The acquisition of the Arabicized scientific and technical terms at Jordanian and Syrian Universities

Other Title(s)

اكتساب المصطلحات العلمية و التقنية المعربة في الجامعات الأردنية و السورية

Dissertant

al-Asal, Mahmud Sabri

Thesis advisor

al-Smadi, Uqlah Mahmud

Comitee Members

Mubayyidin, Husam al-Din Z.
al-Sharah, Nail D.
al-Kilani, Abd Allah Z.

University

Amman Arab University

Faculty

Faculty of Educational Sciences and psychological

Department

Department of Curriculum and Instruction

University Country

Jordan

Degree

Ph.D.

Degree Date

2006

English Abstract

The present study aimed to investigate the acquisition of the Arabicized technical and scientific terms in two Arab universities, namely Jordan University of Science and Technology (JUST) in Jordan, and the University of Damascus (UD) in Syria.

The number of the subjects in the study was Nine hundred and ninety one (991) students of different scientific fields at (JUST), and seven hundred and twenty nine (729) students at the (UD).

The students ranged from third-year level to graduate studies level.

Also, One hundred and thirty two (132) faculty members in different scientific fields at (JUST), and one hundred and nine (109) faculty members at the (UD) were included in the study.

The present study was designed to answer the following questions: 1.

What is the effect of the language of instruction on the subjects’ acquisition aspects (i.e., knowledge, usage, proficiency, adoption and evaluation) of scientific terms in Jordanian and Syrian universities? 2.

What is the effect of the subjects’ scientific fields (i.e., specializations) on the aspects of acquisition (i.e., knowledge, usage, proficiency, adoption and evaluation) of scientific terms by Jordanian and Syrian students? 3.

What is the effect of the students’ first and second language proficiency on the aspects of acquisition (i.e., knowledge, usage, proficiency, adoption and evaluation) of scientific terms by Jordanian and Syrian students? 4.

What are the most frequent Arabicization and Arabic expanding techniques used by the faculty members and students at Jordanian and Syrian universities? 5.

What are the reasons behind the choice of Arabicized terms and their Arabic equivalents by the faculty members and students at Jordanian and Syrian universities? To answer these questions, the researcher designed two instruments.

First, the researcher constructed a questionnaire.

Two versions of the same questionnaire were distributed to the subjects of the study.

Second, an observation checklist was used.

The researcher attended eighty nine (89) different scientific lectures of the scientific fields under investigation at the Jordanian and Syrian universities.

Various descriptive statistical measures (i.e., means, medians and standard deviations) and the t- test were used to analyze statistically the collected data.

Analysis of variance (ANOVA) also was used to evaluate and compare the results of the independent variables (i.e., the language of instruction, the subjects’ scientific fields and the students’ first and second language proficiency) and the dependent variables (i.e., the aspects of acquisition: knowledge, usage, proficiency, adoption and evaluation).

The results of the study were as follows: 1- There were statistically significant differences in the aspects of acquisition of scientific terms due to the medium of instruction in Jordanian and Syrian universities.

2- The results of the study showed that studying medical and engineering sciences using the foreign language, English, have done significantly better than the native language.

Furthermore, the results of the study revealed that the percentage of using Arabicized scientific terms in the UD was (27.72%) and in JUST it was (93.3%) out of the subjects’ responses. 3- The results of the study revealed that the percentage of using Arabic equivalents in the UD was (72.28%) and in JUST it was (6.7%) out of the subjects’ responses. 4- There were different Arabicization and Arabic expanding techniques that the specialists, Arabicizers, planners, authors, linguists, among others will resort to in some cases when dealing with scientific terms.

5- There were different reasons behind the choice of Arabicized terms and their Arabic equivalents by the faculty members and students at Jordanian and Syrian universities.

In the light of the findings of the study, it was recommended that other research in different scientific fields other than medical and engineering fields be conducted to explore the role of the medium of instruction on the acquisition aspects of the scientific terms.

The study also showed that teaching scientific terms through Arabicization and Arabic expanding techniques could be applicable in the classroom.

Finally, the researcher recommended that there should be an open channel of communication among Arabic language academies to coordinate their efforts to unify and standardize the use of Arabic terminology in all fields.

Main Subjects

Educational Sciences
Naval Science

Topics

• Education
• Science
• Higher education
• Learning
• Jordan
• Syria
• Languages

No. of Pages

310

Table of Contents

• APA
• MLA
• AMA

Language

English

Data Type

Arab Theses

Record ID

BIM-436446