Writing Practices of English as a Second Language: The Exploration of L1’s Influence

Abstract

The research aims at exploring the writings of English as L2, and influence of Urdu as L1 with the help of the data based on the written essays on “Pakistani Culture”, collected from 15 university undergraduate students who are pursuing their study at the University of Management and Technology, Lahore and completing their graduation in different academic fields. These students belong to the same native languages i.e. Urdu and they use English language as L2. The theory of ‘second language acquisition’ proposed by Krashen (1981) will be used. Furthermore, to support the analytical procedure, different perspectives are taken into account presented by Villanueva (1989) which elaborates on the language levels as affected by L1. The paper focuses on the collected essays by exploring the influence of Urdu language. Findings reveal the influence of L1 (Urdu) in the writings of English language (L2) under the integration of code-switching, morphological inclination of L1 as well as wrong phonetic effect of L1 on L2’s orthography. This study analyzes these elements of L1’s influence in the writings of L2.