The Negative Linguistic Effect of English as a Global Language on Arabic with a Particular Reference to Bilingual Public 'Guidence' Signs in Iraq (Basrah)(*)

Abstract

Globalisation has had an enormous impact on our lives and cultures. At the same time, it has great effects on language, which is considered an important tool for enhancing understanding and communication between cultures. Though many languages have benefited from globalization, English is the first among those languages. Its use is an important trend in world communication, which implies various aspects. Such communication leads to acculturation, which is a process of culture learning and behavioural adaptation that takes place when individuals are exposed to a new culture. Consequently, as a part of this process, individuals may undergo changes in language use, personality, identity, and attitude. These changes affect, to some extent, the identity of the country that is exposed to the culture of the other one. So, one of the novel phenomena of globalization in Arab countries today is the desire to inoculate everyday conversations and talks with foreign words, especially English. Such a case is obvious in Arab countries. The people of those countries tend to flavour their talks with many English words on the pretext that it is civilized and prestigious as opposed to their mother language, which is inferior. Most of the names of supermarkets, streets and airports are written in a language called by some linguists (Arablyziya), which is considered the main reason behind the haste towards the West and the blind imitation with the loss of identity, namely that of the original language. This study is devoted to shedding light on some landmarks that contain erroneous bilingual public signs in different regions and /or districts in Iraq (Basrah) and the suggested solutions to overcome errors resulting from Anglicizing Arabic and errors in translation when English and Arabic are used in the same sign and, thus, leads to mistranslating. A sample of such landmarks of bilingual public signs gathered from these regions and districts is introduced in this study.