Mahmoud Azaz
About Mahmoud Azaz
Mahmoud is a Tenure-Track Advanced Assistant Professor of Arabic Language, Linguistics, and Pedagogy in the School of Middle Eastern and North African Studies. Also, he is the University of Arizona Distinguished Fellow (Center for University Education Scholarship) and an affiliate at the Doctorate Interdisciplinary Program in Second Language Acquisition and Teaching and holds a courtesy appointment at the Department of Linguistics. Recenlty, he has been elected as the Arabic Sector Head by the American Association of University Supervisors, Coordinators, and Directors of Language Programs.
Mahmoud holds a Ph.D. with Distinction in Second Language Acquisition and Teaching from the University of Arizona. He taught Arabic at the University of Arizona and California State University in Chico, and linguistics at Ain Shams University in Cairo. His research interests include linguistic approaches to Arabic second language acquisition, Arabic pedagogy and program adminstration, and Arabic sociolinguistics. Articles by Dr. Azaz were published in journals such as the Modern Language Journal (MLJ, Wiley), Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism (LAB, John Benjamins), System (Elsevier), Second Language Research (SLR, sage), the International Journal of Applied Linguistics (IJAL, Wiley), the Foreign Language Annals (FLAN, Wiley), Al-ʿArabiyya (Georgetown University Press), and Journal of the National Council of Less Commonly Taught Languages (NCOLCTL).
Mahmoud was awarded the 2017 SBS Dean's Award for Excellence in Lower Division Teaching and the Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award by the University of Arizona; the Top Research Proposal Award by the Second Language Research Forum (SLRF); and Distinguished Lecturer Award in Linguistics from Ain Shams University in Egypt. Mahmoud is also a professional bidirectional translator (Arabic-English); he translated Anthony Gorman's Historians, State, and Politics in Twentieth Century Egypt (Routledge) into Arabic and he is currently translating into Arabic Yasir Suleiman's The Arabic Language and National Identity. Dr. Azaz gave a number of conference presentations in the Middle East Studies Association (MESA), the American Association of Applied Linguistics (AAAL), the Second Language Acquisition Forum (SLRF), and Arabic Linguistics Society (ALS). Mahmoud was pleased to receive multiple research grants from the University of Arizona that support his current research program in Arabic SLA and sociolinguistics. These include the Faculty Seed Grant (Office for Research & Discovery); the Confluence Grant (Confluencenter for Creative Inquiry); and Research Professorship Grant (Social and Behavioral Sciences Research Institute); and most recently Distinguished Fellowship (Center for University Education Scholarship).
Research Monograph
Instructed Second Language Acquisition of Agreement Asymmetries in Arabic (in progress)
Azaz, M. (2019). Structural surface overlap and derivational complexity in crosslinguistic transfer: Acquisition of English genitive alternation by Egyptian Arabic-speaking learners. Forthcoming in Second Language Research (SLR, Sage Journals). Early view URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0267658319834860
Blair, R. & Azaz, M. (2019). Self-guide distinctions and episodic memory in L2 motivation: The case of Arabic in the United States. System (Elsevier), 81,192-205. URL: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0346251X18303853
Azaz, M. (2019). L1 Transfer Effects in the Production of Generic Plurals in L2 Arabic.The Modern Language Journal (MLJ, Wiley), 103 (1), 275-290. URL: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/modl.12542
Azaz, M. (2018). The Link Between Morpho-Syntactic Accuracy and Textbook Presentation: The Morpho-Syntax of Subject-Verb Agreement in Arabic. Foreign Language Annals (Wiley), 51(4), 831-851. DOI:10.1111/flan.12367. URL: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/flan.12367
Azaz, M. (2017). Metalinguistic knowledge of salient versus unsalient features: Evidence from the Arabic construct state. Foreign Language Annals, 50(1), 214-236. (Wiley).OI:10.1111/flan.12248. URL: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/flan.12248/abstract
Azaz, M., & Frank, J., (2017). Bidirectional cross-linguistic influence in late bilingualism: Evidence from the container-content relation. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism 8(4), 411-445 (John Benjamins) DOI: 10.1075/lab.15012.aza. URL: https://www.jbe-platform.com/content/journals/10.1075/lab.15012.aza
Azaz, M., & Frank, J., (2017). The role of perceptual salience in the L2 acquisition sequence of the Arabic construct state. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 27(3), 621-635 (Wiley & Sons) DOI:10.1111/ijal.12165 URL: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ijal.12165/abstract
Azaz, M. (2016). Crosslinguistic effects in L2 acquisition: The case of Arabic determiner phrase. Al-ʿArabiyya: Journal of the American Association of Teachers of Arabic, 49,1-24. URL: https://muse.jhu.edu/article/637810/summary
Azaz, M. (2016). Integrating the genre-based approach into teaching writing in Arabic as a foreign language. Journal of the National Council of Less Commonly Taught Languages, 19, 31-60. URL: http://www.ncolctl.org/files/jncolctl-vol-19/Integrating-the-Genre-Based-Approach.pdf
Azaz, M. (2014). Transition from Coptic to Arabic in early Muslim Egypt: Resolving a sociolinguistic puzzle. Zaytoon, 6, 4-19. URL: https://menas.arizona.edu/sites/menas.arizona.edu/files/Zaytoon%20journal%2713_0.pdf
Assistant Professor of Arabic Language, Linguistics, & Pedagogy; Second Language Acquisition & Teaching; and University of Arizona Distinguished Fellow
Email: mazaz@email.arizona.edu
Office: Marshall 448
Office Hours: Monday & Thursday 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM and by appointment
Degree(s)
Ph.D. with Distinction in Second Language Acquisition and Teaching (Interdisciplinary Ph.D. Program in Second Language Acquisition and Teaching, University of Arizona)
M.A. in Second Language Acquisition and Teaching (Interdisciplinary Ph.D. Program in Second Language Acquisition and Teaching, University of Arizona)
M.A. with Distinction in Applied Linguistics (Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt)
Bachelor of Arts with Distinction in English Linguistics and Literature (Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt)
Bachelor of Arts with Distinction in Education (Cairo University in Fayoum, Egypt)
Active Courses
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