Acquisition of Subjacency by Japanese Learners of English

This study uses two groups of Japanese learners of English to examine whether Universal Grammar (UG) is available in second language acquisition (SLA): one group in Japan (the Japan group) and one in the United States (the US group) at the time of the study. They were tested on the Subjacency Condition in English. The performance of the US group did not significantly differ from that of a control group of native speakers of English while that of the Japan group was significantly different from the performance of the other groups. These results suggest that UG does play a role in SLA, and that the poorer performance of the Japan group is due to the need for a process of parameter resetting. Moreover, proficiency was found to be the strongest influential factor for UG activation in SLA. Given these findings, the researcher suggests classroom instruction that promotes UG activation.