Incorporating morphology instruction into Arabic for Specific Purposes (ASP) courses

Abstract

Abstract

This study examines the role of morphology instruction in enhancing learners’ mastery of Arabic for Specific Purposes (ASP), a rapidly expanding area of Arabic language education that serves academic, professional, and vocational needs. Despite the recognized complexity of Arabic’s root-and-pattern morphological system, ASP curricula often focus predominantly on terminology memorization and functional communication, with limited attention to the morphological structures that underpin specialized vocabulary. This research investigates how explicit morphology instruction can support learners’ comprehension, retention, and productive use of field-specific terminology. Using a descriptive-analytical approach supported by targeted instructional interventions, the study explores the impact of teaching core derivational and inflectional patterns relevant to specialized domains such as medical, business, and legal Arabic. Data were gathered through morphological awareness assessments, vocabulary acquisition tests, classroom observations, and learner feedback. Findings indicate that integrating morphology into ASP courses significantly improves learners’ ability to infer meanings of unfamiliar terms, decode complex texts, and autonomously expand their specialized vocabulary. The study also identifies key morphological patterns that yield high pedagogical value for ASP contexts and proposes a structured model for incorporating morphology instruction into ASP curriculum design. The research concludes that systematic morphology instruction is essential for empowering ASP learners to navigate the linguistic demands of their target fields and recommends further empirical studies to develop field-specific morphological corpora and instructional resources.