How Do the Structures of the Native Language and the Target Language Constrain Second Language Acquisition?

The specialist in second language acquisition and bilingualism must at the same time be a generalist. In understanding the process of becoming bilingual, the researcher must have a wide array of knowledge ranging from linguistics and cognitive psychology, on the one hand, to the theory and. measurement of human diversity, on the other. The natural rhythm of research fads tends to emphasize certain aspects of the second language learner more than others at any particular point in time, but ultimately a theory of second language acquisition will be no less ambitious than a theory of culture, language, thought, individual differences, and the result of the interactions of all their factorial combinations. It boggles the mind to imagine what the end result of our research endeavor would look like. Although this paper addresses, specifically, the acquisition of English by native speakers of various Asian languages, an understanding of some more general questions related to second language acquisition is a prerequisite to this endeavor. The questions that I have isolated for review are the following: