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Comprehension and Production Processesin Second Language Learning: In Search

of the Psycholinguistic Rationale of theOutput Hypothesis

Shinichi Izumi

Sophia University

The output hypothesis claims that production makes the learner move from`semantic processing' prevalent in comprehension to more `syntactic processing'

that is necessary for second language development. The purpose of this article is

to illuminate the psycholinguistic mechanisms that underlie this claim by

reviewing previous literature in language acquisition and cognitive psychology

on the comprehension and production processes in language use and language

learning. In speech comprehension, the interactive and compensatory nature of

the human comprehension system can both promote comprehension and

hinder language development for second language learners, unless the learners

are somehow pushed to attend to formmeaning connections during input

processing. In elucidating the mechanisms by which output promotes SLA, it isargued, by drawing on Levelt's (1989, 1992, 1993) speech production model,

that the processes of grammatical encoding during production and monitoring

to check the matching of the communicative intention and the output enable

language learners to assess the possibilities and limitations of their inter-

language capability. This may, under certain conditions, serve as an internal

priming device for consciousness raising for the learners, which in turn creates

an optimal condition for language learning to take place. It is argued that

understanding of the constraints and potentials for learning created by input

and output processing is crucial for devising pedagogical tasks that eectively

promote interlanguage development.

In the teaching of second/foreign languages (L2) all over the world, producing

the target language (TL), or output, has long been considered as forming an

important part of language learning. Such a favourable view of output may be

reected in advice which may be commonly heard in conversations between a

language teacher and his/her students, such as, `you have to use the language

if you want to become good at it', or `speak more actively in class and outside

if you want to improve your English'. However, precisely what these `words

of wisdom' may mean and how benecial it is to produce output are often leftquite vague. This paper presents an attempt to grapple with these challenging

yet important questions for both second language acquisition (SLA) theory

and L2 pedagogy. Specically, it reviews relevant literature in language

acquisition and cognitive psychology on the comprehension and production

Applied Linguistics 24/2: 168196 # Oxford University Press 2003


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processes in language use and learning with the ultimate aim of advancing

our understanding of the output hypothesis in SLA.

THE ROLE OF OUTPUT IN SECOND LANGUAGEACQUISITIONSWAIN'S OUTPUT HYPOTHESIS

First, we start with a general background of the output hypothesis. In the SLA

literature, it has often been assumed that output is only a sign of SLA that has

already taken place and that it does not serve any signicant function in

language acquisition processes (e.g. Krashen 1985, 1989). However, such a

limited view of output has been questioned since the publication of Swain's

seminal article in which the `output hypothesis' was rst proposed (Swain

1985). The output hypothesis postulates active roles played by output in the

overall SLA processes. It was formulated essentially in reaction to Krashen'sclaim about the major role of `comprehensible input' in SLA and is based on

many years of research on Canadian immersion programmes. The immersion

programmes, which aim at the achievement of both academic and L2 learning

through an integration of language teaching and content teaching, generally

have great success in many areas of the students' language development (e.g.

listening comprehension, uency, functional abilities, condence in using the

L2); however, these learners have also been found to have problems in some

aspects of the TL grammar, especially in morpho-syntactic areas, even after

many years in these programmes (Harley and Swain 1984; Harley 1986, 1992;Swain 1985).

Swain (1985) argued that one of the important reasons for this is that these

learners engage in too little language production, which prevents them from

going beyond a functional level of L2 prociency. Immersion students, Swain

(1985) argues, lack output opportunities in two ways:

First, the students are simply not givenespecially in later gradesadequate opportunities to use the target language in the classroomcontext. Second, they are not being `pushed' in their output. That is to

say, the immersion students have developed, in the early grades,strategies for getting their meaning across which are adequate for thesituation they nd themselves in: they are understood by their teachersand peers. There appears to be little social or cognitive pressure toproduce language that reects more appropriately or precisely theirintended meaning: there is no push to be more comprehensible thanthey already are (Swain 1985: 249).

Observational studies of interaction in French immersion classrooms have

indicated that immersion classes are largely teacher-centred and that students

are not required to give extended answers (Allen et al. 1990). This permitsstudents to operate successfully with their incomplete knowledge of the

language; communication between students and between the teacher and

students is quite satisfactory in spite of numerous errors in the students'

speech. Observations such as these have led Swain to conclude that

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comprehensible input, while invaluable to the acquisition process, is not

sucient for these students to fully develop their L2 prociency. What these

students need, Swain argued, is not only comprehensible input, but

`comprehensible output' if they are to improve both uency and accuracyin their interlanguage (IL).

The construct of comprehensible output posits that when learners

experience communication diculties, they will be pushed into making

their output more precise, coherent, and appropriate, and this process is said

to contribute to language learning. In general terms, the importance of output

in learning may be construed in terms of the learners' active deployment of

their cognitive resources. That is, the output requirement presents learners

with unique opportunities for processing language that may not be decisively

necessary for comprehension. As Swain states,

[i]n speaking or writing, learners can `stretch' their interlanguage tomeet communicative goals. They might work towards solving theirlinguistic limitations by using their own internalized knowledge, or bycueing themselves to listen for a solution in future input. Learners (aswell as native speakers, of course) can fake it, so to speak, incomprehension, but they cannot do so in the same way in production.. . . [T]o produce, learners need to do something; they need to createlinguistic form and meaning and in so doing, discover what they canand cannot do (Swain 1995: 127).

Thus, it is claimed that producing the TL may serve as `the trigger that forces

the learner to pay attention to the means of expression needed in order to

successfully convey his or her own intended meaning' (Swain 1985: 249).

Since the output hypothesis was rst proposed, Swain has rened her

hypothesis and specied the following four functions of output (Swain 1993,

1995, 1998). First, output provides opportunities for developing automaticity

in language use. This is the uency function. In order to develop speedy access

to extant L2 knowledge for uent productive performance, learners need

opportunities to use their knowledge in meaningful contexts, and thisnaturally requires output. The second function of output is a hypothesis-testing

function. Producing output is one way of testing one's hypotheses about the

TL. Learners can judge the comprehensibility and linguistic well-formedness

of their IL utterances against feedback obtained from their interlocutors.

Third, output has a metalinguistic function. It is claimed that `as learners reect

upon their own TL use, their output serves a metalinguistic function, enabling

them to control and internalize linguistic knowledge' (Swain 1995: 126). In

other words, output processes enable learners not only to reveal their

hypotheses, but also to reect on them using language. Reection onlanguage may deepen the learners' awareness of forms, rules, and form

function relationships if the context of production is communicative in

nature. Finally, output serves a noticing/triggering (or consciousness-raising)

function. Namely, in producing the TL `learners may notice a gap between

170 COMPREHENSION AND PRODUCTION PROCESSES


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what they want to say and what they can say, leading them to recognize what

they do not know, or know only partially' (Swain 1995: 1256). The

recognition of problems may then prompt the learners to attend to the

relevant information in the input, which will trigger their IL development.In sum, Swain's output hypothesis claims that output can, under certain

conditions, promote language acquisition by allowing learners to try out and

stretch their IL capabilities. In so doing, learners may recognize problems in

their IL through internal feedbackoutput promotes syntactic processing and

self-monitoringor external feedbackoutput invites feedback from inter-

locutors, teachers, etc. This recognition may prompt the learners to generate

alternatives by searching existing knowledge or to seek out relevant input

with more focused attention and with more clearly identied communicative

needs (cf. Swain and Lapkin 1995).

IN SEARCH OF THE PSYCHOLINGUISTIC RATIONALE OF THEOUTPUT HYPOTHESIS

Swain's output hypothesis is now widely recognized as an important

extension of approaches that consider input as the only crucial aspect of

SLA. As such, it has generated some empirical research into the roles of

output in SLA. These studies have reported positive and promising, though

not unconditional (see below for discussion), ndings for the specic

functions of output: for the uency function (e.g. Bygate 2001; DeKeyser

1997), the hypothesis-testing function (e.g. Ellis and He 1999; Nobuyoshi and

Ellis 1993; Pica 1988; Pica et al . 1989; Shehadeh 1999, 2001), the

metalinguistic function (e.g. Kowal and Swain 1994; LaPierre 1994; Swain

1995, 1998; Swain and Lapkin 2001), and the noticing function (Izumi 2000,

2002; Izumi and Bigelow 2000, 2001; Izumi et al. 1999; Swain and Lapkin

1995). Despite the recent increase in empirical investigation of output,

however, what has been scarce is a discussion of the psycholinguistic basis of

the output hypothesis (for notable exceptions, see Bygate 2001; de Bot 1996).

What, for example, is the psycholinguistic mechanism underlying the outputhypothesis? What, in cognitive terms, is unique in output production that

may be lacking in input comprehension and that is relevant for SLA? How are

dierent functions of output related to each other? Greater explication of

these questions will be necessary for both further advancement of the

theoretical construct of output and input processing in SLA and for

psycholinguistically guided applications of the output hypothesis in L2

pedagogy. To address these issues, this paper will focus on the general

processes and mechanisms of comprehension and production and their

relevance to language learning (for a review of empirical studies on theoutput hypothesis, readers are referred to Izumi 2000 and Shehadeh 2002).

In what follows, an integrated model of SLA will be presented rst in order

to gain an overview of SLA processes in which the contribution of output to

language learning may be properly situated. Then, general characteristics of

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comprehension processes will be described, followed by a discussion of L2

input processing. The question tackled here is why it is said that input

comprehension is not sucient to develop one's IL competence. In the

ensuing section, a speech production model will be examined in order to gaininsight into output processes. The focus here will be on how output may be

related to language learning. Finally, some factors that are likely to constrain

the acquisitional eect of output will be discussed.

GASS'S INTEGRATED MODEL OF SLA

In examining the psycholinguistic rationale of the output hypothesis, it is

useful, rst of all, to have a general learning model that captures the overall

process of how learners derive their L2 grammatical knowledge in SLA. Onesuch model is proposed by Gass (1988, 1997; Gass and Selinker 1993), which

is schematically represented in Figure 1. Among other similar models of SLA

(e.g. Chaudron 1985; Ellis 1990, 1993; Frch and Kasper 1986; Sharwood

Smith 1986; VanPatten 1995, 1996), Gass's model is selected here because it

provides a detailed (though not necessarily denitive) description of each

component stage and depicts the interrelated and dynamic processes of

language acquisition. The model proposes ve stages whereby the learner

converts input to output: apperceived input, comprehended input, intake,

integration, and output.

Gass claims that what learners must do rst with ambient input is to

perceive it in light of their past experiences and currently held knowledge.

This so-called apperception serves as a priming device, so that later analysis of

the input can be conducted. Apperception, Gass claims, relates to the

`potentiality of comprehension of the input' (1997: 4). As such, it may be

seen as the rst hurdle where the ambient input is ltered for an initial

selective processing, capturing the fact that not all of input is automatically

used for comprehension, let alone for intake or integration.

The input that is apperceived is processed to derive some form of meaning

representation, or what is referred to as comprehended input in Gass's model.Gass argues that comprehension represents a continuum of possibilities

ranging from semantic analyses to detailed structural analyses. One important

factor that determines whether input converts to intake is the level of analysis

of the input that the learner achieves. It is claimed that analysis at the level of

meaning is not as useful for intake as an analysis made at the level of syntax.

What is comprehended, then, can feed into the intake component.

Alternatively, it may not be used for any further grammatical analysis if the

learner discards the information after using it for the purpose of immediate

communication (cf. Sharwood Smith 1986, and Frch and Kasper 1986). Ifinput becomes intake, the intake data may be used for the formation of new

IL hypotheses.

The hypotheses thus formed are subject to testing upon further exposure to

input. If the input data conrm an existing hypothesis, it will facilitate the



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integration of new knowledge into the developing system. If the information

contained in the input is already part of one's knowledge base, the intake data

may be used for hypothesis re-conrmation or rule strengthening. If the

hypothesis is disconrmed by the input data, it will be rejected and will no

longer be relevant for grammar formation, and learners will have to seek

more input to derive further intake. The intake that is thus integrated causes

restructuring in the IL grammar, which is a reorganization of the learner's

internal knowledge system. Alternatively, the intake data may be stored asunanalysed or partially analysed items which may be re-analysed when more

relevant input becomes available.

Finally, there is an output component. Gass sees output as playing an active

role in the dynamic, interrelated acquisition processes. Following Swain

(1985), Gass stresses the importance of comprehensible output in testing

hypotheses. This creates a feedback loop from output into the intake

component, where hypothesis formation and testing is considered to take

place. The output component is also related to the levels of analysis made at

the stage of comprehended input. It is claimed that learners cannot rely onexternal cues and general world knowledge in production in the same way

they do in comprehension and that they would need greater syntactic

processing in production. Language production is thus seen as one important

means of moving the learner from comprehended input to intake.

SHINICHI IZUMI 173

Figure 1: A model of SLA (from Gass 1988: 200)


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In sum, SLA involves overlapping, yet distinguishable sets of processes.

First, exposed to the ambient input, learners perceive selected aspects of the

input, from which they derive some form of meaning representations of the

input messages. Comprehension and intake are considered to representdierent processes, of which only the latter is used for further processing for

learning. Through the processes of hypothesis formation, testing, modica-

tion, conrmation, and rejection, the intake may subsequently be integrated

into the developing system. Finally, learners selectively use their developing

system in their output. The output process is seen here not only as a product

of acquisition, but represents an active component in the overall acquisition

processes.

SPEECH COMPREHENSION PROCESSESGeneral characteristics

Gass's SLA model distinguishes, among other things, comprehension and

intake in SLA processes. Why is it that input that is used for comprehension is

not directly related to intake? In order to answer this question, we need to

address rst the kind of information that is utilized in human speech

comprehension. While debate still continues as to the autonomy of syntactic

modules from semantic and pragmatic modules,1 psycholinguistic research

over the past decades has accumulated enough evidence to suggest somegeneral characteristics of human speech comprehension processes (see Frch

and Kasper 1986; Fender 2001; Garrett 1991; Harrington 2001; Rost 1990;

Scovel 1998; Tyler and Tyler 1990, ch. 5; Wingeld 1993, for detailed

discussion). These characteristics include the following:

. Comprehension is not the passive recording of whatever is heard or seen.

. Comprehension processes rely on three types of information: linguistic

input, contextual information, and the recipient's linguistic and other

general knowledge of the world, including semantic and pragmatic

knowledge.. Comprehension is dierentially aected by the linguistic devices used in

the sentence (e.g. passive vs. active sentences). The use of linguistic cues

(be they syntactic, semantic, morphological, or phonological/orthographi-

cal) in comprehension processes is often referred to as bottom-up processing.. Comprehension is dierentially aected by the existence, type, and the

amount of contextual clues provided. People tend to seek contextual

consistency in comprehending speech.. Comprehension is dierentially aected by the general world knowledge

possessed by the recipients and can dier among individuals depending onthe amount of such knowledge available for each individual. The use of

contextual clues and world knowledge in comprehension processes is

referred to as top-down processing.. While there is a possibility that syntactic parsing operations are conducted



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initially before semantic-pragmatic factors come into play (see e.g. Forster

1979), people have a strong tendency to seek semantic plausibility in

comprehending speech. Such a semantic bias holds particularly strongly

when comprehension of units larger than a sentence (i.e. short or longdiscourse and texts) is considered.. Comprehension is selective because humans possess limited processing

capacities. This selection process is guided by a number of factors, which

include, for bottom-up processing, salience of input elements (which may

be dened in acoustic/visual or semantic terms), and, for top-down

processing, the recipient's expectations (which are inuenced by the

contextual clues present in the input and/or the recipient's general

knowledge of the world).

These characteristics of the human speech comprehension system suggest thathighly complex processes underlie how people make sense of the language

data presented to them. People do not rely on only one general knowledge

source or strategy to understand speech, such as syntactic parsing or

applications of semantic and pragmatic knowledge. Instead, they utilize

various resources available to them, using both top-down and bottom-up

approaches, to arrive at a comprehension of the input messages.

Speech comprehension processes for language learners

While the above observations are insightful for understanding how human

language comprehension takes place, it is important to note that these

observations are based on extensive studies of adult language users with

already highly established sets of knowledge of the language being used.

Therefore, they may not be directly applicable to children acquiring their rst

language (L1) or to child or adult L2 learners. It is possible for these

populations that the two approaches of bottom-up and top-down processing

are not equally and/or as eectively utilized for comprehension (Fender 2001;

Pienemann 1998). In fact, some researchers argue that even adult L1 listeners

or readers do not utilize the two general approaches of syntactic and semantic

processing equally in comprehending speech. Clark and Clark (1977), for

example, argue that syntactic information may be circumvented in

comprehension processes in listening and reading.

Listeners know a lot about what a speaker is going to say. They canmake shrewd guesses from what has been said and from the situationbeing described. They can also be condent that the speaker will makesense, be relevant, provide given and new information appropriately,and in general be cooperative. Listeners almost certainly use this sort ofinformation to select among alternative parses of a sentence, toanticipate words and phrases, and sometimes even to circumventsyntactic analyses altogether (Clark and Clark 1977: 72).

In accounting for the use of semantic knowledge in comprehension processes,

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Clark and Clark posit the `reality principle,' according to which listeners

interpret sentences in the belief that what the speaker is saying makes sense to

them. A primary strategy under this principle is: Ùsing content words alone,

build propositions that make sense and parse the sentence into constituentsaccordingly' (1977: 73). An example of this strategy in use is illustrated by the

ways people paraphrase complex sentences such as the following:

(1) The vase that the maid that the agency hired dropped broke on the oor.

(2) The dog that the cat that the girl fought scolded approached the colt.

Sentence (1) is highly constrained semantically. By using the content words

alone, one can reach an accurate interpretation of the sentence. Vase, maid,

agency, hired, dropped, and broke on the oor can easily be sorted into threereasonable propositions: the vase broke on the oor; the maid dropped the vase; and

the agency hired the maid. This is not true for sentence (2). Dog, cat, girl can all

do any of the actions, ght, scold, and approach colts. It is reported that people

correctly paraphrased sentence (1) more often than sentence (2), suggesting

that people rely on semantic knowledge in interpreting dicult sentences

(Stolz 1967, as cited in Clark and Clark 1977: 73).

In the realm of reading research, Stanovich (1980) claims that interactive

models of reading can provide a more accurate account of reading

performance than do strictly bottom-up or top-down models. The reader is

seen not merely as a passive recipient of the printed information, but as an

active subject in the whole process who utilizes all the knowledge resources

available to him/her at a given point in time. What is particularly interesting

about Stanovich's model of reading is not just the interactive nature of the

reading processes, but its proposal of compensatory mechanisms. If there is a

deciency in any particular process (e.g. weak syntactic knowledge), other

processes (e.g. higher-order knowledge structures, such as contextual or

general world information that the reader has access to) can compensate for

the weak knowledge source. Thus, with information provided simultaneously

from several knowledge sources, à decit in any knowledge results in aheavier reliance on other knowledge sources, regardless of their level in the

processing hierarchy' (Stanovich 1980: 63). This interactive-compensatory

model is seen as an ìntegrative' model of reading, as it can provide a

successful theoretical account of seemingly conicting ndings of many

research studies in this area (e.g. studies showing dierential contextual

eects of good and poor readers).

In L1 acquisition literature, it has been claimed that children typically rely

on general world knowledge to comprehend what is uttered to them (Clark

and Hecht 1983). They rely on, for example, their general knowledge aboutthe instigators of actions which are typically animate, probable relations

between nouns in a sentence (e.g. The baby was fed by the girl is interpreted

correctly with the simple knowledge about the relationship between adults

and babies without necessarily having the knowledge of the passive



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construction), and the knowledge of the usual routine in particular

circumstances to decide how to act. As a result of such strategies, children

often appear to understand more language than they actually do.

In the case of SLA as well, the restricted L2 knowledge of the learnersmakes them rely on certain strategies (e.g. use of semantic and contextual

cues) more than others (e.g. syntactic cues) in order to overcome their

linguistic limitations. Skehan (1996, 1998), for example, argues that L2

learners use a variety of strategies of comprehension that may obviate careful

attention to form.

There is natural and unavoidable use of strategies of comprehension . . . ,in that non-deterministic and non-exhaustive methods are used torecover intended meaning, with the success of this operation often

being dependent on only partial use of form as a clue to meaning. . . . Inother words, processing language to extract meaning does notguarantee automatic sensitivity to form and the consequent pressuresfor interlanguage development (Skehan, 1996: 401).

Furthermore, Skehan draws attention to the fact that L2 learners are those

who have `schematic knowledge' (i.e. factual and sociocultural background

knowledge and discoursal procedural knowledge), but have limited `systemic

knowledge' (i.e. syntactic, semantic, and morphological knowledgecf.

Anderson and Lynch 1988). Such learners may be likely to exploit their

schematic knowledge to overcome limitations in their systemic knowledge.

This can lead to a reduced chance for the engagement of the IL system. In

general, Skehan's claim seems to be supported by the results of previous

research which indicate that comprehensible input does not always guarantee

learners' grammatical development (see Ellis 1994; Larsen-Freeman and Long

1991; Long 1996, for reviews).

In a recent study, Tyler (2001) investigated whether non-native listeners

rely more on topic knowledge to aid their speech comprehension than do

native listeners. Using a dual-task technique in which listeners had to

comprehend an auditory passage while concurrently verifying the totals ofsingle-digit calculations, Tyler found that while access to the topic of the

passage had a small eect on the adult native listeners' calculations, it had a

large eect on the performance of the adult non-native listeners. That is, non-

native listeners had much greater diculty with calculations in the non-topic

condition than did native listeners, even though they performed equally as

well on the task as the native listeners in the topic condition. It seems that

eective use of topic knowledge helps the learners to function eectively in

everyday situations in the L2, while it may at the same time inhibit further

development of their linguistic knowledge.In some SLA studies, researchers divided linguistic knowledge into dierent

sub-components and investigated how each of these sub-components aects

comprehension. Mecartty (2000), for example, examined the relationship

between lexical and grammatical knowledge to reading and listening

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comprehension by adult L2 learners and found that while both types of

knowledge are signicantly related to comprehension, only lexical knowledge

explained the variance in both reading and listening comprehension. This

suggests that there is an imbalance in the use of dierent sub-components ofknowledge sources even within the linguistic knowledge itself, which in turn

implies that development of dierent sub-components may be stimulated

dierently during comprehension processes.

To summarize, although the resourceful nature of the comprehension

system is highly useful in making comprehension of sentences containing yet-

to-be acquired items possible, this also implies that L2 learners can attain an

adequate level of comprehension without necessarily focusing on many

formal features in the input. This can lead to a reduction in the amount of

intake that can be used for nal integration in the developing system.

Characteristics of L2 input processing

The preceding discussion reveals a complex interplay among various factors in

comprehension processes and suggests that language learners may not use all

these factors eectively and equally. What elements in the input, then, do L2

learners focus on as they process input? Is there any bias as to what they

process and what they do not process in the input? Answers to these

questions are proposed by VanPatten (1995, 1996), who has formulated a

model of L2 input processing. Crucial to VanPatten's model of input

processing is the assumption that humans possess limited processing

capacities. That is, it is held that learners are not capable of attending to all

the information in the input; only some of it becomes the object of focused or

selective attention, while other information is processed only peripherally (cf.

apperception in Gass's SLA model; see McLaughlin 1987; McLaughlin et al.

1983, for similar information-processing views; see also Robinson 1995, for a

discussion of alternative views of attention). VanPatten assumes, as do many

other researchers (e.g. Gass 1988; Robinson 1995; Schmidt 1990, 1995, 2001;

Slobin 1985; Tomlin and Villa 1994), that attention is a prerequisite forlearning to take place. He argues, however, that learners' attention tends to be

drawn to certain parts of the input, particularly those that are immediately

relevant to the message content.

Operating with limited processing capacities, L2 learners rst search the

input for content words. If resources are not depleted at this point, they may

try to make formmeaning mappings by attending to grammatical forms with

`high communicative value'. If resources are still not depleted, then further

processing of `less communicative value' can occur. Communicative value is

dened here as `the relative contribution a form makes to the referentialmeaning of an utterance . . . based on the presence or absence of two features:

inherent semantic value and redundancy within the sentence-utterance'

(VanPatten 1996: 24). A form that has inherent semantic value and is not

redundant will tend to have high communicative value (e.g. progressive



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morphology, -ing, in English), whereas a form that lacks (or is light in)

inherent semantic value and is redundant tends to have low communicative

value (e.g. third person present singular morphology, -s, in English).

VanPatten claims that forms with low communicative value are madeprocessable by the learners only when their L2 capacities develop to such

an extent that their attentional resources are not consumed by the processing

of forms with high communicative value. It is not clear, however, whether

the learners really attend to less meaningful items when they can spare their

attentional resources. It is possible that they may never attend to purely

formal, functionally redundant forms unless some form of instructional

intervention forces them to do so (see arguments for focus on form by Long

1991; Long and Robinson 1998; Doughty and Williams 1998).

Apart from the processing of content and grammatical items in the input,

learners also need to assign semantic or grammatical roles to the words they

hear or read. Based on research ndings in both L1 and L2 acquisition,

VanPatten suggests that the rst noun strategy is a prevalent, possibly a

universal, strategy utilized by language learners. This strategy dictates that the

rst NP encountered is generally labelled as the agent, while the second NP is

assigned the role of patient. This strategy, however, may be overridden if

other factors such as lexical semantics and event probabilities are in strong

opposition to it. As their L2 competence develops, learners may learn to rely

more on grammatically related cues such as morphological markings and

syntactic structures. However, this process is generally gradual and slow,particularly if the learners are exposed to sentences containing cues that are in

harmony with each other, as opposed to those in con ict (cf. Bates and

MacWhinney 1989; Gass 1987; Harrington 1987; MacWhinney 1987; Sasaki

1994).

In sum, in VanPatten's model of input processing, certain principles are

believed to guide the ways in which learners process grammatical form in

their attempt to comprehend input strings. These processing principles, in

turn, shape the intake data available for accommodation by the learners'

developing system. Driven to get the meaning out of the input, learners rstattend to meaningful elements in the input, follow the rst noun strategy as a

general strategy for parsing input sentences, and rely on their semantic and

pragmatic knowledge to compensate for the lack of sophisticated syntactic

parsing mechanisms in the L2. Although VanPatten's model is still in need of

more empirical substantiation and accommodation of other factors that are

also likely to aect the acquisition of dierent language forms (e.g. semantic

complexity, rule complexity, and frequency: cf. Goldschneider and DeKeyser

2001), it does seem to capture some important insights that need to be

incorporated into any theories of L2 input processing.In terms of pedagogical applications, VanPatten and his colleagues have

developed, based on the understanding of input processing, a pedagogical

technique known as `processing instruction'. Processing instruction aims to

facilitate better intake from the input by manipulating task demands in such a

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way that the use of the default strategies would not be the best way to go

about completing the given task. It generally involves three stages:

(1) explaining to the learners the relationship between the given form and

the meaning it conveys; (2) providing them with information about good andpoor processing strategies; and most importantly, (3) providing learners with

`structured input' activities which encourage them, in controlled situations, to

pay attention to the relevant grammatical cues so that they can form better

formmeaning connections. The positive eects of processing instruction over

a more traditional instruction that focused on grammar explanation and

output practice are reported in a series of studies conducted by VanPatten and

his colleagues (see VanPatten 1996, for a review of relevant research).

VanPatten and Oikkenon's (1996) study, in particular, showed that the

provision of structured input activities alone was as eective as the regular

processing instruction that included explanation components. This suggests

that the structured input activities and the formmeaning connections made

during the activities are responsible for the positive eects of processing

instruction.

While we need to be cautious about extrapolating the advantage of

processing instruction over other types of instruction and about generalizing

the results to all language structures,2 it is important to ask what makes

processing instruction eective at least for the acquisition of the morpho-

syntactic structures that have been investigated so far. It seems that the

eectiveness of processing instruction lies essentially in the fact that it pushesthe learners to attend to crucial formmeaning relationships in comprehend-

ing input. In other words, processing instruction is eective because it creates

a `pushed input' condition. On further thinking, one may wonder what

`pushed output' can do to enhance learning (Swain 1985). If, for example,

learners are pushed to produce output and immediately provided with

relevant usable input, it is possible that the sensitivity towards the form may

be heightened through the production process, which may, in turn, prompt

them to attend to formmeaning relationships. This may bring about a shift in

processing strategies from meaning-oriented towards a more syntacticallysensitive one. In light of the predictions made by the output hypothesis as

discussed earlier, it can be posited that output has the potentialfor altering the

manner in which learners process input. How does this occur in psycho-

linguistic terms? What are the cognitive mechanisms involved? It is to these

topics that we now turn.

SPEECH PRODUCTION PROCESSES

Levelt's speech production modela general sketch

Of several psycholinguistic models of speech production proposed in the

literature, the most inuential is the one developed by Levelt (1989, 1992,

1993; Levelt et al. 1999). Levelt's production model, originally developed to



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account for the speech production by L1 adults, is based on decades of

psycholinguistic research and is supported by considerable empirical research,

both experimental and observational. The model has also been adapted to

account for L2 data (Bygate 2001; de Bot 1992; de Bot et al. 1997; Dornyei andKormos 1998; Kormos 1999). A brief sketch of the model is provided below.

The relevance of this model to SLA will be discussed subsequently.

In Levelt's production model, there are ve distinct components: the

conceptualizer, the formulator, the articulator, the audition, and the speech

comprehension system; and three sources of knowledge: lemmas and forms

contained in the lexicon and discourse model, situation and encyclopedic knowledge

that is connected to the conceptualizer (see Figure 2).

A message to be conveyed is rst generated in the conceptualizer, which

produces a preverbal message as its output. The formulator takes the preverbal

message as its input and converts it into a phonetic plan. The lexicon, which

SHINICHI IZUMI 181

Figure 2: Levelt's speech production model (from Levelt 1989, MIT Press)


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feeds into the formulator, provides necessary information in this conversion

process and consists of two parts: the lemma, which contains semantic and

syntactic information of lexical items, and the form (or lexeme), which

represents morphological and phonological specications. Using these twotypes of information in the lexicon, the formulator generates a phonetic/

articulatory plan in two steps. First, grammatical encoding of the message

takes place by rst accessing lemmas through a process of matching the

meaning of the preverbal message with the semantic specications provided

in the lemma. The activation of a specic lemma makes available the syntactic

information relevant to it, which activates syntactic building procedures. With

the use of the syntactic specications provided by the selected lemma, the

grammatical encoder produces the surface structurean ordered string of

lemmas grouped in phrases and sub-phrases. As a second step, the

phonological encoding takes place by accessing morpho-phonological infor-

mation stored in the lexeme, which produces a specic phonetic plan (or

internal speech). The phonetic plan is internally scanned by the speaker via

the speech-comprehension system.

Then the articulator takes the phonetic plan as its input and converts it into

actual speech. At this point, the speech-comprehension system connected to

the auditory system plays a feedback role: the overt speech is guided through

the audition into the speech-comprehension system to check for any

anomalous output. The speech-comprehension system, having access to

both the form and lemma information in the lexicon, recognizes words,retrieves their meanings and parses the incoming speech. The output of the

speech-comprehension system is parsed speech, which is a representation of the

input speech in terms of its phonological, morphological, syntactic, and

semantic composition. The main work of monitoring is done by the

conceptualizer, which attends to the output of the speech-comprehension

system. The monitoring is done both covertly prior to articulation or overtly

subsequent to articulation.

As this brief description of Levelt's model indicates, his model of production

is heavily lexically driven. Lexical selection is considered to drive grammaticalencoding. As lemmas are retrieved when their semantic conditions are met in

the message, they activate syntactic procedures that correspond to their

syntactic specications. Thus, a verb will instigate the construction of a verb

phrase, a noun the construction of a noun phrase, etc. Lemmas may be

conceptually driven or grammatically driven. The latter type of lexical items

belongs to the closed class vocabulary. For instance, in the phrase the woman

that arrived, the retrieval of the relative pronoun that is not semantically

driven such as is the retrieval of woman. Rather, that is called by the syntactic

procedure that constructs relative clauses. Here, in other words, `grammaticalencoding drives lexical selection' (Levelt 1992: 6). The preverbal message, in

this case, dictates that woman here cannot be any woman, but a particular

woman that arrived. The NP categorical procedure with woman as head looks

for modifying information attached to the concept `woman' in the preverbal



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message. As the preverbal message contains this information, it calls for

further specication of which woman this woman refers to in the grammatical

encoder. Such phrasal specication is made possible by the close coordination

between the conceptualizer and the formulator.

Relevance of Levelt's model to the output hypothesis

Production processing is not language learning. It is a process in which a

concept is encoded in a speech form that is to be communicated. This, as we

saw, involves conceptualizing, formulating, articulating, and monitoring, the

process of which may recycle depending on the success of the outcome of the

processing. Although Levelt's production model is a `steady-state' model and

is not intended to account for language learning per se, it can neverthelessprovide some important insights into how learning may be brought about

through production processes (de Bot 1992, 1996; Kormos 1999). Levelt's

model illustrates the putative process in which the grammatical encoder

syntacticizes the preverbal message using the syntactic specications provided

in the retrieved lemma in order to derive a surface structure of the message.

The surface structure is then processed in the phonological encoder for exact

form specications, which is then sent to the articulator to derive overt

speech.

The grammatical encoding in this process, in particular, requires a focus on

syntactic form on the part of the language producer. Although essentially the

reverse process is believed to take place in the speech comprehension system

for any incoming language input (i.e. grammatical decoding), the additional

knowledge source stored in the discourse models and situational and

encyclopedic knowledge can often compensate the lack of L2 knowledge in

decoding the input data. The grammatical decoding, therefore, may eectively

be bypassed in the course of input comprehension, as we have seen earlier. In

production, on the other hand, the speaker is responsible for message

generation and formulation that requires grammatical encoding. There is

much less chance (though by no means no chance, as we will see below) forthe speaker to escape syntactic operations in the course of production. It is in

this sense that output is said to force the learner to move from `the semantic

processing prevalent in comprehension to the syntactic processing needed for

production' (Swain and Lapkin 1995: 375).

In Levelt's model, it is assumed that grammatical encoding in production by

adult native speakers occurs subconsciously and automatically.3 However, this

may not be the case for language learners who are still in the process of

learning a language and whose language use requires a great deal of

controlled processing and attention (Dornyei and Kormos 1998; Kormos1999, 2000). It is possible that the very process of grammatical encoding in

production sensitizes the learners to the possibilities and limitations of what

they can or cannot express in the TL. Such sensitization is bolstered by the

feedback system available for monitoring speech. In Levelt's model, both

SHINICHI IZUMI 183


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internal and overt speech are fed into the speech-comprehension system and

back to the conceptualizer to be monitored for matching between the

semantic specications in the preverbal message and the outcome of the

formulation and articulation. This monitoring mechanism allows for attentionto be given to the well-formedness and appropriateness of the production

outcome (Dornyei and Kormos 1998; Kormos 1999, 2000). These processes

particularly, grammatical encoding and monitoringcan, under certain

circumstances, serve as an `internal priming device' for grammatical

consciousness raising for the language learners.

In L1 acquisition, some researchers contend that part of the task of language

acquisition is to coordinate comprehension and production (Clark and Clark

1977; Clark and Hecht 1983). For example, it is observed that children at the

telegraphic stage are more likely to respond to adult commands, such as throw

me the ball, than child-like throw ball. This suggests that in comprehension

children initially rely on more adult-like representations of words and phrases

not yet reected in their own production. These representations, it is claimed,

`provide a standard to which they will eventually match their own

productions of those same linguistic units' (Clark and Hecht 1983: 338).

This matching or coordination mechanism requires that children be able to

monitor what they produce and check it against the standard which is their

representation for comprehension. Indeed, children have been observed to

monitor their own speech actively and to try to repair their utterances (Clark

1982). Furthermore, their repairs are generally made toward the adult norm,not away from it. Observations such as these suggest that children's active

monitoring and detecting mismatches between what they understand and

what they themselves produce may provide part of the impetus for language

development (Clark 1982; Clark and Hecht 1983). This account underscores

the importance of the inputoutput interactions in language acquisition

processes. The mechanism of speech monitoring advocated here is consistent

with Levelt's model of speech production where speech generated in the

formulator is fed into the speech-comprehension system and then back to the

conceptualizer for monitoring of output.In SLA, drawing on Levelt's production model and Anderson's (1982)

information-processing approach to skill acquisition (also see Johnson 1996),

de Bot (1992, 1996) proposes that, while output by itself does not create

completely new declarative knowledge, it can facilitate the process of the

transition of declarative knowledge to procedural knowledge:

Specic information in the lemma activates certain procedures, and thesystem does not get error messages about the result of this connection;

hence the strength of this connection increases. When this connectionis made repeatedly, the activity becomes automated, and thereforemore rapid and more precise. Probably, focused attention to specicproduction processes stimulates the development of connections inmemory (de Bot 1992: 54950).



18/29

Focusing on the feedback system described in Levelt's model, de Bot (1996)

further notes that internal speech is matched against internal standards that

are formed by the speaker's receptive knowledge about the use of specic

rules. Operating under this matching mechanism, `if what is produced andwhat is correct do not match according to the internal norm, [internal]

negative feedback will hamper the development of the connection' (1996:

549). Again, such a comparison is made possible via a feedback loop from

internal speech to the speech comprehension system, as indicated in Levelt's

model. The speech generated by the formulator is examined internally for

both content and form. The overt speech is also fed back into the speech

comprehension system for further checking of anomalous output. Such

monitoring mechanisms are supported by various ndings in psycholinguistic

research. Scovel (1998) neatly summarizes ndings of psycholinguistic

research in this area:

[c]ommunication is not a one-way broadcast of a signal, but it is aninteractive process, involving not just the interaction between theinterlocutors but also the interaction within each individual speaker.. . . Speech production (or written composition) is not a linear `one-way' process; it is a parallel, `two-way' system involving both outputand the concurrent editing and modulation of that output (Scovel1998: 49).

Although de Bot (1992, 1996) allows for the possibility that new knowledge

may be generated in the production process when the learner forms new

words through the application of existing rules or the combination of

previously acquired morphemes (cf. Swain and Lapkin 1995), he sees the

main role of output in strengthening already-stored knowledge representa-

tions, which would fall under the scope of the uency function of output.

While this is an important role of output in SLA, the argument advanced here

is that output has a wider role to play in the overall acquisition processes, the

uency function being but one of its roles. In particular, given that the

learners' existing L2 linguistic system is not likely to provide sucientinformation to enable the monitor to decide with certainty whether their

output was anomalous or not, decision problems may be experienced in the

monitoring process (Kormos 1999, 2000). Thus, even if the external speech

passes through the comprehension system without any apparent warning

given from the internal norm, the learners may still be left with uncertainty

with the correctness of their speech. As argued above, the mechanisms of

monitoring both internal speech and overt speech enable the speakers to

assess the degree of success in the outcome of the formulation, or more

specically, the matching of the message specications and the nal output.This monitoring process permits `the interaction within each individual

speaker,' as Scovel puts it, and through this process learners may be prompted

to recognize the hole or gap in their IL knowledge, which is an important step

for language development (Swain 1998).

SHINICHI IZUMI 185


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When facing problems in their production process, learners have several

alternative routes to take depending on the given situation at the time (and

perhaps depending on the individual learners' idiosyncratic preferences as

well). For example, despite the uncertainty, learners may try out the outcomebecause they do not have any other means available to express their

communicative intention and/or they want to try it out and see whether it

works (de Bot 1992). In interactive situations where communication is taking

place with an immediate interlocutor, the learners may receive negative

feedback from him/her and conrm, reject, or modify their hypothesis (i.e.

the hypothesis-testing function of output: Ellis and He 1999; Nobuyoshi and

Ellis 1993; Pica 1988; Pica et al . 1989; Shehadeh 1999, 2001). If an

`authoritative' gure, such as a teacher or a native speaker (or even a

dictionary or grammar book), is available, learners may ask him/her questions

or consult with the available information sources in an eort to understand

better how the TL works. Alternatively, in situations where external feedback

is not immediately available, as in monologues or communication in writing,

learners can resort to other means. If they are communicating amongst

themselves, as in the collaborative task situations reported in Kowal and

Swain (1994) (see also LaPierre 1994; Swain 1995, 1998; Swain and Lapkin

2001), specic problems encountered in the process of production may be

brought to the forefront of the learners' attention and various solutions to the

problems may be discussed. The elicitation of relevant input in the collabor-

ative work may then trigger language learning (i.e. the metalinguisticfunction of output).

If, on the other hand, the learner is left on his/her own to solve the

immediate production diculties, as was tested in Swain and Lapkin (1995),

he/she may engage in various thought processes that can consolidate existing

knowledge or possibly generate some new knowledge on the basis of their

current knowledge (see also Kormos 2000, for a discussion of learners' self-

repair behaviours). If relevant input is immediately available, however, the

heightened sense of problematicity during production may cause the learners

to process the subsequent input with more focused attention; they may try toexamine closely how the TL expresses the intention which they just had

diculty expressing on their own (i.e. the noticing function of output: e.g.

Izumi 2000, 2002; Izumi and Bigelow 2000, 2001; Izumi et al. 1999).

For teachers who wish to take an active interventionist approach to help

their students develop their L2 knowledge, a good intervention point is

obviously when the learners' IL system is most open to change, and this is

most likely to be found when the learners are grappling with the specic

means of expression to convey their meaning. Output produced in meaningful

contexts may create this potential `learning space', which can be lled in atimely manner by the teacher (Samuda 2001). In all cases, learning may be

enhanced through the act of producing language, which, by its mechanisms,

increases the likelihood that learners become sensitive to what they can and

cannot say in the TL, leading to their reappraisal of their IL capabilities.



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These several functions of output are summarized in Figure 3. The processes

that intervene between the rst output and the second output, which are

depicted in the squares, are believed to constitute an important part of SLA

(Swain and Lapkin 1995). To summarize, output, by itself, can contribute tolearning by strengthening the IL knowledge base that may still be only weakly

established, that is, solidifying the knowledge connections or increasing the

automaticity of language use. Equally or perhaps more importantly (depend-

ing on one's view of what `acquisition' entails; cf. Ellis 1999: ch. 10), output

triggers chains of psycholinguistic processes that are conducive to language

learning. In other words, output processing engages important internal

procedures such as grammatical encoding and monitoring, which prompts

the learners to interact actively with the external environment to nd a

solution (e.g. attend selectively to certain aspects of the input) or to explore

their internal resources for possible solutions. Output, thus, serves as a useful

means to promote the interaction between learner internal factors (including

selective attention and their developing L2 competence) and environmental

factors (input, interaction, and pedagogical intervention), or the interaction

within the learners themselves for internal metalinguistic reection. The

outcome of all cases is language acquisition in a broad sense of the term, that

SHINICHI IZUMI 187

Figure 3: Output and second language development (adapted from Swainand Lapkin 1995: 388)


21/29

is, the development of the knowledge base, its restructuring, and the

strengthening and increase in the access to the stored knowledge.4

Relating the roles of output discussed here to the overall SLA processes that

were discussed earlier, Figure 4 illustrates such relationships in terms of threearrows connecting output to other SLA components. Specically, the arrow

intersecting at the point between the comprehended input and the intake is

meant to imply that output generated through the production processes can

help to mediate between comprehension and acquisition processes by

facilitating noticing of the mismatches between the learners' IL output and

the TL input. This function may be variously called, depending on the focus of

the emphasis: intake facilitation (Terrell 1991), noticing or noticing of the gap

(Schmidt 1990, 1995, 2001), or consciousness-raising (Rutherford and

Sharwood Smith 1985; Sharwood Smith 1991). Opportunities for output

can also serve as grounds for hypothesis testing and/or metalinguistic

reection for the learners, which could lead to intake or integration upon

receiving conrmation (here the arrow is connected with the point between

the intake and integration components, assuming that the hypothesis being

tested has already been taken in but still waits further conrmation for nal

integration into the system). And nally, if the same structure is used in the

output repeatedly, the output can also serve to promote more eective and

faster access to the integrated knowledge by the learners, leading to


Figure 4: Output as an active component in the overall SLA process


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automatization of the IL knowledge (as indicated by the arrow intersecting

the integration and the output components). In this way, output can serve to

promote the learners' intake of the form, its integration, and its speedy access

for eective language use.

Some factors affecting output effects on learning

With these psycholinguistic mechanisms available to language learners, an

important caveat needs to be mentioned. That is, not all circumstances of

production may provide language learners with ideal grounds in which to

encourage syntacticization and sensitization to language forms. In many ways,

this is similar to the case of comprehension, which does not always guarantee

automatic sensitivity to form, but instead requires some conditions for a focuson form to occur. Just as the availability of rich semantic, contextual, or

situational information allows the learner to bypass careful syntactic analysis

in comprehension, some production circumstances are not particularly

conducive to inducing learners' sensitivity to form; hence, the need for

`pushed' output to drive language development (Swain 1985, 1993, 1995,

1998).

For instance, it is said that in `loose' conversational contexts, learners can

avoid problematic lexical and grammatical structures, yet nevertheless

achieve their immediate communicative goals (Bygate 1999; Gary and Gary

1981; Skehan 1998). This would be the case of learners using `reduction

strategies,' in Frch and Kasper's (1983) terms. In general, the need for

syntacticization would be diminished in situations where one can readily rely

on external support such as interlocutors' scaolding or contextual cues

available in the environment or through gestures (e.g. having a face-to-face

conversation with a familiar interlocutor as opposed to writing to an

unfamiliar recipient). In her longitudinal study of the development of the

past-time marking in English by two Vietnamese speakers, Sato (1986)

concludes that the `compensatory nature of discourse-pragmatics' facilitates

learners' communicative performance, but it simultaneously makes the past-time morphological marking `expendable' (1986: 42). A form like the past

tense marking, which has inherent semantic content yet is often redundant in

many communication contexts may be particularly susceptible to dierences

in contextual factors. Thus, both situational and linguistic variables can aect

the degree to which production forces learners to allocate their attention to

form features (Izumi and Bigelow 2000).

Task demands also inuence what aspects of L2 performance (e.g. accuracy,

uency, and complexity) may be most attended to by the learners (Bygate

1999; Foster and Skehan 1996; Skehan and Foster 1997, 1999; Skehan 1998).Some of the features of the task that are known to aect L2 performance are:

availability of the planning time prior to task performance, specic goals and

requirements set for the task, the task directions given to the learner, and the

type, amount, and details of the linguistic, as well as non-linguistic (e.g.

SHINICHI IZUMI 189


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visual), information to be dealt with (cf. see Long in press; Crookes and Gass

1993a, b; Bygate et al. 2001, for many issues in task-based language teaching).

All of these factors determine the overall cognitive demand of the task, which

inuences the degree to which the learners allocate their attentional resourcesto form. From an information-processing perspective, the limited capacity of

the human attentional system is likely to aect the eciency of the encoding

and monitoring processes in production. Such eects, moreover, are likely to

be more pronounced for language learners than for mature L1 users due to

the greater need by the former to exercise controlled processing that requires

attentional control (Kormos 1999). Careful consideration of the task demands,

therefore, is essential if output (or input, for that matter) is used in the task to

promote IL development.

The level of learners' L2 prociency is another related factor that may play a

role in how much output stimulates learning mechanisms leading to IL

development. It is possible, for instance, that lower prociency learners who

are struggling with the production of one-word utterances may not be able to

engage much of grammatical encoding during production because their

cognitive eort may be spent primarily on the retrieval of lexical items

(Bygate 1999). As a result, such learners may not be able to attend to

grammatical forms in either the output they produce or the input they

receive, though they may pay attention to individual lexical items. For output

to exert facilitative eect on grammatical acquisition, then, it is necessary to

take into account the timing issue vis-a -vis learners' L2 prociency level ingeneral and with regard to the specic form that may be targeted for

instruction in particular (see Izumi 2000, 2002, for a study that found positive

eects of output on the acquisition of relative clauses by ESL learners whose

developmental readiness (cf. Pienemann 1998) was matched to the target

form).

In general, if the facilitative impact of output for learning requires the

engagement of psycholinguistic processes such as grammatical encoding and

monitoring as argued above, it should follow that the eectiveness of output-

based activities can be assessed in large part by how successfully theseprocesses are engaged in these activities. A mechanical production task, for

instance, does not likely involve genuine production mechanisms as described

above; accordingly, its impact on SLA cannot be expected to be large. A

fundamental consideration for pedagogy is that, for output to have any

signicant impact on learning, a meaningful context for language use needs to

be created so that learners can acquire proper formmeaning connections in

the L2a focus-on-form consideration (cf. see Doughty and Williams 1998;

Long 1991; Long and Robinson 1998). In Levelt's model, this means that the

coordination between the conceptualizer and the formulator needs to beinvolved. Dissociating the two, or reversing the order of the involvement of

the two, from the conceptualizer (concept generation)-to-the formulator (its

grammatical formulation) to the formulator (grammatical formulation)-to-the

conceptualizer (concept generation), as is done in some predominantly form-



24/29

focused instruction, would go against natural production processing.5 In light

of the foregoing discussion, it is hardly a surprise if such approaches to L2

instruction do not lead to the acquisition of any usable knowledge.

Elucidating the psycholinguistic mechanisms of the output hypothesis, ashas been attempted in this paper, gives us many insights into the

specications of optimal conditions for language learning.

CONCLUSION

This paper reviewed previous literature relevant to the comprehension and

production processes in order to illuminate, ultimately, the psycholinguistic

rationale for the output hypothesis in SLA. It was argued that comprehension

of language input is a complex process involving multiple resources of

information, linguistic information being but one source. The resourcefulnature of the comprehension system is highly useful in L2 comprehension,

but at the cost of reducing the amount of intake that can be used for

integration in the developing system. In elucidating the mechanisms by which

output promotes SLA, it was argueddrawing on Levelt's production

modelthat the processes of grammatical encoding during production and

monitoring to check the matching of the communicative intention and the

output enable the language learners to assess the possibilities and limitations

of what they can or cannot express in the TL. These processes are

hypothesized to serve as an internal priming device for consciousness raisingfor language learning. The resultant state of alertness may then prompt the

learners to take several alternative routes depending on the given production

circumstance, which leads to dierent functions of output as specied by

Swain. It was also argued that situational, linguistic, task, and learner

variables can all aect the extent to which these psycholinguistic mechanisms

are engaged. Guided by the knowledge of relevant psycholinguistic mechan-

isms underlying the output and input processing, future research should aim

to identify the optimal conditions under which successful L2 learning is

induced through output and input.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

An earlier version of this paper was presented at JPacSLRF held in Kitakyushu, Japan in

November of 2001. This paper is based on part of my doctoral dissertation, completed at

Georgetown University. I am grateful to Catherine Doughty for her guidance throughout the

entire process of my doctoral work. My thanks also go to Cristina Sanz and Je Connor-Linton,

the readers on my dissertation committee, and anonymous Applied Linguistics reviewers for

insightful comments.

(Final version received October 2002)

SHINICHI IZUMI 191


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NOTES

1 In one approach to human sentence process-

ing, known as the autonomous modularmodel (e.g. Forster 1979), the comprehen-

sion system is believed to consist of three

separate and sequential processes: lexical,

structural, and interpretive processes. These

processes are believed to occur in the given

order. On the other hand, the interactive

model claims that these processes are not

strictly modularly insulated, but interact in

every stage of sentence comprehension (e.g.

Taraban and McCelland 1988). While

research evidence indicates that both seman-tic and pragmatic factors do aect speech

comprehension, the major disagreement lies

in when such eects come into playduring

on-line parsing operations or after parsing

operations are completed. Since evidence in

support of either position is various and to

review it here is beyond the scope of this

paper, readers are referred to surveys of

these studies reported in Fender (2001),

Garrett (1991), Harrington (2001), Tyler

and Tyler (1990), and Wingeld (1993).Without getting bogged down with the

psycholinguistic debate over the modularity

issue, the present discussion focuses on the

general characteristics of speech comprehen-

sion processes and their relevance to lan-

guage learning.

2 See DeKeyser and Sokalski (1996) for criti-

cisms against VanPatten and his colleagues'

studies on processing instruction and Allen

(2000) for some results contrary to those of

VanPatten and others'.3 Not only is it assumed that speech produc-

tion occurs subconsciously and automati-

cally, it is also assumed by Levelt that

various stages of lexical retrieval and pho-

nological encoding are modularly encapsu-

lated. In SLA, Doughty (2001) reviews

relevant literature in cognitive psychology

and concludes that the speech plan is largelymodular yet amenable to modication; that

is, there are `small cognitive windows of

opportunity for ``intrusions''' (2001: 249),

that is, focus on form.

4 Obviously, output is also related to the role

of negotiated interaction in SLA, which is a

much discussed topic in SLA research (see

e.g. Ellis 1999; Gass 1997; Long 1996).

Research suggests that negotiation helps to

draw the learners' attention to the ILTL

discrepancies or to the area of languagewhich they know little about yet, thereby

contributing to L2 development. In this

context, output is considered to play a

crucial part in the negotiation because it

serves both as the initial trigger of the

learning sequence and the ultimate forum

of uptake and incorporation.

5 In many EFL classrooms in Japan, for

instance, the focus of the English class is

often on the teaching of grammatical struc-

tures and the associated vocabulary. In thiscontext, a frequently used pedagogical

approach is to explain a grammar point, do

exercises to consolidate the learned know-

ledge, and engage in (semi-)communicative

activities to use the learned structure. In

other words, learners are asked to think of

their message content by rst specifying

which grammatical structure to use for

their message generationa formulator-to-

conceptualizer approach. However, in

normal speech processing, one rarely, ifever, decides on which grammatical struc-

ture to use rst and then think of what can

be said with it. Rather, one thinks of what to

say rst, and that naturally leads one to

work on how to say it, as described in

Levelt's model.

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Language Acquisition 22: 6984.

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