Influence of Native Arabic on English Writing as a Second Language

Abstract

 It has been considered since 1983 that native Arabic speakers who write in English writing as a second language confront impacts of their native language on their goal language. For the aim to offer the most effective English as second language writing instruction, it is important to realize these impacts, and to differentiate between genuinely linguistic mistakes and cultural disparities between native Arabic speakers of English.

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Introduction

With this understanding, English writing as a second language will be better capable to educate Arabic learners how to rectify linguistic mistakes in writing. Moreover, teachers will be capable to assist students preserve components of their culture within the background of grammatical English, other than eradicating cultural aspects completely. Arabic learners of ESL require harmonizing writing in official, Standard English with the requirement to preserve their exclusive Arabic speech and viewpoint in their English writing. This paper will find out the impacts of native Arabic on English writing as a second language, and it is considered that the outcomes will show a requirement for teachers to mentor Arabic ESL students with consideration for the impacts of shift on their writing (Hinkel, 2002).

 

Method

For the aim to investigate the impacts of Arabic on English writing, a short questionnaire based survey, utilizing web based survey techniques to gather both qualitative and quantitative writing samples of questionnaire from students at a local university. This survey was conducted with students in their pre academic ESL plan and students admitted in academic programs. Every Arabic member was a native of Saudi Arabia. Moreover, to the official reactions to the writing measures, a huge number of otherwise anonymous Saudi Arabian learners submitted their writing samples generated in the ESL writing plan, in the basic writing course, and in the freshman-writing program. These samples have been recognized by gender, age, and amount of years researching English to relate the authentic surveys, and they were evaluated with the originally requested writing samples. All reactions were anonymous and voluntary.

Whereas a bigger regulation cluster would have been more appealing, one American (English) learner was comprised in the research. This writing sample from the participants was regarded for contrast and comparison with the Arabic writing samples. These collected writing samples were evaluated based on numerous aspects, including: utilization of conjunctions and the conventions of English writing, utilization of articles, spelling concerns, word order, cultural tendency and the punctuation for Arabic writers to use over exaggeration in their writing (Beaugrande and Shunnaq, 1994).

Participants

The participants in this research were admitted as students at Oakland University, Michigan, Rochester, when they contributed. Every writing sample was offered voluntarily, along with all names of the individuals were omitted or else redacted from the collected writing samples. The English writing participant was recognized as a 25 years old woman, who was a citizen of the US by birth, and for whom English writing was the single language regularly expressed in the home whereas she was brought up.

 

Result and Discussion

 Results

 In spite of the outcomes reported in this survey, which recommends that Arabic expressions utilize an extra number of conjunctions, particularly and, within their English writing techniques, the writing samples in this research recommend the contrary. In an evaluation of Arabic writing samples, the majority of volunteers utilized conjunctions rightly, and prevented extra long sentences that utilized conjunctions to link entire thoughts. Furthermore, the writing samples showed a tendency to eradicate and, particularly before the eventual product in a list. There was one case of the overuse predicted, when participant expressed three highly extensive sentences that were strung as a whole with three examples of and per sentence, and extra conjunctions created by examples of for example, because, which and so, most of which are headed by commas. The biggest of these sentences have 121 expressions, the next biggest one have 120 words, while the shortest has 64 words. The English language participant utilized, eradicated, and rightly in her writing examples.

 

Utilization of articles

Alhosani (2008) expressed that Arabic manages articles diversely than English  language does. Arabic does not have an imprecise article. The exact article al, ال , which is equal to the in English, is nearly uniquely utilized as a prefix for nouns to precisely recognize which specific noun is referred.

In the writing samples, the English regulation left out one precise article, relied on the principles of Standard English, however the majority of English language speakers would regard her utilization grammatically approvable, ‘I love summers’. The Standard English language generation would be ‘ I love the summers. There were no mistakes related to the indefinite articles.

The Arabic learners showed an inclination to eradicate both indefinite and definite articles. For instance, participant expressed ‘ I hope that I can get good marks’, in place of ‘I hope that I get good marks’. In the same manner, another participant expressed, ‘make stable transition’, and in place of ‘make a stable transition’. Few participants utilized the definite article when nothing was needed.

 

Discussion

 Barry (2014), expressed a description in his writing related to the cross-linguistic impact, or shit, as the influence emerging from the differences and similarities between the target language as well as any other language that has been acquired previously. This research elaborates the impacts of transfer on the English writings of Arabic university learners, and expressed that transfer is apparent in the writing examples offered by this segment. Realizing how and when shift happens is crucial for educators, since merely when educators realize the impacts to shift can they sufficiently and suitably highlight the confrontations of shift in planning instruction for their learners. When teachers realize why students of English writing course as a second language habitually misuse or forget punctuations, or do not capitalize sentence first words or proper nouns, or confuse or reverse  adjective-noun, subject-verb and object order of word, then the teachers are capable to program teaching policies that assist the students to know about the mistakes, and learn tools to rectify the mistakes in their English writing skills.

In most examples, the writing samples gathered in the questionnaire based survey reinforce the previous study reported in the majority of the literature, however in a less explained manner than predicted from the literature. Also, from a year of constant communication with the writings of Arabic ESL learners. Amusingly, few of the predicted mistakes were more occurring with writers who had researched English for more than five years as compared to the students who had learnt English for less than one year. Further research will be needed to make a precise statement regarding the causes for this disparity. However it seems likely that learners who are merely starting the English language study may be more cautious and prescribed in the English writing skills, whereas students having experience and a bit of proficiency might be more concentrated on statements than on development, facilitating them to lapse to writing approaches that are common to their first language.

Arabic language does not require conjunctions and punctuations in the same manner as does English language. Beaugrande and Shunnaq (1994) expressed that expressions in Arabic language may have no punctuations at all. On the other hand, in English, the use of punctuation, specifically the period and the comma, offers a precise and important grammatical operation, however this grammatical operation does not persist in Arabic. Sentence for is more crucial in Arabic language, having the suffix of a term expressing gender and number. As a consequence, it is not amusing that native Arabic ESL learners have a bit of difficulty with the right utilization of punctuation when shifting their writing skills to English.

 

Conclusion

The transition impacts of native Arabic on English writing as a second language include particular and probable mistakes in the utilization of conjunctions, articles, capitalization, and punctuation as the most complex ideologies. Whilst other features of English writing, like the word order, exaggeration and prepositions have been  identified as regions of consideration in the past, these did not seem as huge instances of cross-linguistic shift in this research. Arabic ESL students require guidance that emphasizes particularly on the Standard English conventions related with punctuations, capitalizations, articles and conjunctions. This leader population normally shoes strong, narrative, and descriptive writing skills, which is mostly impacted by the poetic and interesting narrative convention of the Arabic Peninsula; however, it has complexity stating these ideas due to their efforts with syntactic aspects that do not interpret precisely from Arabic to English. Teachers require motivating these learners to sustain the viewpoint and flavor of their culture when expressing in English writing, whilst also mentoring the native Arabic ESL learners to express their skills within the tradition of Standard English Writing.

 

References

Alhosani, N. (2008). Utilizing the Writing Process Approach with English as a Second Language. Pro Quest.

Barry, D. (2014). The Impact of Native Arabic on English Writing As a Second Language. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.

Beaugrande, R. and Shunnaq, A. (1994). Language, Discourse, and Translation in the West and Middle East. John Benjamins Publishing.

Hinkel, E. (2002). Second Language Writers’ Text: Linguistic and Rhetorical Features. Routledge.