英语教学法原著选读17：二语习得输入假说A

本篇选自克拉申《第二语言习得的原则与实践(Principles and Practice in SLA）》第二章“第二语言习得理论”A节“有关第二语言习得的五个假说”第四个假说，武太白翻译。

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4. THE INPUT HYPOTHESIS

The important question is: How do we acquire language? If the Monitor hypothesis is correct, that acquisition is central and learning more peripheral, then the goal of our pedagogy should be to encourage acquisition. The question of how we acquire then becomes crucial.

(a) Statement of the hypothesis

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

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

The input hypothesis runs counter to our usual pedagogical approach in second and foreign language teaching. As Hatch (1978a) has pointed out, our assumption has been that we first learn structures, then practice using them in communication, and this is how fluency develops. The input hypothesis says the opposite. It says we acquire by "going for meaning" first, and as a result, we acquire structure! (For discussion of first language acquisition, see MacNamara, 1972.)

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

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

(2) We acquire by understanding language that contains structure a little beyond our current level of competence (i + 1). This is done with the help of context or extra-linguistic information.

4. 输入假说

重要的问题是：我们怎样习得语言？如果监控假说是正确的——习得是主体，学得是补充，那么我们教学法的目标就应该是鼓励习得。如此，我们怎样习得的问题就更加至关重要了。

（a）假说的陈述

首先让我们重新陈述怎样习得的问题：既然有自然顺序一说，我们怎样从一个阶段进展到下一个阶段？如果习得者处在“第四阶段”，那怎样才能进展到“第五阶段”？更一般地讲，我们怎样从代表当前水平的i阶段进展到下一阶段i+1？输入假说的观点如下：从i阶段进到i+1阶段必要（但不充分）条件是习得者理解包含i+1的输入，这里的“理解”指的是习得者关注的是信息的意义而非形式。

换句话说，只有在我们理解了包含“略微超出”我们现有水平的结构的语言时，我们才能够习得。那怎么可能呢？我们怎样才能理解包含有尚未习得的结构的语言？对这个明显自相矛盾的提法，答案是，我们不仅利用语言能力帮助我们理解。我们也使用上下文，我们对世界的知识和语言以外的信息来帮助理解接收到的语言。

输入假说与我们通常的二语、外语教学法是相反的。如同哈奇（1978a）所指出的，一直以来我们的假定是我们先学会语言结构，然后在交际中练习使用，以此提高流利度。输入假说观点相反，认为我们习得时首先“了解意义”，结果我们就学会了结构！

这样我们就可以把输入假说的两部分陈述如下：

（1）输入假说与习得有关，而非学得。

（2）我们采用理解包含有略微超过我们当前水平的结构的语言这一方法进行习得。这一过程中还要借助上下文或语言以外的信息。