Cultural awareness and the study of tense, aspect and modality in English and Arabic

Abstract EN

As culture can be expressed through two main pillars: personal and social that includes those which are expressed by social context or by the society itself; language is the only social institution without which no other social institution can function; it therefore underpins the two pillars upon which culture is built.

Cultural awareness becomes the most significant part when we have to interact with people from other cultures.

It is the foundation of communication and it involves the ways of standing back from us and becoming aware of our culture and values.

It involves developing our awareness of our own and others" culture.

Misinterpretation occurs primarily when we lack awareness and ways of communications with others' cultures, but becoming aware of others culture is a difficult task because we lived and learned how to deal with our culture unconsciously.

Increasing cultural awareness means to see both positive and negative sides of cultural differences.

Therefore, cultural divergence might be considered as a source of problems and it may increase the level of complexity, confusion and disagreement as well.

To avoid that, we need to increase both self-awareness and cross-cultural awareness i.e.

be familiar to the information about the latter cross-cultural practices and issues that may help to increase our knowledge about others" culture by understanding the ways of communication.

We all know that language is the principal mean through which we conduct our social lives.

When it is used in the communicative context, it is closely related with culture.

In fact, language expresses cultural reality; it embodies that reality through means of communication.

People identify themselves to others through their use of language.

Therefore, we realize that language is an internal part of us.

As for Arab native speakers, it is widely believed that there is connection between them and the English language they acquire, because English has gained and been gaining greater importance in Arab world.

It is used in several walks of life and it also provides employment opportunities on the scale, probably no other language does.

With closed interaction between countries in all fields of life, English has assumed great importance and people cannot afford not to use and learn.

As the proportion of English speakers is significantly increasing in most parts of the world, especially in Arab societies, there is practical need to know the similarities and differences between this language and Arabic.

A native speaker of Arabic learning English as a second or foreign language must be familiar with the right use of main temporal dimensions in both languages to establish an accurate and effective communication.

It has been noticed that most of Arab native speakers do not use the appropriate temporal dimensions demanded by time in the context of the sentence in particular and the discourse in general.

Speakers of Arabic use English language depending on their own Arabic norms , that cause interference between the already acquired foreign language and the native language.

This, most often, results in breakdown in communication.

The dimensions that will be discussed here are referred to as tense, aspect, and modality in both languages English and Arabic.

The study extends from English to Arabic, since the learners, and teachers are native speakers of Arabic learning / teaching English in a formal setting, specifically in Arab world.

Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) is used because it is considered as lingua franca among all Arab nations despite their regional variations.

It is the variety of Arabic most widely used in print media, official documents, correspondence, education and in religious ceremonial language as well.