Abstract
This paper examines the language choices and the process of academic writing of a group of 35 Portuguese graduate students in the fields of humanities and social sciences with the aim of illustrating their language preferences, as well as the aspects they take into consideration while writing either in Portuguese or in English.Results of this study indicate that the participants prefer to write their papers in Portuguese, their first language, and that they use similar approaches when writing in both languages. However, findings also reveal they are concerned with slightly different process aspects when composing and revising their texts in Portuguese and in English. These differences seem to be associated with acquired discourse traditions in Portuguese language, as well as with the participants’ lower competence in English language writing.
Highlights
Writing is a major competence through the formal education process and it has always been considered the utmost challenge to students at any school level
This paper examines the language choices and the process of academic writing of a group of 35 Portuguese graduate students in the fields of humanities and social sciences with the aim of illustrating their language preferences, as well as the aspects they take into consideration while writing either in Portuguese or in English
The majority (25) of the group of 35 inquired Portuguese graduate students informed that they studied English for 5 years in secondary school, while ten of them stated having studied it for 7 years
Summary
Writing is a major competence through the formal education process and it has always been considered the utmost challenge to students at any school level. In undergraduate and graduate programmes, in which writing constitutes a privileged means for students’ assessment, its challenge is added to by the requirements of specific academic genres that most students have not yet acquired. For all these reasons, writing assumes the highest relevance for students as well as for teachers, throughout the schooling process. As a rule, students do not write them while in the language classrooms More than often these texts are assigned for homework, where supervision may be scarce or, in the best-case scenario, available from parents, siblings or friends
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