A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF ENGLISH AND ARABIC TENSES.

A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF ENGLISH AND

ARABIC TENSES

A THESIS

As the Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra

KHALIDA FAHMI TANJUNG

Registration Number 2112220009

ENGLISH AND LITERATURE DEPARTMENT

FACULTY OF LANGUAGES AND ARTS

DECLARATION

I have familiarized myself with the University’s policy on Academic

integrity. Except where appropriately acknowledged, this thesis is my own word,

has been expressed in my own words and has not previously been submitted for

assessment.

I understand that this paper may be screened electronically or otherwise

for plagiarism.

Medan, June 2015

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ACKNOWLEDGMENT

Great thanks and praise to the Almighty Allah SWT who has blessed and

given the ability to the write to complete her thesis as the partial fulfillment of the

requirements for degree of Sarjana Sastra at the English Department, Faculty of

Languages and Arts, State University of Medan.

This thesis would not have been possible without the guidance and the

help of several individuals who always contributed and extended their valuable

assistances in the preparation and completion of this thesis. The writer’s special

appreciation goes to:

 Prof. Dr. Syawal Gultom, M.Pd., the Rector of State University of

Medan.

 Dr. Isda Pramuniati, M.Hum., the Dean Faculty of Language and Arts,

State University of Medan.

 Prof. Dr. Hj. Sumarsih, M.Pd., the Head of English and Literature

Department, Dra. Meisuri, MA., the Secretary of English Department,

Nora Ronita, S.Pd., S.S., M.Hum., the Head of English Education

Program and Syamsul Bahri, S.S., M.Hum., the Head of English

Non-Educational Program, Faculty of Languages and Arts, State University of

Medan.

 Dr. Zainuddin, DIP. TEFL, M.Hum, as her Thesis Supervisor.

 Dra. Sri Juriaty Ownie, M.A, Prof. Amrin Saragih, M.A., Ph.D., and

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 Maam Eis Sri Wahyuni, M.Pd., as the Administration Staff of English

Department for helping the writer in preparing all the fulfillment in

conducting this thesis.

 Beloved parents, (Alm) Abdul Fattah Tanjung and Nurmahani

Nasution for the patience, affection, prayer, financial support and taught

the writer many worth things in facing the life. Thanks also given to her

brothers and sister: Iqbal Yazi Tanjung, Ahmad Zaki Assyururi

Tanjung and Intan Komala Sari Tanjung.

 All her beloved friends in English Literature A and B 2011, for their

support, kindness, great love and care to the writer and especially for my

best friends Bunga S R Chan and Martha S M M Simanjuntak for

their support, kindness, great love and care to the writer, also warm

hearted encouragement friendship in finishing this thesis to the writer.

 Beloved 20 “X-Light” and 13 “Taj Queen” alumnus of Darularafah

Raya Islamic Boarding School.

Medan, June 2015

The writer,

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ABSTRACT

Tanjung, Khalida Fahmi, 2112220009. A Contrastive Analysis of English and

Arabic Tenses. A Thesis, English, Department, Faculty of Languages and

Arts, State University of Medan, 2015.

The study deals with the similarities and differences of Tenses in English and Arabic Tenses. The application to the language teaching and learning process. In this study the researcher focuses on the three main tenses of both languages namely simple Present Tense, simple Past Tense, and Future Tense, that is describing the verb systems of both languages based on to each tense. The data that support this study are obtained by applying a documentary technique that selected by reading some references related to the subject matters. The data are analyzed by using the theory of Contrastive Analysis to found out the similarities and differences of tenses in English and Arabic. The findings show some aspects of tenses in English are similar to those in Arabic. The differences are both English and Arabic has different number of pronoun. English consists of seven pronouns while Arabic pronouns are fourteen which influence the verb formation.

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LIST OF TABLES

List of Table ... Pages

Table 2.1 Frequency adverbs of simple present tense in English ... 9

Table 2.2 Examples of Simple Past Tense in Arabic ... 21

Table 2.3 Frequency adverbs of Simple Past Tense in Arabic ... 21

Table 2.4 Examples of Simple Present Tense in Arabic ... 22

Table 2.5 Frequency adverbs of Simple Present Tense ... 23

Table 2.6 Examples of Simple Future Tense ... 25

Table 2.7 Frequency adverbs of Simple Future Tense ... 26

Table 4.8 Pronouns in Arabic ... 33

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CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

A. The Background of the Study

Studying Arabic is compulsary for moslems in order to help grasp the content

of the Qur’an. Studying the Qur’an means studying its language. Hence, Arabic is

not only used as a means of communication among people but also used as the

interaction between human and god which is realized through prayers.

According to James (1980:8) bilingualism refers to the possession of two

languages by an individual or society. Bilingualism is not the study of individual

single languages, nor of language in general, but of the possesion of two

languages. Nowadays some countries use bilingual teaching. The purpose of this

method is to accelerate the quality of education improvement toward students

from various social groups so as to achieve alignment to mastering science and

language. Islamic Boarding School is one of the educational institutions in

Indonesia that implement the bilingual method in learning systems with the aim to

get the alignment quality of education, both at the national and international

scope. In some boarding school, English and Arabic language are used in daily

communication both among students, students and teachers, and among teachers

in one area of boarding school.

Arabic language has given a lot of vocabulary to other languages. The purpose

of learning Arabic language in Islam is to understand the meaning of the Qur’an

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culture written in Arabic. As one of the international language, Arabic definitely

has its own system and characteristics which makes it different from another

language, for instance English. Leech (2004) stated that every language has its

peculiar problems of meaning for the foreign learner. Many people would agree

that in the English language, some of the most troublesome yet fascinating

problems are concentrated in the area of the finite verb phrase, including, in

particular, tense, aspect, mood, and modality Both English and Arabic have some

similarities and differences in the grammatical forms.

Arabic is not complicated as long as it is continuously studied and practiced.

Arabic learners should not hesitate to start speaking it. The problem is how to

improve the quality of the language seeing at the number of speaker who prefer to

speak in English than in Arabic which still considered by most people especially

students as the most difficult language even some students regard Arabic language

into something scary.

Related to this research, Khafaji (1972) studied about “Description and

Contrastive Analysis of Tense and Time in English and Arabic” found that the

foregoing analysis and comparison of tenses in English and Arabic reveal various

important aspects of the tense system of both languages. Two tenses may be

formally similar, yet they are used in the two languages to indicate different

functions. Ihsan (2011) on his research entitled “Perilaku Berbahasa di Pondok

Pesantren Adlaniyah Kabupaten Pasaman Barat” found that some factors that

influenced language behaviour of students in Adlaniyah boarding school were

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the motivation is students desire in choosing English and Arabic language for

communicating. The existence of this language habit is the most powerful factor

why most people especially students prefer to communicate in English than in

Arabic language which has difficulties that clearly found in grammatical forms.

As the student who has studied in Islamic boarding school that implemented the

bilingual method, the researcher assumes that the major factor causing the Arabic

language seems very difficult for students is Arabic has many vocabularies

(mufradat), variative synonyms and antonyms, the complexity of word changing

from noun to verb, singular to plural form, and also the changes of final line

(harakat) in each verb that affect its meaning. As well as many typical terms, it

creates notion that somebody learning Arabic language needs to memorize and

understand all those terms.

The researcher is interested in doing the research by comparing two languages

both English and Arabic through their grammatical forms. Comparing two

languages is interesting to be conducted since it deals with finding out the

similarities and differences along with its functions and types. In this research, the

researcher is going to analyze and discuss the comparison of English and Arabic

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B. The Problem of the Study

The problems of the study were formulated as the follows:

1. What are the similarities of Tenses in English and Arabic language ?

2. What are the differences of Tenses in English and Arabic language ?

3. How are the similarities and differences of two languages applied in

language teaching and learning ?

C. The Objective of the Study

The objective of this study is used to answer the questions or the problems of

the study. It will be useless if an analysis does not have its aim to be

achieved. The objectives of the study are

1. to find out similarities of tenses in English and Arabic language.

2. to find out differences of tenses in English and Arabic language.

3. to elaborate the application of the similarities and differences of both

languages in language teaching and learning.

D. The Scope of the Study

There are sixteen types of tenses in English. The discussions only focuses on

the main tenses of English, namely Present, Past, and Future, compared to

Arabic language in terms of finding out the similarities and differences both

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E. The Significance of the Study

The findings of the study are expected to be useful for:

1. Theoretically

This study is expected to provide benefits theoretically , at least can be

useful as a reference for language teaching and learning.

2. Practically

a. English teachers or lecturers who are interested in the issue of

bilingual teaching the subject matter of English and Arabic.

b. English teachers who teach English in the Islamic Boarding

School that used Arabic language as the main language used

for communication.

c. Students and those who are motivated to get more information

and knowledge about contrastive analysis dealing with both

English and Arabic languages.

d. The researchers who are interested in conducting the similar

study to get further information. This study can be addition and

comparison to the theories related to tenses of English and

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