Influence of Mother Tongue on English Writing: An Error-analysis Study about Grade 9 Students in Pakistan

The influence of the mother tongue on second language acquisition is well-known. Pakistan a multi-lingual country with scores tongues, yet their English writing has not been investigated properly. This error-analysis study contributes in this regard by finding out syntactical and semantical errors committed Pakistani students different tongues. It also if there were any patterned differences or similarities error-making. Data was collected from one hundred grade 9 public school Islamabad. They belonged to five groups i.e. Punjabi, Pashto, Urdu, Hindko Potohari. findings showed that generally all more than ones. Overall, they most vulnerable tense, spelling subject-verb-agreement. Four those (Punjabi, Urdu Hindko) similar performance range 4.18-5.34 syntactical, 3.61-4.25 semantical, 8.41-9.25 total errors. Potohari group twice as many other group. recommends while developing teaching materials assignments, teachers should consider special needs groups. Furthermore, attention be paid providing them extra classes materials. Keywords: tongue; acquisition; error-analysis; writing;