Dr Manuela Elisa B. Giolfo
Extension: 5253
Telephone: 01392 725253
Lecturer in Arabic
Dr. Manuela E.B. Giolfo studied philosophy (including philosophy of language, linguistics and logic) at the University of Milan (Italy), and Arabic at the University of Turin (Italy) and at the Institut Français d'Études Arabes in Damascus (Syria).
After specialising in Classical and Modern Arabic in Italy, and in Syrian colloquial in Damascus, she was awarded an MPhil and a PhD in Arabic linguistics in France at the University of Aix-en-Provence with a dissertation on ’in-Conditional Systems in Classical Arabic. A Study in Syntax and Semantics: A Modal Hypothesis ('Les systèmes hypothétiques en ’in de l’arabe classique, étude syntaxique et sémantique: une hypothèse modale').
In Italy she has taught Arabic language (Classical Arabic, Modern Arabic and Syrian Arabic) and Arabic literature (pre-Islamic, Classical and Modern Arabic poetry) at the Universities of Urbino, Turin, Bergamo and Enna.
Since January 2008 she has been lecturer in Arabic Language and in Arabic Linguistics at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies - University of Exeter, UK – where she has been teaching Arabic language, Arabic literature and Arabic linguistics, and has been in charge of weekly sessions of conversation in colloquial Arabic. She has recently designed two BA modules on Arabic linguistics (ARA2159 A History of the Arabic Language, and ARA3171 History of the Arabic Language II), two BA modules on Quranic Arabic (ARA2144 Reading Quranic Arabic, and ARA3170 Reading Quranic Arabic II), and one MA module ARAM075 on Language, Identity and Ideology in the Arabic Speaking World, which she will be running next academic year.
Her primary research area is Arab and Arabic linguistics, grammatical theory and logic, syntax, semantics, synchronic and diachronic Arabic linguistics, conditionals, negation, Arabic verbal system, Classical Arabic, Quranic Arabic. Her areas of interest cover Arabic dialectology (Syrian dialect), Arabic sociolinguistics, language and cultural identity, diglossia and variability in Arabic, and the Teaching of Arabic as a Foreign Language (TAFL). Her recent publications deal with theoretical aspects of the Arab grammatical tradition and the foundations of Arabic linguistics.
Her last and forthcoming article is on 'yaqum vs qāma in the Conditional Context: A Relativistic Interpretation of the Frontier between the Prefixed and the Suffixed Conjugations of the Arabic Language' and will be published in a volume edited by the University of Cambridge for Brill’s 'Studies on Semitic Languages and Linguistics' Series. She also published a book on Arab traditional music and musical system and one on woman’s role in the Qurʾān and in Muslim society. Both books have been published by Ananke - Torino (Italy).
Language skills
Fluency: Syrian Arabic, Modern Arabic, Italian, English, French
Excellent: Quranic Arabic, Classical Arabic
Working knowledge: Aramaic, Syriac, Latin, German, Spanish
