Comunicative approach

UNIT ONE, THE LINGUISTIC COMPETENCE

Communicative competence

I. INTRODUCTION

The term was coined by Dell Hymes in 1966, reacting against the perceived inadequacy of Noam Chomsky's (1965) distinction between competence and performance. Hymes' ideas about communicative competence were originally research-based rather than pedagogical. Specifically, to address Chomsky's abstract notion ofcompetence, Hymes (1972; 1977; 1994) discussed the ethnographic-oriented exploration of communicative competence that included 'communicative form and function in integral relation to each other. His research-oriented ideas have undergone an epistemic transformation: from empirically oriented questions to an idealized pedagogic doctrine' (Leung, 2005).

Chomsky's view of linguistic competence,however, was not intended to inform pedagogy, but serve as part of developing a theory of the linguistic system itself, idealized as the abstract language knowledge of the monolingual adult native speaker, and distinct from how they happen to use and experience language. Hymes, rather than Chomsky, had developed a theory of education and learning.

Canale and Swain (1980) defined communicativecompetence in terms of four components:
1. Grammatical competence: words and rules.
2. Sociolinguistic competence: appropriateness.
3. Discourse competence: cohesion and coherence.
4. Strategic competence: appropriate use of communication strategies.

Canale and Swain's definition has become canonical in applied linguistics.

A more recent survey of communicative competence by Bachman (1990)divides it into the broad headings of "organizational competence," which includes both grammatical and discourse (or textual) competence, and "pragmatic competence," which includes both sociolinguistic and "illocutionary" competence.

II. Communicative Competence In The

Competence: the ability to use the language correctly and appropriately to accomplish communication goals. The desiredoutcome of the language learning process is the ability to communicate competently, not the ability to use the language exactly as a native speaker does.

Communicative competence: is a linguistic term which refers to a learner's L2 ability. It not only refers to a learner's ability to apply and use grammatical rules, but also to form correct utterances, and know how to use these utterancesappropriately. The term unlies the view of language learning implicit in the communicative approach to language teaching.

The modules in this section identify eight aspects of communicative competence. They are grouped together in two groups of four:

III. Linguistic Aspects of Communicative Competence.

What is phonological competence?

Phonological competence is the ability to recognize andproduce the distinctive meaningful sounds of a language, including:
• Consonants
• vowels
• tone patterns.
• intonation patterns
• rhythm patterns
• stress patterns
• any other suprasegmental features that carry meaning

Related to phonological competence is orthographic competence, or the ability to decipher and write the writing system of a language.

Example:
In Korean there are threekinds of velar stops: aspirated, fortis and lenis. It is important to be able to distinguish these sounds, because there are a number of different words that are pronounced the same, except for the difference in these stops. It is also important to be able to pronounce these consonants correctly so that Korean speakers can tell which word the language learner means.

What is grammaticalcompetence?

Grammatical competence is the ability to recognize and produce the distinctive grammatical structures of a language and to use them effectively in communication.

Example:
Learners of French need to learn to understand the different time references of sets of words such as je partais, je parte, je parterai, and to be able to make appropriate time reference when speaking or writing....