Saussure proposed the division language/parole and argued that language can be studied as a formal system. Fifty years later Chomsky declared competence the core interest of linguistics. Although for years Generative second language acquisition (GenSLA) has adopted this view, a number of recent publications poke holes into the competence bubble.…

Each language is a unique tool for analyzing and synthesizing the world, incorporating the knowledge and values of a speech community. According to Sapir (1931), linguistic "categories [including] number, gender, case, tense, mode, voice, "aspect", and a host of others ... are not so much discovered in experience as imposed upon…