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Competence
Language Competence
This page will explain what
language competence is and will give examples of the different ways that you can
demonstrate "competence." But, before you can try to achieve competence, you
need to make some decisions about why you are developing it.
information about what it means to be competent in a second language
The meaning of your language competence depends on your reasons for developing it. Are you mainly interested in speaking proficiency, foreign language literacy, cross-cultural awareness, or knowledge about language? Is language ability an end to itself, or a means to another end, such as graduate study, study abroad, preparation for field work or professional practice? There are many ways to define language ability and to learn and teach languages. Most language teachers try to include some work in each of the areas listed. When you sign up for a language course, it worthwhile for you to reflect on your personal reasons for language study, and communicate these to your teachers so that they will know what matters most to you.
When experts define language competence, they try to be as precise and inclusive as possible in coping with a very complicated phenomenon. In this section, we will explore how language is defined by scholars and professionals in language-related areas such as linguistics, language teaching and anthropology.
One of the best known models of language ability is known as "Communicative Competence." This model was developed to account for the kinds of knowledge people need in order to use language in meaningful interaction. The term was originally coined by anthropologist Dell Hymes as a means of describing the knowledge language users need in addition to the grammatical forms of the language. The term was then adopted by the language teaching community after it had been developed into a model for that field by Michael Canale and Merrill Swain (1980), then by Sandra Savignon (1997). In the version commonly used by language teachers, the model includes four components:
is the ability to use the forms of the language (sounds, words, and sentence structure). Grammatical competence is the primary focus of study in most academic language courses. Most scholars agree that there is some kind of fundamental difference between being able to use the forms of the language and being able to talk about the forms of the language: the relationship between those two kinds of knowledge is a controversial topic!
Let's look at an example of how grammatical competence works:
Which of the following "sentences" is grammatically correct?
is the ability to understand and create forms of the language that are longer than sentences, such as stories, conversations, or business letters. Discourse competence includes understanding how particular instances of language use are internally constructed. For example, consider the following text:
The Space Cadets ate the rocketship. It was delicious!
In this text, what is the meaning of the word "it"? You can figure out that "it" refers to the rocketship previously mentioned because you have discourse competence in English that allows you to identify the referents of pronouns.
(I am going to add discourse cohesion exercises:1) scrambled sentences, 2) drawing links between textual elements a la Halliday and Hasan)
Discourse competence also includes understanding how texts relate to the context or situation in which they are used. For example, what is the meaning of the word "in" in the following sentence (Examples are inspired by Scollon and Scollon 1995):
The car is in the driveway.
The pencil is in the cup.
Because we have practical knowledge that completes our understand of language use, we know that the pencil is surrounded by the cup, but that the car is (probably) not embedded in the driveway!
Now consider the following text:
The party was a blast! After Melvin opened his presents and everyone played with his new Star Wars light saber, it was time to eat. Melvin blew out the candles and the Space Cadets ate the rocketship. It was delicious! Served with real astronaut ice cream. Melvin's parents really knocked themselves out this time.
Now can you see how the sentence "The Space Cadets ate the rocketship." could be correct? What else do you have to know in order to understand this text? Who is writing? How old are the people described? What kind of event is described? You can interpret the sentence because you perceive its coherence in the context of American cultural practices for children's birthday celebrations.
What makes a text coherent often has less to do with sentence structure than with text structure and out knowledge of the world. Consider the following examples:
#1) The theoretical discussions are excellent. Brew in any coffee maker. If you have questions about your symptoms call First Help. Sam wants to know what twelve o'clock means. Miss Honey and her boyfriend Bruno called to take the children for a picnic in the park. Where can you buy this convenient flashlight?
#2) Phillip's Chicken Pie. Delicious and ready in two minutes! Three tantalizing varieties available with your choice of noodles, mashed potatoes or our special mushroom gravy. Complete on-the-go meals for the busy gourmet!
Which one of these stretches of language forms a coherent whole? What kind of text is it?
Text #2 is more coherent than Text #1. It belongs to a genre of language use we recognize as advertising.
Which example is made up of complete sentences?Text #1 is not really a text at all! It is a series of sentences strung together after they were taken from their original context (a linguistics book jacket, a coffee can, a flier from an HMO, a conversation, a children's book and a magazine ad).
Different cultures have different expectations for text forms and devices for making texts fit together, and different ways of defining situations that allow people to understand what is being communicated.
is the ability to use language appropriately in different contexts. Sociolinguistic competence overlaps significantly with discourse competence because it has to do with expressing, interpreting and negotiating meaning according to culturally-derived norms and expectations. Sociolinguistic competence is most obvious to us when the conventions governing language use are somehow violated, as for example when a child innocently uses a "bad" word or when the expectations present in one culture are unsuccessfully translated for another.
It is our sociolinguistic competence that allows us to be polite according to the situation we are in and to be able to infer the intentions of others. In our everyday life we vary the kind of language we use according to levels of formality and familiarity. We express solidarity in groups to which we belong or wish to belong, for example in classroom chat with other students, or at a party. In situations where we may eventually have solidairty with the others present, but do not yet know them well, we express deference, for example at an international meeting of scholars in the same field. In situations where there is an obvious status difference between participants, we are careful to express the right amount of respect.
Take this quick test of your sociolinguistic competence in American English. Which response would be the most correct according to the situation?
is the ability to compensate for lack of ability in any of the other areas. What do you do when you don't know a word that you need? How do you manage a social situation when you aren't quite sure about the rules of etiquette? In both cases, you rely on your strategic competence to help you communicate. Everyone has some degree of strategic competence in any language. If you are hungry, but cannot speak the language, you can probably still make your need known through gesture and facial expression because hunger is a universal fact of human life. Language learners who really need to communicate in their adopted language tend to develop a number of strategies for making themselves clear in spite of their incomplete knowledge.
Let us suppose that you are visiting Hungary and suddenly realize that you need to buy some dental floss. You speak some elementary Hungarian but you don't know how to say "dental floss." Having located a likely place to make your purchase, you approach the clerk. Now what?
You can use gesture to convey your message.
You can coin a word, perhaps "teethstring."
You can use circumlocution: "I would like to buy thing for cleaning mouth parts. Inside. Please."
If you can't get your message across, you can give up! Maybe your need for dental floss was not so urgent after all.
Now let's look at another example. An advanced American learner of French must write some business letters to arrange for hotel accommodations for a study group. She knows that French business letters involve a complex set of politeness rules that date from the classical era, and she knows that many French people are ambivalent about those rules because they are so complicated. There are over 35 different ways to sign off, involving language like:
Veuillez agreer l'expression de mes sentiments les plus distingues.
Please acknowledge the expression of my most respectful sentiments.
or
Je vous prie, Cher Monsieur, de croire a l'expression de mes sentiments distingues.
I beg you, dear Sir, to believe in the expression of my most respectful sentiments.
The American learner simply doesn't know which one of the 35 possibilities applies to her situation, and the whole idea of writing like that makes her feel ill at ease. What should she do? One possibility is to do the research and find out which formula best suits her needs. Another is to decide that it is better, in her case, to be honest andto appear sincere- than to be correct. She could write:
Je vous prierais de croire a quelque chose si je connaissais mieux les regles du bon usage en France, mais pour l'instant je ne peux que vous remercier sincerement de votre aide.
I would beg you to believe in somehing if I were better acquainted with the rules of usage in your country, but for now I can only thank you very sincerely for your help.
Here are some additional facts about communicative competence:
We do not know the relative contributions of each feature of communicative competence.
Communicative competence is domain-specific.
Communicative effectiveness is not the same thing as grammatical competence.
References:
Canale, M. & M.Swain. 1980
Danesi, M.1996. Teen talk: what are the implications for second-language teaching? Mosaic 3(4): 1-10.
Gee, J. 1990. Social Linguistics and Literacies.
Hymes, D.
Savignon, S. 1997. Communicative Competence: Theory and Classroom Practice, Second Edition. New York, NY: McGrawHill.
Scollon, R & S.W.Scollon. 1995. Intercultural Communication: A Discourse Approach. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.
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- Are you interested in speaking proficiency?
- Do you want foreign language literacy?
- Do you want to increase your knowledge about language?
- Are you interested in cross-cultural awareness?
- What are your reasons for studying a second language?
- Is language ability an end to itself?
- Are you pursuing language study as a means to another end? (Graduate Study, Study Abroad, and preparation for field work)
What is Language Competence?
Four Components of Language CompetenceWhat is Language Competence
information about what it means to be competent in a second language
The meaning of your language competence depends on your reasons for developing it. Are you mainly interested in speaking proficiency, foreign language literacy, cross-cultural awareness, or knowledge about language? Is language ability an end to itself, or a means to another end, such as graduate study, study abroad, preparation for field work or professional practice? There are many ways to define language ability and to learn and teach languages. Most language teachers try to include some work in each of the areas listed. When you sign up for a language course, it worthwhile for you to reflect on your personal reasons for language study, and communicate these to your teachers so that they will know what matters most to you.
When experts define language competence, they try to be as precise and inclusive as possible in coping with a very complicated phenomenon. In this section, we will explore how language is defined by scholars and professionals in language-related areas such as linguistics, language teaching and anthropology.
One of the best known models of language ability is known as "Communicative Competence." This model was developed to account for the kinds of knowledge people need in order to use language in meaningful interaction. The term was originally coined by anthropologist Dell Hymes as a means of describing the knowledge language users need in addition to the grammatical forms of the language. The term was then adopted by the language teaching community after it had been developed into a model for that field by Michael Canale and Merrill Swain (1980), then by Sandra Savignon (1997). In the version commonly used by language teachers, the model includes four components:
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Grammatical Competence
is the ability to use the forms of the language (sounds, words, and sentence structure). Grammatical competence is the primary focus of study in most academic language courses. Most scholars agree that there is some kind of fundamental difference between being able to use the forms of the language and being able to talk about the forms of the language: the relationship between those two kinds of knowledge is a controversial topic!
Let's look at an example of how grammatical competence works:
Which of the following "sentences" is grammatically correct?
Back to Top
Discourse Competence
is the ability to understand and create forms of the language that are longer than sentences, such as stories, conversations, or business letters. Discourse competence includes understanding how particular instances of language use are internally constructed. For example, consider the following text:
The Space Cadets ate the rocketship. It was delicious!
In this text, what is the meaning of the word "it"? You can figure out that "it" refers to the rocketship previously mentioned because you have discourse competence in English that allows you to identify the referents of pronouns.
(I am going to add discourse cohesion exercises:1) scrambled sentences, 2) drawing links between textual elements a la Halliday and Hasan)
Discourse competence also includes understanding how texts relate to the context or situation in which they are used. For example, what is the meaning of the word "in" in the following sentence (Examples are inspired by Scollon and Scollon 1995):
The car is in the driveway.
The pencil is in the cup.
Because we have practical knowledge that completes our understand of language use, we know that the pencil is surrounded by the cup, but that the car is (probably) not embedded in the driveway!
Now consider the following text:
The party was a blast! After Melvin opened his presents and everyone played with his new Star Wars light saber, it was time to eat. Melvin blew out the candles and the Space Cadets ate the rocketship. It was delicious! Served with real astronaut ice cream. Melvin's parents really knocked themselves out this time.
Now can you see how the sentence "The Space Cadets ate the rocketship." could be correct? What else do you have to know in order to understand this text? Who is writing? How old are the people described? What kind of event is described? You can interpret the sentence because you perceive its coherence in the context of American cultural practices for children's birthday celebrations.
What makes a text coherent often has less to do with sentence structure than with text structure and out knowledge of the world. Consider the following examples:
#1) The theoretical discussions are excellent. Brew in any coffee maker. If you have questions about your symptoms call First Help. Sam wants to know what twelve o'clock means. Miss Honey and her boyfriend Bruno called to take the children for a picnic in the park. Where can you buy this convenient flashlight?
#2) Phillip's Chicken Pie. Delicious and ready in two minutes! Three tantalizing varieties available with your choice of noodles, mashed potatoes or our special mushroom gravy. Complete on-the-go meals for the busy gourmet!
Which one of these stretches of language forms a coherent whole? What kind of text is it?
Text #2 is more coherent than Text #1. It belongs to a genre of language use we recognize as advertising.
Which example is made up of complete sentences?Text #1 is not really a text at all! It is a series of sentences strung together after they were taken from their original context (a linguistics book jacket, a coffee can, a flier from an HMO, a conversation, a children's book and a magazine ad).
Different cultures have different expectations for text forms and devices for making texts fit together, and different ways of defining situations that allow people to understand what is being communicated.
Back to Top
Sociolinguistic Competence
is the ability to use language appropriately in different contexts. Sociolinguistic competence overlaps significantly with discourse competence because it has to do with expressing, interpreting and negotiating meaning according to culturally-derived norms and expectations. Sociolinguistic competence is most obvious to us when the conventions governing language use are somehow violated, as for example when a child innocently uses a "bad" word or when the expectations present in one culture are unsuccessfully translated for another.
It is our sociolinguistic competence that allows us to be polite according to the situation we are in and to be able to infer the intentions of others. In our everyday life we vary the kind of language we use according to levels of formality and familiarity. We express solidarity in groups to which we belong or wish to belong, for example in classroom chat with other students, or at a party. In situations where we may eventually have solidairty with the others present, but do not yet know them well, we express deference, for example at an international meeting of scholars in the same field. In situations where there is an obvious status difference between participants, we are careful to express the right amount of respect.
Take this quick test of your sociolinguistic competence in American English. Which response would be the most correct according to the situation?
Back to Top
Strategic Competence
is the ability to compensate for lack of ability in any of the other areas. What do you do when you don't know a word that you need? How do you manage a social situation when you aren't quite sure about the rules of etiquette? In both cases, you rely on your strategic competence to help you communicate. Everyone has some degree of strategic competence in any language. If you are hungry, but cannot speak the language, you can probably still make your need known through gesture and facial expression because hunger is a universal fact of human life. Language learners who really need to communicate in their adopted language tend to develop a number of strategies for making themselves clear in spite of their incomplete knowledge.
Let us suppose that you are visiting Hungary and suddenly realize that you need to buy some dental floss. You speak some elementary Hungarian but you don't know how to say "dental floss." Having located a likely place to make your purchase, you approach the clerk. Now what?
You can use gesture to convey your message.
You can coin a word, perhaps "teethstring."
You can use circumlocution: "I would like to buy thing for cleaning mouth parts. Inside. Please."
If you can't get your message across, you can give up! Maybe your need for dental floss was not so urgent after all.
Now let's look at another example. An advanced American learner of French must write some business letters to arrange for hotel accommodations for a study group. She knows that French business letters involve a complex set of politeness rules that date from the classical era, and she knows that many French people are ambivalent about those rules because they are so complicated. There are over 35 different ways to sign off, involving language like:
Veuillez agreer l'expression de mes sentiments les plus distingues.
Please acknowledge the expression of my most respectful sentiments.
or
Je vous prie, Cher Monsieur, de croire a l'expression de mes sentiments distingues.
I beg you, dear Sir, to believe in the expression of my most respectful sentiments.
The American learner simply doesn't know which one of the 35 possibilities applies to her situation, and the whole idea of writing like that makes her feel ill at ease. What should she do? One possibility is to do the research and find out which formula best suits her needs. Another is to decide that it is better, in her case, to be honest andto appear sincere- than to be correct. She could write:
Je vous prierais de croire a quelque chose si je connaissais mieux les regles du bon usage en France, mais pour l'instant je ne peux que vous remercier sincerement de votre aide.
I would beg you to believe in somehing if I were better acquainted with the rules of usage in your country, but for now I can only thank you very sincerely for your help.
Here are some additional facts about communicative competence:
We do not know the relative contributions of each feature of communicative competence.
Communicative competence is domain-specific.
Communicative effectiveness is not the same thing as grammatical competence.
References:
Canale, M. & M.Swain. 1980
Danesi, M.1996. Teen talk: what are the implications for second-language teaching? Mosaic 3(4): 1-10.
Gee, J. 1990. Social Linguistics and Literacies.
Hymes, D.
Savignon, S. 1997. Communicative Competence: Theory and Classroom Practice, Second Edition. New York, NY: McGrawHill.
Scollon, R & S.W.Scollon. 1995. Intercultural Communication: A Discourse Approach. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.
Back to Top