Give syntax a chance

As an occasional visitor to the land of SLA, I found myself somewhat mystified by the approach of Truscott and Sharwood Smith (henceforth TSS). Unless I have totally misunderstood them, they are arguing against the separate existence of both a Language Acquisition Device (LAD) and a Universal Gramma...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inBilingualism (Cambridge, England) Vol. 7; no. 1; pp. 21 - 22
Main Author BICKERTON, DEREK
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Cambridge, UK Cambridge University Press 01.04.2004
Subjects
Dialect Studies
Grammar
Language Acquisition
Language Processing
Linguistic Theory
Linguistics
Memory
Peer Commentaries
Second language learning
Second Languages
Semantics
Short Term Memory
Syntax
Universal grammar
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Summary:As an occasional visitor to the land of SLA, I found myself somewhat mystified by the approach of Truscott and Sharwood Smith (henceforth TSS). Unless I have totally misunderstood them, they are arguing against the separate existence of both a Language Acquisition Device (LAD) and a Universal Grammar (UG). But who ever thought they were two? Occasionally linguists may write about one rather than the other, but I have always assumed them to be the same thing appearing in different guises (like Christ and the Holy Ghost in Christian theology). If you have UG, why would you need LAD? Processing with the aid of UG seems the only way to go – to the extent that UG is available to SLA, an issue TSS does not directly address.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-2
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ISSN:1366-7289
1469-1841
DOI:10.1017/S136672890400118X