There must be certain stylistic features in writing that differentiate native from non-native standards. Perhaps non-native writers can improve upon their writing styles in order to enrich competition in research paper publishing.
Something quite annoying is the inconsistency in the definition of "native speaker" between journals. I personally experienced cases of American journals complaining about the English used by British authors, and vice-versa. It's also common to see complaints made by American or British reviewers about the English used by people from other native anglophone countries, especially in Africa. So, at least part of the problem may be attributed to prejudice.
The differences in the writings of natives and non natives in the 21st century should not be used a means of improving the other, rather, it should be seen as new development. This is because the English language acquired local colour the moment it left the shore of its home. The case should be about how non natives use the English language to express their local realities as seen in Nigerian English for example.
Sometimes a non-native person writes better than a native one.
Philadelphia, PA
Dear Elmabruk & readers,
Generally speaking, the features of English writing which distinguish non-native speakers are going to depend on the specific features of the person's native language; and this will differ from one group of non-native speakers to the next. People tend to carry over aspects of their native language into any other language they acquire.
Again, in very general terms, and allowing for various exceptions, native speech and writing (in a given language) is said to have a "colloquial" character which may be felt to be a matter of style. This may be a consequence of a certain ease of paraphrase (saying the same in other words) which non-native speakers will acquire only slowly; but it is also a consequence of the depth of experience with a language which native speakers tend to have and non-native speakers tend to lack --in one degree or another.
There are a multitude of details which native speakers acquire over many years of practice and interaction employing their own first language in ordinary circumstances; and non-native speakers often lack for the same comprehension of details of a second or third language. But again, in general terms, one good way for anyone to acquire better style in a given language is to read and familiarize themselves with the best examples of writing in the language and style they wish to improve.
H.G. Callaway
---you ask---
What features of English writing differentiate natives from non-natives?
Interesting Vivian Nwachukwu . Do you have one or two examples from Nigerian English to illustrate the point?
Yes Mohannad H. Al-Sherrawi that can be the case if the native in question is semi-educated, but if, for argument's sake, both are equally educated, e.g. PhD holders, then I would assume there would be certain stylistic differences in their (unedited) research writing, which is the focus of the question.
I often work with native speakers of Chinese and their writing often has problems with proper pronoun use and proper verb tense use, because these things do not exist in their native language, so they do not use them intuitively.
Generally speaking, in English writing, two key feature (language and style) differentiate natives from non-natives.
I am busy co-authoring hard scifi with ESL authors in Europe. Their most frequent and annoying problem is word order. Only recently when I read “The language rules we know - but don't know that we know", did I realise how correct word order just “sounds right”, yet we do not teach the rule:
“Adjectives in English absolutely have to be in this order: opinion-size-age-shape-colour-origin-material-purpose Noun. So you can have a lovely little old rectangular green French silver whittling knife. But if you mess with that word order in the slightest you’ll sound like a maniac. It’s an odd thing that every English speaker uses that list, but almost none of us could write it out.”
http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20160908-the-language-rules-we-know-but-dont-know-we-know
I do a lot of polishing of English language for scholars who are not native speakers. The big difference that I notice - across languages ranging from Spanish and Russian to Japanese and Chinese - is in the use of 'a' and 'the'. Non English speakers add these in where they should not be, and miss adding them in, where they should be. So, that is something for those people to check, and double check, or have checked by a native English language speaker.
The issue is not native or none native English speaker i.e., if you get a layman native English speaker and asked him to write a scientific essay he/she will do a big mess. See writing is not an easy job that takes time to learn the basics of the game. I am still learning after years in publishing work. Sometimes feel happy with my writing transferring that to my American colleague he/she change things looks like normal to me but is really good and appreciate other people writing. Looks like writing is not the end of the way! Take any good article published in a respect journal, you would find mistakes or certain way to rewrite these sentences. That comes from experience and practice.
Good luck
Aly
Mostly the idioms and usage of phrases are different. Even when you conpare the Queen's English with American English you can tell the differences. "Way Out" in England and its former colonies is the same as "exit" in the USA. Speakers from Spanish countries use the definite article "the" more frequently than native English speakers since that is the way it is used in Spanish.
Philadelphia, PA
Dear Abdel-Moemen & readers,
Being fluent in a second or third language and having learned a technical or specialized subject in your first language, in general terms, does not amount to knowing the technical or specialized subject-matter in the later acquired language. That's why specialized translational dictionaries exist.
Its somewhat like the more general contrast between native speakers writing in their first language and non-native speakers writing in their second or third language. Just as the fluent native speaker of a particular language cannot be expected to write a technical or special-topic paper in the native language--just out of general linguistic competence--in a similar way, someone writing a specialized paper in a second language cannot be expected to quite master the specialized language of the second or third language --just because they know the subject matter and are fluent in the second or third language.
For purposes of academic and scientific writing in a second or third language, its useful to think of fluency as existing in levels. Someone can be perfectly fluent in a second language, say, without extensive education. But for purposes of academic writing, one might think of speakers of a second language as having various levels of competency in that language, corresponding to levels of education in the specialized field. I think of it as something like 1) fluency at the level of general education, 2) fluency in the subject-language at the level of a college graduate in that field, 3) fluency in the specialized language at the level of a final degree, i.e., Ph.D.
Just as the fellow of general education may lack for good style or perfect fluency in a second language --and need to do some reading of examples of good style to improve, so it is with the writer of specialized papers in a second language. They may need to read extensively among native-speaker experts in their field.
H.G. Callaway
---you wrote---
The issue is not native or none native English speaker i.e., if you get a layman native English speaker and asked him to write a scientific essay he/she will do a big mess.
The native speakers are the norm providers of the language, that is rules regarding the usage of the language, grammar of the language,pronounciations unlike the non native speakers who resort to the existing norms of the language. The native speakers have a perculia way of pronouncing certain words that will be different from non speakers pronounciations.
Something quite annoying is the inconsistency in the definition of "native speaker" between journals. I personally experienced cases of American journals complaining about the English used by British authors, and vice-versa. It's also common to see complaints made by American or British reviewers about the English used by people from other native anglophone countries, especially in Africa. So, at least part of the problem may be attributed to prejudice.
Native language (NL) transfer or interference might be one of the causes that make non-native speakers' writing (and speaking) differ from native speakers' -- in terms of grammar, collocations, rhetorics, etc. Those deviations due to NL transfer are usually not intentional. Making non-native speakers aware of NL transfer effects might help them improve their writing in their second language.
Teach your students to beware of "false friends"! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_friend
Philadelphia, PA
Dear Mello & readers,
There are some prominent phonetic differences between American and British native speakers of English. There are also some, usually minor, differences in word choice and spelling which have been conventionalized by literary usage. It was important, especially in the early days of the American republic to be able to readily distinguish British and American writers, since their political views were often quite different.
In general terms, British pronunciation changed quite a bit after the period of the American Revolution; and American pronunciation is in some ways closer to earlier models. In addition, the immigrants who came from GB to America, were often of more northern and western origin in the British Isles --less likely from London and the "home counties" of the southeast. The roles of local dialects in speech is generally reduced in American speech--especially since the advent of radio and television --which gave rise to a "general American" style of pronunciation. The differences in pronunciation and word choice which continue to exist within the U.S. have more the character of "regional coloring," (with some few exceptions) in contrast to British local dialect pronunciation.
Its a good idea, generally, to consult a journal and its reigning style before sending in a paper. Editors will generally look for "good English" (likewise editors in any other language will have their own linguistic paradigms) as easier for the readers to understand and less of a burden on reviewers. Editors do, sometimes make quick judgments when they have many competing papers to consider and evaluate.
H.G. Callaway
---you wrote---
Something quite annoying is the inconsistency in the definition of "native speaker" between journals. I personally experienced cases of American journals complaining about the English used by British authors, and vice-versa. It's also common to see complaints made by American or British reviewers about the English used by people from other native anglophone countries, especially in Africa. So, at least part of the problem may be attributed to prejudice.
As non native English speakers, the cultural context tends to share a great impact on expressing the ideas especially in the flow and style of writing. Vernacular language or the first language interference as well will influence on the writer's communicative and content knowledge.
The mother-tongue has also an impact on the learning and use of a foreign or second/third language, particularly at the syntactic, lexical and phinilogical levels. Interference of MT may be positive and negative as well. Writing in a second or foreign language is also a matter of practice and a lot of reading of the natives' ways of writing and speaking.
Writing is a means of presenting one's thought in graphic forms. While most native writers relatively have no problem presenting their thoughts in writing, most non-native writers often get stuck while presenting their thoughts in writing. In this regard, 'thought processing' distinguishes the writing of natives from non-natives.
One cannot separate culture from language, therefore the choice of words of both native and non-native writers of English will reflect their cultures such as lifestyle, food, ceremonies, dressing, etc. that are obtainable in their areas. Secondly, there may be an evidence of the interference of the non-native speaker's first language in the syntactical structure, spelling etc.
The dialect or pronunciation of the letters in the general term (ie, the letter exits)
Native speakers of a language begin learning how to write when they go to school. This means that they are on equal footing with non- natives. Through training and practice non -native speakers can do far better than native speakers in writing ! Thus, I believe that native “speakerness“has very little to offer with respect to individual differences in writing skill.
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a native speaker of a language is one who naturally and without conscious effort acquires a language.
a non native speaker acquired a target language after the first language
with this view as background to this question, there is bound to be myriads of differences in the writing of a native and non native speaker of the English language.
one prominent challenge is that of knowledge of appropriate collocation.
The nonnative speaker finds it difficult to bring together acceptable blending of words.The use of content words and function words are readily confusing to the nonnative speaker and surprisingly to native speakers too who are yet to formally learn the language.They simply do not have mastery of which word goes with the other.
Another problem reflected is lack of sufficient word power.The nonnative speaker, is adjusting to the culture of the new language.There are certain concepts that do not exist in the first language of the NNS, definitely, he/she tries to find a point of equilibrium and when this is lacking, the NNS transliterates,
therefore a lot of transliteration occurs in the writing of NNS .
The challenge of interference is also existing, the NNS writes words of the Target language as perceived and not the ideal, thereby writing what is different from the intended.
NNS are poor in the use of mechanics of writing.Punctuation marks are abused most often where they are used.
NNS do not differentiate spoken English from written form.
Poor development of ideas is seen in NNS s writing .This due to lack of rich language environment and lack of opportunities to dwell in the target language.
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