ABSTRACT
Current approaches to second language acquisition (SLA) can be divided broadly into two groups: nativist models and empiricist models. Nativist models attribute language development to the operation of a universal, genetically controlled, language instinct. For researchers in the nativist tradition, the learning of the core features of a second language involves little more than the setting of a few switches for the parameters of Universal Grammar (Du Plessis, Solin, Travis, & White, 1987; Gregg, 1989; Liceras, 1989; Mazurkewich & White, 1984; Thomas, 1991; White, 1983, 1985, 1990, 1991). Many nativists view second language acquisition as recapitulating the course of first language acquisition (Bickerton, 1984; Krashen, 1982) because a strong version of the nativist position holds that both first and second language learning are determined by the underlying principles of Universal Grammar.
