Academic Writing and Chinese Students: Transfer and Developmental Factors

TLDR

Organizational problems in academic writing by second‑language learners are often attributed to negative transfer from the first language, but recent research indicates that developmental factors also play a role, as first‑language composition shows organization develops late and can be influenced by appropriate practices. The study found that Chinese academic writing organization is not markedly different from English, that negative transfer is unlikely to interfere, and that Chinese students’ writing problems stem mainly from a sentence‑level focus in their schooling, highlighting the need to consider native literacy and educational experience in second‑language writing instruction.

Abstract

Organizational problems in academic writing by second language learners are often attributed to interference, or negative transfer, from the first language, but recent research suggests that developmental factors may be relevant. In the case of Chinese, an examination of classical texts and modern works on Chinese composition found no support for claims that the organizational pattern of Chinese writing differs markedly from that of English. Hence, language transfer seems more likely to help than to interfere. In regard to developmental factors, research in first language composition indicates that organization develops late and can be influenced by appropriate composition practices. For the group of Chinese students studied, a comparison of composition practices in Hong Kong and British Columbia indicated that their school experience with English composition was oriented more toward accuracy at the sentence level than toward the development of appropriate discourse organization. A survey of these students also suggested that they saw their current writing problems as sentence-level problems. These findings point to a need for greater awareness of students' native literacy and educational experience as factors influencing the development of academic writing in a second language.