Thesis (Th. M.)--Covenant Theological Seminary, 2002. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 154-161).

Thesis (Th. M.)--Covenant Theological Seminary, 2002. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 154-161).

This dissertation investigates the expression of contrastive transitions in the ESL/EFL (English as a Second Language/English as a Foreign Language) writing of university students of Arabic language background. For this purpose, an experimental group of 30 freshmen at Sohar University in Oman whose native language is Arabic served as the experimental group. They did three tasks, two writing activities and a cloze test, ranging from semi controlled (free writing) to the highly controlled cloze test. A control group of 30 Ball State University freshmen in Muncie, Indiana who speak English as a native language performed the same three tasks.For the first task, the subjects wrote about one of 15 possible topics. They then performed the second task, which was writing about a different topic, and were also provided a list of 35 contrastive transitions to use at their discretion. For the third task, the subjects inserted contrastive transitions in the blanks of the doze test, marking the confidence in their choices on scales provided in the margins.This study indicates that the Arabic ESL/EFL students use contrastive transitions when writing contrastively in English. However, the expression of these contrastive transitions is relatively inadequate and limited compared to that of their native-English speaking peers. The Arabic students show a high rate of success in their expression of but as a contrastive transition. However, they show a lower rate of success in their expression of other contrastive transitions. Furthermore, the difference in the levels of confidence in the choices between appropriate and inappropriate contrastive transitions used in a controlled context shows they have little or no idea if their choices are correct or not. / Department of English