Human language basis from the perspective of grammatical errors in language learners

Abstract

The goal of the present study is to approach the human language basis from the perspective of grammatical errors that humans make in their process of language learning. We adopt the generative biolinguistic perspective and analyze grammatical errors of Japanese learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) and learners of Japanese within the framework of the so-called Principles and Parameters Approach to Universal Grammar (Chomsky, 1965, 1981, 1995). It was found that grammatical errors of Japanese EFL learners are analyzable in terms of grammatical characteristics of other languages than their native language, Japanese, and target language, English and that those of learners of Japanese are also interpretable as grammatically acceptable with respect to grammatical characteristics of other languages than their native or target language. This finding supports generative error analysis (i.e., error analysis from the generative biolinguistic perspective) and deepens our further understanding of the notion of parameters that capture to what extent cross-linguistic variation is innately possible as the human language basis.