User:Mr. Stradivarius/Din in the head

The din in the head is a phenomenon that occurs in the early stages of second-language acquisition in which learners involuntarily rehearse their new language in their minds. This rehearsal consists of words and sentence fragments as spoken by learners' speaking partners, jumbled together in such a way the learner finds it difficult to concentrate on any individual word or phrase. The din in the head phenomenon was first described by Elizabeth Barber in 1980, and was popularized by Stephen Krashen in 1983. It is mostly associated with spoken language, but can also occur in sign language, with a jumble of images rather than a jumble of sounds.

Barber's description
Barber noticed the din in the head phenomenon when she worked at the Hermitage in Leningrad for three days, all the time immersed in the Russian language. In her 1980 article she wrote that at this time she experienced "a rising Din ... in my head; words, sounds, intonations, phrases, all swimming around in the voices of the people I talked with".

Krashen's formulation
Krashen defined the din in the head as "an involuntary rehearsal of second language words, sounds, and phrases".