6.

Input in second language acquisition: Krashen's Input hypothesis

Just as 'baby talk' was noted in the early work on child language development, as a
simplified register used to talk to children, so a number of socio-linguists in the 1960s and
70s noticed and commented on what they called foreigner talk, a simplified and pidgin-like
variety, sometimes used to address strangers and foreigners, (on Me Tarzan, you Jane lines;
see review in Long, 1996, pp 414-18). It has always been obvious that comprehensible and
appropriately contextualized second language data is necessary for learning to take place.
However, the precise developmental contribution of the language used to address second
language learners first attracted serious attention from psycholinguists and second
language researchers in the light of the Input hypothesis proposed by Stephen Krashen
(1982, 1985; see also Chapter 2).
In its most developed form, the Input hypothesis claims that exposure to comprehensible
input is both necessary and sufficient for SLL to take place. The hypothesis states that:
Humans acquire language in only one way - by understanding messages, or by
receiving 'comprehensible input'. We move from i, our current level, to i + 1, the next
level along the natural order, by understanding input containing i + 1 (Krashen, 1985, p
2).
Linked to the hypothesis are two further ideas:
Speaking is a result of acquisition, and not its cause.
If input is understood, and there is enough of it, the necessary grammar is automatically
provided, (Krashen, 1985, p 2).
According to this hypothesis then, how exactly does acquisition take place? At one point
Krashen proposed three stages in turning input into intake:
(a) understanding a second language i + 1 form (i.e. linking it to a meaning);
(b) noticing a gap between the second language i + 1 form and the interlanguage rule which
the learner currently controls;
and (c) the re-appearance of the i + 1 form with minimal frequency (Krashen, 1983, pp 1389).
In other versions of the hypothesis, however, the concept of 'noticing a gap' is omitted, and
it seems that acquisition takes place entirely incidentally or without awareness.
As numerous critics have pointed out, the Input hypothesis, as originally formulated by
Krashen, is supported by rather little empirical evidence, and is not easily testable (e.g.
McLaughlin, 1987, pp 36-51). The concepts of 'understanding' and 'noticing a gap' are not
clearly operationalized, or consistently proposed; it is not clear how the learner's present
state of knowledge (T) is to be characterized, or indeed whether the 'i + 1' formula is
intended to apply to all aspects of language, including vocabulary and phonology as well as
syntax. Above all, the processes whereby language in the social environment is analysed,
and new elements are identified and processed by the 'language acquisition device', so that

they can influence and modify the learner's existing interlanguage system, are not spelled
out.
In the following sections of this chapter, we begin by discussing those research traditions
that ultimately take their inspiration from Krashen's proposals. First of all, we examine
empirical research associated with the Interaction hypothesis, which has itself moved
through two phases: an earlier, more descriptive phase, and a later phase which has been
more strongly concerned with the processing of environmental language. Next, we examine
the current state of the Output hypothesis. We then follow up researchers' growing
interest in a particular aspect of interaction, that is, the provision of different types of
feedback on learners' second language utterances, by teachers and other interlocutors,
and its possible contributions to the acquisition process. Lastly, we examine briefly some
alternative psycholinguistic theories and claims about the ways in which 'new' language
elements in environmental discourse are identified, analysed, and integrated into the
developing second language system: the 'noticing' hypothesis, the 'input processing'
hypothesis and the 'autonomous induction' hypothesis.

6.4 Interaction in second language acquisition