Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis: The Case of L1 Interference on EFL Undergraduate Students’ Foreign Language Writing

Ahmad Affandi, Indonesia, ID CLEaR2016-353;        Writing requires more advance use of vocabulary when compare to spoken language (Brown, 2001). When it comes to second or foreign language (L2) writing, EFL learners suffer greater problem because they have to cope with the acquisition of grammar, sentence structure, vocabulary, rhetorical structure and idioms of L2 (Nik et al., 2010). Numerous research have extensively been conducted revealing the influence of L1 in L2/FL productive skills. However, In Indonesia EFL context little has been done to seek the interference of L1 when producing written text in foreign language. Using Contrastive Analysis, the present study endeavors to explore errors committed by Indonesian EFL learners in writing argumentative text. The participants in this research were 76 sophomores majoring English in a private university in Jombang, Indonesia. Qualitative content analysis was employed to analyze argumentative corpus gathered from participants. The findings from the research indicate that several linguistic domains which undergo L1 interference are the misuse of referencing, incorrect word order, the concept of singular and plural, incorrect use of preposition, and the incorrect use of verb tenses.

Key Words: contrastive analysis hypothesis (CAH), first language, foreign language, interference, foreign language writing