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Anglo–Arab Intercultural Communication 1
Introduction
There are a number of reasons why Anglo–Arab interaction may be judged to merit particular attention in a handbook of intercultural communication. First, there is the size and significance of the communities concerned; there are over 200 million native speakers of Arabic and over 400 million native speakers of English. It should, however, be acknowledged right away that both these communities are extremely diverse, and while commentators are generally conscious that there are differences between, say, American and British cultures, the term Arab is all too frequently used as if it designated a clearly defined and homogeneous group. In fact it covers people of varying backgrounds, originating from an area stretching from Morocco to the Persian Gulf; and although they are usually assumed to be linked via a common language, Arabic, the diglossic situation which holds across the Arab world means that in fact the spoken varieties used across the area are also very diverse, so that, for instance, an Egyptian may have great difficulty in understanding the everyday speech of a Moroccan. The educated elites of the various countries have a shared knowledge of the high variety, standard Arabic, used in writing and identified as the official language of these countries; but this variety is also a source of division, since the large numbers of illiterates in many Arab countries cannot use it at all. ...
