TOPIC INTEREST AND TOPIC CONGRUENCE: AFFECTS L2 WRITING?

Writing in second language is, in nature, a complex cognitive process that involves a series of mental activities like ‘logical thinking, reasoning and deduction’. L2 writer has to confer with his knowledge, understanding, beliefs and experience about the topic along with employing other skills and strategies whilst writing. This article examines the role of two variables like ‘topic congruence’ and ‘topic interest’ in L2 writing of Bangladeshi EFL learners at undergraduate level. Twenty-five FL learners wrote an argumentative essay in English on ‘Death Sentence ?should be banned as an inhuman penalty’. A quality analysis of ‘content’, ‘organization’, ‘vocabulary’, ‘mechanics’ and ‘grammar’ has been done and the results showed that ‘topic interest’ had positive effects on L2 writers’ content, organization, vocabulary, grammar and mechanics to a great extent. But ‘topic congruence’ had little or no impact on their writing performance. Than five of the participants from each of the interested and uninterested groups chosen randomly were interviewed by the author so that the results obtained from the quantitative data analysis be confirmed in qualitative scrutiny too. Finally, implications have been put so that EFL teachers in the same context use up much attention in the discourse and pragmatic aspects of L2 writing instead of caring grammar only.