The Status and Role of Universal Grammar in Second Language Acquisition

Is SLA constrained by universal grammar? This is one of the hot topics of contemporary language acquisition studies. The paper deals with this problem from the perspective of generative approach on the basis of talking about the explanatory power of universal grammar for language acquisition, the differences and similarities between L1 and L2 acquisition. the grammatical features of interlanguage and the constraints of universal grammar. The conclusion the paper arrives at is that there does exist access to universal grammar in SLA, but the access is indirect, because there is L1 transfer.