Medieval and Modern Views of Universal Grammar and the Nature of Second Language Learning

Abstract

This paper examines the relationship between ideas of Universal Grammar (UG) and second language (L2) teaching and learning in medieval Europe, so as to bring light from the past to bear on 20th-century debate about the role of UG in L2 acquisition. Because the language used in the Middle Ages to speculate about UG was an L2 and because philosophers of language appropriated a metalanguage from L2 literature, there was commerce between the activities of L2 teaching and learning and attempts to define UG. Influence also flowed from work addressing the nature of language into L2 pedagogy. In the 20th century, much L2 research has adopted the tools and goals of generative linguistics, but few of the fruits of such work have been incorporated back into linguistic theory. Thus the different contexts of the medieval and modern eras have shaped in different ways how UG has been investigated and how L2s have been studied.

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