The Weaknesses of UG

▪ According to Ellis, UG has ​limited scope​, which means UG focuses on

the knowledge of grammar instead of the use of grammar. Therefore as
some researchers acknowledged, the theory fell into property theories,
and it could not explain how the process of language acquisition takes
place as transitional theories can.
▪ Mitchell and Myles (2004) said that UG only focuses on sentences
level, rather than a context.
▪ Ellis pointed out that UG theory does ​not have operational constructs,
because it is hard to interpret the behavior that is under measuring. It
is different to tell performance from competence in the real situation.
How do you know a student performs badly is due to his/her low innate
competence or because of other extrinsic factors that affect his/her
performance?
▪ Ellis mentioned in the section of the relation of UG theory and language
pedagogy, UG has no meaningful pedagogy to teachers. It is mainly
because UG focuses on property of language acquisition rather than the
process of language acquisition, which is opposite from applied linguistic
views.
▪ Mitchell and Myles (2004) claimed that UG does not care about
individual differences, or other factors like sociolinguistic, cognitive, or
affective factors.