Discourse-yes, grammar-no: Influence of Arabic mother tongue on Arab students writing in Hebrew

Abstract

Learning Hebrew among L1 Arabic speakers in East Jerusalem, Israel, has gained momentum, since being fluent in the language of the majority contributes to socioeconomic mobility and inclusion. One of the main challenges L2 learners face is writing, specifically expository and argumentative composition. Writ-ing products of native speakers of Arabic (L1) in Hebrew (L2) reveal cross-linguistic influences, including language transfer from L1. This L1 interference is strengthened by the strong resemblance of these two Semitic languages, and is manifested in morphology, syntax, vocabulary, semantics, and rhetorical struc-tures. In this study we examine changes in the expository-argumentative writing in Hebrew (L2) of Arabic speak-ing students who participated in an intensive Hebrew learning program. We used qualitative textual anal-ysis based on 48 writing products [24 pre-, 24 post-tests]. Our research questions were: 1. What are the main characteristics of Arabic speaking students' writing in Hebrew? 2. What types of changes are ev-ident in their writing samples after completing two years of Hebrew study?In order to characterize their writing, study participants completed pre- and post-tests. Our findings sug-gest: (a) a strong interference of Arabic on writing in Hebrew in different language fields; (b) a noticeable improvement in some aspects of discourse, but much less in grammar, and in the lexicon, yielding mixed results.