本文发表在 rolia.net 枫下论坛Adult second or foreign language acquisition (SLA) differs markedly from child first language acquisition. Without any instruction, all normal children attain complete mastery of their mother tongue in an extremely rapid, effortless, and uniform manner. In contrast, most adults acquire a second language slowly and with great difficulty and effort; few (if any) attain native speaker-equivalent knowledge of the target grammar; many "get stuck" in early developmental stages with respect to one or another component of the target grammar, and there is tremendous individual variation as regards "fossilization" of this sort. Moreover, very unlike first language acquisition, adult SLA can be significantly affected by explicit instruction. Thus, in many respects, adult SLA is a highly abnormal form of language acquisition. Given that UG is in principle available as a language acquisition device in adult cognition, this general abnormality of adult SLA cries out for some explanation. One of my primary research goals, then, is to address this question via comparative experimental research on normal L1 acquisition, abnormal L1 acquisition, and adult SLA. In addition, I am interested in what the abnormalities of adult SLA might tell us about the general nature of linguistic competence and language processing. The research on traditionally recognized language disorders, such as adult aphasia or child Specific Language Impairment, do not only teach us things about the disorder in question; in principle, they can also shed light on the nature of UG itself. This is also true of the study of adult SLA.更多精彩文章及讨论,请光临枫下论坛 rolia.net