The Role Of Formal Features In Second Language Acquisition

This edited volume dealing with formal features in Second Language Acquisition is defined within current generative grammatical theory, such as the Principles and Parameters Theory and the Minimalist Program. Formal features are essential to any account of language acquisiton because they are basic components of lexical and functional categories. This is a subject of much current research as evidenced by the number of published articles in journals and in conference proceedings. This is what the editors say: While L2 acquisition is the focus of our volume, the papers address the role of features in the current versions of generative grammar and explore the role of features for learnability theory as it relates to native and non-native acquisition. To our knowledge, the volume represents the first scholarly contribution specifiacally devoted to features in language acquisition. There are many generativists in SLA, including our two series editors, Susan Gass and Jacquelyn Schacther. When asked if the formalist bias will be a big detraction, Jacquelyn said, The formal features book will definitely be formalist in tone