Practice and Theory in Systems of Education, Volume 12 Number 2 2017

DOI 10.1515/ptse-2017-0009 PTSE 12 (2): 86-99

Students’ Attitude Towards Arabic

Language Varieties: The Case of the Fuṣḥā
Arabic
Alhassan Abdur-Rahim HUSEIN
[email protected]
(University of Ghana Department of Modern Languages, Legon,
Ghana)

Received: 27.08.2017; Accepted: 28.10.2017

Abstract: Arabic speaking countries live in diglossic communities. This

is where two or more varieties of a language are used by the same speech
community. This paper examines students’ attitude towards Arabic
language varieties. It focuses mainly on Egyptian students’ attitude
towards the fuṣḥā on one hand and the Egyptian Arabic (EA) variety on
the other. A survey of fifty university students from the American
University in Cairo and Ain Shams University, Cairo was conducted
using the questionnaire instrument. The data was analysed descriptively.
The study reveals that Egyptian students have a slightly positive attitude
towards the fuṣḥā Arabic. Notwithstanding, they tend to exhibit positive
affective and behavioural tendencies towards EA. Based on this, the study
proposes that language planners and for that matter, Arab states should
adopt a vibrant ‘status planning’, whereby fuṣḥā is properly recognized
and widely used in official and state institutions and functions.

Keywords: language attitude, diglossia, Arabic language varieties, fuṣḥā,

Egyptian Arabic (EA)

Introduction
Arabic speaking countries live in diglossic communities. Diglossia is a
situation where two or more varieties of a language are used by a single
language community. Ferguson (1959) maintains that a state of Diglossia
supposes a language situation where different varieties of the language are
used interchangeably. In addition to the standard variety, there are other
primary varieties, which may me be local or even regional. Often, the
standard language is a highly codified superposed variety that has a
complex grammatical structure (p345). Although a lot of modification has
occurred since Ferguson (1959) first introduced his concept of diglossia,

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the fact remains that Arabs have different attitudes towards the fuṣḥā on
one hand and the other varieties in the Arab world on the other
(Bassiouney, 2009). This paper thus investigates Egyptian students’
attitude towards the fuṣḥā Arabic, which is the official Arabic variety, vis-
à-vis the Egyptian variety of the Arabic language. It discusses the general
view of the current linguistic situation in Egypt and reviews relevant
literature. Consequently, the paper surveys a sample of students to
determine their perception and attitude towards the diglossic situation in
Egypt.

Overview of the linguistic situation in Egypt

Fuṣḥā Arabic is the official language of Egypt (Haeri, 1997). It refers to the
Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), which is used in formal discourse and in
Arabic news broadcast on radio and television as well as in the print media
(Ryding, 2005; Holes, 2004). Arabic replaced the Copto-Egyptian (an
Afro-Asiatic language) language after the conquest of Egypt by the
Muslims in the 7th century. Arabic since then has made inroads in Egypt
and has continued to maintain its status irrespective of several attempts by
successive colonial rulers to change the status-quo. According to Tignor
(1966) the British, for instance, relegated Arabic to a lesser position in
public schools because it sees it to be “too imprecise” as a wheel for science
and development. Incensed with this stance, Tignor (1966) maintained
that nationalist movement carried a lot of protests and the then British
administrator, Lord Cromer was forced to reverse that educational policy
in order to quell the unrest.
The Egyptian Arabic (EA), which is a variety of the Arabic language, is
actually a continuum of dialects spoken by more than 80 million Egyptians
(Kaye, 1998). The EA or the ᶜāmmiyyat is regarded as the prestigious
among the vernaculars in Egypt (Abdel-Jawad, 1986; Haeri, 1997).
Besides, due to the political and cultural influence of Egypt among the
Arabs, the EA is widely understood in the Arabic speaking world.
According to Versteegh (2001), Egyptian Arabic is well understood within
the Arab world. Besides, Arabs from other countries can easily adjust their
speech to Egyptian if desirable (Versteegh, 2001:139).
The Arab world, including Egypt lives in a diglossic situation (Badawi,
1973; Bassiouney, 2009). The diglossic situation is a linguistic situation in
which different varieties of a language live side by side within a speech
community and are used for different functions and under different
circumstances. Another dimension of a diglossic situation as pointed by
Ferguson (1959) is the existence of both a high and codified variety of
language as against a low variety that is used in ordinary conversation. In
the case of Egypt, whether or not the fuṣḥā is still regarded as a high
variety needs further investigation.
The diglossic situation in Egypt for that matter has caught the attention
of many writers. A pioneering work in this regard, is El-Said Badawi’s
monumental work on the linguistic situation in Egypt in his book
(Mustawayāt al-arabiyya al-muāṣara fī Misr ‘Levels of contemporary
Arabic in Egypt’) published in 1973. Badawi explains that spoken Arabic
has five multi-levels and people shift between them in their conversation

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depending on sociolinguistic factors like the educational achievement of

the speaker. According to Badawi (1973), each of these levels has its own
distinctive linguistic properties and social functions (Wahba, 1996). These
five levels are: fuṣḥā al-turāth (Classical Arabic); fuṣḥā al-ᶜaṣr (Modern
Standard Arabic); ᶜāmmiyyat al-muthaqqafīn (Educated Spoken Arabic);
ᶜāmmiyyat al-mutanawwirīn (Semi-literate Spoken Arabic); ᶜāmmiyyat
ʾummiyyīn (Illiterate Spoken Arabic). Thus, the choice of a level by a
speaker mainly depends on one’s educational level.
Importantly, religious scholars like the late Abdal-Hamid Kishk (died
December 1996) and Muhammad Metwali Alsharawi (died June 1998)
used more of the Egyptian Arabic than the fuṣḥā in their religious
discourses. Amr Khalid, a seasoned Muslim preacher is also fond of using
the Egyptian Arabic in his preaching.
Another phenomenon of the linguistic situation in Egypt is the role of
English among the educated. According to Kachru (1992:233), English has
gained a high status in Egypt and it is becoming among one of the
“expanding countries” where it is being acknowledged as a universal
second language. A cursory observation of the educated, including
students of AUC affirms Kachru’s view. Schaub (2000) in his study of
English in Egypt pointed out that English is “not only the language of
academics but serves as a lingua franca for socializing outside the
classrooms” (Schaub, 2000).
Code switching between Arabic and English among well-educated young
Egyptians is another distinct current linguistic situation found in Egypt,
although subtly. Schaub’s (2000) view that it is done for the purposes of
prestige and nothing else does not give a true picture of the reality. His
view, probably, might have been influenced by the lack of the appreciation
of the cultural dimensions under which those English words/phrases are
used. For instance, Egyptian students maintain that they prefer to use
words/phrases of insulting nature in English rather than in Arabic for
reasons of culture and taboos. Again, you may hear children when you pass
by, saying to you sentences like “what’s your name?” They are evidently
practicing what they are being thought at school.
In spite of these linguistic realities in Egypt, it is obvious that Arabic,
especially the Egyptian Arabic variety shall continue to dominate the
linguistic environment for reasons of religion and affinity to the global
Arabic speaking world. That said, this paper further looks at previous
writings on attitude towards the fuṣḥā Arabic, which is assumed to be the
real bonding feature, and the official variety among all the Arabs.

Studies on Language Attitude

In attitudinal language studies, language is viewed by those who speak
them as marker of their identity and loyalty. According to Fishman (1971),
language is “a referent for loyalties and animosities” as well as an indicator
of status and relationships within every speech community.
Al-Mamari (2011) studied 23 foreign students learning Arabic in Oman
in a quasi-longitudinal study, their perception of Arabic diglossia and
Arabic as foreign language. He found that students are very aware of the
diglossic situation in the country. Although confused about the situation in

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their earlier levels of education, their ability to use the fuṣḥā Arabic and to
relate to the local variety speaking public improved as they attain higher
levels in their study. Besides, Al-Mamari (2011) also found that most
students agree on the value of learning the spoken dialect besides the
fuṣḥā. Al-Mamari’s study did not provide information on his participants’
motivation for learning Arabic. This information is vital because that will
equally have an impact on their attitude towards the other varieties, like
the Egyptian variety.
In a related study of Egyptians’ attitude towards the use of the Egyptian
Arabic in religious discourse, Soliman (2008) concluded that Egyptians do
not see the Egyptian Arabic as a corrupt form of fuṣḥā Arabic. According to
Soliman (2008), they see it rather as easier and beautiful. More
importantly, it provides them with more vocabularies to express
themselves than Classical Arabic (Soliman, 2008:159). This view is equally
corroborated by Ferguson (1959) where he also claims among other things
that Egyptians have positive attitude toward their language and even claim
it to be the closest to the fuṣḥā. They also believe it is the easiest to learn.
Arguably, some of these claims could be accepted but as to whether it is the
closest to the fuṣḥā needs more empirical evidence. The role of Egypt in
the Arab world, though, cannot be disputed.
Haeri (1997) who studied language, state and class in Egypt found on
her question on whether Egyptians prefer ᶜāmmiyyat (i.e. EA) or fuṣḥā or
have no preference, she found that 68% of her respondents preferred
Egyptian Arabic to fuṣḥā, 11% preferred fuṣḥā and 10% liked both. These
and other findings are an exact reflection of the state of fuṣḥā in Egypt. It is
not considered as a mother tongue but a variety that is reserved for
religious and official discourses. Haeri’s (1997) work explains that the
Standard Arabic carries more prestige due to religious-cultural and
political reasons, but not for its socio-economic function.
In a study of Palestinian students’ attitude towards Modern Standard
Arabic and Palestinian city Arabic, Assaf (2001) investigated 22
Palestinian students at San Francisco State University in a 32-item
questionnaire. His “findings indicate that generally, MSA is deemed more
appropriate for formal settings” and that is used by the highly educated
group in society. Besides, he concluded that the highly educated use “MSA
at a higher rate than the less educated” (Assaf, 2001). In the same vain,
there is a tendency by even the less educated to use MSA in formal
settings. However, Assaf’s study cannot be generalized to include
situations in all Arabic speaking countries. First, his study was done in a
non- Arabic speaking environment. It is likely that the use of fuṣḥā is a
unifying code among the Arabs in the diaspora and that may have affected
their attitude towards it. Besides, the education variable he used (i.e. the
high and the less educated) is relative. The high educated variable in the
study refers to those who hold a bachelor’s degree or higher and the less
educated are “those who have completed high school and are pursuing
undergraduate” course (Assaf, 2001). While education is an important
variable in a study of this nature, other variables like identity and religion
are equally important for consideration.
Another study with non-Palestinian Arabs in the diaspora (like the
Egyptians for instance) will shed more light on this topic. As other studies
above have shown, Assaf (2001) also concluded that the choice of variety

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also depends on a particular situation. However, he concluded that both

fuṣḥā and the Palestinian Colloquial Arabic (PCA) are vital in the
Palestinian society, and that the increase or decrease of the vitality of
either of the two does not happen at the expense of the other.
Dakwar (2005) also studied the attitude of 30 randomly selected
children towards MSA. They are monolingual Arabic-speaking native
Palestinians in Israel who have been introduced to the “fuṣḥā in their first
three years of schooling” (Dakwar, 2005). He used a semi-structured
interview process to elicit data. 57 percent of children indicated they would
like to learn fuṣḥā and that they enjoy learning it. When asked why fuṣḥā is
important, 50 percent said for learning reasons while 27 percent
mentioned communication reasons. Interestingly, when asked “Which
language is more important to learn, Arabic, Hebrew or English?”
(Dakwar, 2005) 53 percent mentioned English while 30 percent
mentioned Arabic. The rest of the population mentioned Hebrew. About
63 percent of them said it is easy to learn fuṣḥā, while 37 percent said it is
not. While the study is on children and perhaps may not provide an
accurate approximation of the fuṣḥā situation, nevertheless it is still vital
because the attitude of children reflects that of the adult. The study makes
some important revelations. Generally, the children’s attitude toward
fuṣḥā could be said to be positive.
Studies on attitude towards Arabic varieties have mostly looked at the
varieties spoken by the Arabs other than the fuṣḥā. The present study will
focus on the attitude of Egyptian university students towards the fuṣḥā
Arabic, which is purported to be the official variety in all the Arabic-
speaking countries. The study intends to answer the following questions:
1. What is the Egyptian students’ attitude towards the fuṣḥā Arabic?
2. To what extent do Egyptian students consider the fuṣḥā as an
important variety?

Material and Methods

A closed format questionnaire that consists of 12 attitude statements,
using the Likert-type scale, was designed and administered to investigate
students’ attitude towards the subject-matter. The choice of questionnaire
among other research instruments is informed by its adaptability. As
Dörnyei (2010) notes, they can be used for different people and at varying
situations. An open-ended question was included in the questionnaire.

Participants
Egyptian university students were the target of the present study. A
convenience sample of fifty students was randomly selected to participate
in the study. They comprise 25 students each from the American
University in Cairo (AUC) and Ain Shams University (ASU). The two
Universities are located in the New Cairo and Cairo city of the Cairo
Governorate respectively. The study was not limited to any particular type
of students because it sought to get information from students of different

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disciplines, including the Sciences and the Humanities. The two

Universities provide a broad spectrum of categories of Egyptian university
students that will enrich the study. While AUC represent an affluent and
an upper class private university, ASU constitute a public institution where
most Egyptians attain their university education. These two institutions
not only represent the Egyptian population, but they also provide rich
information from students of diverse economic and social background.

Instrument and Administration

A five-point Likert type scale questionnaire was used to collect data on the
study. The questionnaire has two main parts. The first solicits
demographic information about students, such as gender, level of student,
and their majors. The second part features twelve questions designed to
find out the cognitive, affective and behavioural domains of attitude. These
three characteristics of attitude according to Wenden (1991) are evaluative.
The cognitive components (questions 2, 3,8,10 and 13) of the
questionnaire investigate students’ beliefs and opinions about fuṣḥā. The
affective domain (questions 1, 6, 7 and 11) looks at their feelings, likes or
dislikes while the behavioural aspect (questions 4, 5, 9 and 12) explores
their intention and/or action towards fuṣḥā. It is important to mention
that the questionnaire was designed in both English and Arabic and each
student was asked to choose the one s/he is comfortable working with.

Data Analysis
The data was analysed descriptively using the Statistical Package for Social
Sciences (SPSS). The open-ended question was analysed by annotating the
main themes and drawing conclusions out of them. Students’ responses
were categorized under the three main attitudinal variables of cognition,
attitude and behaviour. The analysis of the cognitive questions of the
questionnaire provides answer to the first research question: What is the
Egyptian students’ attitude towards the fuṣḥā Arabic? On the other hand,
questionnaire items that interrogated the affective and the behavioural
attitude of students answer research question two: to what extent do
Egyptian students consider the fuṣḥā as an important variety? As
mentioned above, the cognitive questions investigate beliefs and opinions
while affective and behavioural questions examine feeling, likes,
intentions, etc.

Results
The results of the data analysis are presented below, according to the three
attitudinal domains, namely; the cognitive, affective and behavioural
components, as noted earlier. This is preceded by a brief biographical data
about the participants in the study.

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Biographical Data
Fifty university students participated in the study, mainly from the
Sciences and Engineering, the Humanities and the Social Sciences, and
Business/Accounting. Students studying Arabic language were excluded
from the study to forestall possible biases. It is feared that their status as
language students may affect their responses. Table 1 below provides the
categorization of the students who participated in the study and their
programmes.

Table 1. Distribution of Gender and Programmes

Institution Gender Programme
Male Female Sciences/ Huma- Accounting/ Total
Engi- nities and Business
neering Social
Sciences
The 12 13 10 6 8 24
American 24% 26% 41.7% 25.0% 33.3% 100.0%
University in
Cairo
Ain Shams 11 14 0 20 5 25
University 22% 28% 0.0% 80.0% 20.0% 100.0%
23 27 10 26 13 49
Total 46% 54% 20.4% 53.1% 26.5% 100.0%

In both institutions, the number of females who participated is higher

than the males. 46% of males participated as against 54% of females. All
students (41.7%) in the sciences and engineering are from AUC while 80%
of students in the humanities and the social sciences are from ASU. More
than half of the students, i.e., 53.1%, who participated are from the
humanities and the social sciences. The pie chart below gives a pictorial
representation of the gender and programmes offered by participants.
Figure 1. Pictorial representation of gender and programmes of particpants

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Cognitive Domain
Items number 2, 3, 8 and 10 in the questionnaire were designed to
investigate students’ cognitive domain of attitude towards fuṣḥā Arabic.
Students’ responses to those items are presented in tables 2(A) and 2(B)
below. In order to simplify the interpretation of this and subsequent
results, both Disagree and Strongly Disagree will be considered as one
item, i.e. Disagree. Agree and Strongly Agree will also be considered as
Agree.

Table 2 (A). Responses of students on items about cognitive domain of attitude

Q2. Fuṣḥā is more important to me than Q3. It is easy to learn fuṣḥā
ᶜāmmiyyat
Frequency % Frequency %
Strongly
Strongly Disagree 2 4.0 7 14.0
Disagree
Disagree 18 36.0 Disagree 19 38.0
Don't Know 4 8.0 Don’t Know 4 8.0
Agree 18 36.0 Agree 18 36.0
Strongly Agree 8 16.0 Strongly Agree 2 4.0
Total 50 100.0 Total 50 100.0

Table 2 (A) above shows that 52% of students agree that fuṣḥā is more
important to them than ᶜāmmiyyat while 40% disagree. Interestingly, the
same proportion was realized on whether fuṣḥā is easy to learn or not.
While 52% said it is not easy to learn it, 40% said it is easy. Table 2 (B)
below also shows that 66% agreed that fuṣḥā allows them to integrate with
other Arab nationals and only 22% representing 11 students disagree. More
than half of the students (54%) prefer fuṣḥā to be used in all official
engagements. A sizable number (36%) though, disagree with this position.
For all the four items that represent the cognitive domain of attitude, the
mean percentage for those who disagree is 37.5%. On the other hand, the
mean for students who said they agree is 53%.
Table 2 (B). Responses of students on items about cognitive domain of attitude
Q8. Studying fuṣḥā can be important for Q10. I prefer fuṣḥā to be used in all
me because it will allow me to converse official engagements
with other Arabs freely
Frequency % Frequency %
Strongly
Strongly Disagree 1 2.0 5 10.0
Disagree
Disagree 10 20.0 Disagree 13 26.0
Don't Know 5 10.0 Don't Know 5 10.0
Agree 23 46.0 Agree 20 40.0
Strongly
Strongly Agree 10 20.0 7 14.0
Agree
Total 49 98.0 Total 50 100.0
Missing 1 2.0
Total 50 100.0

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Affective Domain
The Affective domain as discussed earlier looks at students’ feelings, likes,
dislikes etc. Items 1, 6, 7 and 11 in the questionnaire were used to measure
this domain. The response to these items is shown in tables 3(A) and 3(B)
below.
On whether participants enjoy speaking fuṣḥā or not, there was a split
among students. 38% 0f participants said they do while another 38% said
they do not enjoy it. A quite substantial number of students (24%) were
undecided. Ironically, 70% of participants said they enjoy meeting and
listening to people who speak fuṣḥā. This is interesting because there
should have been a positive correlation between the two items. A higher
figure should have said they enjoy speaking fuṣḥā as well or vice versa.
Perhaps, this is one of the shortcomings of attitudinal measurements or
rather a reflection of students’ integrative attitude towards fuṣḥā and an
affiliation to the general Arab speaking world. 26% said they do not enjoy
meeting and listening to people who speak fuṣḥā.

Table 3 (A). Responses of students to the affective domain of attitude

Q1. I enjoy speaking fuṣḥā Q6. I enjoy meeting and
listening to people who speak
fuṣḥā
Freq. % Cumul. % Freq. % Cumul. %
Strongly 4 8.0 8.0 3 6.0 6.0
Disagree
Disagree 15 30.0 38.0 10 20.0 26.0
Don't Know 12 24.0 62.0 2 4.0 30.0
Agree 14 28.0 90.0 24 48.0 78.0
Strongly 5 10.0 100.0 11 22.0 100.0
Agree
Total 50 100.0 50 100.0

As a reflection of participants’ likeness or not of the fuṣḥā, 64% said

they would spend their time studying other things rather than the fuṣḥā
and another 58% said they do not enjoy TV programmes that are aired in
fuṣḥā. An appreciable figure, 34% said they enjoy TV programmes in fuṣḥā.
24% percent were undecided as to whether they will spend their time in
studying other things rather fuṣḥā.

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Table 3 (B). Responses of students to the affective domain of attitude

Q7. I would rather spend my time studying things Q11.I enjoy watching TV
other than fuṣḥā programmes (like talk
shows, soap operas, etc.) in
fuṣḥā
Freq. % Cumul. % Freq. % Cumul. %
Strongly 4 8.0 8.0 11 22.0 22.0
Disagree
Disagree 2 4.0 12.0 18 36.0 58.0
Don't Know 12 24.0 36.0 4 8.0 66.0
Agree 20 40.0 76.0 16 32.0 98.0
Strongly 12 24.0 100.0 1 2.0 100.0
Agree
Total 50 100.0 50 100.0

Behavioural Domain
The behavioural domain here measures students’ intent and action
towards the fuṣḥā. Items 4, 5, 9 and 12 on the questionnaire were designed
to measure that domain. For this analysis however, item 12 has been
omitted because of the fear of misinterpreting the word “disparage” as in
“When I hear non-native Arabs speak fuṣḥā, I often disparage them”. Most
AUC students asked for the meaning of disparage and the fear is that
students may have provided feedback that is not the intent of the item.
Table 4 below shows that 78% of students have a positive intent toward
fuṣḥā and said they wish they could speak it perfectly. Only 16%,
representing 8 students disagreed. On whether they wish no newspaper
uses ᶜāmmiyyat, 40% agreed that newspapers should not use ᶜāmmiyyat
and another 44% said they disagree but that newspapers could continue
using it. Understandably, about half of the students, i.e. 42%, disagreed
that they would speak fuṣḥā outside the university if they had the
opportunity to do so. Another 34% agreed that they will use fuṣḥā outside
of the university if they had the opportunity. It is interesting to note that
about a quarter of the participants, 24% were undecided. A cross
tabulation of students’ responses to the behavioural domain is in table 14
below.

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Table 4. Responses of students to the behavioural domain of attitude

Q4. I wish I could Q5. I often wish no Q9. If I had the
speak fuṣḥā perfectly newspaper or opportunity to speak
magazine uses fuṣḥā outside of the
ᶜāmmiyyat university I would do
that most of the time
Freq. % Cumul. Freq. % Cumul. Freq. % Cumul.
Strongly 1 2.0 2.0 8 16.0 16.0 6 12.0 12.0
Disagree
Disagree 7 14.0 16.0 14 28.0 44.0 15 30.0 42.0
Don’t 3 6.0 22.0 8 16.0 60.0 12 24.0 66.0
Know
Agree 23 46.0 68.0 16 32.0 92.0 13 26.0 92.0
Strongly 16 32.0 100.0 4 8.0 100.0 4 8.0 100.0
Agree
Total 50 100 50 100 50 100

Discussion
This section presents a discussion of the result of the investigation. The
findings are discussed in relation to the two research questions that this
study sought to answer.
Research Question 1: What is the Egyptian students’ attitude towards
the fuṣḥā Arabic? - To answer this question, the cognitive components of
the attitude were grouped together, and the responses were calculated
percentage wise. The result reveals that student have a fairly positive
attitude towards fuṣḥā. A little above one-half of the students indicate that
fuṣḥā is more important to them and they would prefer that it is used in all
official engagements. They also mentioned that fuṣḥā helps them to
integrate with other Arab speaking nationals. This result is similar to what
Zughoul and Taminian (1984) revealed about the linguistic attitudes of
Arab university students toward Arabic.
The study, though, found that learning fuṣḥā, according to the
participants, is difficult. What the study could not reveal is what students
perceive to be difficult about studying fuṣḥā. Perhaps this could be as a
result of the linguistic distance, especially at syntactic and morphological
levels between the fuṣḥā and the ᶜāmmiyyat (Haeri, 2000:63). Although
students have a rather positive attitude towards fuṣḥā, their overt use of it,
if any, does not match this disposition.
In terms of gender, male students seem to have shown more favourable
attitude toward fuṣḥā than the female. The role of the gender here is very
important in assessing why there is mismatch “between what individuals
assert to be the language that fits their cultural, political, and religious
ideals and their actual linguistic production” (Eckert, 1999). Gender plays
a vital role in terms of the individual’s choice of a language. In effect, this
explains the mismatch between the actual language production and the
ideal language expected from a particular gender that may fit a cultural or

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religious situation. Another possible explanation is that the fuṣḥā belongs

to the public domain were men are more vibrant. Women on the other
hand are expected to exhibit ‘linguistic conservatism’ and practice their
activities in the private domain where the ‘aamiyya belongs to. However,
Labov (1982) explained that this is in contrast with Western speech
communities were women have been found to use standard forms more
often than men do.
The supposed difficulty in fuṣḥā is often as the result of contempt for
fuṣḥā Arabic that is shared by some local Arab intellectuals. As a solution
to the seeming perception of difficulty students have about studying fuṣḥā,
albeit their positive attitude towards it, some scholars have suggested a
triangulated approach toward solving the problem.
Research question 2: To what extent do Egyptian students consider the
fuṣḥā as an important variety? - Both the affective and behavioural
domains were used to answer this question. Items in the affective domain
provided a mixed result. A little over one-third of students said they enjoy
speaking fuṣḥā with the same number of students saying they do not enjoy
speaking it. It should have followed that a relative number of students
would enjoy (or not) speaking and listening to people who speak fuṣḥā.
However, that was not the case since about two-thirds of students agree
that they enjoy listening to those who speak fuṣḥā. The explanation may be
because of the affection students would like to exhibit with other Arab
nationals. This does not necessarily manifest in their daily activities. This
attitude could be described as a positive integrative attitude, which
according to Gardner and Gliksman (1982) represents participants
willingness to relate to the other language community, which in this case,
is the other Arabic speaking countries.
In all, the study reveals that student have negative affective attitude
towards fuṣḥā. They would rather spend their time learning other things
rather than fuṣḥā. Besides, they do not enjoy programmes aired in fuṣḥā.
Obviously, Egyptian students’ affection to the ᶜāmmiyyat outweighs that of
fuṣḥā. The finding supports Abdel-Jawad’s (1986) claim that Egyptian
Arabic is regarded as prestigious among Egyptians.
Behaviourally, students implied that they would like to speak fuṣḥā
perfectly. This was inconsistent with whether they would like to speak
fuṣḥā outside the university when they have the opportunity. Only 34%
agreed to do that as against 78% of students who said they would like to
speak fuṣḥā perfectly. Perhaps, what this apparent inconsistency means is
that speaking fuṣḥā perfectly is restricted to formal situations while
speaking ᶜāmmiyyat is adopted in all informal settings outside the
university. In his study of Palestinian students’ attitudes towards MSA and
Palestinian City Arabic (PCA), Assaf (2001) posited that students deemed
MSA to be appropriate in formal settings and the PCA appropriate for
informal settings. Considering the statistical mean of the affective and the
behavioural domains, that is 3.22 and 3.23 respectively, this investigation
can reveal that students somewhat averagely consider the fuṣḥā as an
important variety of Arabic.
One would have expected students to have more positive attitude
towards the fuṣḥā because of their cultural affinity to it. Besides, written
discourses at the universities are mainly organized around the fuṣḥā. The

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standardized language of higher education, that is fuṣḥā in this case,

‘encourages new senses of community and affinity’ (p.647). If so, the
reason for this lackadaisical attitude students show towards the fuṣḥā,
although not negative, would need further investigation.

Conclusion
Generally, the study revealed that Egyptian students have a slightly
positive attitude towards the fuṣḥā Arabic. On whether fuṣḥā is still an
important variety, the study also reveal that students were unenthusiastic
about the importance of fuṣḥā. Any mention of its importance to them was
mainly related to its religious and cultural history to the Arabs. An analysis
of the open-ended question, on whether fuṣḥā is important and why,
shows that the importance that student attach to fuṣḥā is more or less
because of its relation to the Islamic Scripture, i.e. the language of Quran.
Besides, it acts as a unifying variety among the Arabs.
In the light of the above findings, this study would like to state
generally, that Egyptian students have shown no negative attitude towards
fuṣḥā. For this, it is recommended that language planners and for that
matter the Arab states should adopt a vibrant ‘status planning’ procedure
as suggested by Wardhaugh (2010), were the fuṣḥā is properly recognized
and widely used in official and state institutions and functions. There is no
doubt that the ᶜāmmiyyat would continue to be used in daily activities.
However, the implication of this suggestion is that Arabic shall gain more
prestige and takes its right position in the community of states with the use
of a unified single variety among all the Arabs. This step if taken shall not
only bring about the continuity of the Arab culture, but also maintains its
national integrity as also suggested by Zughoul (1980).
Non-native Arab affiliation to the Arab world even becomes stronger
with the existence of a unified code of communication. This is true because
the use of the fuṣḥā would undeniably make the learning and using of
Arabic effective, in that it is a vehicle for a large body of written Arabic
traditions and culture.

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