Education
M.A., Teaching Arabic as a Foreign Language, The American University in Cairo, Egypt
B.A., English Language and Literature, Faculty of Al-Alsun (Languages), Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt
CAS Speaker Bureau Topic(s)
Arabic Language; Arabic Sociolinguistics; Teaching Arabic as a Foreign Language
Research Interests
Arabic Sociolinguistic;, language choice; e-Arabic, language and identity; language and ideology; language pedagogy
Regional and Thematic Interests
West Asia/Middle East
Language; Media Studies
Profile
Before coming to CU Boulder, I taught Arabic language and translation at The American University in Cairo, Leiden University in The Netherlands, and The International Language Institute (IH-Cairo). I also have a professional experience in translation, machine translation and publishing. I am currently doing my PhD project with Tilburg University in The Netherlands. I am interested to look at the effects of globalization and superdiversity on cross country communication in the Arab world. More specifically, I want to explore the linguistic and semiotic resources used by Arabs on pan-Arab satellite channels and social media and the indexicality of this usage on identity and ideology in The Arab world.
Publications and Presentations:
- De Ruiter, J. & Attwa, M. (2021). Allah, Allah, Allah: The Role of God in the Arab Version of The Voice. Religions 12:412. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12060412 Presented at MESA Conference, 2021.
- Co-panelist, "Online Games and Activities for Language Learners", hosted by CU ALTEC, Wednesday, July 29, 2020.
- Attwa, M. (2020). Arabizi: A Writing Variety Worth Learning? A Revisit. Taha, Z. (eds.) Revisiting Levels of Contemporary Arabic in Egypt. Essays on Arabic Varieties in Memory of El-Said Badawi. AUC Press. Cairo.
- Attwa, M. (2019). Structuring Arabic inter-dialectal Communication: pan-Arab popularity and media. Presented at: MESA Conference, New Orleans.
- Attwa, M. (2019). On the Way to Understand the Pan-Arab Voice. Miller C. et al (eds.). Studies on Arabic Dialectology and Sociolinguistics: Proceedings of the 12th International Conference of AIDA held in Marseille from 30th May – 2nd June 2017. Aix-en-Provence: Institut de recherches et d’études sur les mondes arabes et musulmans. Collection: Livres de l’IREMAM. https://books.openedition.org/iremam/4449
- - قضية الألفباء: التاريخ والنظام الكتابي والصعوبات وكيفية التغلب عليها في تدريس اللغة العربية كلغة أجنبية
- The Arabic Alphabet: the history, the writing system, and the challenges in teaching Arabic as foreign language and suggestions to overcome them. Presented at: The Joint ATS-BRISMES conference “Mapping Arabic Heritage”, The American University of Sharjah, 14-16 April 2014.
- Muhammed, R., Farrag, M., Elshamly, N., & Abdel-Ghaffar, N. (2011, February).Summary of Arabizi or Romanization: The dilemma of writing Arabic texts. JīlJadīd Conference, Austin, TX. Retrieved from http://www.jil-jadid.org/past-meetings/jil-jadid-2011/
Research Interests:
Sociolinguistics, language choice, e-Arabic, identity and ideology, and language pedagogy.