4 Second Language Writing and Culture: Challenges from the Perspective of Learners of Academic Writing in English

My experience with English writing began in my earliest years of school, since every elementary school student in Shanghai was required to learn this international language. In China, English teachers were required to teach their students basic skills in English, based on their own understanding of English. Therefore, I was initially taught to write essays that looked like declarative essays (because Chinese essays are often declarative). The essays I wrote lacked emotional expressiveness and read something like this: “I woke up this morning, then I ate breakfast, then I took the bus to school, learning was fun, and finally I came home from school, and the day was full.” However, when I grew older, I moved to Canada to begin a new chapter in my English learning and to embrace challenges to my old English learning habits.

A Whole New Challenge in English Writing: Breakthroughs in English Language Learning

The process of learning English is challenging, especially when we have become accustomed to another very different way of expressing ourselves in the language. I came to Canada from China as a distinguished English student from my school. To my surprise, the first English writing assignment I submitted was commented on by my teacher for vague expressions and poor wording. One of the things that my English teacher, Mr. V., said that benefited me greatly was, “Jacky, you need to think like a native English speaker!” I wondered what this meant. Over time, I realized that I could change certain language-learning habits I had acquired. For instance, when I saw a new English word that I didn’t know, instead of picking up my phone and using a translation app to translate it into Chinese, I tried asking my teacher to explain the word in simple English. This way, I felt, I finally really understood the true usage of the word like a native speaker.

The Challenge of Moving to the Next Level of English Writing

After living in Canada for a few years, I find that writing in English has become a regular part of my life. I am comfortable writing in a variety of genres: from minor things like bank documents and appointment forms, to major things like corresponding with immigration authorities, writing appreciation letters to instructors, and composing academic papers. When my writing is read by native English speakers, they know I am from China even though they don’t know my name and have never met me. After reading some articles, I found that people of different language backgrounds have some unique or at least distinctive habits in English writing. For example, English writers from China like to put the time element of an event at the beginning of a sentence and prefer to preface the central idea with other relevant information rather than cut to the chase (Brittman, 2007). I’ve had teachers point out that using more than five “becauses” in a paragraph is unlike how native writers typically convey cause and effect, especially when writing research papers. Such “awkward” features of style, they note, can make peers feel that my writing is unprofessional when they review my work.

Another common feature of learners moving to their next level in English writing is the cultural and linguistic melding of some first language features with those of the second language. This involves an intentional combining of English discursive culture and the discursive culture of the learner’s country rather than a simple translation from/into the native language; this blending often results in novel and interesting coinages and sentences (Rass, 2011; Shukri, 2014; Zhang & Zhan, 2020). In my case, I often like to start my academic paragraphs with “on the one hand… on the other hand,” but often my two clauses or sentences are actually expressing the same meaning. In some cases, “on the one hand … On the other hand” should be used to express two different qualities of a thing (whether good or bad), but since I’m a native Chinese speaker, I would apply this usage as a more logical expression (more of an emphasis, not to point out two sides of a thing).

Conclusion

Despite my long journey in English studies and my higher education from a native English-speaking country, I have always intentionally retained some elements of being a Chinese writer in my English writing. For example, in the previous sentence, I did not put “English writing” at the beginning of the sentence but rather introduced my background. I believe that the purpose of English as a language is to communicate efficiently and expressively, and as long as our language can be understood by people who also speak the language, then the purpose of learning the language has been achieved. Indeed, retaining those Chinese stylistic features in English writing that do not interfere with reading comprehension is also a way of enriching a language and making it alive to globalization.

References

Brittman, F. (2007). The most common habits from more than 200 English papers written by graduate Chinese engineering students. Department of Computer Science and Engineering, The Chinese University of Hong Kong. https://www.cse.cuhk.edu.hk/~cslui/english_writing1.pdf

Rass, R. A. (2011). Cultural transfer as an obstacle for writing well in English: The case of Arabic speakers writing in English. English Language Teaching, 4(2), 206–212. https://doi.org/10.5539/elt.v4n2p206

Shukri, N. A. (2014). Second language writing and culture: Issues and challenges from the Saudi learners’ perspective. Arab World English Journal, 5(3), 190–207. https://www.awej.org/images/AllIssues/Volume5/Volume5number3September/15.pdf

 Zhang, F., & Zhan, J. (2020). Understanding voice in Chinese students’ English writing. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 45. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2020.100844