INVESTIGATING KURDISH EFL UNIVERSITY STUDENTS’ AWARENESS AND PRODUCTION IN USING ENGLISH GENERIC REFERENCE IN WRITING

Abstract

This article aims to discover: (1) if Kurdish EFL students are aware of English generic referential items (2) whether Kurdish EFL students are able to differentiate between English generic and specific references, (3) whether Kurdish EFL students comprehend the correct semantic interpretations of English generic reference (4) and to discover possible students’ errors in using English generic reference in writing and attribute the errors to their sources. The study draws on the assumption that Kurdish EFL students' overuse of generic reference in writing could be a contributing factor in several error sources. Therefore, a quantitative test served eighty Kurdish EFLs as the means of data collection at four distinct colleges in the Kurdistan Region for the academic year 2021–2022. The statistical analysis of the data revealed that, about half of the Kurdish EFL test takers misapplied generic reference in their writings in the areas of syntax, semantics and discourse. The reasons could be negative interlingual and intralingual transfers, lack of students’ grammatical proficiency and the learning context.