The Effects of Arabic on English Writing of Petra University Students

Ahmad Al-Hassan 
(Faculty of Arts and Sciences, English Department, Translation Petra University, Jordan)

Abstract: In this article, I will discuss the interference effects of Arabic (L1) on the English (L2) writing of Jordanian students. This article is based on a sample of 10 essays of a given topic and the results of a placement test consisting of 50 multiple choice items. The errors will be classified, categorized and tabulated according to the levels of grammar. Based on a descriptive research, in this paper the author will elaborate on the controversial issue of L1 interference. A contrastive analysis (CA) of the writing of Jordanian students is done to investigate whether L1 is the only source of grammatical errors or not. The writer’s experience shows that contrastive analysis can be reliable on spoken language, that is, pronunciation and intonation, which are not the theme of this paper.

Key words: interference, error analysis, contrastive analysis