In the Arab world, the comprehension gap between Colloquial and Standard Arabic has been recognized as a major force behind illiteracy and its endless negative repercussions. One adverse impact of this comprehension gap manifests itself in the courtroom. Courtroom translation in the Arab world (i.e. consecutive interpreting/reporting from Colloquial into Standard Arabic) occurs systematically and is the only means of documenting courtroom proceedings. Despite its functional importance in the light of language manoeuvrability and translation accuracy, the legal implications of the Colloquial-Standard Arabic proximity in the context of linguistic rights have not been theoretically nor empirically researched. Accordingly, this paper introduces the dynamics of language use in a hierarchical judicial system in one Arab country, Lebanon. This paper is a theoretical first brick in the wall of linguistic rights in the Lebanese courtroom, where -in the absence of a jury system -linguistic discretion in the legal decision-making process rests upon the bench judge. In addition, this paper highlights the vulnerability of illiterate people vis-à-vis the use of Standard Arabic in legal settings at the expense of their preferred first or only language, Lebanese Colloquial.
Evaluating learners’ writing quality has been quite challenging. One important indicator of writing quality is the use of lexis in texts. However, more efficient evaluative guidelines should be explored. Although corpus-based lexical studies have provided analyses of various text genres for word frequencies and keywords indicative of lexical density, and thus writing quality for teaching/learning purposes, learner literary texts remain under researched. This study explores the word frequencies in a corpus of N=206 L1 Arabic learners’ literary essays written in English in one literature course at an English medium university in Lebanon. Lextutor platform was used to analyze the word frequency profiles which indicate the lexical density level and Voyant Tools platform to analyze the content keyword profiles, which preview thematic representations and character features. Main findings indicated a dichotomy between literary knowledge and language proficiency. The content keywords previewed themes and character features adequately which showed the learners’ knowledge of the literary text. The word frequency profiles, however, indicated a low lexical density and, thus, a low language proficiency level. Implications for pedagogy and recommendations are made for further researching this “controversial dichotomy” in learners’ literary essays in developing the literary edge for well-rounded learners versus improving their language proficiency level.
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