2.- LINGUISTIC
,COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE AND BEYOND
Linguistic and Communicative
Competence
By Rini Ekayati
Department of Linguistics,
Linguists
are aware of the inter-relationship between language and the society, because
it is in society that language has its existence. But they have not succeeded
in describing such a relationship. Phonology, Lexis and Syntax, which are
objects of linguistic description constitute only a part of the elements in the
code used for communication. The meaning(s) of an utterance (a sentence, a
clause, a phrase, a word, etc) do(es) not depend entirely on its form; a lot
depend on who says what, to whom, where, why, in what manner and in what
effect. In other words, the context of situation in which an utterance is said,
who said it, and to whom are very important. For instance, the occurrence “Can
I have the salt please?” is interrogative in form but expresses a polite request
in a dining room.
Grammatical
knowledge is not enough to help us participate effectively in communicative
situation. In addition to acquainting oneself with the forms of language, one
must know the following in order to communicate appropriately:
1. The
socio-cultural relation including the attitude, values, conventions, prejudices
and preferences of the people who use the language.
2. The
nature of the participants which shows the relationship between the speaker and
the listener, their occupation, interest, socio-economic status, etc.
3. The
rule of the participant, such as the relationship in social network, father –
son, teacher – student, boss – subordinate, landlord – tenant, doctor –
patient, etc.
4. The
nature and function of the speech deals with whether it is a face to face talk
persuasion, confrontation, or a casual conversation, or a request informal
situation, or a telephonic conversation, etc.
5. The
mode (medium) of communication, whether spoken or written form or reading from
a written script, or unprepared speech.
Communicative
competence, indeed, includes the whole of linguistics competence plus the whole
of the amorphous (indefinite shape or form) range of facts included under
socio-linguistic pragmatic competence (the rules and conventions for using
language items in context and other factors like attitudes, values, and
motivation. Dell Hymes says that one who studies language should be able: “to
account for this fact that a normal child acquires knowledge of sentence not only
as grammatical but also appropriate. He or she acquires competence as to when
to speak, when not and as to what to talk about, with whom, when, where, in
what manner”. In short, a child becomes able to acquire a repertoire (all the
skills, etc that a person has and is able to use) of speech act to take part in
a speech act, and to evaluate their accomplishment by others.”
Chomsky
believes that linguistic competence can be separated from the rest of
communicative competence and studied in isolation but socio-linguist, like Dell
Hymes believes that the notion of linguistic competence is unreal and that no
significant progress in linguistics is possible without studying forms along
with the ways in which they are used. In addition to this, basic the linguistic
competence falls under the domain of communicative competence because
communicative competence is made up of four competence areas including
linguistic, sociolinguistic, discourse, and strategic.
For one
thing, social interaction is actually skilled work, and it requires effort. It
is not in innate (inborn or genetically endowed). It has to be learnt from
others. A person who faces to learn and make himself and others uneasy in
conversation and perpetually kills encounters is a faulty person. Dell Hymes maintains
that competence is dependent upon the fore features listed below:
1. Whether
(and to what degree) something is possible.
2. Whether
(and to what degree) something is visible (in relation to the means available)
3. Whether
(and to what degree) something is appropriate (adequate, happy, in relation to
the context in which it is used).
4. Whether
(and to what degree) something is performed (actually done and what the doing
entails).
All these
show that the linguistic competence is largely a part of Communicative
Competence. Dell Hymes’ criticism of the concept of linguistic competence is
that it is an abstraction without any relevance to actual use. The same
criticism has been directed against the notion of communicative competence.
According to Widdowson, if linguistic competence is an abstraction of
grammatical knowledge, communicative competence is an abstraction of social
behaviour. The notion of communicative competence does not include in its
purview (the scope somebody’s activities or influence) the actual procedure,
which language users adopt in order to participate in language based on
activity. So, along with linguistic competence and communicative competence,
pragmatic competence should also be brought into focus.
Pragmatic
competence is the one that underlines the ability to use the language along
with a conceptual system to achieve certain aims or purpose. And it determines
how the tool can be effectively put to use: It is user-oriented.
We can sum
up and say that the following are essentially the components of communication
that go into the building up of the communicative competence:
A.
Linguistic Knowledge and the para-linguistic Cues:
(i) Verbal
elements (sentences, clauses, phrases, etc.)
(ii)
Non-verbal elements (aspects of communicative behaviour, such as: facial
expression, body movement, eye gaze, gesture, proximity, etc.)
(iii)
Elements of discourse and their organization in connective speech and writing.
(iv) Range
of possible variants (possible variations and their organizations).
(v)
Meaning of variants to a particular situation.
B.
Interaction Skills:
(i) Norms
of interaction and interpretation.
(ii)
Strategies for achieving desire goals.
(iii)
Perception or features (verbal as well as non-verbal) in communication
situation (situation of communication).
(iv)
Understanding appropriateness in any given situation.
C.
Cultural Knowledge:
(i)
Socials structure.
(ii)
Values and attitudes.
(iii)
Cognitive scheme (verbal as well as noun verbal) and the cultural transmission
processes.
The
setting (means: place) of interaction also is an important factor in defining a
situation for instance whether you interact someone in the church, a temple, a
mosque, a classroom or a market place contributes to the nature of interaction
and the variety of language use.
Another
concept useful in understanding communicative competence is the concept of
phatic-communion. One purpose of phatic communion is to avoid silence because
it may imply hostility or embarrassment when it is not required. For instance,
pray hall silence may be a sign of respect but when two acquaintances meet and
remain silent, their silence may be interpreted as hostility or, at least,
indifference. Some expressions like ‘how are you?’ ‘hello’ and ‘good morning’,
etc. are highly conventional but their violation affects communication patterns
adversely as often leads to discomfiture (lack of comfort) of participants in
the interaction.
The
concept of communicative competence introduced by Dell Hymes brought about a
shift in the approach method and technique in language pedagogy. Linguists
argued that ‘There are rules of use without which the rules of grammar will be
useless. A distinction was made between the grammatical rules that enable the
users to frame correct sentences and the rules of the use of the languages to
accomplish some kind of communicative purpose. Some socio-linguists rather some
socio-linguistic principles became the key phrase in language teaching.
The
European common market gave a fillip (a thing that stimulates or encourages
something) to the communicative approach. There was increased need for teaching
adults the major languages of the European common market for increased
interaction. Wilkins advocated notional-functional syllabus in his book,
Notional Syllabus (1976). He gave a course around the uses or functions to
which language is put: For example, one lesson can be planned on requesting
information, another on apologizing and the third one on expressing gratitude.
Linguists made inventories of functions, notions, and structures but they made
no the proposal for the gradation of materials to be used. Grading according to
functional complexity did not make any sense to them for a simple reason that
syntactic complexity and function are to separated or different parameters.
The major
distinctive features of Communicative Approach as contrasted to the Audio
Lingual Method are the following:
1. Meaning is more important than the
structure and form.
2. Dialogues if used around communicative functions, are not to be memorized.
3.
Language item should be contextualized. They should not be taught in isolation
as in Audio Lingual Method.
4.
Language learning does not imply learning structures, sounds and words but
learning to communicate.
5.
Effective communication is sought and emphasized instead of mastery and over
learning.
6.
Drilling is not central but peripheral (secondary or minor importance).
7.
Pronunciation needs not be native live but comprehensive.
8.
Grammatical explanation is not avoided; any device, which the learners have, is
accepted varying according to their age and interest.
9. Attempt
to communicate needs not to make only after a long process of rigid drills but
from the very beginning.
10.
Judicious use of native language is accepted when feasible.
11.
Translation may be used when student can take benefits.
12.
13. The
target linguistic system will be learnt not through the teaching of the pattern
of the system but through the process of learning to communicate.
14.
Instead of linguistic competence, communicative competence is the desired goal.
15.
Linguistic variation is accepted as a central condition in method and
materials.
16. The
sequence of units is determined not by the principle of linguistic complexity
but by the consideration of content, function, and meaning, which maintain
interest.
17. The
teacher helps the learners in any way that motivate them to work with the
language (regardless of any conflict theory).
18.
Language is not a habit; it is created by the individual through trial and
error.
19. The
primary goal is not accuracy in terms of formal correctness, but fluency and
acceptable language; accuracy is judged not in the abstract but in context.
20.
Students should not be subjected to making use of language through machines or
controlled materials. They should rather be encouraged to interact with people
through pair or group work in real life.
21. The
teacher should not specify what language students are to use. Indeed he cannot
know or anticipate exactly what language the student will use.
22.
Intrinsic motivation will spring not from interest in the structure of the
language but in what is being communicated in language.
© 2011 by Rini Ekayati
The Communicative Approach
Timothy Mason
Université de
Paris 8
A : Chomsky and the critique of
behaviourism
The
methods such as
It should
be said that even if this was the case for children learning their
mother-tongue, we could not simply assume that adults and adolescents learn a
FL in the same way. Nevertheless, the idea that over-learning of typical
structures would lead to mastery of an FL seemed to be very dubious in the
light of Chomsky's critique of Behaviourist approaches to language learning. However,
Chomsky himself did not feel that linguistics could do much to help language
teachers. Indeed, he wrote that neither linguistics, nor psychology could do or
say much to further the cause of classroom learning.
Moreover,
Chomsky's own model of language quickly came under fire from people who were at
least sympathetic to his attack on behaviourism. This was because Chomsky's
model appears to construct an ideal, and unreal, image of the language user.
Chomsky, extending Saussure's distinction between 'langue' and 'parole',
differentiates between competence and performance. The proper object of study
for the linguist, he says, is not language as it is produced in everyday
situations - that is performance - but the inner, and ultimately innate knowledge
of grammar that everyone has in their minds - that is competence.
To study
language, then, we need to turn away from real usage, in which the
actualisation of grammar is always partial, interrupted and likely to be
over-ridden by other concerns, and look to the prior knowledge of grammar that
all speakers possess, and which has nothing to do with the social situation
within which they happen to find themselves. From the start, this conception of
the linguist’s task aroused criticism, and one of the most telling critiques
was made by the sociolinguist Dell Hymes.
C:
Dell Hymes and 'Communicative Competence'
Hymes
first of all draws attention to the image of the ideal speaker that Chomsky's
model
draws :
The image
is that of a child, born with the ability to master any language with almost
miraculous ease and speed; a child who is not merely moulded by conditioning
and reinforcement, but who actively proceeds with the unconscious theoretical
interpretation of the speech that comes its way, so that in a few years and
with a finite experience, it is master of an infinite ability, that of
producing and understanding in principle any and all grammatical sentences of
language. The image (or theoretical perspective) expresses the essential
equality in children just as human beings. It is noble in that it can inspire
one with the belief that even the most dispiriting conditions can be
transformed; it is an indispensable weapon against views that would explain the
communicative differences among groups of children as inherent, perhaps racial.
But, says
Hymes, this image is also misleading, for it abstracts the child as learner,
and the adult as language-user, from the social contexts within which
acquisition and use are achieved. And because it does this, it produces an
ideal speaker who is a very strange being indeed.
Consider
now a child with just such an ability (Chomsky's competence). A child who might
produce any sentence whatsoever - such a child would be likely to be
institutionalized: even more so if not only sentences, but also speech or
silence was random, unpredictable. For that matter, a person who chooses
occasions and sentences suitably, but is master only of fully grammatical
sentences, is at best a bit odd. Some occasions call for being appropriately
ungrammatical.
We have
then to account for the fact that a normal child acquires knowledge of
sentences, not only as grammatical, but also as appropriate. He or she acquires
competence as to when to speak, when not, and as to what to talk about with
whom, when, where, in what manner. In short, a child becomes able to accomplish
a repertoire of speech acts, to take part in speech events, and to evaluate
their accomplishment by others.
Hymes
suggests, then, that linguistic competence is but a sub-division of a greater
whole - communicative competence. Language is but one mode of communication
among others, and full communication involves mastery of all the codes -
gesture, position, non-verbal vocalization, use of visual aids and so on. And
language itself varies from situation to situation, from communicative dyad to
communicative dyad ; bilingual and multilingual people, Hymes points out, often
differentiate the contexts within which one language or another can be used -
the Berber uses the Berber language for everyday interaction, and reserves
Arabic for discussions of transcendental matters. The change in social
relationships that in French is signified by the shift from 'Vous' to 'Tu' is,
in
The
acquisition of such competency is of course fed by social experience, needs,
and motives, and issues in action that is itself a renewed source of motives,
needs, experience. We break irrevocably with the model that restricts the
design of language to one face toward referential meaning, one toward sound,
and that defines the organization of language as solely consisting of rules for
linking the two. Such a model implies naming to be the sole use of speech, as
if languages were never organized to lament, rejoice, beseech, admonish,
aphorize, inveigh, for the many varied forms of persuasion, direction,
expression and symbolic play. A model of language must design it with a face
toward communicative conduct and social life.
D:
The Speech Act - Austin and Searle
Hymes
insists, then, on the utility of language, and the need to understand it as a
tool - or set of tools - that people use to carry out different tasks. This
will bring us to a consideration of the concept of the 'speech act' : the idea
that when someone says something, she is not simply sitting back and describing
the world, but intends to produce some kind of effect, some kind of change in
the world.
This
concept is usually traced to the work of the English philosopher, John Austin,
who, in his book How to Do Things With Words, pointed to a class of
enunciations which he called 'performatives'. When a vicar, on splashing a
baby's head with holy water, announces 'I baptize thee Sarah Jane
Featherstonehaugh', his words actually ensure that the baptism has force.
Similarly, if I say 'I bet you 200F that
This
insight has been extended by other thinkers, and in particular by John Searle,
for whom all language use can be seen as functional. Searle identifies five
classes of speech acts :
Representatives
: language is used to describe a state of affairs - e.g., a news item on the
radio, a comment on the weather.
Directives
: Language is used to put the listener under an obligation to act in a certain
way in the future - e.g. a command or a request
Commisives
: Language is used to contract an obligation on the part of the speaker to act
in a certain way in the future - e.g. a promise or an offer
Expressives
: Language is used to express a psychological state - e.g. a declaration of
love, an apology or congratulations
Declaratives
: Language is used to render effective the content of the act - e.g. baptism, a
sentence pronounced by a judge
Now, if we
look at these speech acts carefully, we will note that, if we want to carry
them out efficiently, we have to understand not only the language that we wish
to use, but also the social situation within which the act is to occur. For a
statement to have illocutionary force, it must be said by the right person at
the right time, and said in the right way. This is quite obvious with
declaratives : I may say to anyone I choose : 'I sentence you to be hanged by
the neck until you are dead', but my declaration will have no effect, for not
only am I not a judge sitting in a Criminal Court, but the death penalty has
been abolished.
But even
for the other kinds of language acts, the social situation, the underlying
rules and social relationships, are important. A request for information may be
misunderstood not only if it is badly formulated from the grammatical point of
view, but also if it is socially inappropriate : Hymes gives the examples of
the Araucanians of Chile - amongst whom the repetition of a question is
regarded as an insult - and of the Mexican Tzeltal indians, who never ask
direct questions.
If I am to
master a foreign language, then, I must master :
The
language as system - the grammar, phonology and vocabulary that were
traditionally seen as the object of the FL class.
The rules
determining what language can be used by whom in which situation. This includes
both an understanding of the social situation itself, and an understanding of
the different forms of language - or the different types of discourse.
The
non-linguistic codes that I may manipulate in order to repair damaged or
partial utterances on occasions when my knowledge of the language as a system
is not sufficient.
Thus we
can, with Canale and Swain, define communicative competence as consisting in
three factors -
Grammatical
competence.
Sociolinguistic
competence.
Strategic
competence.
Sophie
Moirand gives us a more detailed, and rather different definition, with communicative
competence consisting of four sub-components:
Une
composante linguistique.
Une
composante discursive.
Une
composante référentielle.
Une
composante socioculturelle.
Moirand
sees communicative strategies as only intervening at the moment of actualisation,
and regards them as individual - a judgement that, as we have seen, would not
meet with the agreement of Hymes.
E:
The Communicative Syllabus
What does
this mean for the teacher and the learner? One corollary is that if we stress
the social nature of language, then the speaker, as social actor, is central.
From the point of view of FL learning, this means that the characteristics of
the learner, her aims and needs, are of paramount importance, for if language
is a tool-kit, then we need to know what it is to be used for, and it is only
the learner herself who can, in the end, determine this.
This
implies that a communicative approach will begin with an analysis of the needs
of the learner, and that this analysis will be carried out in consultation with
her. Furthermore, we can imagine that as the learner's competence grows, so her
needs will expand and change; this implies that we need to maintain an open
dialogue with the learner, to listen to her constantly in order to adjust our
teaching to her changing needs and priorities.
How far
can such an approach be applied within a compulsory school system?
A second
corollary is that we can no longer hold back certain grammatical forms until we
feel that the student is 'ripe' for them, but must present the forms in terms
of their utility. Now this may mean that learners will need to be exposed to
complex forms from the beginning of their course, in which case we cannot be
sure that they will necessarily acquire them from the start. So we will need to
return to these forms, deepening the learner's grasp and capacity to use them
at each new stage : this, then, gives us the basis for our curriculum, which
will move out from the most immediate needs of the learner, to gradually
encompass the more remote ones, all the time going back over material that has
already been seen. We are back with Comenius's Spiral Curriculum.
But what
will the development be based upon? We have seen that it cannot be simply
determined as a grammatical progression - in fact, we don't really know what is
difficult and what is easy, anyway. If we look at the textbooks today, we will
see that most of them are based not simply on the language as a system, but
also on speech acts, and on the lexical field. Look at the 'Table des matières'
of a typical modern textbook - in this case, Action Anglais for 5e.
In some of
the textbooks, you will see the terms Functions and Notions. Both of these can
be traced back to the idea of the speech-act, as it was put forward in what is
known as the Functional-Notional Syllabus. It is to this that I wish to turn
now.
The
Functional-Notional Approach - which can be seen as one version of the
communicative school - as we shall see, there are others - arose out of the
work done by the Council for Cultural Co-operation of the Council of Europe,
which, in the 1960s, became interested in both 'Permanent Education' - la
formation continue - and in language teaching. In 1971, a group of experts was
set up, which decided that an analysis of how language was best taught should
be based upon three preliminary investigations that would:
"Break
down the global concept of language into units and sub-units on an analysis of
particular groups of adult learners, in terms of the communicative situations
in which they are characteristically involved. This analysis should lead to a
precise articulation of the notion of 'common core' with specialist extensions
at different proficiency levels.
"Set
up on the basis of this analysis an operational specification for learning
objectives.
"Formulate
... a meta-system defining the structure of a multi-media learning system to
achieve these objectives in terms of the unit/credit concepts."
The idea
was that language should be classified in terms of what people wanted to do
with it - functions - or in terms of what meanings people wanted to put across
- notions - rather than in terms of grammatical items. Further, the language
was to be categorized by level, starting with the basic level, which would
permit the learner to survive when visiting the country in which the language
was spoken. For English, this work was done by Jan van Ek, who, in 1975,
produced The Threshold Level, the basic syllabus that would serve as a
foundation upon which to build more sophisticated speech capacities as the
learner progressed. In the handbook, van Ek gave a list of 6 basic functions -
we shall see the extent to which they differ from Searle's
Imparting
and seeking factual information - identifying, reporting - including describing
and narrating, correcting, asking.
Expressing
and finding out intellectual attitudes - expressing agreement and
disagreement
-
inquiring about agreement or disagreement
- denying
something, accepting an offer or invitation
-
declining an offer or invitation
-
inquiring whether offer or invitation is accepted or declined
- offering
to do something
- etc.
3.
Expressing and finding out emotional attitudes
-
expressing and inquiring about pleasure, liking
-
expressing an inquiring about displeasure, dislike
-
expressing and inquiring about surprise, home, satisfaction,
dissatisfaction
-
expressing and inquiring about intention
-
expressing and inquiring about want and desire
- etc.
4.
Expressing and finding out moral attitudes
-
apologizing
-
expressing appreciation
- etc.
5. Getting
things done (suasion)
-
suggesting a course of action
-
requesting, inviting, or advising others to do something
- warning
others to take care or to refrain from doing something
-
instructing or directing others to do something
6.
Socializing
- to greet
people
- when
meeting people
- when
introducing people and being introduced
- etc.
Within any
functional category, there will be a number of different realizations. Thus,
for example, a request could take the following forms:
Please
open the window
Open the
window, please.
Would you
open the window?
Would you
mind opening the window?
I wonder
if you would mind opening the window?
It might
be a good idea to open the window.
Each form
will be appropriate to a specific role within a specific situation. Van Ek
added to his list of functions a set of criteria for the specification of
situations :
1. Social
roles
stranger/stranger,
friend/friend, private person/official person, patient/doctor, etc.
2.
Psychological roles
neutrality,
equality, sympathy, antipathy
3.
Settings
A.
Geographical location (foreign country where the TL is the native language,
foreign country where the TL is not the native language, own country)
a)
outdoors (park, street, seaside)
b)
indoors; private life (house, apartment, room, kitchen)
4.
Surroundings
family,
friends, acquaintances, strangers ...
Van Ek
also added a grammatical component, and a set of topics. All of these are to be
set within the spiral curriculum, in typical communicative fashion.
F:
Conclusion
The recent
developments in language teaching, then, have been motivated by a number of
factors, including changes in linguistics, in learning psychology, and in the
immediate political environment, with the increasing importance of global
institutions. Also, increasing dissatisfaction with the results of earlier
methods, such as G/T or
1. The
idea that the learner should be at the centre of our preoccupations - her
needs, wishes, and learning styles should be at the basis of language
programs
2. The
idea that language is not grammar, phonology and vocabulary alone, but a set of
communicative tools, which can only be properly learned within communicative
situations.
© 2011 by
Timothy Mason