Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, Inc. (TESOL)

A Commentary on Krashen's Input HypothesisAuthor(s): Christian FaltisSource: TESOL Quarterly, Vol. 18, No. 2 (Jun., 1984), pp. 352-357Published by: Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, Inc. (TESOL)Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3586705Accessed: 13/12/2010 04:47

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REFERENCES REFERENCES

Krashen, Stephen. 1981. Letter to the Editor. Language Learning 31:217-221. Krashen, Stephen. 1982. Principles and practice in second language acquisi-

tion. New York: Pergamon. Long, Michael. 1983. Input and second language acquisition theory. Paper

presented at the 10th University of Michigan Conference on Applied Linguistics, Ann Arbor, Michigan, October 28-30, 1983.

Reynolds, Paul Davidson. 1971. A primer in theory construction. Indiana- polis: Bobbs-Merrill.

A Commentary on Krasben's Input Hypotbesis

CHRISTIAN FALTIS University of Alabama

I have been studying and teaching Krashen's Monitor Model with its accompanying hypotheses for several years now. Krashen attaches a great deal of importance to the distinction between acquisition and learning and argues that the sole function of conscious language learning is to monitor output which has been acquired via meaning- ful interaction in the second language. For him, acquisition is what allows language students to initiate utterances and gain fluency in the second language.

Of equal importance to Krashen is how adults acquire a second language. He attempts to explain this process through his input hypothesis, which states that second language acquisition is most likely to occur when the acquirer understands the language input. In order for this input to be meaningful, Krashen believes that it must contain structure "a little" beyond the acquirer's current level of competence in the second language (1981a, 1982). According to the hypothesis, progressive speaking ability is not taught directly; rather, it emerges as acquirers build up their competence through meaningful input.

Krashen's conception of the second language acquisition process in adults is very similar to the way he views first language acquisi- tion in children:

Children progress by understanding language that is a little beyond them. That is, if a child is at a stage i, that child can progress to state i plus 1 along the "natural sequence" (where i plus 1 may be a block of structures; more correctly the child who has just acquired the members of i can then acquire a member of i plus 1) by understanding language containing i plus 1. The child understands language containing structure that is a bit beyond him or her with the aid of context (1981b:126).

Krashen, Stephen. 1981. Letter to the Editor. Language Learning 31:217-221. Krashen, Stephen. 1982. Principles and practice in second language acquisi-

tion. New York: Pergamon. Long, Michael. 1983. Input and second language acquisition theory. Paper

presented at the 10th University of Michigan Conference on Applied Linguistics, Ann Arbor, Michigan, October 28-30, 1983.

Reynolds, Paul Davidson. 1971. A primer in theory construction. Indiana- polis: Bobbs-Merrill.

A Commentary on Krasben's Input Hypotbesis

CHRISTIAN FALTIS University of Alabama

I have been studying and teaching Krashen's Monitor Model with its accompanying hypotheses for several years now. Krashen attaches a great deal of importance to the distinction between acquisition and learning and argues that the sole function of conscious language learning is to monitor output which has been acquired via meaning- ful interaction in the second language. For him, acquisition is what allows language students to initiate utterances and gain fluency in the second language.

Of equal importance to Krashen is how adults acquire a second language. He attempts to explain this process through his input hypothesis, which states that second language acquisition is most likely to occur when the acquirer understands the language input. In order for this input to be meaningful, Krashen believes that it must contain structure "a little" beyond the acquirer's current level of competence in the second language (1981a, 1982). According to the hypothesis, progressive speaking ability is not taught directly; rather, it emerges as acquirers build up their competence through meaningful input.

Krashen's conception of the second language acquisition process in adults is very similar to the way he views first language acquisi- tion in children:

Children progress by understanding language that is a little beyond them. That is, if a child is at a stage i, that child can progress to state i plus 1 along the "natural sequence" (where i plus 1 may be a block of structures; more correctly the child who has just acquired the members of i can then acquire a member of i plus 1) by understanding language containing i plus 1. The child understands language containing structure that is a bit beyond him or her with the aid of context (1981b:126).

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The idea that both adults and children acquire language in this manner comes primarily from a small number of studies on first language acquisition in children which report on a phenomenon known as "caregiver speech" (Krashen 1978:15-18; 1981b:128-135). Caregiver speech is also referred to in the literature as "caretaker speech" and "motherese" (Newport 1975). Krashen prefers "care- giver speech" and defines it as "the modification that parents and others make when talking to young children" (Krashen 1982:22). The caregiver which he has characterized for the last five years as being the model for his input hypothesis interacts with young children in the following ways:

1. does not deliberately attempt to teach language (citing Newport, Gleitman, and Gleitman 1977)

2. modifies his or her speech in order to aid comprehension (citing Clark and Clark 1977)

3. uses short, simple sentences that become more complex as the child gets older (citing Phillips 1973)

4. repeats him- or herself frequently to assure comprehension (citing Cross 1977)

5. corrects language only to clarify meaning (citing Clark and Clark 1977).

I have no problem accepting the results of these particular studies nor do I object to the way that Krashen uses them to support the input hypothesis. My real concern is that he has painted a picture of second language acquisition in adults based primarily on accounts of caregiver-child interaction without providing his readership with the cultural context for any of the research. Who are these caregivers to whom Krashen so often refers? Do caregivers across languages and cultures interact with young children in this manner? I believe that it is important to consider that 1) the caregivers in the studies Krashen uses to support his ideas concerning how acquisition takes place come from mainstream middle-class homes, and 2) the general pattern of caregiver-child interaction portrayed in these studies is neither characteristic of all societies nor of all groups.

In the remainder of this commentary, I would like to consider the caregiver speech phenomenon in first language acquisition from a cross-cultural perspective by highlighting a number of studies dealing with language socialization in non-mainstream communities. The purpose of presenting these non-mainstream studies is to show that there is more than one pattern of caregiver-child interaction. This commentary ends with a statement concerning the need for cross-cultural evidence to support Krashen's input hypothesis.

Heath (1982a, 1982b, 1983) has written extensively on language

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socialization among Black residents of the Southeastern working- class community referred to as Trackton. In Trackton, young children are never viewed as conversational partners by adult caregivers. For a caregiver to choose a young child over another adult as a conversation partner would be considered strange and inappropriate. Children are not excluded from adult activities or from listening to conversations on any topic; they simply are not brought into the discussion.

Trackton caregivers make no attempts to reduce the competence gap between them and their children by simplifying their speech. From the day Trackton children are born, parents and older siblings make statements about them to other family members and friends but do not attempt to engage them as talking partners until they become realistic sources of informational conversation. Children in Trackton become information givers by taking in and imitating sounds they constantly hear around them.

Ward (1971) provides a similar, though less complete, description of language acquisition patterns among the caregivers and children living in the Black community of Rosepoint in rural Louisiana. In Rosepoint, although talk is all around, there is no such thing as talk for the sake of talk between caregivers and young children because children who are learning to talk are not considered to be appropri- ate conversational partners. When caregivers do find it necessary to address young children, they do not attempt to imitate or expand the speech of the children.

Child language socialization research conducted outside the United States points to a pattern of caregiver-child interaction that also differs markedly from the mainstream studies. Schieffelin (1979) provides an account of language learning among the rain forest Kaluli people of the Southern Highlands in Papua New Guinea. Kaluli caregivers direct very little speech to pre-verbal children. Since babies are described by adults as "having no understanding," it does not make any sense to treat them as conversational partners. Kaluli mothers will, however, speak "for" the baby under the right conditions. For example, when older children greet and address the baby, the mother will respond in a marked voice for the baby. In speaking for the baby, however, the mother makes no attempt whatsoever to simplify her speech to imitate the baby. Her language is well formed and appropriate for older children.

Ochs (1982) discusses the organization and development of com- munication between caregivers and young children living in a traditional, highly stratified village on the island of Upolu in Western Samoa. For the first six to eight months after birth,

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household members and others, in the presence of the infant, do a great deal of talking about the infant to caregivers. Much of this talk concerns the infant's bodily states and needs. When actual caregiver- infant communication does take place, it tends to be articulated through the medium of songs or rhythmic forms. At this early stage of language development, caregivers do not treat infants as conver- sational partners; infants are talked about and at, but never with. Once young children begin to produce intelligible speech, caregivers interact in ways that encourage the use of certain speech acts that children will be expected to produce as low-ranking members in the household. The speech used by caregivers in these instances is not modified to accommodate the young child.

The final example of caregiver-child interaction in a non-main- stream setting comes from a brief report of a study by Harkness (1971) on language socialization in a rural Guatemalan community. Generally speaking, adult caregivers in this community rarely inter- act with young children. Language development is not thought to bear any relationship to how often or even how caregivers interact with these children. When mothers do need to address their young children, they tend to use a monotonic style of speaking that is some- what faster than their normal pace. If a child fails to understand speech addressed specifically to him or her, mothers will often respond by repeating the utterance, without changing it, as many times as needed.

It should be readily apparent from the studies presented above that none of the patterns of interaction between caregivers and young children in these non-mainstream settings resembles Krashen's representation of caregiver speech. According to him, caregivers "talk 'simpler' in an effort to make themselves understood by the child" (Krashen 1982:22). The caregivers in the non-mainstream communities, however, did not simplify their speech to address young children. Simplification was viewed as inappropriate speech behavior. In fact, in one case, mothers tended to speak faster when talking to young children!

It troubles me that Krashen has not once made reference to any of the non-mainstream studies of caregiver-child interaction in his discussions of the input hypothesis, especially since this hypothesis is an attempt to answer "how we acquire language" (Krashen 1981a:100; 1982:20). In its present form, the way "we" acquire language is apparently very similar to the way young children in mainstream middle-class homes acquire language simply because Krashen says so. I am going to stick my neck out here and suggest that this is a subtle form of ethnocentrism, the view that one's own group is the best model for whatever it is that we want to establish. It seems to

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me that a theory of adult second language acquisition which relies on child language acquisition phenomena should at least consider those phenomena from a cross-cultural perspective. Such a perspec- tive provides a robustness more fitting of higher level generaliza- tions.

There are still many questions to be addressed before we can begin to accept hypotheses as theory. We need to know more about the role of peer input in the acquisition process. We also need to know whether cultural groups who do not appear to simplify input, simplify the interaction process (see Long 1981). We can no longer rely only on mainstream middle-class research to characterize and/or hypothesize about the language acquisition process in gen- eral. U

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank Shirley Heath and Mindy Sperling for their comments on an earlier draft of this commentary.

REFERENCES

Clark, Herbert, and Eve Clark. 1977. Psychology and language. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Jovanovich.

Cross, Toni G. 1977. Mothers' speech adjustments: the contributions of selected child listener variables. In Talking to children: language input and acquisition, Catherine Snow and Charles Ferguson (Eds.), 151-188. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.

Harkness, Sara. 1971. Cultural variation in mother's language. Word 27:495-498.

Heath, Shirley Brice. 1982a. Questioning at home and at school: a compara- tive study. In Doing the ethnography of schooling, George Spindler (Ed.), 103-131. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

Heath, Shirley Brice. 1982b. What no bedtime story means: narrative skills at home and school. Language in Society 11(1):49-76.

Heath, Shirley Brice. 1983. Ways with words: language, life and work in communities and classrooms. Cambridge, England: Cambridge Univer- sity Press.

Krashen, Stephen. 1978. The monitor model for second-language acquisi- tion. In Second language acquisition and foreign language teaching, Rosario C. Gingras (Ed.), 1-26. Arlington, Virginia: Center for Applied Linguistics.

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Krashen, Stephen. 1981a. Effective second language acquisition: insights from research. In The second language classroom: directions for the 1980's, James E. Alatis, Howard B. Altman, and Penelope M. Alatis (Eds.), 97-109. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.

Krashen, Stephen. 1981b. Second language acquisition and second language learning. New York: Pergamon Press.

Krashen, Stephen. 1982. Principles and practices in second language acquisition. New York: Pergamon Press.

Long, Michael. 1981. Input, interaction, and second language acquisition. Annals of the New York Academy of Science 385:259-278.

Newport, Elissa. 1975. Motherese: the speech of mothers to young children. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania.

Newport, Elissa, Henry Gleitman, and Lila R. Gleitman. 1977. Mother I'd rather do it myself: some effects and non-effects of maternal speech style. In Talking to children: language input and acquisition, Catherine Snow and Charles Ferguson (Eds.), 109-149. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.

Ochs, Elinor. 1982. Talking to children in Western Samoa. Language in Society 11(1):77-104.

Phillips, Juliet. 1973. Syntax and vocabulary of mothers' speech to young children: age and sex comparisons. Child Development 44(1):182-185.

Schieffelin, Bambi. 1979. How Kaluli children learn what to say, what to do, and how to feel: an ethnographic study of the development of communicative competence. Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University.

Ward, Martha C. 1971. Them children: a study of language learning. New York: Irvington Publishers.

Krasben Responds to Fatis. ...

Faltis correctly suggests that the input hypothesis should be re- considered in the light of cross-cultural evidence. In my view, the cross-cultural data do not supply counter-evidence to the hypothesis. They are, in fact, valuable in that they focus attention on what is essential for language acquisition: not simplified input but compre- hensible input containing i + 1, structures "slightly beyond" the acquirer's current state of competence. The input hypothesis does not claim that all acquirers will receive simplified input, expansions, or middle-class caretaker speech. It does claim that all acquirers will obtain comprehensible input, and there is good reason to posit that such input is available to acquirers in each of the situations described by Faltis.

First, in each case there is a large amount of exposure to language; language is used around the child a great deal. Heath (1982) notes that the Black working-class children she studied "are in the midst of

Krashen, Stephen. 1981a. Effective second language acquisition: insights from research. In The second language classroom: directions for the 1980's, James E. Alatis, Howard B. Altman, and Penelope M. Alatis (Eds.), 97-109. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.

Krashen, Stephen. 1981b. Second language acquisition and second language learning. New York: Pergamon Press.

Krashen, Stephen. 1982. Principles and practices in second language acquisition. New York: Pergamon Press.

Long, Michael. 1981. Input, interaction, and second language acquisition. Annals of the New York Academy of Science 385:259-278.

Newport, Elissa. 1975. Motherese: the speech of mothers to young children. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania.

Newport, Elissa, Henry Gleitman, and Lila R. Gleitman. 1977. Mother I'd rather do it myself: some effects and non-effects of maternal speech style. In Talking to children: language input and acquisition, Catherine Snow and Charles Ferguson (Eds.), 109-149. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.

Ochs, Elinor. 1982. Talking to children in Western Samoa. Language in Society 11(1):77-104.

Phillips, Juliet. 1973. Syntax and vocabulary of mothers' speech to young children: age and sex comparisons. Child Development 44(1):182-185.

Schieffelin, Bambi. 1979. How Kaluli children learn what to say, what to do, and how to feel: an ethnographic study of the development of communicative competence. Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University.

Ward, Martha C. 1971. Them children: a study of language learning. New York: Irvington Publishers.

Krasben Responds to Fatis. ...

Faltis correctly suggests that the input hypothesis should be re- considered in the light of cross-cultural evidence. In my view, the cross-cultural data do not supply counter-evidence to the hypothesis. They are, in fact, valuable in that they focus attention on what is essential for language acquisition: not simplified input but compre- hensible input containing i + 1, structures "slightly beyond" the acquirer's current state of competence. The input hypothesis does not claim that all acquirers will receive simplified input, expansions, or middle-class caretaker speech. It does claim that all acquirers will obtain comprehensible input, and there is good reason to posit that such input is available to acquirers in each of the situations described by Faltis.

First, in each case there is a large amount of exposure to language; language is used around the child a great deal. Heath (1982) notes that the Black working-class children she studied "are in the midst of THE FORUM THE FORUM 357 357