Impact of English as an International Language upon Arabic In Saudi Arabia

I investigated college students’ views of the status of English and Arabic in Saudi Arabia, and their attitudes towards using English and Arabic as a medium of instruction at the university level. Findings showed that 96% of the participants consider Findings indicated that the students consider English a superior language, being an international language, and the language of science and technology, research, electronic databases and technical terminology.  82% believe that Arabic can be used as a medium of instruction in religion, history, Arabic literature and education, whereas English is more appropriate for teaching medicine, pharmacy, engineering, science, nursing, and computer science. They gave many educational, vocational, technological, social reasons for favoring the English language. The study concluded that Arabic is facing a serious threat by the dominance of English language in all arenas, lack of language planning and linguistic policies that protect, develop and promote the Arabic language, slow Arabicization processes in the Arab world, and dearth of technical material translated and published in Arabic.