COMPOSING STRATEGIES IN ENGLISH AND BAHASA MALAYSIA

Abstract

Composing strategies in Bahasa Malaysia and English may be quite different for different people; this is because very few people are equi-bilinguals i.e. equally competent in both languages. Therefore, a person may be more proficient in one language and not so in the other; indeed, the level of proficiency may even be dependent upon the styles or genres of the compositions: either descriptive, narrative, argumentative or factual. I had the task of composing descriptive essays in both languages; and then observing the similarities and differences between their composing strategies.