POSTGRADUATE LEARNERS AND CROSSLINGUISTIC INFLUENCE OF L1 (ARABIC) IN ACQUIRING LINGUISTIC ITEMS OF L2 (ENGLISH)

This paper investigates one of the most common issues namely the crosslinguistic influence of the L1 in learning L2 linguistic items in general, and specifically investigates eight main categories were supposed to be found in the current study. These categories are: using TO referring to L1, dropping the auxiliary To Be, adding auxiliary To Be, misuse of parts of speech, Arabic translation, misuse of prepositions, misuse of definite and indefinite articles, and finally, dropping the third person singular S. A detailed analysis was made of the eight proposed categories in 150 written texts produced by Arab Learners of English ALEs. Quantitative analysis show the crosslinguistic influence of L1 (Arabic) in acquiring the linguistic items of L2 (English) in general and in the eight proposed categories in particular. The findings of the study reveal that the majority of the learners seemed to follow the eight categories proposed in the current study in the acquisition of second language. However, these mistakes/errors could be treated following the Innovated Writing Process IWP presented in Mourssi (2012d, 2013d).