Linguistic Analysis, Volume 20, Number 1-2,1990
The Logical Problem of Foreign Language Learning*
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ROBERT BLEy-VROMAN
The University ofHawai'i
1. INTRODUCTION
The linguistic data to which children are exposed appear to be insufficient
to determine, by themselves, the linguistic knowledge which children even-
tually attain. The gap between available experience and attained competence
forms what has been called the logical problem of language acquisition. The
approach to a solution which has been followed in linguistic theory over the
past two decades is to suggest that the gap is bridged by an innate Universal
Grammar: by a system of knowledge of what 'a human language can be and
by innate domain-specific procedures for arriving at a grammar. The classic
statement is that of Chomsky:
A consideration of the character of the grammar that is acquired, the
degenerate quality and narrowly limited extent ofthe available data, the
striking uniformity of the resulting grammars, and their independence
of intelligence, motivation and emotional state, over wide ranges of
variation, leave little hope that much of the structure of language can be
leamed by an organism initially uninformed as to its general character.
[11:58].
Adults may also learn foreign languages. Abstractly, the logical problem
of adult foreign language learning is the same: that of explaining how
acquisition takes place, even given the limitations of the data. But the
problem is also different, in important ways. Foreign language learning
• A version of this paper, with this same title, circulated widely in manus~ript fonn during
1986, both in the U.S. and in Europe. That version has been cited both as a University of Texas
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4 ROBERT BLEy-VROMAN
differs in degree of success, inThe character and unifonnity of the resultant
systems, in its susceptibility to factors such as motivation, and in the previous
state of the organism; the learner already has knowledge ofone language and
a powerful system of general abstract problem-solving skills. Within what
general framework is the logical problem of foreign language learning to be
addressed? And, specifically, what is the role ofthe domain-specific learning
system including principles of Universal Grammar? Does the Language.
Acquisition Device continue to function in adults?
One obvious possibility is that the innate system which guides child
acquisition no longer operates in adult foreign language learning (or, more
weakly, that its operation is partial and imperfect). This would easily explain
why foreign language learning is often a difficult and ultimately unsuccessful
task. (This view is often associated with Lenneberg' s Critical Period Hypoth-
esis. Lenneberg himself, however, seems to have considered foreign lan-
guage learning only a tangential issue, not so much evidence for the CPH as
a complicating question [42: 176]).
The initial plausibility and explanatory power ofthis view are so clear that
one might expect it to be widely held among scholars of foreign language
learning. Despite its evident appeal, however, it is by no means the dominant
position in current second language acquisition research. Among many
scholars, a consensus has developed during the last decade that the same
fundamental process controls both the child's learning ofa first language and
the adult's learning of a foreign language. 1
In this essay, lexplore and .defend the proposition that child languag~
de~ent a¢adult foreign· language ·leaming are in fact fundamentally
different::tThe domain-specific acquisition system does not have the role in
addressing the logical problem offoreign language learning that it has in child
language learning. An interesting consequence of this difference, however,
is that f6reign language learning actually can in principle provide interestirlg
evidence about the character of the domain-specific systeJ:ll. D~,~
My strategy will be as follows. In § 2, I consider the fundamental large- 5f~Gf<-
scale characteristics of adult foreigri language learning as a phenomenon.
Viewed macroscopically, it resembles general adult problem-solving and not
child language development. The burden of proof ought then to fall on
proponents of the view that child and adult language learning are fundamen-
tally the same - that is, that things are not as they seem to be. In § 3, I then
lOne version of this view is clearly crystallized in the textbook Language Two (Dulay, Burt
and Krashen [20], which now figures in the basic training of a generation of second language
acquisition researchers.
THE LooICAL PROBLEM OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNING 5
outline .a view of foreign language learning in which first language
knowledge fills the role which Universal Grammar has in child language
acquisition, and in which general problem-solving principles fill the role of
the language-specific learning procedures ofchildrin. In § 4, I describe some
of the major alternative approaches to explaining the obvious differences
between the two kinds of language learning. There are difficulties - both
empirical, and especially conceptual- with views which claim fundamental
sameness. Finally, in § 5, I consider and dismiss several classes of specific
evidence which have been argued to indicate that the mechanisms of child
language development do still operate in adults. One of these - the apparent
existence of certain sorts of intuitions among adult learners poses a
potentially serious obstacle to the view argued here, but it too can be
countered.
A word about tenninology. In current scholarship, a distinction is often
made between foreign language acquisition and second language acquisi-
tion. Foreign language learning takes place where the language to be learned
is not the native language of the society: Le., learning English as a foreign
language in Japan. Second language learning takes place in a country where
the language is spoken: i.e., learning English as a second language in the
United States. This difference in settipg is of very great practical importance
to teachers. The term 'second language' is often also used for the phenom-
enon in general. 'Second' is an unfortunate tenn both in that it suggests that
third (and fourth, etc.) languages are not included, and also in that it departs
from ordinary non-technical usage, where 'foreign' is the common general
tenn. For the purposes of this paper, the setting ('second' or 'foreign') is not
crucial. I will usually use 'foreign'. In one particular perspective on second/
foreign language acquisition the 'monitor model' of Krashen (especially
[35]) - a distinction is also made between' learning' and 'acquisition' , where
the term 'learning' refers to the conscious learning of explicit rules, and
'acquisition' is used for the unconscious internalization of knowledge.
Conscious memorization of grammar rules is held - correctly - not to be the
same thing as developing real language competence. While not denying the
importance ofthis distinction, I will use the tenns interchangeably, preferring
the less technical term 'learning': hence, 'foreign language learning' rather
than 'second language acquisition'. 'Development' is sometimes used of
child language acquisition, because of its connotations of internally driven
growth. The juxtaposition 'adult foreign language learning' and 'child
language development' best fits, in its connotations, the view to be argued
here.
 f
6 ROBERT BLEy-VROMAN THE LOGICAL PROBLEM OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNING 7

2. THE FUNDAMENTAL CHARACTER OF FOREIGN Selinker [67] even suggested that the rare cases of apparent complete success
LANGUAGE LEARNING could perhaps be regarded peripheral to the enterprise of second language
acquisition theory. The rare successes may have the same 'pathological'
status for adult acquisition as the rare failures in first language acquisition are
In this section I briefly discuss ten fundamental characteristics of adult
considered to have. 2 One has the impression ofineluctable success on the one
foreign ·language learning. These are all relatively apparent, large-scale
hand, and ineluctable failure on the other. For a theory which holds that adult
characteristics, and few are controversial. Scholarly research has in general
foreign language acquisition and child first language development are
confinued common-sense observation. It will be useful to compare in each
fundamentally different, this follows naturally. Language is not merely
case foreign language learning with child language development on the one
difficult to learn with only general cognitive strategies, it is virtually
hand, and with general adult skill acquisition and problem-solving on the
impossible. This is one important reason for attributing an innate domain-
other. The picture that emerges is that, at least in its gross features, adult
specific language faculty to children. Below, in § 3, I will consider how the
foreign language learning is much more like general adult learning than it is
fundamental difference hypothesis can accommodate this fact that adults do
like child language development.
even as well as they do.
2.1. LACK OF SUCCESS
2.3. VARlATION IN SUCCESS, COURSE, AND STRATEGY

The lack of general guaranteed success is the most striking characteristic

Among adults, there is substantial variation in degree of success, even
of adult foreign language learning. Normal children inevitably achieve
when age, exposure, instruction, and so forth are held constant. Adults not
perfect mastery of the language; adult foreign language learners do not. Any
only generally do not succeed, they also fail to d~fferent degrees. This fact is
model which entails uniform success - as child first language acquisition
so evident that ithas never been thought necessary to demonstrate it by fonnal
models must is a failure as a model of adult language learning. Lack of
academic study. Rather, the assumption ofvariation in attainment has fonned
inevitable perfect mastery is, of course, a characteristic of general adult
the basis of a whole tradition in second language acquisition scholarship - the
learning in fields for which no domain-specific cognitive facility is thought
attempt to correlate something else with this wide variation in success. It also
to exist, especially in areas of substantial complexity. Not everyone with an
fonus the basis of the TOEFL and Michigan Test industries. Again, the
opportunity to learn chess will become a world-class chess player; not
similarity to general adult skill acquisition is· striking, as is the difference
everyone who is exposed to geometry becomes skilled at geometry proofs;
from child language development, where there is no such variation. The lack
careful schooling and years of experience do not guarantee that one will be
of variation among fust language learners requires that the child language
a competent auto mechanic. Lack of guaranteed success in adult foreign
acquisition theory "must be embedded in a theory ofUniversal Grammar that
language learning of course would follow from a theory which holds that it
allows only one grammar ... to be compatible with the sorts of sentences
is controlled by general human cognitive learning capacities, rather than by
children hear" (Pinker [56]:5]). Clearly, a fonnal model of adult foreign
the same domain-specific module which guarantees child success in fIrst
language learning must allow many different 'grammars' to be arrived at.
language acquisition. Frequent lack of success in adults, against unifonu
In foreign language acquisition. different learners also "follow different
success in children, is a serious obstacle to the view that the same process
paths" (as Meisel, Clahsen and Pienemann [47] put it, in their study of stages
underlies child and adult language acquisition.

2.2. GENERAL FAILURE
Not only is success in adult foreign language learning not guaranteed,
complete success is extremely rare, or perhaps even non-existent, especially
as regards' accent' and the ability to make subtle grammaticality judgements
(on this last, see·below § 5.3). Indeed, in his influential 'Interlanguage' paper.
2 There is some debate among workers in second language acquisition about the frequency
of perfect success. Selinker [66] hazarded 5% (cf. Seliger [64] for a more generous estimate).
The scholarly literature is complicated by the question ofwho one counts, and what one means
by success, or potential success. I believe that virtually no normal adult learner achieves perfect
success, ifwhat one means thereby is development of native-speaker competence, even though
some may have performance difficult to distinguish from that of native speakers. This is
. consistent with the strongest possible form of the fundamental difference hypothesis.
8 ROBERT BLEy-VROMAN
of learning of German syntax in adult Gastarbeiter). There is a good deal of
intersubject variation in second language 'acquisition order' studies (cf.
especially Rosansky [58]). There is also variation in what one might call
'learning strategies': from large-scale differences like the distinction be-
tween 'avoiding' and 'guessing' suggested by Madden, Bailey, Eisenstein
and Anderson [5], to something as specific as the use ofpoetry memorization
or of a particular mnemonic trick in vocabulary learning. The same is true
among adults learning to play bridge or to do phonology problems. 3
Again, substantial variation among learners - variation in degree of
attainment, in course of learning, and in strategies of learning - is exactly
what one expects to find in general adult skill acquisition.
2.4. V ARIATION IN GOALS
There is not only variation in degree of attainment, there also is variation
in what one might call 'type' of attainment. For example, some adult learners
seem to develop 'pidginized' systems which have rudimentary grammatical
devices but which seem nonetheless to be quite successful in fulfilling the
communicative needs of the speaker (cf. Schumann [61] and [62]; Meisel,
Clahsen and Pienemann [47: 121]). Others seem concerned about grammati-
cal correctness, even though fluency may be seen to suffer. Some developjust
the subpart of foreign language competence necessary to wait on tables or to
lecture in philosophy; others may become skilled at cocktail party story
telling. Some have good pronunciation but primitive grammar. Some lay
great importance on vocabulary size. Some work at passing for a native
speake. Others seem proud oftheir foreignness (the 'Charles Boyerphenom-
enon').lnstruction which is consonant with student goals is more successfu1. 4
This sort of variation follows naturally from the hypothesis that adult
foreign language acquisition is general problem-solving. Cognitive models
of general problem-solving involve setting'goals' . It is to be expected that
3 'Different paths' have also been claimed to exist among children in first language
performance. The variation appears, on the face ofit, to be much less dramatic than among adult
learners. The situation is complicated by the fact that it is always difficult to know, especially
in the case of young children, whether we are faced with actual differences in the course of
'methods' of language development, or merely with different responses to the exigencies of
communication using an incompletely developed grammar or with differing enjoyment of
certain sorts of verbal play - which mayor may not actually 'feed' language development.
4 The fact of such variation, and its central importance to second language acquisition, is not
universally accepted by all scholars of adult language learning, it is even the basis of a
pedagogical theory or curriculum design: so-called 'needs-based', "specific purpose',
and 'communicative' syllabi (cf.especially VanEk [72], and Munby [49]). ThejoumalEnglish
for Special Purposes is dedicated to this tradition.
THE LooICAL PROBLEM OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNING 9
different people will view the problem to be solved in different ways and will
set different goals in a given domain. A keyboard student may want to be able
to play popular songs by ear at parties, or to play harpsichord continuo with
friends in the math department. A friend of mine once had as primary goal to
be able eventually to play the promenade from Moussorgsky' s Pictures at an
exhibition and that was all. Differing goals will require setting differing
, subgoals, involving perhaps different learning strategies. All of this is
commonplace in general human problem-solving. Children, on the other
hand, driven by the inexorable operation of the domain-specific language
faculty, do not have the luxury of setting their own individuals goals. For
children, the' goal' - if one can speak of it as such - is predetermined by the
language faculty and not under learner control.
2.5. CORRELATION OF AGE AND PROFICIENCY
Studies which attempt to correlate age of acquisition with degree of
ultimate proficiency show that 'younger is better' . In studies of immigrants,
for example, learners who immigrate as young children learn the language of
the country well - adults do not. In population studies of immigrants who
arrived over a range of ages, the correlation of age of arrival with measures
ofultimate attainment is usually in the range ofr =-.7 (cf. Krashen, Long and
Scarcella [37] and the references cited there, especially Seliger, Krashen and
Ladefoged [65]).
Teenagers, interestingly, often seem to achieve native-speaker compe-
tence.lndeed, some studies show that in the age range of 10 to 15, they not
only reach native-speaker competence, but they also progress more rapidly
and perform with greater accuracy in the early stages oflearning than do their
younger counterparts. Snow [69] makes this point especially well. The
phenomenon of the highly successful teen suggests that Lenneberg's [42]
conjecture that puberty is a cut-off point cannot be correct.
2.6. FOSSILIZATION
It has long been noted that foreign language learners reach a certain stage
of learning - a stage short of success - and that learners then permanently
stabilize at this stage. Development ceases, and even serious conscious
efforts to change are often fruitless. Brief changes are sometimes observed,
but they do not 'take'; the learner 'backslides' to the stable state. Selinker [67]
called this phenomenon 'fossilization'. Fossilization seems often to be
observed in learners who have achieved a level ofcompetence which ensures
 •......
'.,...•....2,
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f
10 ROBERT BLEy-VROMAN
communicative success, even though the grammar may be very unlike that
of a native. Fossilized learners are the despair of language teachers, nothing
seems to have an effect. Sometimes in a classroom drill with abundant
opportunity for conscious monitoring, a change is observed. But minutes
later during the break, all the old forms reappear - completely unaffected. In
children, of course, there is no fossilization (short of success). Stages are
inevitably passed through, the system remains plastic until success is achieved.
It is not entirely clear exactly what to make of this difference. What
triggers fossili~ation in foreign language learners is not understood (for some
thoughts, cf. Selinker and Lamendella [68] and the references cited there.)
The reason why 'defossilization' seems so difficult is also mysterious. The
phenomenon of fossilization is at least anecdotally known in other areas of
human learning.s There seems to be little systematic psychological study of
fossilization (but the concept of brain rigidity/plasticity of Penfield and
Roberts [55] may possibly be relevant). Nonetheless, since the phenomenon
is so frequent in foreign language learning, and unknown in child language
development, it constftutes a serious obstacle to the assertion that adult and
child language acquisition are fundamentally the same.
2.7. INDETERMINATE INTUmONS
In a substantial number of cases, even very advanced non-native speakers
seem to lack clear grammaticality judgements. The unclear character ofnon-
native intuitions has even prompted some scholars to suggest that a third class
of grammaticality judgements - 'indeterminate' is needed in the descrip-
tion of learner language (cf. Schachter, Tyson and Diffley [60]). This
suggests that the knowledge which underlies non-native speaker perfor-
mance may be incomplete (in the technical sense) and thus may be a different
sort of formal object from the systems thought to underlie native speaker
performance. A non-native system may, for example, be in part a relatively
heterogeneous collection of strategies for achieving communicative goals; a
system of rules generating all and only the sentences of a language may even
be absent. Despite the early conjecture that "an 'interlanguage' may be
linguistically described using as data the observable output resulting from
speaker's attempt to produce a foreign norm" (Selinker [66:71]), no system-
5 One sometimes hears music teachers despair of undoing the damage caused by a previous
teacher, especially when the student has particular facility. Athletic coaches, too, seem to fmd
it difficult to 'defossilize' their trainees~ I sometimes feel that my substantial early success in
the high jump prevented the radical changes in technique which would have been required in
order to achieve greater heights.
THE LOGICAL PROBLEM OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNING 11
atic grammar has yet been produced for any substantial portion of any
learner's language (cf. Bley-Vroman [7] for discussion). Such fundamental
differences in kind between the knowledge systems produced in first and
foreign language acquisition suggest that the same cognitive learning system
does not give rise to them both.
2.8. IMPORTANCE OF INSTRUCTION
Children clearly do not require organized formal classes. "While it is
debatable exactly how much deliberate shaping the average child receives, no
one would claim that deliberate feedback and control over the child's
linguistic experience is necessary" (Moulton and Robinson [48:245]). On the
other hand, a whole industry is built on the consensus that instruction matters
to foreign language learning.
One must, to be fair, use caution in this argument. Does formal instruction
really make a difference in foreign language learning? Might not mere
exposure to native-speaker input be equally effective? (Clearly, instruction
can help the learner who needs to pass a test of ability to cite explicit grammar
rules ~ but this is learning about the language, not language learning.)
Experimental tests of the general efficacy of the instruction are difficult to
carry out. Uncontrolled variables abound: 1) individual variation will often
swamp the data, 2) the Hawthorne effect may interfere, 3) not all instruction
is expected to be equally successful some might actually impede success.
In spite of the difficulties, such studie~ as exist seem to show that instruction
does aid foreign language learning (Long [43]; Krashen and Seliger [38]).
Also, the survival ofthe industry amid selective economic pressures suggests
that is has some utility.
Much the same can be said of the importance of practice. Systematic,
organized, controlled drill is believed to be important by many teachers and
learners (though certainly not by all). It plays no obvious role in child
language acquisition. Of course, practice of this sort is well-known to have
an important function in adult skill acquisition, where it is held to be the
mechanism whereby controlled processing becomes automatized. Again,
foreign language learning more closely resembles general adult learning. To
be fair, it must be said that this evidence, especially as it depends on the
evaluation of belief data, must be interpreted cautiously.
Despite these difficulties, it does seem prudent to take such evidence
seriously to the extent that it does not conflict with such experimental
evidence as exists and does not contradict common sense.
 ROBERT BLEY-VROMAN THE LOGICAL PROBLEM OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNING 13
12

2.9. NEGATIVE EVIDENCE and hard to measure; different groups and different situations show different
sorts of correlations; explanations are in short supply; Still, the central role
Child language acquisition seems not to use - and surely does not rely of affect in foreign language learning is absolutely indisputable.
upon - any consistent source of negative evidence. Indeed, all serious
attempts to construct formal first language learning theories assume that
negative evidence is not used and that success is possible nonetheless
(Wexler and Culicover [73]; Pinker [56]). Even attempts made outside the 3. THE LOGICAL PROBLEM OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE
tradition of generative grammar make this assumption (e.g., Moulton and LEARNING
Robinson [46: chapter 6]).
Among teachers and learners of foreign languages there is· general
These general characteristics of foreign language learning tend to the
agreement that negative evidence is at least sometimes useful, and some-
conclusions that the domain-specific language acquisition system ofchildren
times, though not always, necessary. Experimental evidence is inconclusive,
ceases to operate. in adults and, in addition, that adult foreign language
but suggests that correction, in particular, may be helpful (Cohen and
acquisition resembles general adult learning in fields for which no domain-
Robbins [14]). As shown by theoretical work, some of the errors made by
specific learning system is believed to exist. Let us tentatively assume,
foreign languages learners suggest that they hold hypotheses requiring
therefore, that the same language acquisition system which guides children
negative evidence for disconfinuation (Bley-Vroman [7]). Despite the lack
is not available to adults. The assumption that the acquisition system no
ofvery convincing empirical evidence, even scholars who argue for essential
longer functions easily predicts failure. Nevertheless, although few adults, if
similarity of first and foreign language acquisition are forced cautiously to
any, are completely successful, and many fail miserably, there are many who
conclude that the unclear fmdings of empirical studies on the efficacy of
achieve very high levels ofproficiency, given enough time, input, and effort,
correction "do not mean that correction plays no role in language learning,"
and given the right attitude, motivation, and learning environment.Jb'
and that one may expect that research will "uncover specific situations in
lo~:problemofforeign language acquismontheri, is to explain the qbite
which error correction may be effective" (Dulay, Burt and Krashen [19:36]).
hi8h level of competence that is clearly possible in some cases, while atso
permitting the wide nmge of variation that is observed.
2.10. ROLE OF AFFECTIVE FACfORS
Language remains·an··ab-stract formal system of great complexity - one
which is, furthermore, underdetermined by the data of experience. On the
Success in child language development seems unaffected by personality,
face ofit, the contention that the language acquisition faculty effectively does
socialization, motivation, attitude, or the like. This is consistent with the view not exist in adults could be understood to suggest that the adult learner should
that the process is controlled by the development of an innate domain-
abandon all hope of any degree of success. This would be the correct
specific faculty, and it contrasts strongly with the case of general adult skill
conclusion were it not for the fact that the adult possesses other knowledge
acquisition, which is highly susceptible to such 'affective factors'.6
and faculties which are absent in the infant. And these may, in part, take some
There is a universal consensus among second language acquisition re-
of the explanatory burden usually assumed by the language acquisition
searchers, as well as among language teachers and students, that such factors
device. Most obvious is that the adult already has knowledge of at least one
are essential in foreign language learning. Since the early seventies, begin-
language. ~.lhereis that the functionoftheirinate domain-specific
ning with the work of Gardner and Lambert [28], numerous empirical studies
~\l.i~iti~ystem is in adults filled (ihough indirectly and imperfectly) ~
have shown significant correlations between affective factors and profi-
thi*,lb:ati~.language knowledge and by a general abstract problem-solving
ciency. The situation is, to be sure, very complicated; affect itself is complex
'syste'tn.
In order to be more precise, let us say that the child learner possesses a
6Here, and throughout, I use' affect' loosely to refer to a whole range of associated factors. language acquisition system which contains the following two components:
This is not to deny the correctness of the distinctions among them, it is just that the distinctions
are not relevant to the argument.
 •.......•••, ii'
r'J
ROBERT BLEy-VROMAN
14
A. A defmition of possible grammar: a Universal Grammar
B. A way of arriving at a grammar based on available data: a Learning
Procedure (or set of procedures)
Workers in the fonnal theory of language acquisition have·generally
assumed such a framework with these components, at least since Chomsky
[11]. There have been differences in tenninology, emphasis, and specific
proposal. Chomsky, in Aspects, proposed that a fonnal evaluation metric
would fill function B; would allow the learner to "select from the store of
potential grammar a specific one that is appropriate to the data available to
him" [11:13]. A different approach to B is, for example, that of Pinker [56],
who suggests a system of many highly specific learning procedures which
construct and revise a grammar (within the constraints provided by Universal
Grammar) bit by bit, as data become available. Also, there is clearly a
potential trading relationship between A and B; tight constraints on possible
grammars (A) may carry some of the burden of choosing a grammar which
would otherwise fallon B. Despite the numerous possible variations, some-
thing like the distinction between A and B seemsjustified. For tenninological
clarity, let us say that function A is filled by a system which we shall call
'Universal Grammar', and that function B is filled by what we shall call a
system of 'Learning Procedures' .7
The picture of the difference between child language development and
foreign language learning which is advocated here is thus the following:
Child Language Development Adult Foreign Language Learning
A. Universal Grammar A. Native language knowledge
B. Domain-specific B. General problem-solving
learning procedures system~
There are two ways in which the native language knowledge can provide
partial infonnation about Universal Grammar. First, the learner's general
problem-solving systems may directly observe the native language itself,
considering both its general character and specific facts about its individual
sentences. ~d"'(andtnotespeculatively),the general cognitive system
may be able'to access the internal representation of the particular native
7 The term 'Universal Grammar' is sometimes also used to comprise both A and B. This is
especially appropriate within evaluation metric theories where the procedure for selecting a
grammar is so closely related to the formal properties of rules. I shall use the term in the more
restricted sense.
THE LooICAL PROBLEM OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNING 15
language grammar though, of course, not consciously. Below, I will first
discuss the contribution of the language, then of the representation of the
grammar. The first part of the discussion is on a very general level and is
intended to be theory-independent. In the second part of the discussion, I will
consider in greater detail how the consequences ofUniversal Grammarmight
be encoded into the particular grammar of the native language which is, in
principle, accessible to the cognitive systems of foreign language learning.
This second part is couched in the tenninology of a theory which contains
concepts of parameter setting, of core and periphery, of rule systems, and of
principles which govern the interpretation of rules.
3.1. THE ROLE OF THE NATIVE LANGUAGE
By the adult's knowledge of a language, I do not mean simply the set of
well-formed sentences, buf1tl~o'the full range of subtle intuitions which
I).ative speakers pos.sess. A great deal of infonnation about the general
character of language - about language universals - is implicit in a single
language, precisely because universals are universaL This is most evident in
the broad architectural features of language. The learner will have reason to
expect that the language to be learned will be capable ofgenerating an infmite
number of sentences; a language of fmite cardinality will not be expected.
The learner will expect that the foreign language will have a syntax, a
semantics, a lexicon which recognizes 'parts ofspeech', a morphology which
provides~ystematic ways of modifying the shapes of words, a phonol()gy
which provides a finite set of phonemes, and syllables, feet, phonological
phrases, etc. Universals of this sort are available to the foreign language
learner merely by observing the most obvious large-scale characteristics of
the native language - no deep analyses are necessary - and by making the
very conservative assumption that the foreign language is not an utterly
different sort of thing from the native language.
In syntax, the learner might also expect to find principles of constituent
structure and of recursive embedding with no intrinsic limit. There will be
grammatical functions, and these will not always correspond to thematic
roles. There also may be assumed to be something like relative clauses,
sentential complements to verbs, and the like. There will be Boolean-like
connectors, quantifiers, pronouns, anaphors, 'understood' elements ofvari-
ous kinds. There will be devices for giving orders, making requests, asking
yes-no and wh-questions. There will be devices for focus and for
backgrounding.
Thus, even supposing that the original scheme of Universal Grammar is
no longer av&lable, the foreign language learner can, in a sense, 'reconstruct'
 ROBERT BLEY-VROMAN
16
much of it by observing the native language. The foreign language learner
does not therefore come to language as "an organism initially uninformed as
to its general character" [11 :58].
In some regards, foreign language learners may even know more than
children equipped with a general Universal Grammar. They will know that
there will likely be words for the sun, the moon, for mother, father, for body
parts, colors, directions, that there will probably be styles, registers, and
regional and social dialects.
The information which the foreign language learner has is, of course, not
complete. The speaker of a language with little inflectional morphology and
heavily dependent on word order to convey grammatical function may
initially be surprised by many of the characteristics of a language less
dependent on rigid configuration. The phonemic use of tone will not be
expected by speakers of a non-tone language. The speakers of a language
with obligatory overt subjects may initially be baffled by a null-subject
language.
On the other hand, foreign language learners also may be said to know tOQ
much. They may presume that features of the native language are universal.
They may not only expect that the language to be learned will have some
relatively small set of phonemes, but that it will have exactly the same set as
the native language. They may also expect that the language to be leamed will
have an analogous politeness system, that noun phrases with numerals may
omit plural marking, and so forth.
The adult foreign language learner constructs, therefore, a kind of surro-
g<Ue for Universal Grammar from knowledge-'-ofihe native language. The
native language must be sifted - that which is likely to be universal must be
separated from that which is an accidental property of the native language.
D#lerent Jearnersmay be expected to approach this task differently, and not
all can be expected to come up with the same surrogate, and not all will be
equally successful. The process of learning a foreign language may, itself,
have an effect, as the learner gradually realizes what aspects of the native
language seems to transfer well. And learners of third and fourth languages
may be presumed to have a richer source of information and to stand a better
chance ofbuilding an adequate surrogate UG. In an interesting and ingenious
series of studies, Kellerman [34] showed tPat adult learners had ideas ofwhat,
in their native languages, was 'universal' (and, hence, transferable to the
language to be learned) and what was specific to the native language (and,
hence, probably would not transfer well). These ideas were sometimes, but
not always, right. He also showed that notions of universality differed from
learner to learner and changed over the course of foreign language learning.
THE LOOICAL PROBLEM OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNING 17
He pointed out also that learners can develop a 'psychotypology' of lan-
guages, so that the Finnish learners of English who already know Swedish
correctly expect English to be more like Swedish than like Finnish.
In summary, for what success is achieved in the foreign language learner,
the knowledge of the native language can assume much of the burden taken
in child first language development by the assumption of access to an innate
Universal Grammar. The foreign language learner is not a Martian, nor a
hypothetical blank-slate infant. But because the indirect knowledge of
Universal Grammar possible through the native language is incomplete and
accidental, and since it also depends on the individual learner's ability to
construct a UG-surrogate, one can expect some partial success, little chance
of perfect success, and some considerable individual variation. This, of
course, is exactly what is found. 8
3.2. UNIVERSAL QRAMMAR, THE REPRESENTATION OF PARTICULAR GRAMMAR,
AND FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNING
The purpose ofthe preceding discussion has been simply to point out what
a rich - though incomplete - source of information about the nature of
language a particular language is, even considered quite superficially. From
a different perspective it is possible to pose much more specific questions:
wha.ti.s the relationship of Universal Grammar to the adult's representation
of a particular grammar and how does foreign language learning reflect this
relationship? Som~ ~epresentationof a particular grammar clearly must exist
'inside the learner's head'. Although this representation is clearly not open
to conscious contemplation, it is entirely possible that it does interact with the
cognitive systems responsible for adult language learning. It is well known
that human cognition regularly must use knowledge representations which
are not available to conscious inspection. There is little reason to believe that
8 Although it seems to me that the view is quite plausible that both components of the
domain-specific acquisition have ceased to function in adults, there are other reasonable
possibilities. A potentially interesting one is that the principles which define 'possible
language' may still be around, but that the means of constructing a particular grammar, given
the data of experience, may not be. Thus A is still functioning but B is not. Clahsen (personal
communication) and Schmerling (personal communication) have suggested this. Shuldberg
(63] has developed a model of L2 acquisition which seems to make this assumption. Though
this alternative view is conceptually coherent, I do not pursue it here. The empirical issue is
essentially whether there are characteristics of learner language which prove a knowledge of
, possible language' above that which can be obtained as a byproduct of the native language.
As of now, there is no clear evidence of such characteristics. If such evidence should tum up,
a somewhat less radical view of the fundamental difference hypothesis than that proposed here
may be justified.
18 ROBERT BLEY- VROMAN
cognitive processes involved in foreign language learning should be different
in this respect, even though we have so little specific information about them
as yet.
In principle, then, how much information about Universal Grammarmight
be available within the particular grammar of the native language? To put it
another way, what exactly is the relationship ofthe particular grammar to the
Universal Grammar framework on which it was constructed? How much
information is lost, how much retained, and in what form?
Assume a model of language acquisition of the sort envisioned by
Chomsky in recent work, in which a 'core grammar' is constructed by setting
the parameters of Universal Grammar [12] [13]. After the parameters have
been set in one way, how much information about the other possible settings
- those not taken - remains represented in the particular grammar which has
been created? One possibility is that little remains. For example, consider
phrase structure rules. Suppose Universal Grammar provides general sche-
mata for phrase structure rules. Some parameter, such as Head Direction, for
example, is to be set by experience. Let us say (as one possibility) that a
particular set of phrase structure rules (or, equivalently, an appropriately
structured lexicon) is consequently created which produces head-initial
structures. There is now nothing in this set of head-initial phrase structure
rules of this particular grammar to let us know that it could have been
otherwise (and no information about the consequences, had it been other-
wise). Put slightly differently, the representation of a particular grammar
accessible to the foreign language acquisition system may not be an X-bar
schema plus information about how parameters have been set, but rather a
specific set of phrase structure rules for the particular language. The general
schema is replaced by its specific instantiation.
To use a computer metaphor, it is as if an application program came with
an installation-configuration program, with which you set parameters to
customize the application to your computer and your tastes. You use this
installation program just once, it sets up the application to operate properly,
often also stripping it down, removing options your machine cannot imple-
ment. You never use the installation program again. The application program
is now a particular program for your machine. The application program could
have been otherwise, but you cannot tell by looking at it how it might have
been. Nor can you tell how the installation program itself operated. It is often
good practice to design programs this way, since information about the
consequences of unused options and the devices to set them are not carried
around as excess .baggage, consuming space and perhaps slowing the
operation of the program.
THE LooICAL PROBLEM OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNING 19
An analogous possibility to that proposed for phrase structure rules also
exists for transformational rules, in theories which allow their existence.
'Move alpha' , in its complete generality, may not exist in the representation
of any acquired particular grammar. After acquisition is complete, the
grammar may contain a more specific 'Move NP', or even, 'Move NP
leftward'; or perhaps even particular rules of Passive, wh-fronting, etc. Of
course, none ofthese possibilities deny that particular,rules are consequences
of the interactions of much deeper and more general principles of Universal
Grammar, it only distinguishes questions about the nature of Universal
Grammar from questions about the representation of a particular grammar.
Exploring this line of reasoning further, consider the distinction between
the 'core' and the 'periphery' of the grammar. Whether some rule of a
particular grammar arose during acquisition as the setting of a parameter of
Universal Grammar (a 'core' rule) or whether it was learned as a 'peripheral'
fact, may be impossible to tell from the rule's representation in the particular
grammar. The core/periphery distinction may thus not be encoded in the
acquired grammar. To adult cognition, it may all look the same.
This view of a particular grammar - wherein Universal Grammar and
domain-specific learning procedures play their part in the creation of the
particular rule system but are no longer visible in the rule system after it is
completed - is not correct a priori, though it is perfectly coherent and even
has a certain functional appeal. It is also conceivable that the representation
of a particular grammar's rule system is nothing more or less than a direct
representation of UG and a notation of the setting of its parameters plus,
perhaps, a clearly demarcated periphery. And there are intermediate possi-
bilities. For example, perhaps both the general rule schema and the specific
instantiation may be represented. 9 The question of the representation of the
rule system of a particular grammar is one of fact.
The discussion to this point has concentrated on rule systems on the
constraints which determine the possibilities and the procedures by which
they are set up. One can ask similar questions about the systems ofprinciples
which 'interpret' rules and, thus, govern the functioning of grammar - for
example, the principles governing Binding relationships. Such principles of
UG present different problems from the problems of interpreting the role of
particular rules. The constraints of UG which define possible rule systems
and the learning procedures which construct those rules can, in principle, be
used to set up a particular rule system, and then they can be set aside once that
9 This possibility is reminiscent of cognitive production theories of proceduralization,
where a specific production may be added to handle a particular case, but where the more
general production is still around.
20 ROBERT BUy-VROMAN
particular system is constructed. But the principles which govern the inter-
pretation of rules are clearly not only active in the process of setting up the
grammar, but also control its day-to-day operation. A reasonable guess might
therefore be that these principles are 'still around' in a much more direct sense
in the representation of a particular grammar and might, therefore, be
accessible in foreign language learning, or even operate directly on the
foreign language grammar. 10 For example, even if a particular grammar rule
of wh-fronting exists, it may well be that the general Binding constraints on
the operation ofrules (preventing wh-movement, say, from relating elements
across a relative clause boundary) are still around. This view of the place of
the principles of UG in a particular grammar is, again, not necessary, only
plausible. It is also possible that particular grammars really do contain
principles as specific as, for example, Ross constraints, although this possi-
bility does seem unlikely given the intricacy ofthe facts which the principles
have to explain and the necessity of accounting for subtle intuitions in
constructions as exotic as parasitic gaps. Again, one may imagine interme-
diate possibilities in which the general principles of UG are still around (to
handle the exotic cases), but where there are also particular constraints
governing, for instance, 'movement' out ofcomplex noun phrases. (It is even
conceivable that the principles are directly encoded into particular rules,
though to allow this would seriously undermine the project of putting
constraints on possible rule systems and would require substantial rethinking
of the relationship between Universal Grammar and a particular grammar.)
Again, these are questions of fact.
An i.rtmguing pessibility implitit in the view offoreign language learning
argued here is that adft!t'f:fil~geacquisitiortcan'pl'OVideindirect evidence
on just such questions of the representation of a particular grammar. If fIrst
language knowledge takes the place of Universal Grammar itself in foreign
language acquisition, then foreign language learning may provide indirect
evidence regarding the representation of a particular grammar. Consider, for
example, the implications of the work of White [74] on the acquisition of
phenomena associated with the 'pro-drop' parameter in adult language
learning. White showed that speakers of a 'pro-drop' language, such as
Spanish, learning English (non 'pro-drop') had great difficulty 'resetting the
parameter' . Indeed, it appears that they were learning the individual effects
ofthe parameter piecemeal, as if they were peripheral constructions. I I At one
10 I am indebted to C.L. Baker for emphasizing the potential importance of the distinction
between rules and such principles.
11 This is my interpretation, not White's conclusion. She was concerned to show the
relevance of parameter setting to foreign language learning research.
THE LooICAL PROBLEM OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNING 21
,level, of course, this is strong evidence for the view that foreign language
learning is unlike first language development. One might even say that
foreign language learning is 'all peripheral'. At another level, the result is
most happily accommodated in a theory of the representation of a particular
grammar in which parameters are no longer even around to be reset (or, at
least, are inaccessible to the learner).1213
From a slightly different perspective, foreign language learning can also
provide evidence for or against a specific proposal that something is a
consequence of Universal Grammar. To the extent that Universal Grammar
is unavailable to the foreign language leamer, one will expect that something
which follows from Universal Grammar and which is underdetermined by
the data of experience (plus the representation of the particular native
language grammar) will be unlearn'able by the adult. Since first language
acquisition takes place in the presence of Universal Grammar and foreign
language learning takes place without it, 0Re'''tlftft tmpe that the comparative
study of fIrst and foreign language learning can contribute to the delineation
ofthe character ofthe innate learning system. Chomsky [13:9] suggested that
the study of 'language deficit' might, in principle, make a contribution to our
understanding of these issues. In the framework adopted here, foreign
language learning is rightly considered a case of 'language deficit', in this
sense.
3.3. THE NATURE OF THE GENERAL PROBLEM-SOLVING COGNITIVE SYSTEM
One of the motivations for attributing a domain-specific language acqui-
sition device to children is that language is a complicated abstract formal
system, and young children seem not to have the general cognitive capacity
to deal with such systems. 14 Adults;-however, clearly do have that capacity,
which is sometimes thought to arise about puberty with the onset of what
Piaget calls the stage of"formal operations" [32]. This general human formal
12 To indulge againin a computer metaphor, itis as ifyou gave your already configured copy
of your word processor to a friend - but without the installation diskette. Her attempts to
configure the program to her different machine might will resemble a pastiche of peripheral
patches.
13To be precise, this sort of evidence relates to the representation of a particular grammar
which is accessible to the foreign language learning system. One might perhaps propose that
some other 'inaccessible' system existed, in which all the richness of va were somehow
directly represented. While this is conceivable, the point is that foreign language learning
provides no evidence of its existence in adult cognition. Parsimony ought therefore to favor a
theory in which such a representation does not exist over one in which it exists, but in which
additional mechanisms must be proposed to prevent access.
14 Felix [22] makes this point very convincingly.
22 ROBERT BLEY-VROMAN
problem-solving capacity is immensely powerful, and it can be expected to
shoulder a substantial explanatory burden. But its very powerful generality
will limit its efficiency in the very specific case of language. IS
A consideration ofthe precise nature ofan adequate model ofgeneral adult
cognitive problem-solving as it functions in foreign language learning would
take us too far afield. Some of its characteristics, however, are apparent. It
must, for example, be goal-oriented. It must have ways of utilizing feedback
and instruction. There must be some way of 'understanding' explanations. A
variety of mechanisms must clearly be available, including distributional
analysis, analogy, hypothesis formation and testing. The indeterminate
intuitions of adult learners suggest something vaguely probabilistic and non-
monotonic. There ought to be some way to move from controlled to
automatic processing.
Work in cognitive science over the past decade or so has, in general, tended
toward the development of very rich models of cognition with properties of
just the sort that seem required. I ~vein mind particularly work in general
pr~"'"S6tvirig,ill schema theory, and in production systems. Representa-
tive work would include that of Newel and Simon [52], Sacerdoti [59],
McDermott and Doyle [46], and - my favorite candidate - Anderson [1].
There is, therefore, every reason to be optimistic that human cognitive
systems will be found to have the correct properties.
In summary, the two substantial advantages which adults possess -
previous knowledge ofa language and a general cognitive ability to deal with
abstract formal systems - are able approximately, but not perfectly, to
compensate for the loss in adults of the child's knowledge of Universal
Grammar and of a Learning Procedure designed specifically to construct
grammars.
4. ALTERNATIVE EXPLANATIONS
The proposal advanced here to explain the substantial obvious differences
between child language development and adult foreign language learning is
that in adults the language acquisition device ceases to operate, and that
15 One way to view this aspect of the problem is from the perspective of mathematical
linguistics. Because general human cognition must be able to deal with such a wide variety of
systems (not just the human languages), it clearly runs the danger of trying to pick out the
language from much too large a set. If that set is really much too large (like the set ofrecursively
enumerable languages), then Gold's [30] theorems would apply, and the impossibility of
foreign language learning without negative evidence would follow.
THE LooICAL PROBLEM OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNING 23
knowledge of first language and general problem-solving serve as imperfect
substitutes. This is not the only possibility, nor is it the dominant explanation
in the field of second language acquisition research. Among the attempts
which have been made, one can distinguish several general lines ofapproach.
1. First language development is controlled by an innate language
acquisition system which no longer operates in adults. Adult language
learning resembles general adult learning. This is the explanation
advocated here: the fundamental difference hypothesis.
2. Knowledge ofan existing language interferes with the acquisition of
a subsequent language. The Ll interference hypothesis.
3. There is something missing in the input to adults - adults do not get
enough input, or do not get the right kind. The input hypothesis.
4. Children have a crucial something -like a personality state, attitude,
degree of motivation, way of interacting, stage of ego development, or
socialization, or something similar something which adults do not
have. The affect or socialization hypothesis.
5. Adults have a developed general problem-solving cognitive system
which competes with their language acquisition system. The competing
cognitive systems hypothesis.
This is quite a mixed bag of explanations. Some attribute the fact that
adults often fail where children always succeed to a lack in adults (as in the
input hypothesis, the affect hypothesis, the fundamental difference hypoth-
esis). Olliers attribute it to something extra in adults which gets in the way (as
in the interference hypothesis or the competing cognitive systems
hypothesis). It is fair to say that, among professional second language
acquisition researchers, the input hypothesis (often buttressed by the affect
hypothesis) is the most influential.
In the following section, each major alternative to the first approach is
discussed briefly and generally. The intent is not to review the often
substantial body of published research dealing with each perspective. The
concern is to show the conceptual strengths and weaknesses of each ap-
proach.
4.1. THE Ll INTERFERENCE HYPOTHESIS
The idea that interference from the first language is the major obstacle to
adult foreign language learning was dominant in (at least American) applied
24 ROBERT BLEY-VROMAN
linguistics from the forties through the late sixties. Here is a classic statement
of the position:
The basic problems [of foreign language learning] arise not out of any
essential difficulty in the features of the new language themselves, but
primarily out of the special 'set' created by the fIrst language habits
(Charles C. Fries, in his forward to Lado's contrastive analysis textbook
[39:vD.
The clear advantage to this explanation is that it relies on a very obvious
and uncontroversial difference between adults and children. Children do not
know a language yet, while adults do. Other explanations rely on differences
which are much more nebulous and difficult to specify. Nevertheless, there
8;l'e 60th empirical and theoretical reasons to doubt the adequacy of t1Ie
interference hypothesis.
Note, at the outset, that the interference hypothesis, by itself, ~s not
~lai:n why. children should differ from adults in their ability to learn a
secQl¥llanguage, and does not explain why a third language should often
seem to be less difficult than a second. In the interference hypothesis, it is
previous knowledge of a language, not some factor related to age, which
impedes foreign language learning. In addition, no really adequate psycho-
logical mechanism was available to proponents of the interference hypoth-
esis. The' suggestion that interference iscausetf.'~ proactive inhibition ,in
habitfonnation relies on a view oflanguage knowledge (ofpatterns as habits)
that is now universaUyrejected~16 Indeed, it is not really clear why previous
knowledge of one language ought not to make learning of subsequent
languages easier, rather than harder.
There is also an important empirical difficulty. It is now known that a
substantial number of adult learners' errors are not attributable to interfer-
ence. Many researchers have argued that interference accounts for perhaps 5-
25% of grammatical errors. 17 Of course, the percentages themselves are not
terribly important; they will depend greatly on what and how you decide to
count, as well as on the (often difficult to make) attribution of error to cause.
16 Actually, it has been pointed out that even within habit formation theory, there were
reasons to reject proactive inhibition, since the relevant animal studies which provided the basis
for the notion normally dealt with cases where an old set of habitual responses is extinguished
and replaced by a new set. First languages are not extinguished when second languages are
learned (Selinker [66]).
17 The most influential early study is that of Dulay and Burt [15]. Dulay, Burt and Krashen
[19:102-8] provides a summary of the research in the seventies.
THE LooiCAL PROBLEM OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNING 25
The important point is that many errors are clearly not the result of interfer-
ence, no matter how one counts.
4.2. THE INPUT HYPOTHESIS
Many adults trying to learn a foreign language, especially in a country
where the language is not spoken and in a course which meets just a few hours
a week for a year or two, obviously are exposed to much less language input
than the average child. Often this difference is compounded by the fact that
teachers may not speak the language well themselves and may be content
with giving imperfect grammar lessons and quizzes. Also - and more
speculatively - much of the language which children hear directed at them
deals with the 'here and now'.IS Such input may thus be more easily
comprehended than much of the language addressed to adults. (Presumably,
if the learner hasn't any idea ofwhat an utterance is about, this input is oflittle
value in acquisition.) In this way, the concentration ofuseable material in the
body of the input may be 'denser' for a child than for an adult. A general
deficiency of input may well explain many cases.
Ho~"er,whai of the vanauon"'m:mced'lItrrmfg'"aduTfs·with superficially
equivalent input? And what of the cases where adults fail to attain native-
speaker competence even after decades of residence among native speakers
- a situation extremely common among adult immigrants and Gastarbeiter?
Here the total amount of comprehensible input to which the adult learner is
exposed must surely equal or even exceed the three-year old child's.19And
what ofthe observed correlation of ultimate success with age? The response
ofthe inputhypothesis to these evident difficulties is to propose a more subtle
definition of 'exposed to input'.
In its most clearly articulated fonn (for example, as cautiously argued by
Krashen [36]), the input hypothesis posits a learner-internal 'filter' which
prevents the input to which the learner is exposed from getting· in to the
language acquisition device (LAD): "... it [the filter hypothesis] claims that
18 As Newport, Gleitman and Gleitman [54] point out, this fact of adult-child interaction
probably derives simply from the fact that the topics which adults and children want to talk
about are quite limited; that is, the immediate purpose of the use of concrete referents is not to
facilitate language acquisition. Asher I2] [3] suggests that it also helps acquisition if input is
synchronized with actions. This is the basis for his method of Total Physical Response in
foreign language teaching.
19 We put aside here cases where an immigrant lives in a socially isolated community,
consorts only with collinguists, reads only native language papers, watches only native
language television. The failure ofsuch learners is no problem for even the most primitive input
hypothesis.
26 ROBERT BLEY-VROMAN
no real change in the language acquisition device occurs at puberty. The LAD
does not shut off, nor does it even 'degenerate'. Rather, the necessary input
may be kept out" [36:216]. Children either do not have such a filter, or it is
relatively weak. The filter strengthens (or arises) around puberty, and once
strengthened, it may stay strong indefinitely. Hence, the correlation of age
with degree of success.
With the positing of the filter, the input hypothesis changes from an
appealingly concrete explanation to one based on difficult to specify internal
states ofmind. What is this filter exactly? How can one tell whether it is strong
or weak (apart from noticing how successful language learning is)? Most
what specific characteristic does the filter have (What is
'bandwidth'?) which cuts out particular aspects of the input? And how does
the lack of just these particular input characteristics account for acquisition
failure? Note that it makes little sense to think that the hypothetical filter
would eliminate, say, every third sentence to which the learner is exposed,
and that this could explain failure. Krashen, borrowing terminology from
Stevick [70], speaks of the input in some cases as "striking deeper" [36:212].
We are now sliding from theory into metaphor.
In order to evaluate the input-cum-filter proposal, it will be necessary for
its proponents to tell us much more exactly what the filter is, how it arises or
is strengthened, and how its operation on the input can result in failure of the
LAD (which is presumed still to operate and which, after all, is an extremely
powerful engine, well-designed to be resistant to degenerate data and input
deficiencies). This last and most essential step will also require some
specification of the theory of the LAD (or at least of its crucial vulnera6Ie
aspects). Adherents of the input hypothesis have not yet addressed this
question.2° The input hypothesis still lacks any specified acquisition model.
4.3. THE AFFECT OR SOCIALIZATION HYPOTHESIS
As noted above, adult language learning seems to be much influenced by
such factors as motivation, attitude, socialization, self-image, ego, etc. The
effects are complicated and often confusing, but they are there. Child
language development is not influenced by these factors, although general
20 The best efforts to specify how input might 'strike deeper' in some cases and thus
account for differential success - really depend on the implicit assumption that
learning is governed by the same principles that control general adult non-domain-specific skill
acquisition. Stevick [70] relies heavily on the results of psychological research
adult learning and the principles of memory. This is, of course, consistent with the
advocated here.
THE LoGICAL PROBLEM OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNING 27
dult learning undeniably is. I have taken this as an argument that child first
:anguage development and adult foreign language learning are fundamen-
tally different.
However, affect can be built into a version of the L1 =L2 perspective, and
has been used in attempts to explain differences in success. This requires a
denial of the (apparently) obvious, i.e., that child language development is
not crucially influenced by affective factors. Given the universal success of
children, these crucial affective factors, whateverthey are, must be invariably
present in childhood. Th~ difficult.y with this approach i~ that .it is not ch~ar
how to specify these cruCial affectIve factors and how to IdentIfy them WIth
the factors seen to influence adult language learning. For example, Heyde
[31] shows a correlation between proficiency and self-esteem in adult
learners. Do all children have equal (and perfect) self-esteem? Naiman,
Frohlich, Stem and Todesco [51], in a general study of what makes a good
language leamer, report an apparent lack of self-confidence among less
successful second language learners. Do all children have equal (and perfect)
self-confidence? There is a real danger here that concepts like 'self-esteem'
(etc.) may end up being defined as 'self-esteem (etc.) in whatever sense
children all may be said to have it and use it for language development.'
Although efforts have so far failed to define exactly what these crucial factors
are which all children have and which adults do not always have, one should
perhaps not give up entirely. Young children are, after all, very different from
adults in many respects.
However, even if one could spot some consistent affective difference, it
would still be necessary to present a theory oflanguage acquisition in which
such a difference could be expected to influence language acquisition in the
observed ways. This requirement is analogous to that which filter theorists
must meet in showing just what the filter is, and how it would work in a
general theory of language acquisition. As it stands, the affect hypothesis
amounts to saying that children have a certainje ne sais quoi that is absent in
adults, and which is crucial to language acquisition je ne sais comment.
In many foreign language learning studies which purport to zero in on the
affective factors, it seems just as likely that the affective variable is the result
of proficiency, rather than the cause. If this is true, then one might truly
conclude that if a child should (for some mysterious reason) fail to acquire its
native language, it would have, for example, a poor self image - be anxious,
withdrawn, unwilling to speak. But now the explanation is backwards. For
example, in the Naiman, Frohlich, Stem and Todesco study cited above, it
was discovered that learners of French who enthusiastically raise their hands
in class to volunteer also tend to do well on proficiency tests. The poorer
 r'
1
28 ROBERT BLEY-VROMAN
perfonners don't like to be called on and ar.e embarrassed when required to
speak French. This is not really surprising; it follows from the reasonable
assumption that people, by and large, like to do what they are good at and feel
better about themselves ifthey succeed. 21 It probably tells us little about what
the crucial affective factors are and how they work.
Affect may be conceived of as influencing acquisition more or less
directly, or it may be combined in an interesting way with the filter
hypothesis. It is claimed, by Krashen and others working in that framework,
that affective states influence the strength of the filter. Thus, the effect of
affect is indirect, via the filter. Again, at this stage of their development, the
ideas here are still too nebulous to bear scrutiny.
4.4. COMPETING COGNITIVE SYSTEMS
Felix has suggested that adults do not suffer from some lack, but rather
from an excess. Adult general problem-solving gets in the way of a still
fun9tioning language acquisition system [22], [24], [25]. The story proceeds
as follows. We know that language is a complex and abstract fonnal system.
We know that children of age two cannot, in general, deal with abstract
formal systems (compare Piaget's stage ofconcrete operations). Since young
children can develop language, we can argue that a Language Specific
Cognitive System (LSC) allows the child to come up with the fonnal
properties oflanguage, even though fonnal systems in general are beyond the
child. In young children, the LSC is the only cognitive module capable of
dealing with language. (The LSC is the Language Acquisition Device of
other terminology.) So far we are on familiar ground.
Around puberty, humans develop a general ability to deal with abstract
fonnal systems. Felix identifies this development with the onset of Piaget's
stage of fonnal operations. Felix calls the newly available general fonnal
ability the 'Problem Solving Cognitive System' (PSC). Now the adolescent
has two ways to approach the processing oflanguage data: either through the
LSC or the PSC. That is,theProblem Solving Cognitive System begins to
compete. with the LattgnageSpeCific Cognitive System in the analysis of
languagedat!. However, the PSC, unlike the LSC, is not particularly well-
equipped to deal with language acquisition. (All the standard arguments
about general problem-solving being unable to account for language acqui-
This law is not absolute. Some people seem not to depend so much on overt success for
21
self-image, and some people like to do things which they are not good at. This variation may
explain why the observed correlations in the French study are only modest (r is about .3 to .4).
THE LoGICAL PROBLEM OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNING 29
sition apply here.) In addition, th~ PSC is insuppressible, so thateven though
it is not particularly good at language learning, it will necessarily be used.
Thus, adults fail to acquire languages. Variations in success may perhaps be
attributed to variation in the degree to which the PSC wins in the struggle. A
strong PSC ought to inhibit natural language acquisition, a weak PSC ought
to facilitate it.
This explanation has the advantage that it attributes the decline in adult
language learning ability in a relatively specific, locatable development - the
rise of fonnal operations. There are, however, several difficulties with the
proposal. First, it seems to suggest that good general problem solvers should
be poor language learners, and conversely. This has never been shown, and
there is no reason to think that it is true. The very worst language learners
should be professional linguists, with their strong tendency to approach
language analytically. While many linguists are not skilled polyglots,they
are certainly not the very worst language learners, as the theory apparently
would predict. One may try to get around this by claiming that those
successful learners who are also skilled systematic problem solvers are not
really applying proble.m-solving to (internal, subconscious) language acqui-
sition, even though it looks like they are. But now the concept of the PSC is
driven inside, and we have no way to know the degree to which it is operating
except by observing the degree of learner success.
A related problem involves motivation. Felix notes that the LSC is not
apparently affected by motivation, attitude, etc. (since children all succeed
regardless). Attitude and motivation do, of course, affect general adult
problem-solving. Here is the difficulty. If learners fail because of the strong
competition of the PSC, and if low motivation and bad attitude can suppress
the PSC (as we know they can), then the learners with the poorest attitudes
and least motivation ought to be most successful language learners. 22
In both these cases, the competing cognitive systems hypothesis makes
predictions which run opposite to the apparent truth. The basic difficulty is
that adult foreign language acquisition seems to be favored by exactly those
things which favor successful adult cognitive problem-solving in general.
'The competition model predicts that that which favors problem-solving
should prevent adult language learning.
A third difficulty is the timing of the system. Some mid-adolescents, on
moving to a foreign country, seem to acquire the language extremely well
22 Felix, ofcourse, recognizes this problem. He suggests a sort ofloop or bleed-across, where
some of the input which makes its way past an affective filter into the PSC might then also feed
the LSC. In this way, the affective filter on the PSC might indirectly affect the LSC. To the
extent to which modifications of this sort are necessary, the model loses much of its appeal.
30 ROBERT BLEY~VROMAN
(Asher and Garcia [4], Seliger, Krashen and Ladefoged [65]). The obvious
explanationfor these successes within the framework ofcompeting cognitive
systems would have to be a delayed development of fonnal operations. This
surely cannot be the reason. From the perspective adopted by the fundamen-
tal difference hypothesis, the decline of the LAD is not a consequence of the
rise offormal operations, but an independent development. It clearly does not
take place at puberty, but some years later, perhaps toward the end of the
teens. We might therefore expect that the early teens, where both fonnal
operations and the LAD are available, would even be an especially good time
for foreign language learning. This would be in accord with the evidence
cited by Snow [69].
A final difficulty is conceptual. It is implausible that an existing cognitive
system, designed perfectly for a specific task, should then be somehow
blocked by a later arising system, ill-suited for that task. It is not impossible
that such a situation should arise in evolution, but it seems unlikely. Humans
possess a good system for depth perception. This they have at a very young
age, long before formal operations. After the onset of formal operations,
humans do not then cease to use the old system for depth perception, instead
relying on formal geometrical analysis (and bumbling about). Rather, hu-
mans regularly use general problem-solving precisely for cases in which no
specific cognitive module provides an adequate solution. General problem-
solving will ordinarily be observed to supplement domain-specific systems,
not to supplant them. If the LSC did cease to operate, as argued here, then it
would be natural for the PSC to take over. If the LSC did continue to be
available and in good shape, it is difficult to see why it would not process
linguistic data, as it is designed to.
5. EVIDENCE FOR Ll=L2
The fact is that the phenomenon appears, on the face ofit, to be quite unlike
child language development and very much like general adult skill acquisi-
tion, from bicycle riding to computer programming to landscape painting -
with great variation in rate and course oflearning and in ultimate attainment,
and strongly influenced by affective factors of personality and attitude. It
comes as no surprise, therefore, that theories which assume an essential
similarity between adult foreign language learning and child language
acquisition have been driven to posit additional apparatus to account for the
obvious differences. On the other hand, the reasonable first assumption that
things are as they seem requires little additional complexity.
THE LooICAL PROBLEM OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNING 31
There are, however, three areas which must be addressed by a theory
which holds that first and foreign language acquisition are fundamentally
different, areas where actual evidence shows that foreign language learners
have at least some access to the same sorts of mechanisms available in child
language development.
5.1. EXISTENCE OF ADULT INTUITIONS
First, it has been pointed out (most forcefully by Felix [25]) that advanced
adult learners are able to develop a 'feel' for a language - a feel which clearly
is not the result of the conscious application of learned rules. Advanced
learners often ate able to say that some way of expressing something in the
foreign language 'feels right' (or wrong) even though they can state no rule
(or sometimes can only cite an irrelevant or incorrect rule). The fact is
unquestioned, but what are we to make of it? Felix believes that it is an
argument that adults continue to use the same language-specific acquisition
processes which allow children to develop their 'feel' rather than by con-
scious application of learned principles. And this is true of many domains in
which there is no reason to assume an innate domain-specific faculty. To put
it slightly differently, it is not the existence of linguistic intuitions per se
which argues for the activity of an innate acquisition system but, rather, the
specific character of the knowledge system which must provide the basis for
these intuitions and its relationship to available experiential information.
Thus, the existence of 'feel' alone does not argue Ll=L2.
5.2. L2 DIFFICULTY ORDERS
The second argument that the same system underlies child and adult
language learning is the one most frequently cited. It is based on the fact,
abundantly documented in numerous studies, that there exists a 'difficulty
order' (or 'acquisition order') for L2. For example, learners have been shown
in many studies to be more accurate in their use of the progressive -ing than
in their use of the third person singular -s. 23
The idea is that such invariant orders are characteristic of an internally
driven developmental process. This style of argumentation is due primarily
23 Well known examples of difficulty order studies include especially those of Dulay and
Burt [15] [16] [17] [18]; Bailey, Madden and Krashen [5]; Larsen~Freeman [40]; and Hakuta
[30]. A large number of applied linguistics doctoral dissertations of the late seventies also deal
with the issue. Many of these studies deal with children learning second languages, as well as
adults. This does not affect the argument here.
32 ROBERT BLEY-VROMAN
to earlier work in first language acquisition, to some extent that ofLenneberg,
but especially of Brown who, on discovering a similar phenomenon in child
fIrst language development, concluded that"... children work out rules for the
speech they hear, passing from levels of lesser to greater complexity, simply
because the human species is programmed at a certain period in its life to
operate in this fashion on linguistic input" (Brown [9:105-6], emphasis
mine). Since second language learning also exhibits this phenomenon, and
since the phenomenon has been used to argue for the operation of an innate
language acquisition device in children, then we can also argue that the same
innate language acquisition device continues to operate, beyond this 'certain
period' in foreign language learning, even in adults.
This argument from 'developmental stages' is not without force. Never-
theless, there are two classes of reasons to doubt its conclusions. The fIrst is
empirical: the facts themselves are not completely well-established. The
second and more significant difficulty involves the logic of the interpretation
of the facts; unexplained analogy does not argue hbmology.
We will not go into the adequacy of individual studies in detail; however,
there are certain reasons to doubt the strength of the results. The statistical
procedures applied to the data in order to determine difficulty order may, in
many cases, conceal a fair amount of intersubject variation. This point was
most persuasively argued by Rosansky [58]. Not all studies are equally prey
to this error, but enough are so that the soundness of the basic datum is
perhaps somewhat less certain than may appear at fIrst glance.
Another empirical problem is that, in some studies which attempt to relate
the repertory of acquired morphemes-to some independent measure of stage
of acquisition, there is reason to question the independence of that measure.
Mean length ofutterance (MLU), frequently t:lsed in first language studies as
a developmental benchmark, does not work well for second language
learners who, at any given stage ofproficiency seem to produce utterances of
greatly varying length. Utterance length in second language learners seems
to be controlled as much by individual personality factors (loquacity,
shyness, etc.) as by language development. And in the learners studied by
second language researchers, MLU generally exceeds the value of 4.0, at
which value MLU ceases to be a reasonable index of proficiency anyway
(Brown [9]). But the alternative independent measures of proficiency level
may themselves be weighted tests of morpheme accuracy, as is the Syntax
Acquisition Index (SAl) of Burt, Dulay and Henmdez-Chavez [10]. The
construction (and especially the weighting) of such tests depends on some
antecedent notion of morpheme difficulty in which 'hard' morphemes count
for more. This procedure makes observed correlations between which
THE LOGICAL PROBLEM OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNING 33
morphemes are mastered and the score on the SAl difficult to interpret.
Although the method is not completely circular, the interaction of the
measure with the order does weaken the conclusions.
No study of morpheme difficulty order is without its problems. Still, a
variety of experimental designs and data analysis procedures have tended to
yield roughly comparable orderings. The fact that different experiments are
flawed in different ways, yet all tend toward the same conclusion, suggests
that there is indeed something to the difficulty order phenomenon which is
not entirely artifactitious. Although the concept of 'invariant acquisition
order' is somewhat overdrawn, more errors are indeed made at any given
point on certain morphemes, and those morphemes also take longerto master.
It seems fair to say that some aspects of a language are, in fact, more difficult
than others.
The observed first and second language orders are not the same, although
there is a partial similarity. For example, possessives, quite early in first
language acquisition, are later in second language acquisition; articles and
'contractible' copulas are earlier in second language acquisition than in first.
There is no agreed on explanation for these differences.
However, even if one accepts as an established fact that there is an L2
difficulty order and that it resembles the L1developmental sequence, it is still
not correct to conclude that the same processes underlie fIrst and second
language acquisition. The difficulty is that similar phenomena may have
quite different explanations. (One recalls the evolutionary biologist's dis-
tinction between homology and analogy.) Although the Ll order may
conceivably have its roots in the operation ofa language-specific acquisition
faculty, the L2 order may be caused by other factors. Arguing from similarity
of effect to similarity of cause i~ especially problematic when, as in the case
of language acquisition, no adequate theoretical account exists of either
phenomenon.
We do not know what causes the fIrst language orders. Of the range of
suggestions which have been made, including especially such notions as
complexity, salience, frequency, essentialness, concreteness, or the like,
none seem entirely satisfactory. And especially important to the extent
they are adequate, such general concepts as these "may also occur in the
acquisition of other cognitive tasks than language," as Taylor [71:235]
correctly points out. That is, they may be consequences ofsome more general
property ofhuman learning, and not attributable ofnecessity to some specific
property of a domain-specific language acquisition system. John R. Ander-
son makes a similar point from an evolutionary perspective: "It seems only
reasonable to suppose that the mind would evolve multiple overlapping
34 ROBERT BLEY-VROMAN
systems to optimize various aspects of mental processing." [1 :41]. It is thus
quite possible that some subcomponent of the LAD which is responsible for
the Ll order should resemble (or perhaps even coincide with) some
subcomponent of the general problem-solving capacity which may give rise
to the L2 difficulty order.
The cause of the second language difficulty orders is equally mysterious,
perhaps even more so. Here, researchers have rightly been extremely cau-
tious in speculating about causes. Larsen-Freeman [41] found frequency to
be the best correlate. But this result has not held generally. Dulay, Burt and
Krashen, in their influential textbook summarize as follows:
Researchers have discovered an L2 acquisition order which is charac-
teristic of both children and adults, and which, for as yet unknown
reasons, is similar for both speaking and writing, provided that the data
studied are natural conversations or compositions. This general conclu-
sion is one of the most exciting and significant outcomes of the last
decade of second language acquisition research.
The L2 acquisition order is somewhat different from the Ll order ...,
although not enough work has been done yet to determine the specific
reasons underlying the differences. [19:202]
The fact ofthe L2 difficulty orderitselftells us little. In any case oflearning
a complex skill, it would be astounding not to find that some things were
harder to master than others. This will surely be true of all domains of any
complexity; and for most ofthese domains, no innate domain-specific faculty
can reasonably be proposed. Difficulty hierarchies are exactly what one
would expect from general adult problem-solving: independent of the as-
sumption of an innate LAD. Even at the present primitive state of cognitive
psychology, existing general learning mOdels can produce what one might
call 'acquisition orders'. The computer-implemented ACT* system (as
summarized in Anderson [1 :chpt 7], for example, can even give a simulation
of stages oflanguage learning, complete with characteristic errors. Thus, the
existence of acquisition orders per se is no argument for the continued
operation of an innate language-specific acquisition system.
How significant then is the fmding that the orders in L 1 and L2 are
(partially) similar? Since we do not know what causes either, it is difficult to
conclude much. The partial similarity mayor may not be coincidental. It is
conceivable that the Ll order really does reflect the maturational course of
an innate system (a true developmental sequence). But even then, the L2
ordermay well reflect the operation ofa general adult skill acquisition system
THE LOGICAL PROBLEM OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNING 35
which finds some aspects oflearning a language more difficult than others. 24
As an analogy, one might point out the logical errors of an even weaker
argument in favor ofL1=L2. This is the so-called'silent period' argument (cf.
especially Jones [33] and the references cited there). Children do not begin
to speak at birth. A year or more often passes before they begin to talk, and
dramatic syntactic development usually waits till the third year of life. One
also can observe in second language learners (for example, elementary
school or kindergarten children who have moved to a new country) a period
of perhaps some months where they say little or nothing (Newmark [53]
reports such a case in a Dutch Montessori school). Occasionally, one sees this
in adults, especially when. they are not instructed, or when there is no
particular pressure for early production. Is the fact of this 'silent period' in
both L 1 and L2 learners evidence that both groups are using the same
acquisition process? We do not really know what causes this silent period in
either LI or L2learners. However, one may quite reasonably speculate that
young infants have not yet undergone the necessary physical- in particular,
neurological- development for language to be produced. What of the silent
period of second language learners? Perhaps they are insecure. Perhaps they
simply don~t know enough yet. Perhaps it helps in learning a complex task
(especially without instruction) just to observe and listen for a time, (this was
Newmark's conclusion). Adults learning to play poker (like language,
frequently a high-stakes game) often prefer to watch for a time before
playing. Does this reflect a maturational development, driven by an innate
poker acquisition faculty?
The- general point is that one need not be driven to accept a kind of
linguistic recapitulationism simply because of superficial similarities be-
tween the course of child language development and the process of adult
foreign language learning, especially when we have no adequate theoretical
explanation for either. 25
24 One particular explanation for the general phenomenon of child language developmental
sequences poses special difficulties in its extension to adult foreign language learning. This is
the proposal, specifically advanced by Felix [24], and explored by Eubank [21], that the stages
are the result of (presumably physical, neurological) maturation of the language faculty itself.
(Felix draws an analogy to the development of the human dentition.) It is difficult to see how
this explanation could apply to adult acquisition stages, when neurological development is
presumably complete (cf. Eubank for one interesting proposal).
2S The points made here with respect to morpheme orders apply equally to the even less clear
cases of syntactic developmental sequences which one might cite, such as the cases ofGerman
word order studied by Clahsen, Pienemann, Meisel and others (cf. Meisel et al [47]).
 .,.···
0
.

r···
36 ROBERT BLEy-VROMAN THE LOOICAL PROBLEM OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNING 37

5.3. UG-GENERATED KNOWLEDGE
Upon reflection, it is clear that part of the reason morpheme acquisition
data do not yield clear conclusions is that the acquisition of individual
morphological items is not, on the face of it, the sort of thing for which a
powerful domain-specific acquisition system seems required: The learning
of 'peripheral' facts, like the irregular past participles or the specific form of
the third person inflection of English, does not pose the same sort of 'logical
problem' for acquisition theory as does the constraints on wh-movement, or
the relative grammaticality ofparasitic gap sentences. That the past participle
of go is gone can be read off the available data by any number of primitive
learning models.
There is, however, one realm of evidence which does seem to suggest that
at least some of the principles ofUniversal Grammar which must be assumed
to guide the child are also available to adults learning foreign languages.
These are especially principles in those areas in which recent work in
linguistic theory has been concentrated; for example, the principles of
Government, Binding, and Bounding.
In order to account for the native speaker's attained competence in these
areas, one must clearly assume that the child is guided by principles of
Universal Grammar - principles which are certainly not derivable from
models ofgeneral adult learning. Here is a fruitful area in which to investigate
differences between child and adult language learning. The logic of the
argument is clear. If adult language learning uses the same cognitive module
as child language acquisition, then adults will have access to the relevant
principles of Universal Grammar, and acquired foreign language compe-
tence will reflect these principles, even though the principles cannot be
derived from the data of experience by a general adult prOblem-solving
system. If, on the other hand, adults do not have access to Universal Grammar
in the same way that a child does, but only to principles of general adult
problem-solving, then acquired foreign language competence ought not to
reflect the relevant principles of Universal Grammar. The evidence ought
not, in principle, to be difficult to obtain. One need merely ascertain whether
.non-native speakers who have learned a language as adults share· native
speaker intuitions on the relevant structures.
To take a standard example, English fronts wh-words in questions: i.e.,
Who did you see? However, it is not possible to extract wh-words from within
a relative clause (an instance of the Complex Nounphrase Constraint,
doubtless a consequence ofmore general principles ofBounding): *What did
the police arrest the men who were carrying? Current theories attribute the
native speaker's knowledge of this restriction to Universal Grammar. Do
adult non-native learners have consistent correct judgements in cases like
this? If they do, that should count as evidence that Universal Grammar does
continue to operate into adulthood.
At the University ofPassau, Felix has recently been gathering just this sort
ofevidence. In one preliminary study [25], he obtained the intuitions of adult
German learners of English on a variety of English sentences, some gram-
matical, some not. The grammaticality of the test sentences is thought to
reflect principles of Universal Grammar; without access to Universal Gram-
mar, the learners ought not to have consistent correct intuitions. His test
sentences included examples illustrating the that-trace effect (examples in
(1) below); superiority effects (2a) vs (2b); the difference between control
verbs ('Equi' verbs) and Exceptional Case Marking verbs (verbs of the
believe class with 'Raising to Object') (3a) vs (3b); case filter effects (4); the
subject condition (the impossibility of extraction from clausal subjects) (5);
the specified subject c~nstraint in picture nouns (6); and even examples ofthe
relative grammaticality of parasitic gaps (7).
(1). a. Who do you think came?
b. Who do you think Max saw?
c. Who do you think that Max saw?
d. *Who do you think that came?
(2). a. 1 don't know who did what.
b. *1 don't know what who did.
(3). a. Jones was easy for Smith to persuade to come to the party.
b. *Jones was easy for Smith to expect to come to the party.
(4). a. John seems to like Bavaria.
b. *Bavaria seems John to like.
(5) a. Which piano is it fun to play?
b. *Which piano is to play fun?
(6) a. Who did the man see pictures of?
b. *Who did the man see John's pictures of?
(7) a. A person that they spoke to because they admired
b. *A person that they spoke to because admired them
38 ROBERT BLEy-VROMAN
r THE LooICAL PROBLEM OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNING
Note that the logic of this type of experiment does not require a commit-
ment to any particular theory ofwhat aspects ofUG give rise to these effects,
only that they are UG effects. Felix points out that if there is knowledge of
a relevant contrast, it cannot result from classroom instruction:
... because in general language teachers are not even aware of this
contrast, so that the relevant asymmetry is not commonly taught.
Consequently, it seems a reasonable guess that correct intuitions about
the relevant contrast result from exactly the same source that is respon-
sible for this knowledge in first language acquisition, namely Universal
Grammar. If, however, our subjects did not have access to Universal
Grammar and were merely reproducing what they had been taught in
class, they should be unaware of the relevant contrast in English. [25:4]
It is also important, ofcourse, that the native language not have equivalent
examples which show the effects of UG in exactly the same way. Felix's
subjects were native speakers of German. 26 In German, for example the that-
trace effect does not show up since neither subjects nor objects can be
extracted from that-clauses; there are no superiority effects in German at all
(although the reasons are still unclear); and there are no believe class 'EeM'
verbs ('Raising to Object' verbs). Felix suggests in each case that merely
relying on the grammaticality ofnative language equivalents would not allow
the learner to make the correct judgements. Because the study is very
preliminary, I will not review these arguments in detail. What is important is
the logic of the experiment, and it is correct.
In Felix's study of 48 native speakers of German learning English as
adults, they performed significantly better than chance, getting correct
judgements in about 70% of the cases. They correctly accepted 57% of the
grammatical examples, and correctly rejected 80% of the ungrammatical
examples. On the face of it, these results don't look good for either position
on adult access to Universal Grammar. If adults do have access to Universal
Grammar, surely they ought to perform better. Less than 60% correct on the
grammatical cases (where 50% would have been possible by random guess-
ing) is especially embarrassing. Nevertheless, it is better than chance, and
Felix concludes cautiously that "it seems difficult to maintain that adult
26 Felix also gave the test to three native English speakers. They didn't do much better than
the Germans. Felix uses this result to strengthen his argument for similarity between native and
non-native speakers. It could as well show a defect in the design ofthe test, or show the difficulty
in getting subjects to understand what is meant by a grammaticality judgement, or show that
three subjects is not an adequate number.
39
second language learners do not have any consistent intuitions about gram-
maticality contrasts involving Universal Grammar" [25:10]. These results
are too tentative and ambiguous to justify detailed scrutiny here. Felix and
others (Georgette Ioup, ofthe University of New Orleans, andI) have refmed
the experimental technique and have collected similar evidence from Japa-
nese and Korean adult learners ofEnglish. Preliminary analysis of the results
suggests results similar to Felix's: performance is not very good, but it
appears better than chance in many cases. Lydia White, at McGill University,
is doing work with the same logic. In the near future we can probably expect
to see many such studiesY
If additional work along these lines should show that adult learners do
have knowledge which somehow requires access to principles of Universal
Grammar, this will constitute clear counterevidence to the position argued in
this paper (at least in its absolute form, cf. footnote 8).
5.4. ALTERNATIVE EXPLANATIONS OF APPARENT ua EFFECTS
To an extent, some apparent cases of'UG-generated knowledge' in adult
learners may be accommodated even under a perspective which denies adults
child-like access to the principles of UG.
UG can be mimicked. Other factors, besides UG, can produce effects
which superficially resemble those of UG. The four most obvious sources of
ersatz-UG are:
1. Native language analogy
2. Availability of rich data
3. Learning of UG consequences as peripheral facts
4. Relative parsing difficulty
5.4.1. Native language analogy
In many cases, the native language may exhibit contrasts which will help
the learner get the judgements right in the foreign language, even though the
native language does not show the operation of UG in exactly the same way
21 Also, the studies of Flynn [27] [28] (inspired by the work of Lust [44]) on the parameter
of 'principle branching direction' seem to suggest that learners base their ideas of branching
on their native languages and have difficulty dealing with the consequences of a different
setting of this parameter in the language to be learned. Researchers such as Flynn and White
have held that the facts show the relevance ofparameter setting to our understanding of foreign
language learning. This is true, but primarily in that adults do not seem to set parameters in the
same way that children are presumed to.
40 ROBERT BLEY- VROMAN
in exactly equivalent examples. There are two possibilities here: 1) the native
language does have a contrast in equivalent examples, although that contrast
has a different (perhaps non-UG) basis; and 2) the native language does have
a contrast based on UG in the same way, although not in exactly equivalent
examples.
Felix's study of knowledge of the contrast between Jones was easy to
persuade to come to the party vs. *Jones was easy to expect to come to the
party can provide an example of both possibilities. The contrast in these so-
called tough-movement examples depends on the difference between Con-
trol ('Equi') verbs like persuade (I persuaded Jones to come) vs. 'Excep-
tional Case-marking' ('Raising to Object') verbs like expect (l expected
Jones to come to the party). This difference in verb type interacts with
principles ofUG to yield the grammaticality contrast in the tough-movement
examples. In German, the expect-class verbs are not ECM verbs; they cannot
occur in accusativum cum infinitivo (*1ch erwarte ihn zu gehen "I expect him
togo'). So, Felix argues, the learnercannotknow the properties ofECMverbs
from the properties of the German equivalents of expect-class verbs. Can
knowledge of German nevertheless allow the learner of English to get the
grammaticality contrast right? This can happen in two ways, corresponding
to the two possibilities outlined above.
First, there is, of course, a syntactic contrast in German between verbs of
the persuade class (zwingen, iiberreden, etc.) and verbs of the expect class
(glauben, erwarten, etc.). German verbs of the persuade class (Control or
'Equi' verbs) can occur in accusativum cum infinitivo (Ich zwang ihn zu
gehen) while the expect class verbs cannot. Thus, German itself provides the
relevant verb classes, and the learner may already expect to find syntactic
differences between these classes in English. Suppose, further, that the
learner attempts to 'translate' the English examples into German. German
does have a construction like tough-movement. Er ist leicht zu sehen 'He is
easy to see. ' The ungrammatical English expect sentence, if translated using
the tough-movement structure is ungrammatical in German as well, but the
grammatical English persuade sentence is clearly better. (Although some
speakers may find it awkward, all find the iiberreden sentence much better
than the erwarten sentence.)
(8) a. Jones was easy to persuade to come.
b. ? Jones war leicht zu iiberreden, zu kommen.
(9) a. *Jones was easy to expect to come.
b. *Jones war leicht zu erwarten, zu kommen.
THE LooICAL PROBLEM OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNING 41
The reason the German sentence in (9) is ungrammatical is, of course, not
the same as the reason the English sentence is ungrammatical. The German
sentence is ungrammatical because erwarten cannot occur in accusativum
cum infinitivo. The English sentence is ungrammatical even though expect
can occur in accusativum cum infinitivo. Here, the native language provides
a corresponding grammaticality contrast in equivalent examples, even though
the native language contrast does not have the same basis as the foreign
language contrast. If the learner makes such equivalences, he may get the
foreign language judgement right, though for the wrong reasons.
But suppose the learner does not make these equivalences. The learner
may still be able to find out the properties of'ECM verbs' in tough-movement
constructions from the native language. Here is where the second possibility
comes in. Although German expect class verbs are not ECM, German verbs
of sensory perception (sehen, horen, etc.) do occur in structures which are
arguably 'ECM' (Ich sah ihn kommen 'I saw him come'). These structures
cannot 'undergo tough-movement' (*Er ist leicht kommen zu sehen; *Er ist
leicht zu sehen, kommen). Thus, although UG does not constrain exactly
equivalent examples, UG may constrain other examples in the appropriate
way.
Since, in these cases, the correspondence between native and foreign
language is not exact, but only partial and indirect, we can expect to see
learner scores on judgement tests which are better than chance, though not
perfect. And we should expect considerable inter-subject variation, depend-
ing on whether and on how the indirect connections are made.
5.4.2. Availability of rich data
It must be kept in mind that adults sometimes have much richer sources of
data about the language to be learned than do children, including negative
evidence in various forms, organized presentation ofdata, explicit statements
of grammar rules, and the like. Perhaps the richness of the evidence might,
in a few cases, account for the appearance in adult learners of knowledge
attributable to principles ofUG in child language acquisition. Some proposed
principles of a domain-specific learning mechanism are not boviously
required if fairly simple negative evidence is available. The young child may
come to know without negative evidence that 'Do you may go?' is bad. (And
this may motiviate principles of Universal Grammar and language acquisi-
tion, as it does for Baker [6] and Pinker [56:248-255].) But many adult
learners will immediately see their quiz grades drop if such errors are made.
To be sure, this richness of data probably could not explain complete
42 ROBERT BLEY-VROMAN
r THE LooICAL PROBLEM OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNING
knowledge of highly abstract constraints. (It is difficult to believe that even
carefully instructed and oft-corrected classroom learners would have discov-
ered' say, the grarnmaticality contrasts in parasitic gap examples by differen-
tial correction.)
5.43. Learning UG consequences as peripheraljacts
In some cases, the individual consequences of a principle or principles of
Universal Grammar may be learnable as particular facts. Consider, for
example, the correlated phenomena in language that have been argued to
reflect the setting of a single 'core parameter'. Adult foreign language
learners may possibly master the same range of facts. Can we conclude that
adults have child-like access to UG? Probably not, for even if adult foreign
language learners do not have access to the parameter-setting mechanism of
UG and cannot derive the facts from the parameter, they still may be able to
learn at least certain of them one by one. The work discussed above by White
on the 'pro-drop' parameter in adult Spanish speakers learning English is
consistent with this picture. Some may learn that in English declaratives the
subject always precedes the verb; some may learn that subject pronouns are
not to be omitted; a few may get the that-trace effect examples right. But these
facts seem to be learned individually, not as the consequences of unified
parameters. The adult relies on the native language to provide a general idea
of what language is like and proceeds by accumulating peripheral facts,
rather than by setting parameters and deducing consequences. The end result
can bea system of knowledge which, while weakly equivalent to the native
language grammar in certain areas, has a quite different origin and, presum-
ably, a different psychological status.
As a slightly different example, one might offer the following: many
English learners of French or Spanish are inclined not to accept foreign
language sentences with stranded prepositions, even though English allows
preposition stranding. An advocate ofUG in foreign language learning might
propose that this represents knowledge of universal markedness, assuming
that the unmarked option is no preposition stranding (Munoz-Liceras [50]).
In this case, however, the learner may be operating simply as a conservative
pattern accumulator, without dealing with universal markedness at all.
Prepositions without objects may be judged ungrammatical simply because
they have not been heard, or the input provides no instances of a preposition
phrase of the form [P].
As another illustration of how knowledge which has been attributed to
Universal Grammar can also be arrived at by other routes consider the
43
Coordinate Structure Constraint (no doubt itself a consequence of some
deeper principle), whichpredictstheungrarnmaticalityof*WhodidJohnsee
Mary and?, etc. It seems possible that many adult learners of English will
have the correct intuitions in these cases, even if the native language does not
have a corresponding sentence on which to base the judgement (suppose, for
example, the native language does not have wh-movement). My work with
adult Korean learners suggests that this is the case; over three quarters ofthem
get these English judgements right. Are we forced to conclude access to DG
on the part of these adults? Probably not. Equivalent knowledge could again
be arrived at by a simple conservative pattern-registering learning model.
Since no instance of a noun phrase of the form [NP conj] is ever heard, some
learners may assume that no noun phrase of that shape is possible. Note that
no reference is made here to the deep, supposedly universal reasons for this
observed fact, nor even to wh-movement, binding, bounding, or whatever.
The adult learner is treating the deductive consequence of a principle of
Universal Grammar as if it were a contingent fact about the local structure of
English noun phrases. Still, the learner may get it right anyway. The fact that
some, but not all learners do get it right is to be expected; in general human
problem-solving, different people notice different things.
5.4.4. Relative parsing difficulty
Some of the subtle grarnmaticality judgements, based on Universal
Grammar principles (such as those adduced by Felix) present a different sort
of problem. One would expect them to be discovered by a general problem
solver inspecting the superficial regularities ofthe native language. Nor does
it seem likely that the knowledge is induced by careful correction of error.
Nor does it appear that a simple pattern registering system might conclude
that the ungrammatical cases couldnot exist because phrases ofa certain local
type had not been heard. Subjacency violations are a good example.
At least some aspects of UG may have a certain 'functional utility',
enabling sentences to be parsed more easily. If UG constraints are not
available to the L2learner, then sentences which violate subjacency will not
be ruled out as ungrammatical; however, they will certainly be difficult to
comprehend. It would not be surprising if many learners would mark them
'impossible' on a judgement test. Of course, some learners will guess some
sort of meaning for them, assigning an interpretation by some combination
of extragrammatical strategies (the sort of strategies even native speakers
may need sometimes to interpret noisy or ill-formed input and the sort of
strategies non-natives must frequently have recourse to); these learners may
44 ROBERT BLEY-VROMAN
judge them 'possible'. Again, we expect better-than-chance correctness
scores from learners, but learner behavior should be less clearly categorical
than that of native speakers.2s
Reasoning in this way, we can say that even if adult foreign language
learners sometimes seem to develop knowledge which in native speakers
must be attributable to Universal Grammar, the adults may actually be
developing quite different knowledge systems, by different routes. Only the
superficial effects may occasionally look the same.
6. CONCLUSION
On balance there is as yet no clear evidence for the continuing operation
of a domain-specific acquisition system in adult foreign language learning.
Although more research should be done, especially with respect to subtle
intuitions of grammaticality in adult learners of a language typologically
quite distinct from their native language, at present it is prudent to assume that
foreign language learning is what it so clearly seems to be: an instance of
general adult problem-solving.
This is not necessarily a pessimistic conclusion neither for a person
actually trying to learn a foreign language as an adult nor for a person teaching
adults,29 nor for the researchers attempting to fmd out something about
human cognition and the structure of language by studying adult language
learning.
Even though adults may not be able to learn a language 'like a child', there
is clearly no reason to believe that they still cannot, with effort, motivation,
and the proper learning environment, achieve an ability to perform in ways
nearly indistinguishable from native speakers. The fact that adults already
have perfect knowledge of at least one language is a valuable' leg up' , and the
general human learning capacity is very powerful indeed. A fundamental
difference between the two sorts of language learning also legitimizes the
traditional pedagogic search for better methods of helping adults learn -
methods which go beyond trying to get the adult to learn as a child. It suggests
28Parsing difficulty may easily be the explanation for the results on the Right Roof
Constraint obtained by Ritchie [57], especially since Ritchie did not obtain absolute
grammaticality judgements, but only relative rankings on parts of sentences.
29 Many researchers in second language acquisition perce"ive that it is pessimistic (or
nihilistic) to conclude that adults cannot learn (and succeed) like children and that this could
'imply a lowered expectancy on the part of both teachers and students' (Krashen [36:205]).
Jones, for example, says that an important motivation for his attempts to show the inadequacy
of the critical period hypothesis 'is to dispel the suggestive barrier to SLA [second language
acquisition] in both learners and teachers' [33:85].
THE LOOICAL PROBLEM OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNING 45
that language teaching methods which rely primarily on linguistics or on
studies of 'natural' language acquisition may be less successful than those
which incorporate broader findings of cognitive science and of pedagogy.
For linguistic researchers and other cognitive scientists, there are actual
advantages if adult learners do not have the same access to Universal
Grammar and domain-specific learning procedures as do children. The
difference allows us to see more clearly exactly what must be attributed to the
child language acquisition system and what capabilities may be assigned to
general problem-solving. Indeed, the fact that· some aspects of linguistic
knowledge are not regularly achieved by adults, while they are by children,
is a powerful argument for attributing them to an hypothesized child language
acquisition device. Adult foreign language acquisition is a natural control for
theorists of Universal Grammar. Thus, the study of adult foreign language
learning is a complement, not simply a supplement to the study of child
language development in the search for the fundamental principles of
language and human cognition.
REFERENCES
1. Anderson, J.R. 1983. The architecture ofcognition. (Cognitive Science
Series, 5) Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.
2. Asher, J. 1969. The total physical response approach to second language
learning. Modern Language Journal 53:3-7.
3. Asher, J. 1972. Children's fITst language as a model for second language
learning. Modern Language Journal 56:133-9.
4. Asher, J. and G. Garcia. 1969. The optimal age to learn a foreign
language. Modern Language Journal 38:334-41.
5. Bailey, N., C. Madden and S. Krashen. 1974. Is there a "natural se-
quence" in adult second language learning? Language Learning 24:235-
43.
6. Baker, C.L. 1981. Learnability and the English auxiliary system. In The
logical problem of language acquisition, ed. by C.L. Baker and J.1.
McCarthy. Cambridge, Mass: M.I.T. Press.
7. Bley-Vroman, R. 1983. The comparative fallacy in interlanguage stud-
ies: the case of systematicity. Language Learning 33:1-17.
8. Bley-Vroman, R. 1986. Hypothesis testing in second language acquisi-
tion theory. Language Learning 36:353-76.
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46 ROBERT BLEY-VROMAN
9. Brown, R. 1973. Afirst language. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University
Press.
10. Burt, M., H. Dulay and E. Hermindez-Chavez. 1976. Technical hand-
book: bilingual syntax measure. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
11. Chomsky, N. 1965. Aspects of the theory ofsyntax. Cambridge, Mass:
M.LT. Press.
12. Chomsky, N. 1981. Lectures on government and binding: the Pisa
lectures. Dordrecht: Foris Publications.
13. Chomsky, N. 1982. Some concepts and consequences of the theory
government and binding. (Linguistic Inquiry monographs, 6). Cam-
bridge, Mass: M.LT. Press.
14. Cohen, A.D. and M. Robbins. 1976. Toward assessing interlanguage
performance: the relationship between selected errors, learners' charac-
teristics, and learners' explanations. Language Learning 26:45-66.
15. Dulay, H. and M.K. Burt. 1973. Should we teach children syntax?
Language Learning 23:245-58.
16. Dulay, H. and M.K. Burt. 1974. Natural sequences in child second
language acquisition. Language Learning 24:37-53.
17. Dulay, H. and M.K. Burt. 1975. A new approach to discovering univer-
sals of child second language acquisition. In Developmental
psycholinguistics (monograph series on language and linguistics), ed. by
D. Dato. Washington D.C: Georgetown University Press.
18. Dulay, H. and M.K. Burt. 1977. Remakrs on creativity in second
language acquisition. In Viewpoints on English as a second language, ed.
by M. Dulay, H. Burt, and M. Finocchiaro. New York: Regents.
19. Dulay, H. M. Burt and S. Krashen. 1982. Language two. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
20. Eubank, L. 1986. The acquisition of German negation. University of
Texas doctoral dissertation.
21. Felix, S. 1981. On the (in)applicability of Piagetian thought to language
learning. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 3:201-20.
22. Felix, S. 1982. Psycholinguistische Aspekte des Zweitsprachenerwerbs.
Tlibingen: Glinter Narr.
23. Felix, S. 1984. Two problems oflanguage acquisition: the interaction of
Universal Grammar and language growth. Lehrstuhl flir allgemeine u.
angewandte Sprachwissenschaft. UniversiHit Passau ms.
24. Felix, S. 1985. More evidence on competing cognitive systems. Lehrstuhl
flir allgemeine u. angewandte Sprachwissenschaft. UniversiUit Passau
ms (contains an English language summary of Felix's theory
25. Felix, S. 1985. UG-generated knowledge in adult second language
acquisition. Lehrstuhl flir allgemeine u. angewandte Sprachwissenschaft.
Universitat Passau ms.
THE LOGICAL PROBLEM OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNING 47
26. Flynn, S. 1983.A study ofthe effects ofprincipal branching direction in
second language acquisition: the generalization of a parameter of
Universal Grammar from first to second language acquisition. Cornell
University doctoral dissertation.
27. Flynn, S. 1984. A universal in L2 acquisition based on a PBD typology.
In Universals ofsecond language acquisition, ed. by F. Eckman, L. Bell
and D. Nelson. Rowley, Mass: Newbury House.
28. Gardner, R. and W. Lambert. 1972. Attitudes and motivation in second
language learning. Rowley, Mass: Newbury House.
29. Gold, E.M. 1967. Language identification in the limit. Information and
Control 16:447-74.
30. Hakuta, K. 1974. Prefabricated patterns and the emergence of structure
in second language acquisition. Language Learning 24:287-298.
31. Heyde, A. 1983. Self-esteem and the acquisition of French. Second
language acquisition studies, ed. by K.M. Bailey, M. Long and S. Peck.
Rowley, Mass: Newbury House.
32. Inhelder, B. and J. Piaget. 1958. The growth of logical thinking from
childhood to adolescence. New York: Basic Books.
33. Jones, M. 1985. Rapid learning, language acquisition, and the critical
age question: the effect of a silent period on accent in adult second
language learning. University of Texas at Austin doctoral dissertation.
34. Kellerman, E. 1977. Toward a characterisation ofthe strategy oftransfer.
Interlanguage Studies Bulletin 2:59-92.
35. Krashen, S. 1981. Second language acquisition and second language
learning. London: Pergamon Press.
36. Krashen, S. 1982. Accounting for child-adult differences in second
language rate and attainment. In Child-adult differences in second
language acquisition, ed. by S. Krashen, R. Scarcella and M. Long.
Rowley, Mass: Newbury House.
37. Krashen, S., M. Long and R. Scarcella. 1979. Age, rate and eventual
attainment in second language acquisition. TESOL Quarterly 13:573-82.
38. Krashen, S. and H. Seliger. 1975. The essential contributions of formal
instruction in adult second language learning. TESOL Quarterly 9: 173-
83.
39. Lado, R. 1957. Linguistics across cultures. Ann Arbor: University of
Michigan Press.
40. Larsen-Freeman, D. 1975. The acquisition of grammatical morphemes
by adult learners of English as a second language. University of
Michigan doctoral dissertation.
41. Larsen-Freeman, D. 1976. An explanation for the morpheme acquisition
order of second language learners. Language Learning 26:125-34.
 r
Linguistic Analysis, Volume 20, Numberl-2, 1990
ANOTHER LOOK AT THE LOGICAL PROBLEM OF
FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNING:
A REPLY TO BLEY-VROMAN*
LYDIA WHITE
McGill University
1. INTRODUCTION
Within the principles and parameters framework, it is assumed that certain
aspects of language must be innately present in the first language (Ll)
learner, helping to account for the fact that the child manages to acquire all
the complexities and subtleties ofgrammaralthough these are underdetermined
by the input data (Chomsky [3]). This innate structure is known as Universal
Grammar (UG) and it consists of principles which predispose the child to
organize language in certain ways, leading to rather limited possibilities for
grammar construction instead of the full range that would be logically
allowed if language learning consisted only of applying general inductive
learning strategies or problem-solving procedures. In addition, there is some
parametric variation within Universal Grammar: a limited number ofoptions
are associated with certain principles, which, in consequence, work slightly
differently from language to language. These options are assumed to be built
in so that the language learner's range of choices is severely circumscribed.
Data from the language being learned will trigger the relevant option.
In recent years there has been a growing interest in the potential relevance
ofUG, particularly as realized in Government and Binding Theory (Chom-
sky [3]), for explaining certain aspects of foreign or second language (L2)
acquisition. Some argue that UG might be a component in an overall theory
of L2 acquisition. Those who disagree nevertheless feel that the issue is
sufficiently important that they should make their reasons for disagreement
clear.
* This paper was originally presented at the Second Language Research Forum, Los
Angeles, Feb. 1987. I should like to thank Mike Sharwood Smith for arranging the testing of the
Dutch learners of ESL. The research reported here was supported by grant noAI0-84-0211
from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, for which I am grateful.
50
Linguistic Analysis, 20:50-63 (1990)
ANOTHER LOOK AT THE LOGICAL PROBLEM OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNING 51
There are several reasons for this interest. In the first place, with the
introduction of the concept of parametric variation, mainstream generative
grammar has accommodated the fact of language variation, something it
previously tended to neglect. This has opened up the possibility ofexplaining
areas where different languages are involved, as is, of course, the case with
L2 acquisition. Secondly, it is only comparatively recently that the "logical
problem" of language acquisition has been well-articulated. Linguists, as
well as L1 and L2 acquisition researchers, have paid more attention to
learnability arguments which focus on the complexity of the end result of the
acquisition process. Many properties of the target grammar are
underdetermined by the input, i.e., could not be acquired on the basis of some
general learning mechanism extracting regularities from the data the learner
is exposed to. Input is misleading in certain ways, and insufficiently precise,
and negative evidence is not reliably available. In consequence, linguists
argue that UG must have certain specific properties in order to explain how
language is acquired. Thirdly, although an innate component has always been
assumed in the Chomskyan framework, in early years proposals for the
content of this component were surprisingly sparse, so that it was quite
difficult to come up with specific proposals as to what might be guiding the
language learner. Most early work on universals in L2 acquisition reflects
this; there is an assumption that there are universals without suggesting what
they might be, and those that were proposed were often not the type of
universals assumed in linguistic theory at that time. In contrast, at the present
time, the form and content of UG are the subject of extensive investigation
within linguistic theory. Proposals are considerably more precise than they
were and it becomes possible to consider seriously whether or not UG plays
a part in the second language acquisition process.
2. PARAMETERS OF UG AND SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
A number ofL2 researchers have chosen to look at cases where the L1 and
L2 differ in terms ofthe values the two languages require for some parameter
ofUG. Hilles [11], Phinney [16] and White [21,22] have all investigated the
pro-drop parameter (Chomsky [3]), arguing that L2learners initially carry
over the LI value of that parameter. Hilles, Phinney, and White indepen-
dently found that native speakers of Spanish incorrectly treat English as if it
were a pro-drop language.
Related claims are made by Flynn [10] who investigates a parameter
relating to the position of heads of phrasal categories. Head position varies
52 LYDIA WHITE
from language to language; in some cases, heads are to the left of their
complements while in others, they are to the right. Flynn claims that when
the head positions ofL1 and L2 are different, this leads to a delay in acquiring
properties associated with the L2 parameter setting.
Others have looked at cases where there is either a parameter with more
than binary values or where multiple parameters are involved. As an example
of the former, Finer and Broselow [9] considered the five-valued parameter
for reflexive binding proposed by Wexler and Manzini [20]. They found that
Korean learners of English assume a binding domain for reflexives which is
an option of UG exemplified in neither the Ll nor the L2 but which is
permitted in other languages. Similarly, duPlessis et al. [6] have suggested
that several parameters may interact in L2 acquisition, feeding into each other
in ways which, again, do not necessarily lead to the correct L2 value or the
incorrect L 1value, but to a combination ofvalues characteristic ofsome other
language. Even though the Ll parameter settings were not adopted in the
above cases, the L 1 might indirectly have contributed to the failure to adopt
the L2 values.
3. ON THE AVAILABILITY OF UO
Some of the above results suggest that the L2 learner's access to UG is
mediated via the LI. This claim is actually consistent with two very different
positions (White [23]). On the one hand, UG might be available to L2
learners, with the L 1 providing temporary access, that is, with L 1 parameter
settings being adopted by learners as an interim theory of how the L2 is
organized, but with parameter resetting to the L2 value not ruled out in
principle. Some such assumption underlies most of the work reported above.
On the other hand, UG might be unavailable, with the Ll providing tJIe
learner's only access to UO-like knowledge. A number of researchers have
recently argued for the latter position. They accept that UO guides Ll
acquisition, but claim that it is no longer available to adult learners (Bley-
Vroman [2]; Clahsen and Muysken [5]; Schachter [17]).
The clearest exponent of this position is Bley-Vroman [2], who argues for
a fundamental difference between child Ll acquisition and adult L2 acqui-
sition. He claims that second language acquisition is guided by mechanisms
which are not specifically linguistic, in contrast to first language acquisition.
The kinds of rules that adult L2 learners internalize are not constrained by
UG; they are not natural language rules but are the result ofproblem-solving,
similar to problem-solving in domains other than language. This difference
accounts for a number of well-known differences between Ll and L2
ANOnIER LOOK AT THE LOGICAL PROBLEM OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNING 53
acquisition, such as the L2learner's lack of guaranteed success, the rarity of
complete success, the incidence of fossilization, the potential effectiveness
of negative evidence, etc. 1,2
As Bley-Vroman points out, if he is correct, L2learners should not be able
to work out properties ofthe L2 which are underdetermined by the input data.
Where the input is insufficiently precise to allow the learner to induce the
relevant properties of the grammar, he or she cannot achieve full success,
since it is UG that is supposed to make up for such deficiencies in the input,
and UO is no longer available, according to the fundamental difference
hypothesis.
However, Bley-Vroman also recognizes that L2 learners often acquire
subtle knowledge of the L2 which seems to be derived from UO. To explain
this, he argues that the L2learner has in fact been able to reconstruct UG via
the L 1. He points out that certain aspects of UG must be ongoing in the adult
mother tongue grammar. For example, binding principles are required to
interpret any new sentences, not just to acquire the system of anaphora. He
proposes that the L2 learner can still tap this aspect of the native language
system. According to him, then, child language acquisition consists of UG
and learning procedures specific to language, whereas adult learning consists
of the Ll plus general problem-solving abilities.
Thus, the fundamental difference hypothesis can explain cases where L2
learners stick to the L 1 parameter value, as found by some of the research
discussed above, because these would presumably constitute cases where the
learner has reconstructed UG via the Ll (which happens to have the
inappropriate value for the L2).lt also allows for piecemeal resetting of parts
of a cluster of properties associated with a parameter when the L2 surface
input is sufficiently transparent to reveal differences between the L 1 and L2
(as in Bley-Vroman's interpretations of White's [21] findings on the pro-
drop parameter). However, the fundamental difference hypothesis predicts
that true parameter resetting to the correct L2 value will not be possible in the
case of adult learners.
lfBley-Vroman's proposal is correct, then L21eamers should not be able
lOne of his differences seems to me to be particularly questionable, namely the claim that
L2leamers have indetenninate intuitions and that this is different from native speakers. Native
speakers have indeterminate intuitions as well, as is-obvious in advanced syntax courses and
in many syntax papers found in linguistic journals, so this may be a difference of degree rather
than of kind. (A similar point is made by Schwartz [19].)
2 A number of the differences that Bley-Vroman points to can, in fact, be accommodated
within a theory that assumes that UG is still available to adult learners (cf. White [23] for
discussion; cf. also Schwartz [19] for a more detailed critique of the differences raised by Bley-
Vroman).
 r
54 LYDIA WIDTE
to sort out aspects of the L2 where both of the following hold:
(i) the input underdetermines the L2 grammar
(ii) (a) theLl andL2havedifferentvliluesforsomeparameter, so that
the L 1 cannot allow the relevant property to be reconstructed,
or,
(b) some principle operates in the L2 but not the L 1, so that the
principle in question could not have been triggered in the L I
and hence not be available for reconstruction.
Under such conditions, if learners successfully arrive at the relevant
properties of the L2, then there is support for the claim that UG is still
independently in operation, rather than being accessed or reconstructed
solely via the Ll. I should like now to focus on a situation in L2 acquisition
where both the conditions mentioned by Bley-Vroman hold and yet L2
learners are successful in working out subtle properties ofthe L2, suggesting
that UG is still available in other than its LI instantiation.
4. AN EXAMPLE: THE EMPTY CATEGORY PRINCIPLE
The case I should like to consider here is one in which L2 learners indeed
come to possess knowledge ofthe L2 which seems not to be directly inducible
from the input and which is not reconstructible on the basis of the Ll. It
involves the acquisition of English by native speakers ofDutch, particularly
the operation of the Empty Category Principle (ECP).
In English, when an NP in an embedded clause is questioned, well-known
subject-object asymmetries show up between a questioned object and a
subject, as can be seen in (1):
(1) a. Who do you think that Mary saw t ?
b. Who do you think Mary saw t ?
c. * Who do you think that t saw Mary?
d. Who do you think t saw Mary?
In (Ia) and (lb), the wh object can move out of the lower clause, and the
complementizer that may be present or absent. Example (ld) shows that a wh
subject can also be extracted; however, as can be seen in (Ic), this is not
possible if the complementizer remains in place: that cannot be followed by
ANOTHER LOOK AT THE LOGICAL PROBLEM OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNING 55
the trace of a moved element (the that trace effect).
The ungrammaticality of (1 c) is due to the ECP which states that empty
categories must be properly governed (Chomsky [3]).3 In (la) and (l b), the
trace is governed by the verb saw, which is one of the lexical categories that
can serve as a proper governor. In (Id), the trace is properly governed by a
coindexed antecedent trace in COMP. 4 In (Ic), however, proper government
is blocked because the presence of that in COMP prevents the trace in COMP
from c-commanding the subject trace.
The question at issue is whether L2 learners of English have unconscious
knowledge of the distinction between extractions of subjects and objects,
particularly whether they know that sentences like (Ic) are bad, i.e., that the
complementizer is not optional but prohibited in the case of subject extrac-
tions.
Let us first consider whether the English input is sufficient to make the
ungrammaticality of (lc) obvious to the learner. If the relevant information
is obvious from the input, then the input will not underdetermine the final
grammar, and no special mechanisms need be postulated. I assume that that-
trace phenomena are not something that language teachers or textbooks
discuss. explicitly; in other words, learners do not get negative evidence
which could make up for the insufficiencies in the positive evidence that I am
about to outline.
The input might well contain sentences like (la) and (lb), which would
suggest that the presence of that is optional in English. This impression could
be reinforced by other common English sentences like:
(2) a. This is the man that I met yesterday
b. This is the man I met yesterday
(3) a. I said that he could come
b. I said he could come
3 a. properly governs ~ iff a. governs ~ and
(i) a. is a lexical category
or
(ii) a. is co-indexed with ~.
Government requires a. and ~ to be within the same maximal projection, with a. minimally
c-commanding~. On this definition the proper governors are N, V, A and P, or a coindexed
antecedent within the same maximal projection.
4 For ease of discussion, I will assume the analysis of that-trace phenomena as it was prior
to Chomsky [4].
 LYDIA WHITE
56
In other words, the positive evidence from English does not indicate any
particular difference between cases where that is retained and cases where it
is omitted.5 If L2 learning proceeds only by means of general problem-
solving, the learner could reasonably make the generalization that the
occurrence of that is optional. The only indication that it is not always
optional is the non-occurrence of forms like (1 c). It is usually assumed in the
learnability literature that it is impossible for learners to detect such non-
occurrences without negative evidence (Berwick rll: Wexler and Manzini
[20]).
Assuming, then, that the impossibility of that in structures like (1c) is not
self-evident in the input, Bley-Vroman's first condition has been met: the
English input underdetermines the correct characteristics of the language
with respect to extraction of subjects from embedded clauses. Could L2
learners resort to his second condition and reconstruct the impossibility of
that on the basis of the L 1 situation? The learners to be considered here are
native speakers of Dutch. In Dutch, that trace violations are possible
(Engdahl [7]; Koopman [14]; Koster [15]). That is, in contrast to the situation
in English, an embedded subject can be extracted in Dutch, leaving a
complementizer next to the empty category, as in (4):
(4) Wie denk je dat them gisteren gezien heeft ?
Who think you that him yesterday seen has
Who do you think saw him yesterday?
In certain other cases of subject extraction, a dummy subject marker er is
required, as in (5):
(5) Wat denk je dat er gebeurd is?
What think you that there happened is
What do you think happened?
This latter kind of structure is not going to help the learner of English
either, since English does not deal with embedded subject extraction by
retaining the complementizer and inserting a dummy subject, but rather by
having neither complementizer nor dummy subject. In Dutch, the comple-
5 The one circumstance where a difference may be discussed explicitly in the L2 classroom
involves the fact that that (or a relative pronoun) must be retained in subject relatives:
(i) The man that painted this picture was mad
(ii) *The man painted this picture was mad
This is the opposite of what we are concerned with above, where that may not be retained.
ANOTHER LOOK AT THE LOGICAL PROBLEM OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNING 57
mentizer cannot be deleted in these cases. The surface data in the Ll Dutch,
then, do not appear to allow the L2learner to work out the relevant properties
of English.
However, the question at issue is really whether more abstract properties
ofUG could be reconstructed via the L 1. Both Dutch and English observe the
ECP, in that empty categories must be properly governed. They differ in how
this is achieved. In the Dutch sentence (4), the empty subject position after
a complementizer must be properly governed in some way to avoid an ECP
violation. This can be achieved if it is assumed that languages differ with
respect to what categories they allow as proper governors (Huang [12]). In
Dutch, COMP is a proper governor (duPlessis et al. [6]) and hence it can
govern the trace left by an extracted subject. (Koopman [14] gives a slightly
different analysis which has the same effect. She suggests that in Dutch, but
not in English, the index of the trace in COMP can percolate up to the COMP
node which then acts as a proper governor:)
IfL2learners can only reconstruct UG via the L 1, one would expect Dutch
learners ofEnglish to assume that COMP is a proper governor in English and
hence that that-trace sequences are possible. If, on the other hand, UG is still
fully reactivatable, then not only should the ECP still be available, but so also
should the possibility of detecting differences in the permissible proper
governors allowed by different languages.
5. EXPERIMENTAL EVIDENCE.
Data from a pilot study ofDutch-speaking learners ofEnglish suggest that
they have unconscious knowledge of the difference in status between
extractions of embedded subjects and extractions of objects over a comple-
mentizer, in particular that they recognize the need for the complementizer
to be absent in the case of subject extractions.
Subjects were sixty two Dutch adults, who started learning English as
adolescents at high school in the Netherlands and who were, at the time of
testing, studying English intensively at a university, at an advanced level.
Thirty adult native speakers of Canadian English served as controls. The test
was a preference task in which subjects were presented with pairs of
sentences, in written form. They were asked to compare the sentences and
choose one of three responses: the first sentence seems better; the second
sentence seems better; they seem the same. The sentence pairs involved
identical vocabulary and structure, and differed only as to the presence or
absence of the complementizer, which was found sometimes in the first
sentence of the pair, sometimes in the second. Three of the sentence pairs
58 LYDIA WHITE ANOTHER LOOK AT THE LOOICAL PROBLEM OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNING 59

were like (Ia) and (lb), involving extractions of objects, and six of the pairs difference between the responses choosing the [-that] option for the two
were like (1 c) and (Id). where subjects were extracted. In other words, the L2 cases: 98.5% for extracted subjects versus 81 % for extracted objects (X 2 (1,
learners had to compare subject extractions with subject extractions, and n = 270) = 25.947,p < 0.001). This difference suggests that native speakers
object extractions with object extractions. with and without the complemen- do indeed treat extraction of subjects differently from extractions of objects
tizer. They never had to compare a subject extraction with an object as far as the complementizer is concerned.6
extraction. (See Appendix for test sentences.) In addition, there were pairs A similar differential treatment shows up in the L2 learners: they choose
relevant to other structures, which will not be discussed here. the [-that] option in 82.5% of cases of subject extractions and in 61 % of the
Results are tabulated in (6) according to whether subjects preferred the object extractions, and the difference is again significant (X 2 (1, n =549) =
sentence where that was retained (+ that) or the sentence where that was 30.616,p < 0.001). It is this differentiality that does not appear to be obvious
omitted (-that) or whether they thought both to be equally acceptable (same). from the L2 input and that cannot be worked out on the basis of the way the
The table gives both the absolute numbers of responses and these responses ECP operates in the Ll. If they were simply making the generalization that
expressed as percentages. English allows optional that-deletion, one would not expect differential
treatment of subject and object extractions with respect to the complemen-
(6) tizer. 7 These results suggest that Dutch L2learners of English have uncon-
scious knowledge of the relevant properties of English. In other words, UG
Preference judgments from Dutch learners of English on subject and object is reactivatable when there are parametric differences, in this case between
extractions permissible proper governors, so that learners are not necessarily stuck with
the L 1 value (even though this may be what they start out with). What learners
Control group (n=30) Dutch group (n=62) know about the L2 appears to be more than they could have induced directly
Subjects + that - that Same + that - that Same from the input and more than they could have reconstructed via the L 1 alone. 8
o 177 3 22 301 42 I suggest that the above data support the contention that L2 learners still
0% 98.5% 1.5% 6% 82.5% 11.5% have the ability to acquire subtle and complex properties ofthe L2. Since they
did this even though the input was misleading or insufficient, and even
Objects + that - that Same + that - that Same though surface phenomena in the L 1 were different. as well as different
8 73 9 23 112 49
9% 81% 10% 12.5% 61% 26.5%

The results show that both the native speakers and the Dutch learners of
English treat extraction over a complementizer differently in the two cases.
If they are comparing sentences involving the extraction of the subject, there
is a strong tendency to prefer the sentence without the complementizer that.
If they are comparing sentences involving the extraction of the object, the
sentence without the complementizer is still preferred, but to a lesser extent.
In the case of subject extractions the [-that] choice is made almost without
exception by the control group. In the case of object extractions, this is still
the preferred option, but other possibilities are also allowed. In the latter case.
I had expected the native speakers to show a greater incidence of responses
of same, since the sentence is grammatical whether or not that is present.
However, the important thing to note here is that there is a significant
6 However, a drawback of such preference tasks is that the data do not show the status of
the various sentence types in the grammars of these people. For example. one cannot be sure
that extraction of a subject over a complementizer is disallowed, only that it is not preferred.
A more traditional grammaticality judgment task would be needed to establish this point.
7 In the case ofobject extractions, the L2learners also quite frequently use the response of
same. This is also not an LI based response, where the option of [+ that] would be required.
8 Jordens [13] tries to argue that the differential acceptance ofthe complementizer in subject
and object extractions can be traced back to properties of the Ll, Dutch. He offers two different
kinds of explanation; one depends on surface word order differences between English and
Dutch in the case of subject extractions; the other depends on the fact that object extractions
are easier to parse than subject extractions. While such a parsing difference is undoubtedly real
(ct. also Schachter and Yip [18D. it is irrelevant here. Jordens has misunderstood the issue (as
well as the nature of the task performed by these subjects) and neither of his alternative
explanations will work. As the Dutch learners ofEnglish were never asked to make a preference
judgment between a subject extraction and an object extraction, a parsing explanation or an L 1
word order explanation relying on general differences between subject and object extractions
cannot account for the differential treatment of the complementizer in the two cases (ct. Eubank
[8] for related comments).
60 LYDIA WmTE
r ANOTHER LOOK AT THE LOGICAL PROBLEM OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNING
principles or parameter values being instantiated in the two languages, it
suggests that UG is still in operation in L2 acquisition.
6. CONCLUSION
It is important to remember that the fundamental difference hypothesis is
a claim about child/adult differences, rather than about Ll/L2 acquisition
differences per se. Since the subjects reported on above started learning their
L2 as adolescents, Bley-Vroman might claim that they had learned the
relevant properties before the "death" of DG, and thus that they do not
constitute a counterexample to the fundamental difference hypothesis. This
raises the issue of when (at what age) UG ceases to be available to the
language learner. If teenagers still have true access to UG (i.e., are not limited
to reconstructing UG via their LIs), then they presumably do not learn in
ways fundamentally different from child L 1 learners. In that case, none ofthe
ten fundamental characteristics of adult foreign language learning ought to
hold for teenage learners (or for child L2 learners). Yet I suspect that many
of these characteristics do hold; that is, that teenagers (and maybe even
younger children) are not guaranteed success in the L2, rarely show complete
success, show substantial variation in degree of success, fossilize, have
indeterminate intuitions, are influenced by affective factors, etc. If they
reveal these characteristics and at the same time show behavior that suggests
unconscious knowledge of aspects ofUG that could not have been obtained
via the L 1, it suggests that L 1 and L2 acquisition can be alike with respect to
the operation of UG and yet differ in other respects, and that the differences
outlined by Bley-Vroman as evidence for a lack of UO are not in fact related
to the UG issue.
Bley-Vroman notes that general similarities between Ll and L2 acquisi-
tion cannot be used to argue for the availability ofUG in L2 acquisition, since
similar behaviors might have different causes. But the same point applies in
reverse to his use of general differences between L 1 and L2 acquisition as
evidence for a lack ofUG. These differences might not relate to UG at all, but
to other factors in the L2 acquisition situation. The theory of UO involves a
claim that the native speaker's knowledge oflanguage is mediated by abstract
principles, and that child first language acquisition is constrained by such
principles. The availability or non-availability of UG in adult L2 acquisition
can only be investigated within this same domain. Indeed, much current
research focuses on the availability of specific principles and parameters of
UG to adult learners, so we may soon be closer to an answer as to whether
there really is a fundamental difference in the DO domain. (See White [23])
61
for an overview of relevant research.)
In conclusion, I should like to emphasize that I do not believe that Ll and
L2 acquisition are totally alike. Bley-Vroman lists a number ofways in which
Ll and L2 acquisition differ. Many of these are real differences (though not
necessarily due to the absence of UG). The question is how to handle them.
His solution is to say that UG does not operate and that the differences can
be attributed to this fact. However, he then has no explanation for successful
L2 acquisition in circumstances where UO could not have been reconstructed
via the Ll, as in the case presented above. An alternative is to argue that UO
does operate and that the differences and difficulties can be attributed to other
factors (see White [23] for further discussion). Either way, one has something
to explain. It is not the case, as Bley-Vroman seems to feel, that by assuming
the non-operation of UG one has somehow explained a wider range of L2
acquisition phenomena than if one assumes UO still to be present.
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