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Part of
Applied Linguistics in the Middle East and North Africa: Current practices and future directions
Edited by Atta Gebril
[AILA Applied Linguistics Series 15] 2017
► pp. 289–304

Chapter 13
Corpora and the study of Arabic vocabulary

| Department of Linguistics, Cairo University

Corpora have made many significant contributions to our understanding of how language works and how it is used in the society. In particular, they have become an indispensable tool in almost any systematic investigation of the lexicon. This chapter gives an overview of some key aspects of Arabic lexis that can be examined straightforwardly with corpora. Among the topics addressed are word frequency, clusters, synonymy, polysemy, and semantic prosody. Sample corpus analyses are provided to show how corpora can help uncover major patterns in the linguistic behavior of Arabic lexical items. Finally, the chapter discusses some implications for teaching Arabic as a foreign language.

Keywords: Arabic corpora, Arabic vocabulary, clusters, synonymy, and semantic prosody
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • Data
  • Word frequency
  • Clusters
  • Synonymy
  • Polysemy
  • Semantic prosody
  • Implications for teaching Arabic as a foreign language
  • Note
  • References
Published online: 18 July 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/aals.15.13abd
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