Portuguese Higher Education Graduates’ Views on Academic Writing

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. 

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.