Interlingual Interference and Discourse Challenges in Iraqi EFL Undergraduates' Research Papers: An Error and Cohesion Analysis

Abstract

Abstract

The proposed study will examine linguistic interference and discourse issues in the fourth-year writing of English majors in the College of Basic Education of Mustansiriyah University, Iraq, in the academic year 2024-2025. The study considers 50 research papers, which are undergraduate research projects in various fields such as language, literature, teaching methodology, and translation in order to establish trends of errors and faults in textual cohesion. The importance of the study is related to the fact that it fills a large gap in the pedagogical aspect of the analysis in the Iraqi EFL environments, where students cannot create coherent, linguistically correct, and academic texts. The primary hypothesis presupposes that the linguistic interference of Arabic has a negative influence on grammatical and discourse structure. The research question is as follows: What is the effect of Arabic interference on the textual cohesion and discourse effectiveness of the Arabic EFL students on writing their academic papers? Based on a mixed-method study (quantitative frequency analysis and qualitative discourse analysis), the study outcomes indicate that the most prevalent types of errors include grammatical and lexical, followed by the use of cohesive devices and paragraph structure. The statistical test shows that 47 percent of the entire mistake is direct transfer of Arabic syntax. The results highlight the immediate necessity of discourse-based grammar teaching, cohesion training, and combined writing feedback training in Iraqi EFL higher education.