Universal Grammar Plays a Minor Role in Second Language Acquisition

Abstract

Based on Chomsky, Universal Grammar (UG) refers to the common principles and features of human language. This essay aims to indicate that UG plays a minor role in Second Language Acquisition (SLA) through providing a series of supporting ideas. These ideas contain (1) the knowledge of second language was acquired through some other senses of human brains, which was not through language sense—Universal Grammar, (2) Native Language (NL) plays a major in SLA, and (3) Bley-Vorman’s Fundamental Difference Hypothesis.