Universal Hypothesis

It states that language acquisition is governed

by the way in which natural language are
organized. That is, certain universal linguistic
properties influence the order in which the rules of
a specific language.
Universal Grammar

• All languages have basic language structures in common,

these are called universals
• Grammar offers a certain limited number of possibilities
e.g. Word order
Subject Verb Object

• Ella • Come • Frutas

• She • Eats • Fruits

• 75% of the world’s language use this order

 Language is an innate faculty
We are born with a set of rules about language in our heads

• It is wired into the brains.

• UG: the system of principles, conditions, and rules that
are elements of properties of all human languages
• UG: a theory of language that is concerned with the
internal structure of the human mind.
• The nature of this knowledge is inseparable of how it is
acquired.
 SWAIN’S OUTPUT THESIS

The comprehensible thesis, developed by Merill Swain,

states that learning takes place when encountering a ‘gap’
in the linguistic knowledge.

Swain defines three functions of output

• The noticing function
• The hypothesis testing function
• The Metalinguistic function