4.

THE INPUT HYPOTHESIS

(a) Statement of the hypothesis

given the correctness of the natural order hypothesis, how do we move from one
stage to another? If an acquirer is at "stage 4", how can he progress to "stage 5"? More
generally, how do we move from stage i, where i represents current competence, to i + 1,
the next level? The input hypothesis makes the following claim: a necessary (but not
sufficient) condition to move from stage i to stage i + 1 is that the acquirer understand
input that contains i + 1, where "understand" means that the acquirer is focussed on the
meaning and not the form of the message.

We acquire, in other words, only when we understand language that contains structure
that is "a little beyond" where we are now. How is this possible? How can we understand
language that contains structures that we have not yet acquired? The answer to this apparent
paradox is that we use more than our linguistic competence to help us understand. We also
use context, our knowledge of the world, our extra-linguistic information to help us understand
language directed at us.

We may thus state parts (1) and (2) of the input hypothesis as follows:

(1) The input hypothesis relates to acquisition, not learning.

(2) We acquire by understanding language that contains structure a it

beyond our current level of competence (i + 1). This is done with the help of
context or extra-linguistic information.

A third part of the input hypothesis says that input must contain i + 1 to be useful for
language acquisition, but it need not contain only i + 1. It says that if the acquirer understands
the input, and there is enough of it, i + 1 will automatically be provided. In other words, if
communication is successful, i + 1 is provided.

Thus, part (3) of the input hypothesis is:

(3) When communication is successful, when the input is understood and there
is enough of it, i + 1 will be provided automatically.

The final part of the input hypothesis states that speaking fluency cannot be taught
directly. Rather, it "emerges" over time, on its own.4 The best way, and perhaps the only way,
to teach speaking, according to this view, is simply to provide comprehensible input. Early
speech will come when the acquirer feels "ready"; this state of readiness arrives at somewhat
different times for different people, however.

(4) Production ability emerges. It is not taught directly.

(b) Evidence supporting the hypothesis

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(i) First language acquisition in children. The input hypothesis is very consistent with
what is known about "caretaker speech", the modifications that parents and others make
when talking to young children. The most interesting and perhaps the most important
characteristic of caretaker speech for us is that it is not a deliberate attempt to teach
language.
A second characteristic of interest to us here is the finding that caretaker speech, while
it is syntactically simpler than adult-adult speech, is "roughly-tuned" to the child's current level
of linguistic competence, not "finely-tuned". In other words, caretaker speech is not precisely
adjusted to the level of each child, but tends to get more complex as the child progresses.
An interpretation of this finding is that caretakers are not taking aim exactly at i + 1.
The input they provide for children includes i + 1, but also includes many structures that
have already been acquired, plus some that have not (i + 2, i + 3, etc.) and that the child
may not be ready for yet. In other words, caretakers do not provide a grammatically based
syllabus!

A third characteristic of caretaker speech that concerns us is known as the "here and
now" principle. It is well established that caretakers talk mostly about what the child can
perceive, what is in the immediate environment. Discourse with children is far more likely to
deal with what is in the room and happening now ("See the ball?") than what is not in the
room and not current ("What will we do upstairs tomorrow?").
The "here and now" feature provides extra-linguistic support (context) that helps the
child understand the utterances containing i + 1.
As discussed earlier, roughly-tuned caretaker speech covers the child's i + 1, but does
not focus on i + 1 exclusively. Part (3) of the input hypothesis claims that this is optimal.
Rough-tuning has the following advantages in child first language acquisition:

(1) It ensures that i + 1 is covered, with no guesswork as to just what i + 1 is for

each child. On the other hand, deliberate aim at i + 1 might miss!

(2) Roughly-tuned input will provide i + 1 for more than one child at a time, as
long as they understand what is said. Finely-tuned input, even if accurate (i.e.
even if it "hits" i + 1), will only

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 benefit the child whose i + 1 is exactly the same as what is emphasized in the
input.

(3) Roughly-tuned input provides built-in review. We need not be concerned

with whether a child has "mastered" a structure, whether the child was paying
attention to the input that day, or whether we provided enough. With natural,
roughly-tuned input, i + 1 will occur and reoccur.

In other words, if part (3) is correct, if it is the case that with enough natural
communication and understanding that i + 1 is always provided, the caretaker need not worry
about consciously programming structure.

(ii) Evidence from second language acquisition: simple codes. The input hypothesis
also holds for second language acquisition. First, as presented earlier, the second language
acquirer, child or adult, is also an "acquirer", just like the child acquiring first language. Also,
according to hypothesis (2), there is a natural order of acquisition for second language as well
as first language, so we can talk about the second language acquirers' i + 1 as well. Third,
second language acquirers can also receive the kind of modified input that children get.

This modified input is of three sorts. Foreigner-talk results from the modifications native
speakers make with less than fully competent speakers of their language .
Teacher-talk is foreigner-talk in the classroom, the language of classroom
management and explanation, when it is in the second language. A third simple code is
interlanguage talk, the speech of other second language acquirers.

(iii) Evidence from second language acquisition: the silent period and L1 influence. The
input hypothesis is also consistent with other findings and hypotheses in second language
acquisition. One of these can be termed the "silent period", a phenomenon that is most
noticeable in child second language acquisition.

It has often been noted that children acquiring a second language in a natural, informal
linguistic environment may say very little for several months following their first exposure to
the second language. What output there is consists usually of memorized language, whole
sentences learned as if they were one word. Hatch (1972), for example, reported that Paul, a
five-year-old Chinese speaker acquiring English as a second language, did not really use
"creative" language for his first few months in the United States. His only output was
memorized sentences, such as

Get out of here.

It's time to eat and drink.

He had clearly learned these as whole utterances without a real understanding of their
components (e.g. he probably would not understand the word "out" or "time" if it were used in
another sentence). Such memorized sentences were probably very useful for Paul, both in
the classroom and playground.7 When "real" language did start to emerge, it looked very
much like first language development, with short, simple sentences such as
3
This kite.
Ball no.

4
 The explanation of the silent period in terms of the input hypothesis is straight-forward--
the child is building up competence in the second language via listening, by understanding
the language around him. In accordance with the input hypothesis, speaking ability emerges
on its own after enough competence has been developed by listening and understanding. We
should note that case histories dealing with children acquiring second languages (see also
Hakuta, 1974; Ervin-Tripp, 1974) agree that several months may elapse until they start
talking, and that the speech that emerges is not error-free. This finding has important
pedagogical considerations, as we shall see in Chapter III.

Adults, and children in formal language classes, are usually not allowed a silent period.
They are often asked to produce very early in a second language, before they have acquired
enough syntactic competence to express their ideas. According to a hypothesis first proposed
by Newmark (1966), performers who are asked to produce before they are "ready" will fall
back on first language rules, that is, they will use syntactic rules of their first language while
speaking the second language.

Stated more formally, an acquirer will substitute some L1 rule for i + 1, a rule of the
second language, if the acquirer needs i + 1 to express himself but has not yet acquired it.
The L1 rule used may be quite similar to the L2 i + 1, but may also differ in certain ways.
When the L1 and L2 rules are different, the resulting error is referred to often as
"interference". But according to Newmark, it is not interference at all; it is not the result of the
L1 interfering with second language performance, but the result of ignorance--the lack of
acquisition of an L2 rule that is needed in performance.

(iv) Advantages and disadvantages of L2 rule use. The substitution of some L1 rule for
some i + 1 has both advantages and disadvantages. The advantages are short term,
however, while the disadvantages appear to be quite serious.

One obvious advantage is that the use of an L1 rule allows the performer to
"outperform his competence", to meet a practical need in L2 communication before he has
acquired the relevant i + 1 rule. When the L1 rule used is identical to a rule in the L2 ("positive
transfer"), the performer seems to have got something for free. Even if the L1 rule is

5
not the same as the L2 rule, one could argue that the performer still comes out ahead, as,
quite often, he can still communicate his point despite the incorrect form.

Another advantage is that the early production allowed by the use of L1 rules also
helps to invite input--it allows the performer to participate more in conversation, and this could
mean more comprehensible input and thus more second language acquisition.

There are real disadvantages to falling back on the L1, however. First, the L1 rule may
not be the same as an L2 rule, as noted above, and errors can result. The conscious Monitor
can note and repair these errors in some cases, but not all, since, as we have seen the
constraints on Monitor use are severe. Thus, use of L1 rules requires constant vigilance on
the part of the Monitor, and is an awkward way to produce formally correct sentences in a
second language. (Note that Monitor correction of such errors will not, according to the
theory, produce acquisition, or permanent change. It will not eradicate the L1 rule, even if
done effectively over long periods of time. Real acquisition comes only from comprehensible
input.)8

There may be another serious disadvantage to the use of L1 rules in second language
performance. Even if the L1 rule is similar to an actual L2 rule or transitional form, it is not
clear that these rules will help the acquirer progress--they may not take the place of "true" L2
rules in the developmental sequence. In Krashen (1982) I discuss the hypothesis that
acquisition requires a comparison between i and i + 1 (Clark and Andersen, 1980;
Lamendella, 1979). It may be the case that the "distance" between i and i + 1 cannot be too
great--i and i + 1 can only differ in small ways. Transitional forms, I hypothesize, may be
useful in that they can temporarily serve as i, helping to decrease the amount of distance
between i and i + 1.

If, for example, the target rule in English is the negative (i + 1, presented to the system
by input), the intermediate form no + v (provided by the creative construction system
internally) may be closer to the mature negative form. The acquirer may thus use no + v at i,
rather than a more primitive form of the negative (e.g. no + S).

If transitional forms can temporarily serve as i, the next question is whether L1 rules,
even when they happen to be similar to L2 rules or transitional forms, can perform this
function. The answer may be

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"no". For example, Spanish speakers often have a long period in their acquisition of English in
which they produce no + v for the English negative, a structure that is similar to a transitional
form in English as a first and second language (Schumann, 1979). It may be the case that
earlier no + v performance is the use of the L1 rule, while later no + v performance is the true
intermediate form. It may be the case that only the latter can help the system "move
forward".9

To summarize, use of L1 rules is hypothesized to be the result of falling back on first

language knowledge when a second language rule is needed in production but is not
available. It may temporarily enhance production, but may not be real progress in the second
language. The real cure for "interference", according to Newmark, is not drill at the points of
contrast between the two languages (Newmark and Reibel, 1973, p. 239). Drill will, at best,
produce learning, and, as we have seen, this is only a short term cure. The real cure "is
simply the cure for ignorance" (Newmark, 1966, p. 81): real language acquisition. This can
happen only when the acquirer obtains comprehensible input.10 11 12

(v) Applied linguistics research. The input hypothesis is also consistent with the results
of what can be called "method comparison" experiments. Several scholars and groups of
scholars have attempted to determine directly which teaching methods are best by simple
comparison. Groups of students studying second and foreign languages using two different
methods are compared, both in long-term and short-term studies. We will have a detailed look
at this research in Chapter V, but I will state my own conclusions in advance. My reading of
studies comparing the more commonly used methods (audio-lingual as compared to
grammar-translation or cognitive-code) is as follows:

(1) "Deductive" methods (rule first, then practice, e.g. grammar-translation and
cognitive-code) are slightly more efficient than audio-lingual teaching for adults.
The differences are often statistically significant, but are not huge. Students
clearly make some progress using any of these approaches.

(2) For adolescents, there is no measurable difference.

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 I interpret this failure to find large differences in this way: none of the methods
compared in these studies provides much in the way of comprehensible input! The input
hypothesis predicts, moreover, that an approach that provides substantial quantities of
comprehensible input will do much better than any of the older approaches.

There are several newer methods that do this, such as Asher's Total Physical
Response Method (Asher, 1966, 1969) and Terrell's Natural Approach (Terrell, 1977). In
these methods, class time is devoted to providing comprehensible input, where the focus is
on the message and not the form, and students are not expected to produce in the second
language until they themselves decide they are "ready". Reports confirming the superiority of
such "input methods" have been appearing in the professional literature over the last ten
years (e.g. Asher, 1972; Gary, 1975; Postovsky, 1974; more detail is provided in Chapter V).
(The focus on comprehensible input is not the only reason for the success of the newer
methods, however; see discussion below of affect, and Chapters III and V.)

Since the bulk of this book is intended to deal with implications of second language
acquisition theory (Chapters III, IV, and V), this section should really be delayed until later. I
cannot resist, however, briefly stating one implication here, since, in my opinion, the
implications of the input hypothesis are truly exciting for all of us interested in language
acquisition. Most important, the input hypothesis predicts that the classroom may be an
excellent place for second language acquisition, at least up to the "intermediate" level. For
beginners, the classroom can be much better than the outside world, since the outside usually
provides the beginner with very little comprehensible input, especially for older acquirers
(Wagner-Gough and Hatch, 1975). In the classroom, we can provide an hour a day of
comprehensible input, which is probably much better than the outside can do for the beginner.
We will elaborate on this a bit more after discussion of the Affective Filter.

5. THE AFFECTIVE FILTER HYPOTHESIS

The Affective Filter hypothesis states how affective factors relate to the second
language acquisition process. The concept of an Affective