This document discusses the concepts of linguistic competence and communicative competence in language learning. It defines linguistic competence as knowledge of a language's formal rules of grammar and phonology. Communicative competence goes beyond this to include social and cultural knowledge needed for effective communication. It identifies four components of communicative competence: possibility, feasibility, appropriateness, and attestedness. The notion of communicative competence has influenced applied linguistics, shifting approaches to teaching English and other languages from a focus solely on mechanics to developing broader communication abilities.

1. Language and
communication
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2. Table of Contents
Knowing a language
Linguistic competence
Communicative competence
The infleunce of communicative
competence
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02
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3. Knowing a language
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4. Does knowing a language imply
native-speaker insight and fluency?
An ability to produce sentences with
no grammatical errors? The capacity
to write elegantly and expressively?
Being able to get your meanings
across and do what you need to do?
or is it a combination of these?
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5. Cont.
● Traditional grammar-translation language teaching assumed that
knowing the rules of the language and being able to use them where
one and the same thing.
● But now, there are many cases where someone knows the rules of
language but is a still not a successful communicator.
For example, they don’t use the language fast enough.
Also, they may send the wrong kinds of signals with their body and tone.
● Knowing the grammar and vocabulary of language is one thing. Being
able to put them to use involved other types of knowledge and ability
as well.
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6. Linguistic competence
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7. Linguistic competence
● Isolating the formal systems of language either for learning
or for analysis is a useful first step.
● However, the adoption of traditional language- teaching
methods don’t need to imply that this is all that learning a
language involves.
● An emphasis on formal correctness can be seen as a matter
of pedagogic procedure.
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8. Cont.
● Noam Chomsky’s idea is that the human capacity for 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 required only minimal exposure to active our connection to the
particular language around us.
● The newborn infant brain already contains a universal grammar (UG).
● Universal grammar forms the basis of competence in the particular language
the child goes on to speak.
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9. Language becomes something more
biological than social, and similarities
between languages outweigh
differences.
Furthermore, language is separated
from other factors involved in its use
such as body language or cultural
knowledge.
Chomsky’s
View
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10. Communicative competence
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11. Communicative competence
● The term is offered as a deliberate contrast to Chomsky’s
linguistic competence.
● Dell Hymes observes that a person who had only linguistic
competence would be quite unable to communicate.
● Hymes suggested that what is needed for successful
communication are four types of knowledge possibility,
feasibility, appropriateness, and attestedness.
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12. Possibility
● Firstly, a communicatively competent speaker knows what is formally
possible in a language.
E.g, whether an instance conforms to the rules of grammar and pronunciation.
● Knowledge of possibility is not sufficient in itself for communication.
● Also, a communicatively competent speaker may know the rules, be capable
of following them, but break them deliberately. This is the case when people
want to be creative or witty or to talk about something for which the language
has not exist in terms.
● E.g., the beatle Ringo Starr, after working long hours on a film set, remarked
“that was a hard day’s night”, and the phrase was taken up as the title of a song
and a film. Though it breaks semantic rules it expresses an idea very
effectively.
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13. Feasibility
● Secondly, communicative competent person knows what is feasible.
● This is a psychological concept concerned with limitations to what can be
processed by the mind.
For example,
The cheese was green.
The cheese the rat ate was green.
The cheese the rat the cat chased ate was green.
The cheese the rat the cat the dog saw chased ate was green.
The cheese the rat the cat the dog the man beat saw chased ate was green.
● The notion of the feasibility may seem a rather academic one, and of little
relevance to the practical applications of knowledge about language.
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14. Appropriateness
● The third components of communicative competence is knowledge of
appropriateness. This concerns the relationship of language on behaviour to
context.
● Its importance is clear if we consider its opposite, inappropriateness.
For example, something might be an appropriate to a particular relationship, or
to a particular kind of text, or to a particular situation, or generally an
appropriate to a particular culture.
● Appropriateness concerns conformity to social convention.
For example, the issue of appropriate dress for women moving between western
and Islamic cultures.
● There are important factors to which some values are perceived to be
absolute rather than culture specific.
for example, religious freedom, female modesty , and women’s rights, etc.
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15. Cont.
● Should learners of a language necessarily adopt the way in which it is used?
For example, can Japanese speakers maintain the differential politeness of their
own culture, even when speaking English?
● Such clashes can occur even between the speakers of the same language.
For example, many speakers of American English find the language used in
Britain service encounters curt and unfriendly.
● For Applied linguists, there is no avoiding such issues. Language creates our
identities and allows us to communicate with others.
Many activities ,for example, schooling, workplace communication, language
therapy, language testing, and language planning, are essential concerns within
negotiating the parameters of differences and conformity.
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16. Attestedness
● Hymes’ fourth component of communicative competence is knowledge of
attestedness, for example , whether ....something is done.
● To explain the idea
For example, take the phrase “chips and fish”. From one point of view this is
possible (it doesn’t break any grammar rule), feasible (it is easily processed and
readily understandable), and appropriate ( it doesn’t contravene any sensitive
social convention) however, it doesn’t occur as frequently as fish and chips.
● Corpus linguistics which uses computerized techniques for searching large
databanks, has made available much more information about probability.
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17. The influence of
Communicative
competence
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18. The influence of Communicative competence
● Directly or indirectly the notion of communicative competence has been
very widely drawing upon in all areas of applied linguistics.
For example, in first language education, it was invoked to justify a shift away
from developing only mechanical language skills towards a more rounded
capacity to communicate.
In information design, it’s supported the view that stating facts is not enough,
they also need to be easily accessible.
In speech therapy, it justified an increased emphasis on social knowledge and
skills in addition to deficiencies in grammar and pronunciation.
In translation, it strengthens the case for seeking an equivalent effect rather than
only formal and literal equivalence.
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19. Cont.
● The biggest single influence has been upon the teaching of English as a
foreign language.
● Inspired by Hymes, the communicative approach aimed to develop learners’
capacity to use the language effectively.
● This approach should have been beneficial, allowing teachers and learners to
achieve a more balanced view of what successful communication involves.
● Despite the careful advice of those applied linguists to introduce Hymes’
ideas to the language teaching profession, that idea quickly became distorted
and misinterpreted.
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20. Cont.
● One of the strengths of the concept of communicative competence is that it
doesn’t assume that knowledge necessarily leads to conformity. Knowing
what is appropriate to a particular situation, relationship, genre or culture
doesn’t mean that you necessarily do it. There are many instances where
people depart from the norm. They may wish to dissent from their
conventional values of a society, to assert those of another, or to be
humorous, creative, rude, or aggressive.
● There are in short good reason why people don’t conform, but in order to
communicate the meanings they create by these departures, they need first to
know what the norms are.
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21. Language and Communication
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22. Cont.
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23. Thank you for listening
Cook, G. (2003). Applied linguistics. Oxford University Press.
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