Linguistic Diversity in Oman: Analyzing the Influence of Gender and Local Omani Languages on Arabic Writing Proficiency Among Omani Students

Abstract

The Sultanate of Oman presents a unique case, given its rich linguistic community, primarily composed of several local languages distinct from Arabic, which people acquire first. However, limited studies have explored the effect of local Omani languages and gender on linguistic errors in writing in Arabic as a second language by Omani undergraduate students at one of the public universities in the Sultanate of Oman. Therefore, this study aims to analyze linguistic errors in writing in Arabic as a second language by Omani undergraduates. A qualitative research design was employed in analyzing the writings of 20 students: 10 male and 10 female students. Two taxonomies were utilized to comprehensively describe all grammatical errors and their types. The findings revealed gender similarities in terms of committing most of the errors in the three top categories: spelling, linguistic structures, and syntax. However, the variations in error types highlight gender differences in linguistic errors, with male students primarily making addition errors, whereas female students primarily make deletion errors. Furthermore, it was found that writing in Arabic as a second language can be influenced by certain local Omani languages. In other words, students whose L1 is similar to Arabic made fewer mistakes compared to those whose L1 differs from Arabic, thus implying the positive transfer of L1. These results suggest the significance of gender and local languages in acquiring and learning a second language, which could be employed pedagogically in varied contexts.