PROBLEMS IN OUTPUT AND THE COGNITIVE-PROCESSES THEY GENERATE - A STEPTOWARDS 2ND LANGUAGE-LEARNING

This paper argues, and provides data to support the argument, that in producing an L2 learners will on occasion become aware of (i.e. notice ) a linguistic problem. Noticing a problem can 'push' learners to modi fy their output. In doing so, learners may sometimes be forced into a move syntactic processing mode than might occur in comprehension. Thus , output sets 'noticing' in train, triggering mental processes that le ad to modified output. What goes on between the original output and it s reprocessed form, it is suggested, is part of the process of second language learning.