Words of Inclusiveness in English and Arabic Religious Texts

Abstract

The present study aims at investigating the function of using words of inclusiveness in English and Arabic. Such words are very important in each language because being inclusive in writing or speaking generally is preferable after the feminist wave in (1970s). Besides, using such words enables the speaker or the writer to avoid the use of male-biased language which may be interpreted as excluding females and may cause a sort of misunderstanding. The researchers attempt to shed light on the classification of these words in both languages syntactically, semantically and pragmatically. The selected data are chosen from the Holy Bible and the Glorious Quran because they are considered as the standard languages. The selected texts are analyzed qualitatively in order to understand the nature of these words and to find out the similarities and differences between them in both languages. It is hoped that this study is of great value for writers, translators, teachers at universities and schools and textbook designers