A Study On Chomsky's Universal Grammar And Language Acquisition

During the 20th century the theory of Universal Grammar proposed by the school of transformational generative grammar represented by Chomsky is the most profound revolution in the linguistic academic field of the world. This revolution changes the focus of linguistic research from describing the language to exploring its nature. Chomsky believes that the task of linguists is to find out the grammar that can describe adequately from the raw linguistic data. This grammar is not only correct interpretation of the original material, but also able to explain people's internal language skills, outline the general features of the human language, explore the initial structure of human brain and reveal the people's cognitive system.Chomsky and other linguists are with the view that the "positive data" and "negative data" the children meet are lacking, but under the normal circumstances the children can acquire more knowledge of their mother tongue than the input. Not only feeling experience of empirical philosophy but also stimulus-response of behaviorism can not give a satisfactory explanation. Since the language of the external input can not logically explain children's language acquisition process, it can only look for a reasonable explanation from the internal factors of the human brain, resulting in the innativeness of human language and the generation of Universal Grammar.Universal Grammar is proposed in terms of children's mother tongue acquisition. The contradiction between children's poor stimulus and powerful language competence is known as the "logical problem of language acquisition." (White,1989)Since the Universal Grammar has been proposed, it then has been used in the Second Language Acquisition research. Many scholars believe that "the logic problem of language acquisition" also exists in Second Language Acquisition, therefore, the Universal Grammar in Second Language Acquisition should have the same effect as in First Language Acquisition and it can be used to explain Second Language Acquisition.It has been nearly 30 years since principles and parameters theory was put out in 1981 but the introduction of access of UG to language acquisition especially Second Language Acquisition are just limited to the simple discussion. This paper aims to outline the theoretical framework of the UG theory through tracing its origin and development, to discuss its possible role in the language acquisition. The development and trends of the access of UG in language acquisition will be reflected systematically to help readers know the focus of debate, new ideas and research methods. This paper can promote the study of domestic work and can arise the reader's interest and attention, so it has larger academic reference value.