awej 5 no.4 full issue 2014

AWEJ Volume.5 Number.4, 2014Pp.336-352Exploring the Use of Through-Argumentation and Counter-Argumentation in Arabic-Speaking EFL Learners’ Argumentative EssaysTouria DridDepartment of English LanguageKasdi Merbah University, Ouargla, AlgeriaAbstractThis paper examines the preferred patterns of argument development in argumentative essayswritten by a group of advanced Arabic-speaking learners of English as a foreign language. Tothis end, the text structure of 104 essays written by 52 Master students is analyzed building uponthe model elaborated by Hatim (1990, 1991, 1997). The results show that the student writers,influenced by their native culture’s writing conventions, follow predominantly the pattern ofthrough-argumentation to construct their argument. On the other hand, some of their observedargumentative discourse deviant forms are not explicable in the light of transfer factors. Theimplication of the study is that multiple factors come into play when the discourse conventionsof English argumentative writing are distorted in EFL learners’ texts. We recommend that for theteaching of written argument to be efficient, lecturers adopt instruction in which exposure to theargumentative essay genre is highlighted while activating student writers’ potentials of revisionand self-editing.Key words: Arabic-speaking EFL learners, argument development, argumentative essay, crossculturaldifferences, writing difficultiesArab World English JournalISSN: 2229-9327www.awej.org336