This document discusses Universal Grammar (UG) and its role in second language acquisition. UG proposes that the human brain is hardwired with innate, universal principles of grammar. It suggests that children learn the rules of their native language quickly because their brain contains a Language Acquisition Device that allows them to map the principles of UG onto the parameters of the specific language. The document outlines the history and key concepts of UG, including poverty of stimulus, constraints on learning, and universal developmental patterns. It also discusses related concepts like principles and parameters, and Chomsky's Minimalist Program. Researchers have studied whether and how second language learners may access the principles of UG.

1. UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR (UG)
AND SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
Guillermo Cid
Sandra Leiva
Patricia Retamales

2.  How do people learn a language?
 Do we learn language the way we learn everything?
 Or is there some special way our brains learns a
language?

3. HISTORY
HISTORY
UNIVERSAL
UNIVERSAL
GRAMMAR
GRAMMAR
SECOND
SECOND
LANGUAGE
LANGUAGE
ACQUISITION
ACQUISITION

4. FORMER THEORIES
1950s 1957
Structuralism Behaviorism
Ferdinand de Saussure Burrhus Frederic Skinner

5. Structuralism
Phonology
/skæfəldɪ ŋ/
DID NOT
PROVIDE
ANY FRAMEWORK Lexicon Morphology
Set of words Un+limit+ed
OF HOW LEARNING
LEVELS OF
TAKES PLACE.
PRODUCTION
Semantics
Syntax
Meaning
S+v+O

6. Behaviorism
C
O
N
STIMULUS RESPONSE
D
process
I
T
I
O
N
I
REINFORCEMENT
N
G

7. Behaviorism
 The brain is “blank slate” at birth.

8. Universal Grammar
• If children learn language by
conditioning and imitation, why
do they say things they have 1960s
never heard before?
• why can adults make completely
novel sentences?

9. It is a theory that suggests that some rules of
grammar are hard-wired into the brain, and
manifest without being taught.

10.  Language acquisition.
 Nativisim (Innate language ability).
 LAD (Language Acquisition Device).
 Generative Grammar.

11. UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR ARGUMENTS
1. Poverty of the Stimulus.
2.Constraints and principles cannot be learned.
3. Patterns of development are universal.

12. 1. Poverty of the Stimulus .
 Children hear only a finite number of sentences.
 They are able to abstract the rules and principles of the language.
 They Produce a infinite number of possible sentences without
any formal training.
Ungrammatical Grammatical acceptable
input output

13. 2.Constraints and principles cannot be
learned.
 Children are very young when acquiring L1.
 They do not have the cognitive ability to understand the principles of
grammar as a system.
 Because of innate capacity they are capable of producing correct
grammar.

14. 3. Patterns of development are universal
 Children learn the various aspects of a language in a
very similar order.

15. Brown (1973).
 There is a very specific order of MORPHEME acquisition.
1. Present Progressive -ing
* Daddy jumping
2. Plural –s
* Many books
3. Irregular past forms
* I run – I ran
The sequence is quite fixed All children learn in the same
in order, but not in rate. order, but some take longer
than others.

16. LAD
Set of common
grammatical rules.
UNIVERSAL
GRAMMAR

17.  Refers to a set of rules that can predict which
combinations of words are able to make
grammatically correct sentences.
Example:
 “That’s how you say it”
X “How that’s you say it”

19. Chomsky added two concepts later:
-Principles
and parameters
-The minimalist program
Noam Chomsky

20. Principles and Parameters
Framework within the Generative
Linguistics
Syntax of a natural language
General Principles Specific Parameters
(Abstract rules) (markers,switches)

21. We all have a built in language acquisition device.
(same across languages).
Principles are built in rules for grammar.

22. Languages are different in syntactical order
Eg. English : The red ball
Spanish : La pelota roja.
When learning a language the mind
automatically adjust the already existing
rules or parameters
Before a
noun
After a
noun

23. For example:
The distinction between whether a language is
head-initial or head final is regarded as a
parameter which is either on or off for particular
languages
e.g.English is head-initial, whereas
Japanese is head-final

25. The goal of linguistics is to identify all of the
principles and parameters that are universal to
human language (called: Universal Grammar).

26. The Minimalist Program (MP) is a major line of
inquiry that has been developing inside Generative
Grammar since the early nineties.
Chomsky presents MP as a program, not as a theory.
Conceptual framework to guide the developmental
grammatical theory

27. The Minimalist Program (MP) is a major line of
inquiry that has been developing inside Generative
Grammar since the early nineties.
Chomsky presents MP as a program, not as a theory.
Conceptual framework to guide the developmental
grammatical theory

28. For Chomsky there are minimalist questions but the
answers can be framed in any theory
Why language has the properties it has?
MP explains the specific view of syntactic grammar

29. •Distinction between lexical and functional
category
•Chomsky basically found that learners need to
learn only the lexical information of the words
•Syntactic function develops automatically

30. Researchers have tried to find out
whether L2 learners have access to
UG or not.

31. Cook (1985) presented three hypotheses:
No access hypothesis:
UG is inaccessible to L2 learner
Indirect access hypothesis:
UG is partially available to the learners
Direct access hypothesis:
UG is fully available

32. Universal Other mental
Grammar abilities
Direct No
access access
L1 L2
grammar Indirect grammar
Access

36. ( Language data) ( A grammar of a language)
( Language Acquisition Device)

41. INPUT L1 Grammar
UG Principles
Parameters