INTRODUCTION
When you learn
a language, you must learn something finite. Your vocabulary is finite however
it may be large and that can be stored. If sentences in a language were formed
by putting one word after another in any way, then knowledge of a language
could be a set of words.
Languages
consist of all the words, sounds, and possible sentences. When you know a
language, you will know the words, the sounds, also the rules for their
combination. Speakers of all languages have to knowledge to understand or
produce sentences of any length.
The sounds and
sound patterns and basic units of meaning such as words and the rules to
combine them to form new sentences constitute the grammar of language. To
understand the nature of language we must understand the rule which is part of
every grammar of every language.
We could see
all of them in psycholinguistics. Psycholinguistics is a study about the relationship
between language and human’s intelligence and behaviors. The explanation above
is only one from other explanations about psycholinguistics. According to
Wikipedia, psycholinguistics is the study of the psychological and neurological
factors that enable humans to acquire, use and understand language.
Psycholinguistics implicates the cognitive process that enable someone produce
grammatical and meaningful sentence from lexical or grammar and understands
speech, text, and so on.
Psycholinguistics
studying many things such as language, language acquisition, the relationship
between brain, mind and language, brain lateralization, speech production,
mental lexicon, five hypotheses
of second language acquisition such as the
acquisition-learning hypothesis, the input hypothesis, the monitor hypothesis,
the affective filter, and the natural order hypothesis and so on. In this part,
I would like to try to explain about one of second language acquisition is
Input Hypothesis.
DESCRIPTIONS OF TOPIC
The Input Hypothesis is one of five hypotheses of second language acquisition that proposed
by Stephen
Krashen. It is also often used as a catch-all term to refer to all
of the hypotheses as one entity. The hypotheses are the acquisition-learning
hypothesis, the input hypothesis, the monitor hypothesis, the affective filter,
and the natural order hypothesis. They have been very influential in language
education, but are not supported by all language acquisition
theorists.
If i
represent previously acquired linguistic competence and extra-linguistic
knowledge, the hypothesis claims that we move from i to i+1 by
understanding input that contains i+1. Extra-linguistic knowledge
includes our knowledge of the world and of the situation, that is, the context. The +1
represents new knowledge or language structures that we should be ready to
acquire.
The input
hypothesis answers the question of how a language acquirer develops competency
over time. It states that a language acquirer who is at "level i"
must receive comprehensible input that is at "level i+1." "We
acquire, in other words, only when we understand language that contains
structure that is 'a little beyond' where we are now." This understanding
is possible due to using the context of the language we are hearing or reading
and our knowledge of the world.
The relation
with process of second language acquisition, there are two term which have to
clear; acquisition and learning. Language acquisition directs to exposure in
language situation, the process happens into a child brain when s/he get a
mother tongue or her/his first language. Meanwhile, learning directs to
learning activity consciously and has program into formal class situation with
teacher help. Mostly, learning related to activity for mastering the second
language and happens after first language acquisition.
Evidences for
the input hypothesis can be found in the effectiveness of caretaker speech from
an adult to a child, of teacher-talk from a teacher to a language student, and of
foreigner-talk from a sympathetic conversation partner to a language
learner/acquirer.
One result of this hypothesis is that language students should be given an initial "silent period" where they are building up acquired competence in a language before they begin to produce it.
One result of this hypothesis is that language students should be given an initial "silent period" where they are building up acquired competence in a language before they begin to produce it.
Whenever
language acquirers try to produce language beyond what they have acquired, they
tend to use the rules they have already acquired from their first language,
thus allowing them to communicate but not really progress in the second
language.
On the face of
it, the theory of input hypothesis seems to be very obvious, because without
comprehension a learner can never acquire knowledge/mastery over anything be it
language or any other skill. Without comprehension a learner may imitate to a
certain extent but will not be able to produce anything relevant on his own.
But this
doesn’t mean that there are no opponents or critics to Dr. Krashen’s theory of
input hypothesis. One of the biggest criticisms is the definition of
comprehensible input (CI); Dr. Krashen claims that this is the natural order of
learning a language. But it has been observed in a lot of cultures that even
when children are not spoken to until they are capable of giving information
themselves, they still pick up and learn the language.
Even with the
criticisms, input hypothesis is one of the most deeply researched theories of
SLA and has profoundly affected teaching styles in a classroom. Due to the
hypothesis, teaching has become more focused on how a teacher gives input for
comprehension in a more student centered way of teaching. Relevant background
is given on a subject and due to multimedia technology a lot of high quality
inputs are provided during the learning.
CONCLUSION
As we know
that Input Hypothesis is a part from five hypotheses of second language acquisition presented by master
of psycholinguistics, Stephen Krashen. There are some words that
interest me, these word is:
"Acquisition requires meaningful interactions in the target
language - natural communication - in which speakers are concerned not with the
form of their utterances but with the messages they are conveying and
understanding." Stephen Krashen
Anyone who
has learned about second language acquisition in school or may be when visiting
a foreign country knows about the different from learning our first language.
We may be fluent in our language, but still we will find difficulties to learn
another language.
The younger
you are; the easier to be learn a language. Language is unique in that no other
complex system of knowledge is more easily acquire all the languages well at
the age two or three other than at the age of thirteen or twenty.
This point of
view invited a controversy. Larsen-Freeman
and long (Ellis, 1994:485) believe that younger learner can do their
language task better than the older one. May be it is true that age differences
need a different method and technique for learning a language.
The Input hypothesis is Krashen's attempt
to explain how the learner acquires a second language. In other words, this
hypothesis is Krashen's explanation of how second language acquisition takes
place. So, the Input hypothesis is only concerned with 'acquisition', not
'learning'. According to this hypothesis, the learner improves and progresses
along the 'natural order' when he/she receives second language 'input' that is
one step beyond his/her current stage of linguistic competence.
In the
explanation before, Krashen has distinguished the differences between
acquisitions and learning, it is clear that most of the children acquire their
first language or mother tongue without explicit learning. Usually a second
language is learned but may be acquiring depending on the environment and the
input received by the learner.
I think it is
important to study more about Input Hypothesis because it connected to
differences between acquisition and learning. I don’t mean that the others is
not good enough to study more but according to my view, Input Hypothesis is the
important one to study, especially for the children.
REFERENCEE
Blair, F.R.C
.An Introduction to Language. Second
Australian Edition.
Arifuddin.2010. Neuropsikolinguistik. Jakarta:Rajawali
Pers. PT Raja Grafindo Persada
language_learning_guide.com/what_is_input_hypothesis
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/input_hypothesis
