K e y c on c e pts in E L T

B o t t o m-u p

a n d t o p-d o w n'

In accounts of foreign-language
listening
and
perceptual
information
is
often
reading,
described
as bottom-up,
while information
provided by context is said to be top-down.
The terms have been borrowed from cognitive
psychology, but derive originally from computer
science, where they distinguish processes that are
data-driven from those that are knowledge-driven.
Underlying the metaphors top and bottom is a
hierarchical
view of the stages through which
listening or reading proceeds. In listening, the
lowest level (i.e. the smallest unit) is the phonetic
feature. A simple analysis might present the
listener as combining
groups of features into
phonemes, phonemes into syllables, syllables into
words, words into clauses, and clauses into
propositions. At the top is the overall meaning
of the utterance, into which new information
is
integrated as it emerges. Drawing on this concept
of levels of processing, many ELT commentators
present a picture of listening and reading in which
bottom-up
information
from
the
signal
is
assembled
step by step, and is influenced
throughout
by top-down
information
from
context.
The truth is rather more complex. First, it is not
certain that bottom-up processing involves all the
levels described. Some psychologists believe that
we process speech into syllables without passing
through a phonemic level; others that we construct
words directly from phonetic features. Nor does
bottom-up
processing deal with one level at a
time. There is evidence that in listening it takes
place at a delay of only a quarter of a second
behind the speaker - which
implies that the tasks
of analysing the phonetic signal, identifying words,
and assembling sentences must all be going on in
parallel.
A quarter of a second is roughly the length of an
English syllable - so the listener often begins the
processing of a word before the speaker has
finished saying it. The listener forms hypotheses as
to the identity of the word being uttered, which
are said to be activated to different degrees
according to how closely they match the signal.
The candidates compete with each other until,
when the evidence is complete, one of them
outstrips the rest.
338

Like bottom-up processing, top-down is more

complex than is sometimes suggested. Contextual
information
can come from many
different
sources: from knowledge of the speaker/writer
or
from knowledge of the world; from analogy with a
previous situation or from the meaning that has
been built up so far. It can be derived from a
schema, an expectation set up before reading or
listening;
it can take the form of spreading
where
one
word
sparks
off
activation,
associations with others; or it can be based upon
the probability of one word following another. It is
important
to specify which of these cues is
intended
when the expression
top-down
is
employed.
Also unspecified in many accounts of L2 reading
and listening is the way in which bottom-up and
top-down
processes interact.
Does one occur
before
the
other,
or
do
they
operate
simultaneously?
The evidence from L1 research
is contradictory.
Some findings
suggest that
before
contextual
information
is invoked
perception,
helping
us to anticipate
words;
others, that it becomes
available
during the
perceptual
process;
others,
that it is only
employed
after a word has been identified.
Goodmans
much-quoted
view
(1970)
that
successful readers
guess ahead using current
context has not been conclusively demonstrated.
Some researchers argue for completely interactive
models of listening and reading, in which topand
bottom-up
processes
extend
down
simultaneously
through all levels. In support of
such models,
they cite evidence
of word
superiority effects, where knowledge of complete
words influences the way we perceive sounds or
letters. This kind of effect is appropriately
described
as top-down
since
it involves
knowledge at a higher level affecting processing
at a lower. So note that the term top-down is not
always synonymous with contextual.
Finally, the vexed question of the use of bottomup and top-down information by foreign-language
learners. A truism of ELT has it that low-level
listeners and readers become fixated at word level,
and do not have enough spare attentional capacity
to construct global meaning. In truth, learners
appear to make considerable
use of top-down
information: employing it compensatorily
to plug
gaps where their understanding
of a text is
incomplete.
The best account of this process is

ELT Journal Volume 53/4 October 1999

Oxford University Press 1999

by Stanovichs interactive-compensatory
(1980) originally formulated for L1
reading. Stanovich suggests that we use contextual
information
to make up for unreliability
in the
signal (bad handwriting, for example, or ambient
noise).
The
more
flawed
the
bottom-up
information,
the more we draw upon cues from
top-down
sources.
This seems
to describe
accurately the way in which L2 learners resort to
top-down
inferencing
when understanding
is
impaired by limited vocabulary
or syntax. The
strategy may be more common in listening than in
reading: see Lund (1991).
provided

mechanism

For accounts of the role of bottom-up and topdown processes in L1 reading, see Oakhill and
Garnham
(1988), and Chapters 2-3 of Perfetti
(1985). Currently, the most influential model of L1
listening is the fully-interactive
Cohort Model
(Marslen-Wilson
1987).
Referenc es

Goodman, K. S. 1970.: Reading: A psycholinguistic guessing game in H. Singer and R. B.

Ruddell (eds.). Theoretical Models and Processes of Reading. Newark, DE: International
Reading Association.

Key concepts in ELT

Lund, R. J. 1991: A comparison

of second
language listening and reading comprehension.
Modern Language Journal 75: 196-204.
Marslen-Wilson, W. D. 1987: Functional parallelism in spoken word recognition. Cognition 25.
Oakhill, J. and A. Garnham. 1988. Becoming a
Skilled Reader. Oxford: Blackwell.
Perfetti, C. A. 1985. Reading Ability. New York:
Oxford University Press.
Stanovich, K. E. 1980: Toward an interactivecompensatory model of individual differences in
the development
of reading fluency. Reading
Research Quarterly 16: 32-71.
T h e a uthor

John Field has a long-term

interest in skills
approaches
in ELT. His publications
include
listening and study skills materials, a BBC radio
series for beginners,
distance-learning
materials
for Chinese television,
and national secondary
school coursebooks
for Saudi Arabia. He has
trained teachers in Europe, the Middle East, the
Far East, and Africa. He is about to complete a
PhD on listening at Cambridge University,
and
lectures on the MA course in ELT and Applied
Linguistics at Kings College London.
E-mail: jcf1000@dircon.co.uk

339