The Concept of Class in Objects Classes Theory and Its Role in Teaching Arabic to Non-Native Speakers

وأثره في تعليم العربية لسانا ثانيا:

Abstract

The main purpose of this research is to examine theory "classes of Objects", which has a paramount influence on developing descriptive linguistics, and to shed lighter on the important role of the concept of «Class« in applied linguistics especially language teaching. Although this theory (Classes of Objects) correlates with other structuralist and generative theories in terms of regarding the lexical units forming the simple sentence as the minimal units of studying meaning, it postulates, like Meaning-Text theory, that the scientific description of any given language necessarily requires the exquisite construction of a lexicon that specifies the features of each lexical unit and the classes included in it. Since the theory of Classes of Objects, which has its roots in Lexico- grammar theory, relies on the lexical and syntactico-semantic components in describing and distributing lexical units into distinct classes, those various main classes, and the sub-classes, which are characterized by their categorical features, can be effectively employed not only in making dictionaries but also in teaching languages and developing the learners’ communicative skills.