Chomsky's Universal Grammar and Second Language Learning Version
of paper in Applied Linguistics 1985 Having gone underground for
a few years, once again Chomsky's ideas of language learning are
being discussed. A recent book, The Language Lottery (Lightfoot
1982), readably outlines the theory; several collections report
research into its implications (Tavakolian 1981; Goodluck and
Solan 1978) and its theoretical aspects (Hornstein and Lightfoot
1981b; Baker and McCarthy 1981); most importantly a string of
books by Chomsky himself has shown the development in his views
of language acquisition (Chomsky 1976; Chomsky 1980; Chomsky
1981a). This paper tries to take stock of recent Chomskyan
thinking in terms of second language (L2) learning. The first
section outlines the theory itself, mostly drawing on Chomsky's
own work; though parts may be familiar from earlier versions,
such an overview is necessary in order to ensure coherence. The
second section considers the implications for L2 learning,
particularly impo