Iraq.

The primary purpose of this study is to substantiate whether this newly emerged variety is an interlanguage or a pidgin, also to solve many tutorial problems in this variety by identifying the errors of the learners of second language in the field of phonology.

Data collection was based on some interviews, accompanied by a list of personal questions with four Bengali workers from both genders (males and females), (two males and two females).

It is found that this new variety is an interlanguage not a pidgin since the characteristics of interlanguage are achieved in this study throughout the stages of the developments of this newly emerged variety (interlanguage).

The study also finds that the main phonological differences between the Baghdadi dialect and the interlanguage (IL) are in the consonant phonemes rather than the vowel ones.