Evaluation of Universal Grammar-based approaches to second language acquisition

Universal Grammar is a well-established theory of language, which has been highly influential in many areas of linguistic research, including lan-guage acquisition research. In this section, we aim to evaluate its particular contribution to our understanding of second language acquisition.

3.6.1 The scope and achievements of the Universal Grammar approach

It is important to remind ourselves in this section that Universal Grammar is a theory which aims to describe and explain human language. As such, even if its prime concern is not second language acquisition, it is nonethe-less directly relevant to the study of second languages, which are assumed to be natural languages. Second language acquisition researchers, in order to understand the interlanguage system, need to understand what con-strains formal language systems generally.

In evaluating Universal Grammar, however, we must remember that it is a linguistic theory, with its own aims and objectives, and not a learning theory. Although one of Chomsky's stated objectives mentioned earlier on in this chapter is to understand how knowledge of language is acquired, and how knowledge of language is put to use, most of the work to date has focused on his first question: What constitutes knowledge of language?

These questions are related though, and language acquisition data, both first and second, has increasingly been used to refine and test hypotheses about the nature of human language. Additionally, the Universal Grammar descriptive framework has been hugely influential in helping researchers to draw up sophisticated hypotheses about a range of issues which are central to our understanding of second language acquisition, such as the exact nature of the language system (the learner system as well as the first and second language systems), the interplay between the first and second lan-guage in second lanlan-guage learners, the linguistic knowledge learners bring to the task of second language acquisition, etc.

As a general theory of language therefore, the scope of Universal Grammar is potentially very broad. It would be fair to say, however, that Universal Grammar research has been primarily concerned with the description and explanation of the formal system underlying language.

Moreover, its focus has been primarily morphosyntax, and other aspects of the linguistic system have received much less attention. (Although this is changing, and phonology, morphology and more recently the lexicon have

been the source of renewed interest, other areas such as semantics, prag-matics and discourse are still largely ignored.) The Universal Grammar contribution to our understanding of the acquisition of morphosyntactic properties in second language acquisition has been outstanding, and will no doubt feed into a comprehensive second language acquisition theory when it comes of age. Its scope does not include a theory of processing, or a the-ory of learning. It has very little to say about what triggers development in either first or second language acquirers. It is a property theory and not a transition theory, and must therefore be evaluated as such.

3.6.2 The Universal Grammar view of language

The Universal Grammar view of language has been very influential since the 1950s, but not uncontroversial. The Universal Grammar approach views language as a mental framework, underlying all human languages. In so doing, it focuses on some aspects of language and not others. Until very recently as we have seen, syntax was the privileged object of study.

Universal Grammar is only concerned with the sentence and its internal structure, rather than any larger unit of language. Work at the level of smaller units (words, morphemes, phonemes) has also been primarily con-cerned with structure and how different elements relate to one another.

This is one of the major criticisms of work in this tradition; it studies lan-guage somewhat clinically, in a vacuum, as a mental object rather than a social or psychological one. Moreover, it separates language knowledge and language use rigidly, and some linguists disagree with this dichotomy, as we will see in the next chapter.

Following from this, the methodologies used by Universal Grammar the-orists have sometimes been criticized for not being representative of reality.

The theory is preoccupied with the modelling of linguistic competence, and the study of naturalistic performance is not seen as a suitable window into mental representations of language (Towell and Hawkins, in press).

However, tapping the underlying linguistic representations of second lan-guage learners is even more difficult than in the case of native speakers, as second language representations are less stable. We have seen (Chapter 1), that grammatically judgement tests (in which subjects - learners or native speakers - have to decide on the grammaticality of sentences presented to them), are thought to be the most appropriate methodology to access native speakers' intuitions about their native language, and that native speakers usually agree about what is grammatical or ungrammatical in their lan-guage. Second language learners' intuitions, however, are much more likely to be unstable, and therefore less reliable. We have seen in earlier sections

how often data on second language competence deriving from grammat-ically judgement tests is disputed and reinterpreted. (For a discussion of this problem, see Sorace, 1996; Chaudron, 2003.)

Grammaticality judgement tests have often been relied on in second lan-guage acquisition studies, as without them it can be very difficult to get evi-dence about subtle grammatical properties, which might not be present in learners' spontaneous output (e.g. violations of subjacency, or of binding conditions). However, Universal Grammar theorists have taken criticisms about the lack of reliability of second language judgements seriously, and recent work in this tradition h'as used a range of elicitation techniques, from matching sentences to pictures, (semi-) spontaneous productions, sentence completion and others, as witnessed for example by current issues of Second Language Research. Using a range of elicitation techniques makes any con-sistent findings much stronger. The problem of drawing inferences about mental representations from such data nonetheless remains.

Despite of these criticisms, Universal Grammar has been highly influen-tial as a theory of language, and is probably the most sophisticated tool available for analysing language today, whether native or second languages.

3.6.3 The Universal Grammar view of language acquisition

When applied specifically to the context of second language acquisition, how successful can the Universal Grammar theory claim to be?

Universal Grammar-based approaches to second language acquisition have been criticized for exactly the same reasons as the theory itself. It has left untouched a number of areas that are central to our understanding of the second language learning process. First, linguistically, this approach has in the past been almost exclusively concerned with syntax. Even if recent interest in phonology, morphology and the lexicon should redress the bal-ance somewhat, semantics, pragmatics and discourse are excluded. Second, the Universal Grammar approach has been exclusively concerned with documenting and explaining the nature of the second language linguistic system. The social and psychological variables that affect the rate of the learning process are beyond its remit and therefore ignored.

Bearing the above in mind, there is little doubt that the Universal Grammar approach to research into second language acquisition has been highly influential and fruitful, and has generated a wealth of studies that have greatly enhanced our understanding of second language morphosyn-tactic development. It has been very useful as a tool for linguistic analysis, enabling researchers to formulate well-defined and focused hypotheses that could then be tested in empirical work. This powerful linguistic tool has

been useful in describing not only the language produced by learners, but also the language to be acquired as well as the first language of the learner.

The work carried out by second language acquisition researchers within this framework is also feeding into our more general understanding of human language.

This approach has also been useful, not only in establishing some of the facts about second language acquisition, but also meeting with some success in explaining those facts. For example, it has enabled second lan-guage researchers to draw up a principled view of lanlan-guage transfer or cross-linguistic influence? in terms of principles and parameters. As we have seen, for example, researchers have been able to test empirically whether parameters can be reset.

3.6.4 The Universal Grammar view of the language learner

The Universal Grammar approach is only interested in the learner as the possessor of a mind that contains language; the assumption is that all human beings are endowed with such a mind, and variations between indi-viduals are of little concern to Universal Grammar theorists. The emphasis is very much again here on language as the object of study, rather than on the speaker or learner as a social being, and the focus is on what is univer-sal within this mind.

Overall, there is little doubt that the Universal Grammar approach to sec-ond language research meets the criteria for a good theory as defined in Chapter 1, by making clear and explicit statements of the ground it aims to cover and the claims it makes, by having systematic procedures for theory-evaluation, by attempting to explain as well as describe at least some second language phenomena, and finally by engaging increasingly with other theo-ries in the field. As one of the most active and developing theotheo-ries, it can be expected to continue to make highly valuable contributions to the field.

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Cognitive approaches to