Abstract: The Arabic academic discourse is a complex organism associated with the linguistic, national, cultural and religious characteristics of the inhabitants of the Middle East. The article is interdisciplinary in nature and can be considered from the point of view of sociolinguistics, comparative linguistics and psycholinguistics. The subject of the study is the social and cultural features of the Arabic academic discourse. The object of research is academic discourse implemented in Arabic. The purpose of this article is to identify the key features of the Arab academic discourse and the degree of influence of globalization on it. The methodological basis of the study was the results of a survey of Arabic–speaking native students studying at the bachelor's and master's degrees in the Levant countries. The novelty of the research lies in the fact that the Arabic academic discourse in the Russian and international linguistic tradition is insufficiently studied, which entails communicative failures between communicants within the framework of Arabic academic discourse and global, international academic discourse. As a result of the study, the authors come to the conclusion that the Arabic academic discourse is a synthesis of traditional, national and religious foundations of the Arabic-speaking society; the teacher in the Arabic academic discourse takes an authoritarian position towards students. The research materials can be used in universities of the humanities in the study of special courses on intercultural communication, discoursology and a practical course of the Arabic language.