Universal Grammar in Second Language Acquisition: The Acquisition of the Verb-Movement Parameter by Saudi Female Learners of English as a Foreign Language

This study aimed at investigating the availability of Universal Grammar in the acquisition of the English verb movement parameter by Saudi female students learning English. This availability has three positions to universal grammar: full access, no-access, or partial access. Through descriptive research design, data were collected by using two types of tests: Grammaticality Judgment Task (GJT) and Preference Task (PT). Each test contained 50 sentences focused on the verb position in the sentence in relation to negation, adverbs, and floating quantifiers. Participants were (111) Saudi female students at King Saud University, Riyadh; they were divided into three groups: advanced, intermediates, and beginners. A control group of (20) British native speakers from the British International School in Riyadh were also given the tests. The data were analyzed through descriptive and inferential statistics. The descriptive statistics were adopted by using frequencies and percentages in order to determine the availability of UG according to the accuracy of the students’ answers. The inferential statistics were used by ANOVA tests to investigate whether there is a correlation between the proficiency level of the students and their performance on the experimental tasks. The findings showed that Saudi female EFL learners have partial access to UG. The advanced students got the highest performance in both types of negation in both tests and adverbs in the PT while they were the lowest in FQs in both tests and in the adverbs in the GJT. The beginners in both tests were the lowest; they got the worst accuracy in all the four types except the FQs in both tests and the adverbs in the GJT. As for intermediates, their performance varied; that is, in finite negatives their accuracy was close to the advanced whereas in FQs it was higher than the advanced. In addition, the control group got the highest performance in the PT only but in the GJT it was the worst. The results further revealed that proficiency level has a significant impact on the accuracy of the Saudi students. It correlated positively with their accuracy in the tests. The advanced students were the highest students who accepted grammatical sentences and rejected the ungrammatical ones except in FQs where this correlation was not available