The Hawkins article we read for this week discusses the Universal Grammar approach in relation to L1 vs. L2 acquisition. There is nothing to say that, “SLA research should not assume that L2 grammars are the product of the innate language faculty (353, Hawkins).” Many studies suggest that, “L2 learners’ mental representations are UG-derived (353).” This must lead to other questions though since there is not a solution to this debate.
I think that one of the biggest problems I find when reading various articles about SLA is it gets lumped in with L1 acquisition and as we can tell from this author there are distinct and obvious differences between L1 and L2. What it comes down to, in my opinion, is we need to look beyond the theories of L1 acquisition and start new research on SLA. Researchers seem to get sucked back into L1 research when researching SLA.
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I agree with you! It doesn't make sense to me how research keeps going back to First Language Acquisition if they tend to all agree that they are different. I'm sure they have some things in common, but they also have so many differences! Why keep going back to it if it is not relevant to the subject! Also I do not understand why they continue grouping Bilingual learners from birth in the same category. A second language at birth is very similar to First Language Acquisition. They learn it just as they would the other language.
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