Copyright © 2010 Aleya Rouchdy, All Rights Reserved
David Wilmsen’s email on Arabic-L (9/29/2012) made me go back to my neglected blog and add
his comment as a post for AATA non-members.
The subject was What doesNear Native Proficiency Mean for
Modern Standard Arabic.”
David seemed annoyed (correctly so) by the diction in job
announcements in the field of Arabic teaching.
In general job announcements incorporate the statement “native or
near-native command in MSA is required.”
Wilmsen’s question was “what would a native command of
Modern Standard Arabic mean in the context of a language with no native
speakers?” He further adds “Is this kind of boilerplate some sort of dodge for
eluding the appearance of discrimination by national origin?”
I don’t think the intention is to discriminate by national
origin because I was in a position whereby I hired a number of Arabic language
teachers. The candidate’s national origin
was never considered. As a matter of fact there were non-native speakers who
were as good if not better than some of the native speakers!
Paul Roochnik still on Arabic-L stated “near native would be
the ability to shift effortlessly from on register of the language to another.”
As for Kassem Wahba, he wrote, “nobody knows what this term means,” which is a
good answer to the question ‘what does a native or near-native speaker mean?’
I would like to
conclude with a humble suggestion. Why doesn’t AATA come out with a simple
statement to be considered in future job announcements for job seekers, taking
in consideration the ‘fluency’ of the applicants as Roochnik stated?
OK, I am sure some would consider ‘fluent’ too broad of a
term!!!!!!
