Abstract: Empiricist emergentism is as a main alternative to the assumption of universal grammar proposed by Chomsky. This type of emergentism goes on to hold that learning takes place by extracting regularities from the input. By the same token, Ellis disputed the view held by generative linguistics that such a complex phenomenon as language can only be learned if it is assumed that humans are endowed genetically with a language specific learning device. In this regard, empiricist emergentists contend that language acquisition can be abridged to the use of simple learning strategies extracted from regularities in the input. The present study is an attempt to shed light on the plausible stance of emergentism in general and empiricist emergentism in particular in SLA.