Journal Screenshot

International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences

Open Access Journal

ISSN: 2222-6990

A Comparative Study between the Middle Eastern and China EFL Learners in Academic Writing

Lai Ke Ying, Soh Or-Kan

http://dx.doi.org/10.6007/IJARBSS/v9-i9/6374

Open access

The purpose of this study is to identify the differences in academic writing among total 20 of the Middle Eastern and China EFL learners respectively at The National University of Malaysia (UKM). Besides, it also helps to determine the writing patterns and perspectives of the Middle Eastern and China EFL learners in academic writing. In addition, this study also investigates the influence of educational level towards Middle Eastern and China EFL learners’ writing patterns in academic writing. The instrument used in this study was a set of questionnaires. Moreover, the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) is used to analyse the collected data. Findings revealed a slight significance results between the writing patterns of the Middle Eastern and China EFL learners in academic writing. In addition, the perspectives of both EFL learners in academic writing have examined. Nevertheless, it was revealed that educational level influences the writing patterns of Middle Eastern EFL learners but not China EFL learners. In conclusion, this study would thus provide a new insight into these two linguistic groups.

Al-Khatib, A. M. (2000). The Arab world: Language and cultural issues. Language, Culture and Curriculum, 13 121-125.
Almehmadi, M. M. (2012). A Contrastive Rhetorical Analysis of Factual Texts in English and Arabic 3: 68–76.
Alsamadani, H. A. (2010). The relationship between Saudi EFL students’ writing competence, L1 writing proficiency, and self-regulation. European Journal of Social Sciences, 16(1), 53-63.
Ariyanti, A. (2017). Foreign Language Anxiety in Academic Writing. Dinamika Ilmu 17(1): 143. doi:10.21093/di.v17i1.815
Bakker, B. F. M. (1985). Sociaal milieu en cultuurdeelname: Een nadere toetsing van Ganzebooms infor- matietheorie [Socio-economic background and cultural participation]. Mens en Maatschappij 60, 162-177.
Bowen, Tim, & Marks, Jonathan. (1994). Inside teaching: options for English language teachers (Vol. Teacher development series). Oxford: Heinemann.
Cai, G. (1993). Beyond “bad writing”; Teaching English composition to Chinese ESL students. Paper presented at the Conference on College Composition and Communication, San Diego, April, 1993.
Casanava, C. P. (2003) Looking ahead to more sociopolitically-oriented case study research in L2 writing scholarship (But should it be called "post-process"?) Journal of Second Language Writing 12, 85-102.
Connor, U. (1996). Cross cultural aspects of second language writing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Crystal, D. (1997). English as a Global language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Denscombe, M. (1998). The Good Research Guide. Buckingham. Open University Press.
Dickins, J. & Waston, J. C. E. (1999). Standard Arabic: An Advanced Course. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Feghali, E. (1997). Arab cultural communication patterns. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 21 (3), 345-378.
Farghal, M., & Shunnaq, A. (1999). Translation with reference to English and Arabic: A practical guide. In D. Al-Hilal (Trans.). Irbid. Jordan.
Ganzeboom, H. (1989). Cultuurdeelname in Nederland. Assen: Van Gorcum
Grabe, W., & Kaplan, R. B. (1989). Writing in a second language: Contrastive rhetoric. In D.M. Johnson & D.H. Roe-n (Eds.), Richness in writing: Empowering ESL students (pp. 263-283). White Plains, NY Longman.
Gu, H. Y. (1992). Drawing the dragon: Chinese rhetoric for ESL teachers. Unpublished master's thesis. St. Cloud State University, St. Cloud, Minnesota.
Hinds, J. (1990). Inductive, deductive, quasi-inductive: Expository writing in Japanese, Korean, Chinese and Thai. In U. Connor & A. Johns (Eds.), Coherence in writing: Research and pedagogical perspectives (pp. 87-110). Alexandria, VA: TESOL
Hoey, M. (2001). Patterns of lexis in text. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Publishers.
Jia, Y. (1997). Intercultural communication. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press
Hyland, K. (2003). Second language writing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kaplan, R. (1966). Cultural thought patterns in intercultural education. Language Learning, 16, 1-20.
Kaplan, R. (1972). The anatomy of rhetoric: prolegomena to a functional theory of rhetoric. Philadelphia: Center for Curriculum Development (Concord, Massachusetts: Heinle and Heinle).
Kaplan, R. (1983). Contrastive rhetorics: Some implications for the writing for the writing process. In A. Freedman, I. Pringle & J. Yalden, (Eds.), Learning to write: First language/second language (pp. 139-161). New York: Longman Group Ltd.
Kaplan, R. (1987). Cultural thought patterns revisited. In R. Kaplan & U. Connor (Eds.), Writing across languages: Analysis of L2 text (pp.9-22). Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley
Kaplan, R. (1988). Contrastive rhetoric and second language learning: Notes toward a theory of contrastive rhetoric. In A. Purves (Ed.), Writing across languages and cultures. Issues in contrastive rhetoric (pp. 275-304). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Kellogg, R. T. & Raulerson, B. A. (2007). Improving the writing skills of college students. Psychonomic Bullet

In-Text Citation: (Ying & Or-Kan, 2019)
To Cite this Article: Ying, L. K., & Or-Kan, S. (2019). A Comparative Study between the Middle Eastern and China EFL Learners in Academic Writing. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 9(9), 811–832.