The Comprehensible Output Hypothesis

The Comprehensible OutputHypothesis and Self-directedLearning: A Learner's Perspective!
Yu Liming
In the course of his diary study dealing with communication strategies, the writer of this paper has found that the way of acquiring a language is not merely as simple as "understanding the message" as Krashen's Input Hypothesis (1985) claims.
Swain's Comprehensible Output Hypothesis (1985)maintains that the development of a leamer's communicative competence does not merely depend on comprehensible input: the leamer's output has an independent and indispensible role to play.
Swain's thesis has proved to be of relevance to the writer's experience as a selfdirected learner. This paper discusses in detail the significance to language acquisition of pushing for comprehensible output.
Threeissues are discussed: (I) comprehensible output and negative input; (2) comprehensible
output and incomprehensible output; (3) comprehensible output and comprehensible input.
Diaries have frequently been used by second language learners (Bailey, 1980) to discover affective factors influencing second language learning (Schumann & Schumann, 1977). Rivers (1983) kept a diary to reflect upon herexperience in learning new languages. She has pointed out that second language learners can use diary studies to develop strategies of language-in-use to meet the needs of communication in an authentic communication setting. Therefore in September 1988, I started a diary to promote my own communicative competence.

I started to learn English at the age of 15 at a senior high school. I could becounted as a successful learner in my country-The People's Republic of China. After finishing high school, I passed highly competitive examinations, and was admitted into the B.A. programme and the M.A. programme in the English Language and Literature Departments of Beijing University and Fudan University respectively-the two most prestigious comprehensive universities in China (There was aten-year interruption between the two programmes because of the havoc of "The Cultural Revolution" that lasted from 1966 to 1976). Upon graduation from Fudan, I
taught English as a foreign language in a leading university of science and technology for a few years. I translated Philip Roth's novels into Chinese and some pamphlets into English, and my translation works were officially published. However,after I arrived in Canada about a year ago, I would now and then find myself unable to cope with basic communication needs TESL CANADA JOURNAL/REVUE TESL DU CANADA VOL. 8, NO. I. NOVEMBER 1990. 9 in this English-speaking environment. For example, once I got on a bus, and I did not have enough change with me. I was not able to pay the driver because the passenger standing nearby refused to"exchange" my five-dollar bill as I had asked. I could not help but wonder how the nearby
passenger could not have understood "exchange" in that context. I suspected that (s)he did not have change, did not want to be bothered or had some excuse for not responding. Only after consulting a native speaker the next day did I understand that I should have asked the passenger to "change" rather than"exchange" the five-dollar bill (Journal: Dec. 7, 1988). On another occasion, I bought five tapes in a bookstore. I needed two receipts-one for two tapes and another one for the rest. But it took quite a long time for the shop assistant to understand what I was talking about because I had used the word "invoice" instead of "bill" or "receipt"
(Journal: Jan. 8, 1989). Littlewood (1987) constructed a modelof advanced language learners'
language development, in which he divided communication needs into pragmatic needs and social needs. According to him, the former refers to "the desire to communicate effectively in a pragmatic sense", the latter to "the desire to communicate appropriately in a social sense".

The division of communication needs into pragmatic and social needs in Littlewood's...