English Language Teaching in its Social Context

SECOND LANGUAGE LEARNING: CONCEPTS AND ISSUES 21The relationship between second language use and second language learningIn an earlier section we considcred the distinction bctween language competence andperformance, which many linguists havc found useful. Here, we look more closely at theconcept of pcrformance, and in particular, look at the possible relationship between using(i.e. performing in) an L2, and learning (i.e. developing onc’s competence in) that samelanguage.We should note first of all, of course, that ‘performing’ in a language not only involvesspeaking it. Making sense of the language data that wc hear around us is an equally essentialaspect of performance. Indeed, it is basic common ground among all theorists of languagelearning, of whatever description, that it is necessary to interprct and to process incominglanguage data in some form, for normal language development to take place.Therc is thusa consensus that language input of some kind is essential for normal language learning. In fact,during the late 1970s and carly 1980s, the view was argued by Stephcn Krashen and othersthat input (at thc right level of difficulty) was all that was necessary for L2 acquisition to takeplace (Krashen 1982, 1985). This position has been viewed by more reccnt theorists asinadequate, but a modified and refined version has been developed.Krashen was unusual in not seeing any central role for language production in his thcoryof second language acquisition. Most other theoretical vicwpoints support in some formthe common-sense view that speaking a language is helpful for learning it, though they offera wide variety of explanations as to why this should be the casc. For example, behaviouristlearning theory saw regular (oral) practice as helpful in forming correct language ‘habits’.This view has becomc less popular in reccnt decades, as part of linguists’ general loss ofinterest in bchaviourist thinking.However, various contcmporary theorists still lay stress on thc ‘practicc’ function oflanguage production, especially in building up fluency and control of an emergent L2 system.For example, information processing theorists commonly arguc that language competenceconsists of both a knowledge component (‘knowing that’) and a skill component (‘knowinghow’). While they may accept a variety of possible sources for the first component,researchers in this perspcctive agree in secing a vital role for L2 use/L2 performance indcveloping the second skill component.An even more strongly contrasting vicw to Krashcn’s is thc so-called comprehensible outputhypothesis, argued for by Merrill Swain and collcagues (c.g. Swain 1985; Swain and Lapkin1995). Swain points out that much incoming L2 input is comprehensible, without any necdfor a full grammatical analysis. If we don’t need to pay attention to the grammar, in ordcr tounderstand the message, why should we bc compelled to learn it? On thc other hand, whenwe try to say sorncthing in our choscn second languagc, we arc forced to make grammaticalchoices and hypothescs, in ordcr to put our utterances together. Thc act of speaking forcesus to try our ideas about how thc target grammar actually works, and of course gives us thechance of getting some feedback from interlocutors who may fail to understand our efforts.So far in this section, we have secn that thcorists can hold different views on thecontribution both of language input and languagc output to language learning Howcver,another way of distinguishing among current theories of L2 learning from a ‘performance’perspective has to do with their view of L2 interaction ~ when the speaking and listcningin which the learner is engaged arc viewcd as an intcgral and mutually influential whole, e.g.in everyday conversation. Two major perspectives on interaction are apparent, onepsycholinguistic, one sociolinguistic.From a psycholinguistic point of vicw, L2 interaction is mainly interesting because ofthe opportunities it offers to individual L2 learners to fine-tune the language input they arc