TEXT ORGANIZATION AND TRANSFER - THE CASE OF ARAB ESL LEARNERS

The purpose of this study is to determine whether Arab ESL learners tr ansfer Arabic text organization features into their English writing. T he features examined are: (a) loose packaging of information, (b) repe tition and paraphrase, and (c) absence of metalingual organizers. The data consist of thirty English essays by Arabic speakers learning ESL and thirty essays by ESL learners whose mother tongue is not Arabic. T he two groups are comparable with respect to their proficiency in Engl ish. The results indicate little evidence of transfer. The lack of dif ferences between the two groups are accounted for in terms of the infl uence of instruction, the effect of monitoring, and the possibility th at claims about the importance cross-linguistic differences are exagge rated. The study points up the need for more rigorous methodology for proving transfer, and the need for further research in the area of con trastive discourse analysis between English and less studied languages such as Arabic.