Input Processing theory

The Input Processing theory, put forth by Bill VanPatten in 1993, describes the process of strategies and mechanisms that learners use to link linguistic form with its meaning or function. Input Processing is a theory in second language acquisition that focuses on how learners process linguistic data in spoken or written language. The theory comprises two key principles, each with multiple sub-principles. The first principle, the Primacy Principle of Meaning, has the following sub-principles: Primacy of Content Words, the Lexical Preference principle, the Preference for Non-redundancy principle, the Meaning-Before-Non-Meaning principle, the Availability of Resources principle, and the Sentence Location principle. The second principle, the First Noun Principle, has the following sub-principles: The Lexical Semantics principle, the Event Probabilities principle, and the Contextual Constraint principle. The Input Processing Theory has faced criticism. Opponents refuse the ‘acquisition-by-comprehension’ claim, as various processes may determine comprehension and production of language, and there is disagreement regarding how to distinguish input and intake. Some researchers claim that VanPatten's model ignores output.

The Input Processing theory, put forth by Bill VanPatten in 1993, describes the process of strategies and mechanisms that learners use to link linguistic form with its meaning or function. Input Processing is a theory in second language acquisition that focuses on how learners process linguistic data in spoken or written language. The theory comprises two key principles, each with multiple sub-principles. The first principle, the Primacy Principle of Meaning, has the following sub-principles: Primacy of Content Words, the Lexical Preference principle, the Preference for Non-redundancy principle, the Meaning-Before-Non-Meaning principle, the Availability of Resources principle, and the Sentence Location principle. The second principle, the First Noun Principle, has the following sub-principles: The Lexical Semantics principle, the Event Probabilities principle, and the Contextual Constraint principle. The Input Processing Theory has faced criticism. Opponents refuse the ‘acquisition-by-comprehension’ claim, as various processes may determine comprehension and production of language, and there is disagreement regarding how to distinguish input and intake. Some researchers claim that VanPatten's model ignores output. == Key principles== VanPatten's modified theory is explained in the form of two principles, each with multiple sub-principles. The first principle is the Primacy Principle of Meaning. | This principle maintains that a learner processes input for meaning before they process input for form. This principle has six sub-principles which are summarized as follows: 1a - The Primacy of Content Words principle explains that learners process content words in the input before they process other linguistic features. 1b - The Lexical Preference principle describes that learners will depend on lexical items to extract meaning as opposed to grammatical form. 1c - The Preference for Non-Redundancy principle maintains that learners tend to process non-redundant meaningful grammatical forms before they process redundant meaningful forms. 1d - The Meaning-Before-Non-Meaning principle describes that learners are more likely to process meaningful grammatical forms before non-meaningful forms regardless of redundancy. 1e - The Availability of Resources principle explains that for learners to process either redundant meaningful grammatical forms or non-meaningful forms, the processing of the meaning of the sentence must not drain available processing resources. Principle 1f - The Sentence Location principle is the idea that learners tend to process items in sentence-initial position before those in medial or final position. The second principle is the First Noun Principle. This principle describes that learners tend to process the first noun or pronoun they encounter in a sentence as the subject or agent. This principle has three sub-principles which are summarized as follows: 2a - The Lexical Semantics principle explains that, in order to interpret sentences, learners may depend on lexical semantics instead of word order. 2b - The Event Probabilities principle describes that learners may depend on event probabilities to interpret sentences instead of word order. 2c - The Contextual Constraint principle is the idea that learners may depend less on the First Noun Principle if the previous context constrains the possible interpretation of a clause or sentence. == Opposition== In earlier versions of the Input Processing theory, several researchers disagreed with VanPatten's claims. These opponents do not accept the ‘acquisition-by-comprehension’ claim as various processes may determine comprehension and production. Salaberry states that within the Input Processing theory there are misunderstandings of how to distinguish input and intake, meaning it is difficult to understand the difference between the knowledge the environment provides and the amount of knowledge it provides. Some researchers claim that VanPatten's model ignores output. VanPatten's model does not exclude the role of output, but communicates a different status by comparing the process of language development.

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