L 2 Acquisition , Age , and Generativist Reasoning . Commentary on Birdsong

Birdsong's highly informative overview of the theoretical issues and facts on age and second language acquisition (L2A) has made me realize again how deceptively appealing it is to put two and two together in this overall discussion of age and acquisition. Let me explain what I mean by this temptation. If one takes the view that the goal of linguistic theory is to seek an explanation for the problem of language acquisition, for some linguists, myself included, part of the solution will be found in postulating Universal Grammar (UG) as a theory of an innate language faculty. Such a nativist approach provides a plausible answer to the successful, rapid, and pretty much uniform attainment of L1. In the majority of cases of adult L2A, we see anything but successful, rapid, or uniform language attainment: "The outcome ... is demonstrably different" (Birdsong, this volume, p. 9). If an innate language faculty plays a decisive role in the success of acquisition, it is tempting to explain the lack of success by pointing to a hypothesized absence of that same faculty. If not total absence, then at least limited availability. If one adopts an essentially biolinguistic approach to the study of language, it is all too easy to feel confident that some form of explanation for a maturation-based critical period will ultimately make sense. Indeed, the maturational factor