Postgraduate Profile  

Mr Salih Jamaan Alzahrani

PhD Candidate, School of Humanities & Social Sciences

Faculty/Division: Education and Arts.
Email: salihjamaand.Alzahrani@studentmail.newcastle.edu.au
Location: McMullin  Building, Room MC 117
Campus: Callaghan Campus, Newcastle

Current Research

PhD Thesis title: "Topics in the Grammar of Zahrani Spoken Arabic"
 
Classical Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic as well as other dialects including the Saudi Dialects like Hijazi Arabic and Najdi Arabic have been studied for long time. However, other Arabic dialects such as Zahrani Spoken Arabic (ZSA) (spoken widely in the southern region of Saudi Arabia) have not been studied. The number of the dialect's native speakers is not too many. The problem is that most those people are moving to other regions in Saudi Arabia where they use other different dialects. Therefore, this research is timely because this dialect has not been documented before.

The description of the ZSA will be an important step to document the dialect and also to highlight some of the linguistic differences between it and Standard Arabic in lexicon, style, phonology, morphology, syntax and sociolinguistic function.

Qualifications

  • (2010) PhD Candidate (Linguistics), School of Humanities and Social Sciences.
  • (2009) Master of Arts in Linguistics (Advanced): Faculty of Arts Dean's Commendation for High Achievement, University of Queensland, Qld, Australia.
  • (1996) Bachelor of Arts (English Language Linguistics & Literature)with a minor degree in Education, Umm Al- Qura  University, Saudi Arabia.

Spoken Languages

  • English
  • Arabic

Employment History

(1997 - 2006) Teaching English as a second language, Hawazen Secondary School.  Taif Educational Province, Saudi Arabia.
(2003 - 2007) Supervisor of English Language Courses, Taif Scientific Center, Taif Educational Province, Saudi Arabia.
(2004 - 2007) Principal Deputy.  Taif Scientific Center, Taif Educational Province, Saudi Arabia.
(2006 - up to now) Teaching Assistant, Faculty of Arts, Department of Foreign Languages.  Taif University, Saudi Arabia.

Memberships

  • Saudi Computer Association. Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
  • Educational journal ( AL-MADAR)  - Editor  - Taif Educational Province, Saudi Arabia.
  • Scientific Activity Committee - Taif Educational Province. Saudi Arabia. 

Research Activities

(2009) The First Australian Workshop on Afro-Asiatic Linguistics (AWAAL), (11-13 September), The University of Queensland & State Library of Queensland, Brisbane, Qld, Australia. (Paper) Available here

(2009) "Arabic language for non-native speakers", The Global Conference. (2-3 November), King Saud University, Saudi Arabia.

Publications

Alzahrani, S. (Forthcoming). Word Order and Agreement in Spoken Faify Arabic. Forthcoming edited book entitled AFRO-ASIATIC LANGUAGES AND CULTURES (Brill 2010/2011).