语言学termpaper：Discussion on the research hypothesis of second_TERMPAPER

1.0 Introduction介绍

第二语言习得是教育中的一个重要问题。关于二语习得的研究假设很多，其中输入假设、输出假设和交互假设是三个最受讨论的假设。这些假设为二语习得教育和学习提供了有价值的理论参考，但值得注意的是，这些研究假设在理论上存在缺陷，在实践中，基于这些假设设计的教学和学习方法并没有达到预期的目的。因此，有必要对这些研究假设进行进一步的探讨和分析。本文首先讨论了输入假设、输出假设和交互假设的定义、贡献和弱点。然后从服务水平协议的角度分析了这三种研究假设的共同缺点和优点，提出了今后如何改进服务水平协议研究的建议。

Second-language acquisition (SLA) is an important issue in education. There are many research hypotheses on SLA, of which input hypothesis, output hypothesis and interaction hypothesis are the three most discussed hypotheses. These hypotheses proposed provide valuable theoretical reference for SLA education and learning, but it is noteworthy that in theory, these research hypotheses have shortcomings, in practice, teaching and learning method designed based on these hypotheses did not achieve the expected purposes. Therefore, it is necessary to further discuss and analyze these research hypotheses. This essay first discusses the definitions, contributions and weaknesses of input hypothesis, output hypothesis and interaction hypothesis. Then the author analyzes the common shortcomings and merits of the three research hypotheses from the perspective of SLA, so as to bring forward recommendations on how to improve SLA research in the future.

2.0 Main body主体

2.1 Comprehensive input hypothesis综合投入假设

2.1.1 Sources of comprehensive input hypothesis综合投入假设的来源

综合输入假设是指语言习得是通过理解信息来实现的，即通过接受大量的“可理解输入”（Krashen，1981年）。根据这一观点，学习者只要有足够数量和形式的语言输入，就可以学习目标语言（Krashen，1981年）。克拉申的假设主要基于对儿童第一语言学习过程的观察。在母语学习过程中，成人使用一种简化的语言，使幼儿能够理解新概念或新事物。Stephen D.Krashen认为，简化语言是一种在特定环境下非常有效的语言输入方法，在帮助幼儿获得母语方面起着非常重要的作用（Krashen，1985年）。克拉申语言输入理论的第二个主要论点是沉默期。沉默期主要是指幼儿没有足够的说话能力的时期，在此期间，幼儿是通过听过程来理解语言输入的。在这段静默期过后，幼儿似乎已经无意识地学会了语言输入。成人也需要积累和消化二语习得，以逐步发展二语习得能力，并利用二语习得能力表达自己的思想，这与儿童母语学习过程相似。沉默期使克拉申意识到“倾听”在语言习得过程中非常重要（克拉申、巴特勒、伯恩鲍姆和罗伯逊，1978；克拉申，1985）。

Comprehensive input hypothesis refers to that language acquisition is achieved by understanding information, namely, by receiving a large amount of "comprehensible input" (Krashen, 1981). According to this view, learners may learn a target language as long as they are provided with a sufficient number and form of language input (Krashen, 1981). Krashen’s hypothesis is mainly based on the observation of children's learning process of first language. In the process of mother tongue learning, adults use a simplified language to enable young children to understand new concepts or new things. According to Stephen D. Krashen, simplified language is a very effective language input method in a particular environment and plays a very important role in helping young children to acquire their mother tongue (Krashen, 1985). The second main argument of Krashen's languages input theory is silent period. Silent period mainly refers to the period during which a young child does not have enough ability to speak, during this period, a young child is through listening to process comprehensible language input. After this period of silent period, young children seem to have unconsciously learned language input. It is similar to children's learning process of mother tongue that adults also need to accumulate and digest SLA in order to gradually develop their SLA ability and use this ability to express their own thoughts. Silent period makes Krashen realize that "listening" is very important in the process of language acquisition (Krashen, Butler, Birnbaum and Robertson, 1978; Krashen, 1985).

2.1.2 Contents of comprehensive input hypothesis

Krashen (1981) argues that only when a learner comes into contact with comprehensive input, namely, second language (L2) that is slightly above his current level of language skills, and he can focus his attention on the understanding of meaning or information rather than the understanding of the structure, can he acquire the language. Comprehensive input can be expressed by the formula of "i +1". In this theory, Krashen set the current level of learners as "i", "i +1" is the language input level that learners can easily accept and acquire. With the help of context and extra-linguistic information, learners understand the language material of "i + 1" in order to achieve language acquisition and improve their language skills. If input language material is too difficult or far above the current level of students’, ie "i + 2"; or it is too easy or lower than the current level of students’, ie "i + 0" or "i-1", it will result in difficulties in understanding or it is not conducive to the improvement of language skills (Krashen, 1981, 1985). Krashen emphasizes that language acquisition is achieved by understanding information, ie by receiving "comprehensible input." "Comprehensible language input" has the characteristics of comprehensibility, interesting and relevant, not grammatically sequenced, and sufficient input (Krashen, 1981, Krashen and Terrell, 1983).

In order to confirm the validity of his comprehensive input hypothesis, Krashen, in cooperation with Terrell, proposed the theory of natural pedagogy and designed a teaching curriculum based on this method. Krashen divided the process of implementing natural pedagogy into four phases: pre-production, early production, speech emergence, and intermediate fluency (Krashen and Terrell, 1983).

In the first phase, teachers naturally talked to students in class, using basic vocabulary and sentence patterns, and highlighting, repeating key words (Krashen and Terrell, 1983). In the second stage, teachers could use general questions, selective questions and special questions to ask questions and ask students to answer questions with one or two words or phrases. The students should be able to understand these questions and respond (Krashen and Terrell, 1983). In the third stage, special questions such as “how...” were used to ask questions. Students were required to use phrases or complete sentences to explain and express their opinions. Teachers should encourage students to express their thoughts and communicate with others in English in real life. In the fourth stage, teachers could choose a topic or ask students to depict a scene to guide students to use English (Krashen and Terrell, 1983).

Krashen and Terrell’s (1983) natural teaching are based on the hypothesis of comprehensive input. His empirical research shows that the enthusiasm of students in learning L2 is greatly improved, and the efficiency and achievement of L2 learning are obviously improved. The results of these empirical studies show the correctness of his comprehensive input hypothesis.

2.1.3 Contributions and weakness of comprehensive input hypothesis

Comprehensive input hypothesis illustrates the importance of gradual and orderly English teaching, emphasizing creation of an environment that is similar to children’s L1 learning, allowing students to "learn" naturally to improve the fluency of English and communicating ability in English . These conclusions are very valuable suggestions for L2 learning and L2 education, but the author believes that there are still some shortcomings in the comprehensive input hypothesis theory, which is mainly reflected in the following aspects.

First of all, Krashen and Terrell’s (1983) empirical research mainly focuses on the role of input hypothesis, but it does not study the role of language output. It is known that if students only learn knowledge and do not practice repetitively, their levels of listening, speaking, writing is difficult to be improved actually, therefore, Krashen and Terrell’s (1983) study ignores the positive role of language output for students in L2 learning is a weakness of his study.

Second, the input hypothesis overemphasizes the decisive role of external input in L2 acquisition, while ignoring a learner's subjectivity. The input hypothesis holds that as long as a sufficient number of comprehensible inputs are provided, language acquisition naturally takes place. Learners become passive recipients, which completely neglects that learners have their own subjective initiative and it can not stimulate and exert the subjective initiative of students' in learning. The effect of learning will not be good.

Finally, Krashen's comprehensive input hypothesis is based on the theory of mother tongue learning, but for most L2 learners in the world, they do not have a good L2 application environment and many L2 beginners have very poor L2 fundamentals, and the ideal comprehensible input is not that easy for them to achieve.

2.2 Output hypothesis#p#分页标题#e#

2.2.1 Sources of output hypothesis

Swain (1985) examined Canadian students who have studied French for seven years. She was through a survey of immersion teaching to find that the students’ French proficiency was not ideal and although they achieved a high level of listening and reading, they were unable to reach the native speakers' level in both oral and written terms. From her research, it is understood that comprehensive input is important in language acquisition, but it is not the only important, and it is not sufficient for learners to fully develop their L2 proficiency (Swain, 1985). Output also has its importance, in understanding input information, learners usually only need to know the meaning of the word without the need for syntax analysis. However, learners need to have a clear understanding of the rules of the language when carrying out the output of the language, so the output can force learners to pay more attention to the form of new language information. Output can effectively help learners to correct their mistakes by accepting the correct feedback information while testing their hypotheses about a target language (Swain, 1985; Romney, Romney and Menzies, 1995).

2.2.2 Contents of output hypothesis

Swain (1985) believed that output hypothesis has four functions for language acquisition, namely: noticing, hypothesis testing function, metalinguistic function and fluency function.

Noticing means that when learners express themselves, learners are more aware of their own language problems, and they will concentrate more on future language problems and solve relevant language problems so as to promote language acquisition (Swain, 1985).

Hypothesis testing function means that output provides learners with the opportunity to try to express themselves in various ways and to test whether these underlying hypotheses about the target language are correct (Swain, 1985).

Metalinguistic function refers to that L2 learners notice their problems in the language system through output, then making conscious analysis of the language form, and then outputting the corrected output to improve the accuracy of the language. The output allows learners to participate more in syntactic cognitive processing than in semantic cognitive processing, which is only involved in understanding (Swain, 1985; Branden, 1997).

Fluency function refers to that language output can improve the fluency of expression. The more frequently learners use language, the more possibly they gain the fluency of the language. Language output provides learners with the opportunity to use their language resources for meaningful drills, which allows learners to strengthen stored language knowledge, develop language processing automation and enhance the fluentness of presentation (Swain, 1985; Romney, Romney and Menzies, 1995).

2.2.3 Contributions and weakness of output hypothesis

The contribution of output theory first lies in not only recognizing the importance of teachers, but also affirming students' important position in L2 learning. Students do not passively accept teachers’ knowledge but take the initiative to practice (Branden, 1997). Second, it deepens students’ and teachers' understanding of L2 learning that students not only have to learn semantic knowledge, but also master the knowledge of the entire meta-language (Romney, Romney and Menzies, 1995). Finally, it provides a way for L2 learners to improve the level of L2 use, triggering a major shift in L2 education and learning (Romney, Romney and Menzies, 1995; Branden, 1997).

Of course, there are some shortcomings in the output hypothesis, which is mainly reflected in the following three aspects: First, output is only a way to improve L2 learning performance, not all students need to make use of a lot of output to raise the level, and research has shown that some students do not like to learn L2 through output to improve their grades, they can still get good grades without output. Second, without sufficient relevant knowledge and positive motivation for learning, a large number of inflexible output does not improve L2 learning performance. Finally, output hypothesis assumes that the output hypothesis helps students to find themselves having problems with linguistic knowledge during communication, but for most L2 learners, there is a lack of an adequate L2 communication environment, it's not easy for them to get high-quality feedback in communication to correct their mistakes in their own language.

2.3 Interaction hypothesis

2.3.1 Sources of interaction hypothesis

As what Krashen thought that, Long (1981) also believed that comprehensible input facilitates linguistic acquisition, and language environment facilitate the acquisition of comprehensible input. However, Long also held that language learning is communicatively driven, emphasizing the importance of interactive adjustment. Through an in-depth study on foreign accent, Long found that the study on foreign accent confuses two related but distinct linguistic phenomena: input and interaction, the former refers to linguistic forms such as words, sentences and articles, and the latter refers to the communicative function exercised by these language forms; interactive adjustment can better explain the role of input adjustment in SLA, which is the unity of language input and output (Long, 1983; Pica, 1987).

Long (1981) divided 48 adult native speakers and 16 adult non-native speakers of different linguistic and cultural backgrounds into 32 pairs, of which the 16 pairs of native speakers were in Group A and the other 16 pairs of native speakers and non-native speakers were in Group B. Each pair accomplished the same 6 tasks in the same order. Each pair exchanged 25 minutes and it was recorded. Long compared 5 input variables and 11 interactive variables of Group A and B. As a result, it was found that in foreign languages, the interaction adjustment was more frequent than the input adjustment. This shows that in foreign languages, interactive adjustments are more frequent than input adjustments. In foreign languages, two-way information exchange tasks provide more interactive adjustment than one-way information exchange tasks. Long (1983) reanalyzed the previous experiment and found that 15 specific interaction adjustment measures commonly used by native speakers from 6 tasks: remising control over topics, tolerating the freedom to switch topics, confirming whether self understands, tolerating ambiguities, etc.

2.3.2 Contents of interaction hypothesis

Based on this, Long (1981) put forward the interactive hypothesis theory: when the communication comprehension is difficult, the two sides of conversation must make linguistic adjustments based on the feedback of whether the two sides understand, that is to say, meaningful negotiation makes the input comprehensible to promote learning. Meaning consultation refers to the mutual adjustment between learners to achieve communication, including input and output. For the purpose of negotiation, a variety of feedback methods can be used to prompt or correct the grammatical errors in discourse. These means have important meanings to learner's second language learning. In his later interactive hypothesis, Long (1983) adjusted earlier arguments to point out that meaningful negotiation, especially interactive adjustments made by native speaker or speaker with high verbal skills is conducive to language acquisition. Since then, Pica (1987) made further research on interaction hypothesis. It is found that learners constantly adjust language output during interaction, which helps to understand language and in turn promotes language output. Language input and language output is precisely connected in the process of interaction, and ultimately achieving the internalization of language knowledge.

2.3.3 Contributions and weakness of interaction hypothesis

The significance of interactive hypothesis lies in that it expounds the importance of communication in second language learning. It not only shows the positive influence of communication on students' second language input and output, but also affirms the impact of second language input and output of high quality on successful communication, which is very useful for second language learning and education (Pica, 1987). It is relative to input hypothesis that communicative hypothesis does not neglect a students' own importance to second language learning, including their own motivation, ability to learn, motivation to learn and so on (Pica, Young and Doughty, 1987).

There are two main shortcomings in the interaction hypothesis. First was that those non-native speakers in his experiment lived in a native language environment. In other words, they themselves have a lot of exercise opportunities to get in touch with and familiar with their own language. However, the vast majority of second language learners in the world does not have such good conditions to guarantee high-quality communication to promote second language learning. Second, the birth of interactive hypothesis is mainly aimed at the ability of oral English, whether it can still play the same effect on the ability of other aspects of English still requires further in-depth observation.

2.4 Discussion

Input hypothesis, output hypothesis and interaction hypothesis reveal the law of L2 learning and education from different perspectives, and they provide scientific theoretical guidance for the L2 learning and education methods. The three hypotheses play an important role in promoting the overall development of L2 acquisition, but it is noteworthy that the three hypotheses currently have the following problems. First of all, each hypothesis corresponds to different educational methods and strategies (Pica, Young and Doughty, 1987), but different hypotheses conflict logically, such as input hypothesis and output hypothesis, for teachers and education authorities, to apply these theories to specific teaching practices is a question that is worth of considering. Second, the birth and beginning of the study of each hypothesis is aimed at specific groups, but on a world-wide basis, different L2 learners face totally different teaching environment, personal English proficiency, motivation and purpose of learning (Pica, 1987), whether these hypotheses can be applied to each L2 learning group needs more substantive research to support. Finally, in the L2 teaching and learning process, affected by a variety of factors, what kind of roles the three hypotheses will play in the process, if they all work or there cooperate to play the roles, which hypothesis takes effect faster, these problems need to be solved in order to carry out more target teaching and learning strategies, but there is no corresponding empirical study to answer the questions.#p#分页标题#e#

In order to solve the above problems, the following two aspects can be improved in the future. First of all, because of the vast differences between the specific learning environments of different groups, researching and verifying the role of L2 acquisition hypothesis can not be separated from the study and discussion on learning context and environment. In addition to studying whether a certain hypothesis is effective, it should also study the mechanism of what it works and what is the condition for it to work. The conclusions drawn will help to better apply these hypotheses to specific teaching practices. Second, a comparative study can be used to study under the same conditions, whether teaching methods based on different hypotheses play different roles in the promotion of L2 learning, and longitudinal research methods can also be used to understand the short-term and long-term effects of various hypotheses on L2 learning, such research allows teachers and students to better understand the scope of application of each hypothesis, which will be more targeted to choose teaching and learning methods.

3.0 Conclusion

References

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Krashen, S. (1981). Second language acquisition and second language learning. Oxford: Pergamon Press.

Krashen, S. D. and Terrell, T.D. (1983). The natural approach: language acquisition in the classroom. London: Prentice Hall Europe.

Krashen, S., J. Butler, R. Birnbaum, and J. Robertson. (1978). Two studies in language acquisition and language learning. ITL: Review of Applied Linguistics, 39-40, 73-92.

Krashen, S. (1985). The input hypothesis: issues and implications. London: Longman.

Long, M. H. (1981). Input, interaction, and second language acquisition. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 379, 259-278.

Long, M. H. (1983). Native speaker/non-native speaker conversation and negotiation of comprehensible input. Applied Linguistics, 4 (2), 126-141.

Pica, T. (1987). Interlanguage adjustment as outcome of NS-NNS negotiated interaction. Language Learning, 38 (1), 45-73.

Pica, T, Young, R., and Doughty, C. (1987). The impact of interaction on comprehension. TESOL Quarterly, 21, 737-758.

Romney, J.C., Romney, D., and Menzies, H. (1995). Reading for pleasure in French: a study of the reading habits and interests of French immersion children. Canadian Modern Language Review, 51, 474-511.

Swain, M. (1985). Communication competence: some roles of comprehensible input and comprehensible output in its development. Boston: Heinle & Heinle.