Investigating Iraqi EFL University Students’ Linguistic Proficiency and Literary Awareness : A Comparative Study

Abstract

Linguistic proficiency refers to students’ ability to use and understand a language in a specific text, while literary awareness relates to students’ specific way of using information and comprehending literature in a particular language. The current study aims to investigate and compare Iraqi EFL university students' level between linguistic proficiency and literary awareness. It also aims at finding whether there is a significant difference between Iraqi EFL university students’ linguistic proficiency and literary awareness at both Tikrit university and Kirkuk University and finding whether there is a significant difference between Iraqi EFL students’ linguistic proficiency and literary awareness at Tikrit and Kirkuk universities according to gender. For achieving the aims and answering the questions, 250 students were randomly chosen from English Department in Colleges of Education at both universities in the second semester of the Academic Year 2022/ 2023 to form the study sample. The tool; that used for collecting data is a questionnaire. The results reveal that there is a significant difference in literary awareness and linguistic proficiency between the students at Tikrit and Kirkuk Universities. The difference is primarily in favor of literary awareness due to students' interest in literary subjects rather than linguistic ones. The gender variable's results indicate that there is no difference in the language proficiency of males and females, there is a difference in literary awareness that favors the female gender. Finally, the study ends with conclusions and some recommendations.