Transfer of key language features from L1 English academic persuasive essay to L1 Arabic academic persuasive essays by Arabic EFL learners

Transfer of key language features from L1 English academic persuasive essay to L1 Arabic academic persuasive essays by Arabic EFL learners

Transfer between languages is generally accepted as being predominantly a positive phenomenon. Less is known, however, of the effects of transfer on the quality of writing in English and in Arabic and the reverse transfer in writing from English to Arabic for bilingual higher education students. This study reports a contrastive analysis of Arabic scripts and English scripts on nine features of writing proficiency, of an unrehearsed persuasive essay writing task undertaken by 40 bilingual Arabic L1/English L2 fourth-year undergraduate students aged 20-24. This genre was selected because of its relevance to academic writing skills that the students were seeking to acquire. The marking criteria were adopted from the Australian National Assessment Program - Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) test. The findings of a positive cognitive impact on students’ persuasive writing after receiving English-medium higher education in an Arabic university, were supported by reflective survey responses. A stimulated-recall methodology by interview prompted participants to deconstruct the purpose of specified features of writing. The results were revealed in a detailed analysis of the individual scripts, by additional comparison with monolingual Arabic writers. Positive transfer of key language features from English L2 to Arabic L1 writing was evident for audience, ideas, persuasion, devices, cohesion and paragraphing.