Book Launch: Instructed Second Language Acquisition of Arabic

Mahmoud Azaz, Associate Professor in MENAS, will present his book Instructed Second Language Acquisition of Arabic, followed by a Question and Answer session. There will be a small reception afterwards, to discuss the ideas more informally.

Agreement asymmetries or irregularities between two linguistic units in terms of formal features (particularly gender and number) represent some puzzling aspects in the grammatical system of Arabic. These asymmetries manifest in multiple morphosyntactic phenomena including nominal disagreement, verbal disagreement, referential disagreement, and numeral disagreement. They have driven some scholars to include Arabic among languages with ‘rogue’ or ‘wild’ grammars. In this book launch talk (Routledge Press), Azaz presents a descriptive overview of these phenomena. After that, he discusses the results of a cluster of evidence-based research studies that examined how to improve the L2 learning of these asymmetries. Using contextualized input-based, output-based, and conversational form-focused instruction, he shows the comparable effects of these learning conditions in the development of explicit and implicit knowledge of asymmetries. The book engages in four recent debates in instructed second language acquisition: whether incidental exposure develops implicit and/or explicit knowledge in morphosyntax; the possibility of parallel routes for input-based and output-based effects in restructuring interlanguage; whether direct instruction impedes the acquisition of implicit knowledge; and to what degree learning gains are modulated by the inherent characteristics of the target features such salience and differential feature mismatch. The book provides implications for SLA/applied linguistic researchers, instructors, curriculum designers, and textbook writers of Arabic.