Universal Grammar in Second Language Acquisition: A History (review)

In this book, Margaret Thomas asserts that although a number of concepts surrounding both universal grammar (UG) and second language acquisition (SLA) have emerged in different forms for many centuries, most contemporary linguistic researchers approach the study of UG and SLA with a profound lack of historical consciousness. A type of ‘programmatic ahistoricity’, as T names it, arises from a conventional assumption that discussions of UG or SLA need not seriously consider anything written earlier than the mid-twentieth century. T takes exception with this assumption, and her book is both a defense of the position that L2 acquisition theory has detrimentally truncated its own history and an attempt to show the value of studying historical contributions in these areas.

Ch. 1, ‘Introduction’, provides working definitions of UG and SLA, discusses a few caveats to the presentation, and presents the justification for studying the history of UG in SLA, emphasizing the benefits of achieving historical self-awareness. Ch. 2, ‘Ancient Greece and Rome’, argues that Greek thought is foundational not only to Western linguistics in general, but also specifically to the study of UG. Regarding ancient Rome, T notes the Roman investment in bilingualism and comparison of languages, and highlights Marcus Terentius Varro’s declinatio, which she views as one of the first assertions of language universals.

Ch. 3, ‘Language and language learning from Late Antiquity to the Carolingian Renaissance’, discusses the role of Christianity in extending the scope of language learning, institutionalizing L2 instruction, and creating a normative grammatical tradition with some of its own assumptions, quite different from those today, about L2 learning and the universality of language. Ch. 4, ‘The Middle Ages’, discusses the emergence of a grammatica speculativa as one of the first syntactic theories in the west. Its counterpart, grammatica positiva, is identified with language teaching and learning, representing a separation between language theorizing and language teaching, but also some points of connectedness between the two, as when speculative grammarians used L2 data in their theorizing about universal characteristics of grammar.

Ch. 5, ‘From discovery of the particular to seventeenth-century universal languages’, discusses a swinging pendulum between concerns for the particular and the universal, but a pendulum whose ‘point of suspension (is) not fixed’ (102). Ch. 6, ‘General grammar through the nineteenth century’, focuses on Cartesian linguistics and discusses the degree to which Noam Chomsky’s proposals about language are indebted to it.

Ch. 7, ‘Conceptualization of universal grammar and second language learning in the twentieth century’, records how the study of UG and SLA in this century grew in both scale and degree of specialization, building a broader base of data and reflecting more creatively about that data. Finally, Ch. 8, ‘Afterword’, revisits the question of engaging in historical inquiry concerning the concepts of UG and SLA, reasserting the value of the enterprise.

Overall, this book provides a highly accessible, interesting, and important contribution to the discussion of UG and SLA. It will be of particular interest to linguists and students who are interested in the theoretical implications of L2 acquisition.