Universal Grammar and Second Language Acquisition

Seminar paper from the year 2018 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 1,0, University of Duisburg-Essen, language: English, abstract: The topic of this term paper is from high relevance when it comes to the human mind in general, but it has a special importance for those who are trying to start a career as Second Language teachers because Chomsky's Universal Grammar Theory influenced the whole field of linguistic studies and Language Acquisition tremendously. Future teachers need to be aware of these perceptions to be successful at teaching languages. The beginning of this paper is therefore going to be discussing what Universal Grammar after Chomsky consists of in general and what it describes. This part is going to be functioning as an overview that will help to comprehend the following subchapter, which will be dealing with one part of Chomsky s Government/ Binding Theory, the principles and parameters. Thereafter, a discourse on First Language Acquisition and Universal Grammar is going to be portrayed, since Universal Grammar is usually linked to First Language Acquisition and will help to understand the coherence of the previously discussed matters of Universal Grammar. The goal of these first few chapters is to create a transition to the main topic of the paper by providing some important background information of Chomsky s studies and theories.