Communicative competence

1. Major: English Language and Literature
Applied Linguistics
Session 8 “Communicative competence”
Dr. Badriya Al Mamari
Academic year 2021/2022

2. Knowing a Language
• Traditional grammar-translation language teaching, assumed that knowing
the rules of a language and being able to use them were one and the
same.
• Yet there are many cases where someone knows the rules of a language
but is still not a successful communicator.

3. For example
• They may not use the language fast enough.
• They may understand what is being said and have something to say
themselves, but still somehow fail to join in.
• Perhaps their language seems stilted and old-fashioned, like, they may say
things like ‘whom do you want?’ or it’s raining cats and dogs.
• They may send the wrong kinds of signals with their body and tone of
voice, shaking their head instead of nodding it, sounding bored or
unfriendly when do not intend to or they may understand the literal
meaning of what is said , but not why it is said.
• They fail to realize that something is a joke, for example, and take
offence.

4. • So, knowing the grammar and vocabulary of the language, although
essential, is one thing being able to put them to use involves other types
of knowledge and ability as well.

5. Linguistic Competence
• Isolating the formal systems of language (i.e. its pronunciation, grammar,
and vocabulary) either for learning or for analysis, is a useful first step.
However, the adoption of traditional language-teaching methods need
this type of deployment as the basis for further development of the
language.

6. Chomsky’s idea
• is that the human capacity for language, as illustrated by a child’s
acquisition of the language, is not the product of general intelligence or
learning ability, but an innate, genetically determined feature of the
human species.
• We are born with considerable pre-programmed knowledge of how
language works, and require only minimal exposure to active our
connection to the particular language around us rather as a bird learning
to fly adapts to the environment outside the nest.
• So, a newborn infant brain already contains a Universal Grammar (UG)
which forms the basis of competence in the particular language the child
goes on to speak. This linguistic competence is seen as modular, that is to
say separate from other mental abilities.

7. Communicative competence
• According to Hymes (1971), a person who had only linguistic competence
would be quite unable to communicate because they are only producing
grammatical sentences unconnected to the situation in which they occur.
•
Hymes suggest, is four types of knowledge:
• 1.possibility,
• 2.feasibility,
• 3.appropriateness, and
• 4.attestedness.

8. 1) Possibility. Knowledge of possibility helps deciding whether an instance conforms to language rules
or not.
2) Feasibility. Helps processing language instances,
Example: a communicator can process a sentence like:
"the police chase a criminal" to other instance Like:
"the police chase an American criminal" or saying
"he chases the criminal who scare the people"
3) Appropriateness. Clears the relation of a language to a context.
For example, when complaining to a police you cannot address him as “darling”.
4) Attestedness. It is the fourth component of Hymes communicative competence; the actual
occurrence of something.
• All these parameters emerges as rebutting for Noame Chomsky's linguistic competence, because
Dell states that linguistic competence only is not capable of producing effective communication but
there is a need for social context.

9. Hymes suggested four types of knowledge for communicative competence
• Possibility:
• Firstly, a communicatively competent speaker knows what is formally
possible in a language. (whether an instance conforms to the rules of
grammar and pronunciation).
• Example: Me go to sleep now”
• “I am going to sleep now”
• Communicatively competent speaker may know the rules b be cable of
following them but nevertheless break them deliberately. This is often the
case one people want to be witty or creative or intimate or to talk about
something for which the language has no existing terms . This May break
the rules of semantic but expresses an idea very effectively

10. • Feasibility
• Secondly, a communicatively competent person knows what is feasible. This is a
psychological concept concerned with limitations to what can be processed by
the mind, and is best illustrated by an example. The rules of English grammar
make it possible to expand a noun phrase, and make it more specific, by adding
a relative clause.
• For example
• the cheese was green
• the cheese the not ate was green
• the cheese rot the account changed eight was green
• the cheese grant the the count the dog saw changed and it was green
• the cheese got the cat the dog the man beat so chase 8 was green
• The last two sentences do not work not because they are ungrammatical but
because they are so difficult to process .

11. • Appropriateness
• A third component of communicative competence is knowledge of
appropriateness. This concerns the relationship of language or behavior to
context, and as such covers a wide range of phenomena. Its importance is clear
if we consider its opposite, inappropriateness.
• Example: Maintaining the norms of one society is inappropriate in the other
such as clothes of women in Muslim cultures and in western European countries
or Or the Japanese politeness in Western countries .
• For a blind linguistics there is no avoiding such issues language creates our
identity‘s and allows us to communicate with others it study must be concerned
with who imposes a fund home and with the limits of social coercion and
dissent . Many activities such as schooling workplace communication language
therapy language testing and language planning are essentially concerned with
negotiating the better meters of difference and confirmty.

12. Attestedness
• A Fourth component of communicative competence is knowledge of
attestedness. It is about whether (and to what degree) something is in fact done,
actually performed, and what its doing entails. ( Hymes, 1970:281).
Examples:
1.Fish and chips at this restaurant is one of the best.
(Fish and chips is one of the best restaurants in western countries that serves
variety dishes of Fish and chips.)
2.In order to be able to prove your identity you need to get these documents
proved by a high ranking official.

13. The influence of communicative competence
• The biggest single influence is so often the case in applied linguistics has
been upon the teaching of English as a foreign language inspired by
Hymes the communicative approach which we aimd to develop learners
capacity to use the language effectively.
• It has also contributed to a growing interest in the analysis of the
language use specifically in two areas of inquiry discourse analysis and
cross cultural communication

14. • Communicative language teaching involves developing
language proficiency through interactions embedded in
meaningful contexts. This approach to teaching provides
authentic opportunities for learning that go beyond repetition
and memorization of grammatical patterns in isolation. A
central concept of the communicative approach to language
teaching is communicative competence: the learner’s ability to
understand and use language appropriately to communicate in
authentic social and school environments.

15. The following table illustrates how each communicative area contributes to
communicative competence.
CommunicativeCompetence:
The ability to understand and use language
effectively to communicate in authentic social
and school environments
Strategic:
Using techniques to:
- overcome language gaps
- plan and assess the
effectiveness of
Communication
- achieve conversational
fluency
-modify text for audience
and purpose
Socio-linguistic:
Having awareness of:
- social rules of language
(e.g., formality,
politeness, directness)
- nonverbal behaviours
- cultural references
(e.g., idioms,
expressions, background
knowledge)
Discourse:
Understanding how
ideas are connected
through:
- patterns of
organization
- cohesive and
transitional devices
Linguistic:
Understanding and
using:
- vocabulary
- language
conventions
(grammar,
punctuation and
spelling)
- syntax (e.g.,
sentence structure)

16. References:
• Cook, G. (2003). Applied linguistics. Oxford University Press.