Brazilian Graduate Students’ Perceptions of Their Challenges with Academic Writing in English
Year: 2019
Type: article
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: International publication in prestigious English journals challenges novice EFL researchers, especially graduate students. While these challenges have been extensively studied abroad (Bitchener & Basturkmen, 2006; Huang, 2010; Lavelle & Bushrow, 2007; Pessoa, Miller & Kaufer, 2014; Phakiti & Li, 2011; Smirnova, 2015; Zhang & Mi, 2010), they have not in Brazil. To uncover these difficulties, a questionnaire was designed and applied to 303 graduate students from the largest Brazilian public university. The most frequent challenges were writing in natural-sounding English, using prepositions, and writing unknown genres. Participants also perceived clarity as very important in “good” English writing, yet hard to achieve given their vocabulary or grammatical limitations. These results might be explained by the participants’ affiliation to a traditional view of language and of writing (Zamel, 1976, 1982) and their lack of experience with academic discourse in English, possibly due to their insufficient English literacy trajectories.
Source: DergiPark (Istanbul University)
Language: English
Subfield: Linguistics and Language
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2970185139