COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE

Alejandro FerryBSED-Eng iii

Teaching of speaking

ORIGINSThe idea was originally derived from Chomsky’s

distinction between competence and performace. He defined these terms as:

• Competence: shared knowledge of ideal speaker-listener set in a completely homogenous speech community.

•Performance: Process of applying underlying knowledge to actual language use.

“Should be given under ideal circunstances

( the ideal speaker-listener know and use language perfectly without making any

mistakes)”

According to Hymes, Chomsky’view is too narrow to describe language behavior as a whole because:•Sociocultural factors or differential competence

in a heterogeneous speech community?•Social life affects outward performance and

inner competence itself.•Social factors interfere with or restrict grammar

use because the rules of use are dominant over the rules of gramar.

•Hymes concludes that a linguistic theory must be able to deal with a heterogeneous speech community, differential competence and the role of sociocultural features. (Do not be confused because Hymes and Chomsky had their own definitions.)

•Performance: Hymes defines it as the actual use of language in a concrete situation, not an idealized speaker-listener situation in a completely homogeneous speech community

•Hymes also said that there are two kinds of competence: linguistic competence, and the communicative competence. •Linguistic competence deals with producing

and understanding grammatically correct sentences•Communicative competence deals with

producing and understanding sentences that are appropriate and acceptable to a particular situation.

•Hymes coins a term “communicative competence” and defines it as “a knowledge of the rules for understanding and producing both the referential and social meaning of language.”

Widdowson said that knowing a language is more than how to understand, speak, read,and write sentences, but how sentences are used to communicate.

•communicative abilities have to be developed at the same time as the linguistic skills; otherwise the mere acquisition of the linguistic skills may inhibit the development of communicative abilities.

Use and Usage•“Usage” makes evident the extent to which the

language user demonstrates his knowledge of linguistic rules•“Use” makes evident the extent to which the

language user demonstrates his ability to use his knowledge of linguistic rules for effective communication.(Widdowson, 1978)

Teachers should provide linguistic and communicative contexts.• Linguistic context focuses on usage to enable the

students to select which form of sentence is contextually appropriate• Communicative context focuses on use to enable

the students to recognize the type of communicative function their sentences fulfill

• (Canale & Swain, 1980) They strongly believe that the study of grammatical competence is as essential to the study of communicative competence as is the study of sociolinguistic competence.• They propose their own theory of communicative

competence that minimally includes three main competencies: grammatical, sociolinguistic and strategic competence.

•Grammatical competence includes knowledge of lexical items and of rules of morphology,syntax,sentence―grammar, semantics, and phonology.

•Sociolinguistic competence is made up of two sets of rules: sociolinguistic rules of use and rules of discourse. They believe that knowledge of these rules will be crucial in interpreting utterances for social meaning.

•Strategic competence is made up of verbal and non-verbal communication

strategies that may be called into action to compensate for breakdowns in communication due to performance variables or to insufficient

grammatical competence

BACHMAN’S VIEWThe organizational competence is divided into:

*Grammatical competence *Textual competence. and *Pragmatic competenceBachman’s Grammatical competence is consonant with Canale and Swain’s grammatical competence.

The Textual competence, pertains to the knowledge of conventions for cohesion, coherence and rehetorical organization. It also includes conventions for language use in conversations, involving starting, maintaining, and closing conversations.

Bachman’s Textual competence have both the part of Canale and Swain’s discourse competence and the part of their strategic competence.

BACHMAN’S VIEW•Bachman’s Pragmatic competence, mainly focuses on the relationship between what one says in his or her communicative acts and what functions he or she intends to perform through his or her utterances.

COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE

GRAMMATICALCOMPETENCE

SOCIOLINGUISTICCOMPETENCE

DISCORSALCOMPETENCE

STRATEGIC COMPETENCE

FROM THE DIAGRAM:•Communicative competence is made up of four competence areas: linguistic, sociolinguistic, discourse, and strategic.•Linguistic competence is knowing how to use the grammar, syntax, and vocabulary of a language. Linguistic competence asks: What words do I use? How do I put them into phrases and sentences?

•Sociolinguistic competence is knowing how to use and respond to language appropriately, given the setting, the topic, and the relation-ships among the people communicating.•Sociolinguistic competence asks: Which words and phrases fit this setting and this topic? How can I express a specific attitude (courtesy, authority, friendliness, respect) when I need to? How do I know what attitude another person is expressing?

•Discourse competence is knowing how to interpret the larger context and how to construct longer stretches of language so that the parts make up a coherent whole.• Discourse competence asks: How are words, phrases and sentences put together to create conversations, speeches, email messages, newspaper articles?

•Strategic competence is knowing how to recognize and repair communication breakdowns, how to work around gaps in one’s knowledge of the language, and how to learn more about the language and in the context.•Strategic competence asks: How do I know when I’ve misunderstood or when someone has misunderstood me? What do I say then? How can I express my ideas if I don’t know the name of something or the right verb form to use?