INTAKE PROCESSES

Intake processes are cognitive mechanisms that at once mediate between, and interact with, input data and intake factors. They consist of mental opera-tions that are specific to language learning as well as those that are required for general problem-solving activities. As procedures and operations that are internal to the learner, intake processes remain the most vital and the least understood link in the input–intake–output chain. The intake proc-esses that appear to shape L2 development may be grouped under three broad and overlapping categories: inferencing, structuring, and restructur-ing. These processes appear to govern what goes on in the learners’ mind when they attempt to internalize the TL system, that is, infer the linguistic system of the TL from the available and accessible input data, structure ap-propriate mental representations of the TL system, and restructure the de-veloping system in light of further exposure and experience. In the rest of this section, I briefly outline each of them.

2.4.1. Inferencing

The intake process of inferencing involves making a series of intelligent guesses to derive tentative hypotheses about various aspects of the TL sys-tem. Inferences are normally made by using all available, at times inconclu-sive, linguistic and nonlinguistic evidence based on the learner’s implicit and explicit knowledge base. Implicit knowledge refers to information learners intuit about the TL, even though they cannot articulate that infor-mation in the form of rules or principles. Explicit knowledge refers to the learners’ knowledge about the TL, their L1, and their knowledge of the world (see also section 2.3.5). Similarly, inferencing can be made using in-ductive as well as dein-ductive reasoning. That is, learners can infer how a par-ticular subsystem of language works by moving inductively from the particu-lar to the general (i.e. from examples to rules), or moving deductively from the general to the particular.

Furthermore, L2 learners may benefit from the processes of overgenerali-zation and language transfer to make inferences about the TL system. Using intralingual cues, they may overgeneralize certain features of the TL system on the basis of any partial learning that may have already taken place. Some of the communication strategies such as paraphrase or word coinage (dis-cussed in section 2.3.3) that learners employ in order to get across their message while using their still-developing interlanguage system are an indi-cation of this process of overgeneralization. Similarly, using interlingual cues, learners may transfer certain phonological, morphological, syntactic, or even pragmatic features of their first language. Language transfer, as a

cognitive process, has been considered to be essential to the formation of IL (Selinker, 1992).

Inferencing is particularly useful when the learners are able to pay atten-tion to the new features presented in the input data in order to find the gap between what is already known and what needs to be learned anew. The process of inferencing can be expected to vary from learner to learner be-cause it reflects individual cognitive capabilities involving the connections made by learners themselves and not the connections inherently found in the input data. It can lead to working hypotheses that in turn may lead to in-terim conclusions that are tested against new evidence and are subse-quently rejected or refined. Inferencing thus may entail framing new in-sights or reframing what is already vaguely or partially known.

2.4.2. Structuring

I use the term structuring to refer to the complex process that governs the establishment of mental representations of the TL, and their evolution in the course of IL development. As Rivers (1991) argued, the notion of men-tal representation “is at the heart of the process of internalization of lan-guage” (p. 253). It refers to how the L2 system is framed in the mind of the learner. It combines elements of analysis and control proposed by Bialystok (1990, and elsewhere). Analysis is connected to language knowledge, and control is connected to language ability. As learners begin to understand how the L2 system works, and as their mental representations of the system become more explicit and more structured, they begin to see the relation-ships between various linguistic categories and concepts. Control is the process that allows learners “direct their attention to specific aspects of the environment or a mental representation as problems are solved in real time” (Bialystok, 2002, p. 153). In other words, the intake process of struc-turing helps learners construct, structure and organize the symbolic repre-sentational system of the TL by gradually making explicit the implicit knowledge that shape their IL performance. It also guides the gradual progress the learners make from unanalyzed knowledge, consisting of pre-fabricated patterns and memorized routines, to analyzed knowledge, con-sisting of propositions in which the relationship between formal and func-tional properties of the TL become increasingly apparent to the learners.

Compared to inferencing, structuring gives learners not only a deeper understanding of the properties and principles of the TL system, but also a greater control over their use for communicative purposes. It helps them pay selective attention to relevant and appropriate input data in order to tease out specific language problems. It can also regulate the flow of infor-mation between short-term and long-term memory systems, taking the re-sponsibility for differential applicability of interim knowledge to various

sit-uations before interim knowledge gets fully established. The difference between inferenced knowledge/ability and structured knowledge/ability may contribute to the distinction Chaudron (1983) made between prelimi-nary intake and final intake. The former relates to “perception and com-prehension of forms” and the latter to “the incorporation of the forms in the learner’s grammar” (pp. 438–439). Although inferenced knowledge/

ability and structured knowledge/ability are partially independent and par-tially interacting dimensions of intake processes, they may be seen as consti-tuting two ends of a learning continuum.

2.4.3. Restructuring

The idea of restructuring as an intake process is derived from the work of Cheng (1985) and others in cognitive psychology and applied with some modification to L2 development by McLaughlin and his colleagues (Mc-Laughlin, 1987; 1990; McLeod & McLaughlin 1986). Restructuring can be traced to the structuralist approach enunciated by Jean Piaget, who main-tained that cognitive development is characterized by fundamental, qualita-tive change when a new internal organization is imposed for interpreting new information. In other words, restructuring denotes neither an incre-mental change in the structure already in place nor a slight modification of it but the addition of a totally new structure to allow for a totally new inter-pretation. It results in learners abandoning their initial hunch and opting for a whole new hypothesis. It marks a strategy shift that coordinates, inte-grates, and reorganizes task components resulting in more efficient intake processing. It can operate at phonological, morphological, syntactic, se-mantic, and pragmatic levels (McLaughlin, 1990).

Although most aspects of inferencing and structuring account for the reasons why intake processing requires selective attention and an extended time period of practice for the formation of mental representations of the TL system, restructuring as an intake process accounts for discontinuities in L2 development. It has been frequently observed that although some learn-ing occurs continuously and gradually, as is true of the development of automaticity through practice, some learning occurs in discontinuous fash-ion, through restructuring (McLeod & McLaughlin, 1986). Restructuring is mostly a sudden, abstract, insight-forming phenomenon happening quickly and incidentally, taking very little processing time and energy.

To sum up this section, the intake processes of inferencing, structuring, and restructuring constitute the mental mechanisms governing L2 develop-ment. They work in tandem in as yet undetermined ways to facilitate or con-strain the formation of mental representations of the TL system. They seem to operate at various points on the implicit–explicit continuum, triggering incidental learning at some times and intentional learning at some other

times. In conjunction with various intake factors, these processes help learners synthesize the developing knowledge into grammar, and internal-ize it so as to effectively and efficiently access it in appropriate contexts of language use.

2.5. OUTPUT

Output refers to the corpus of utterances that learners actually produce orally or in writing. In addition to well-formed utterances that may have al-ready been structured and/or restructured, the learner output will contain, as discussed in section 2.1, deviant utterances that cannot be traced to any of the three major sources of input because they are the result of an inter-play between intake factors and intake processes.

Traditionally, output has been considered not as a mechanism for lan-guage learning but as evidence of what has already been learned. Research, however, indicates a larger role for output. Introducing the concept of com-prehensible output, Merrill Swain (1985) argued that we need “to incorporate the notion of being pushed towards the delivery of a message that is not only conveyed, but that is conveyed precisely, coherently, and appropri-ately” (pp. 248–249). She further asserted that production “may force the learner to move from semantic processing to syntactic processing” (p. 249).

In other words, an attempt to produce language will move learners from processing language at the level of word meaning (which can sometimes be done by guessing from the context or by focusing on just key words) to processing language at the level of grammatical structures (which requires a much higher level of cognitive activity).

In a later work, Swain (1995) identified three possible functions of out-put: the noticing function, the hypothesis-testing function, and the meta-linguistic function. The noticing function relates to the possibility that when learners try to communicate in their still-developing target language, they may encounter a linguistic problem and become aware of what they do not know or know only partially. Such an encounter may raise their awareness, leading to an appropriate action on their part. The hypothesis-testing func-tion of output relates to the possibility that when learners use their still-developing TL, they may be experimenting with what works and what does not work. Moreover, when they participate in negotiated interaction and receive negative feedback, they are likely to test different hypotheses about a particular linguistic system. Finally, the metalinguistic function of output relates to the possibility that learners may be consciously thinking about language and its system, about its phonological, grammatical, and semantic rules in order to guide them to produce utterances that are linguistically correct and communicatively appropriate.

2.6. AN INTERACTIVE FRAMEWORK OF INTAKE