Communicative Competence
2. The notion of communicative competence, origins, communicative competence vs. linguistic competence, components of communicative competence
Communicative competence – the ability to understand and use language effectively to communicate in authentic social and school environments. The idea was originally derived from Chomsky’s distinction between competence (shared knowledge of ideal speaker-listener set in a completely homogenous speech community) and performance (process of applying underlying knowledge to actual language use). According to Dell Hymes (1972), Chomsky’s view was too narrow to describe language behaviour as a whole.He concludes that a linguistic theory must be able to deal with heterogeneous speech community, differential competence and the role of sociocultural features. He referred to CC as that aspect of our competence that enables us to convey and interpret messages and to negotiate meanings interpersonally within specific contexts. Savignon (1983) noted that “communicative competence is relative, not absolute, and depends on the cooperation of all the participants involved”.
There are two kinds of competence: * linguistic competence – deals with producing and understanding grammatically correct sentences./ is one of the communicative competence components. It is the innate system of linguistic knowledge possessed by native speakers of a language. It is the 'ideal' language system that makes it possible for speakers to produce and understand an infinite number of sentences in their language, and to distinguish grammatical sentences from ungrammatical sentences. Linguistic competence asks: What words do I use? How do I put them into phrases and sentences? * communicative competence – deals with producing and understanding sentences that are appropriate and acceptable to a particular situation/ is a group of abilities that enable people to transfer and interpret messages and to negotiate meanings interpersonally within specific
Communicative competence – the ability to understand and use language effectively to communicate in authentic social and school environments. The idea was originally derived from Chomsky’s distinction between competence (shared knowledge of ideal speaker-listener set in a completely homogenous speech community) and performance (process of applying underlying knowledge to actual language use). According to Dell Hymes (1972), Chomsky’s view was too narrow to describe language behaviour as a whole.He concludes that a linguistic theory must be able to deal with heterogeneous speech community, differential competence and the role of sociocultural features. He referred to CC as that aspect of our competence that enables us to convey and interpret messages and to negotiate meanings interpersonally within specific contexts. Savignon (1983) noted that “communicative competence is relative, not absolute, and depends on the cooperation of all the participants involved”.
There are two kinds of competence: * linguistic competence – deals with producing and understanding grammatically correct sentences./ is one of the communicative competence components. It is the innate system of linguistic knowledge possessed by native speakers of a language. It is the 'ideal' language system that makes it possible for speakers to produce and understand an infinite number of sentences in their language, and to distinguish grammatical sentences from ungrammatical sentences. Linguistic competence asks: What words do I use? How do I put them into phrases and sentences? * communicative competence – deals with producing and understanding sentences that are appropriate and acceptable to a particular situation/ is a group of abilities that enable people to transfer and interpret messages and to negotiate meanings interpersonally within specific