linguistic competence and communicatiove competence语言能力和交际能力

霍佳漩

12835008

From Linguistic Competence to

Communicative Competence

Introduction

Linguistic

competence

and

communicative

competence

are

closely

related

and

distinguished

with

each

other.

Communicative

competence

contains

the

linguistic

competence, and linguistic competence is the basis of the communicative competence.

The

communicative

competence

without

linguistic

competence

iscompletelyimpossibleinpractice; the linguistic competence is a pile of rules without

practical application. Thus the primary goal of the foreign language teaching should

be

cultivating

the

linguistic

competence

in

order

to

achieve

the

ultimate

goal

of

cultivating the communicative competence of the language learners.

Linguistic Competence

Linguistic competence, which is put forward by Noam Chomsky (1928), refers

to the knowledge of a language system. It is a language user’s underlying knowledge

about

the

system

of

rules.

To

acquire

this

competence

is

to

obtain

the

ability

of

recognizing

and

producing

acceptable

grammatical

sentences

in

language.

But

this

competence

is

an

idealization,

it

is

the

knowledge

of

the

“ideal

speaker

-listener

operating

with

a

completely

homogeneous

speech

community,

who

knows

its

language

perfectly

and

is

unaffected

by

such

grammatical

irrelevant

conditions

as

memory limitations, distractions, shift of attention and interest and errors in applying

his knowledge of the language in actual performance” (

Hymes, 1972). It is necessary

but

not

far

from

sufficient

for

a

language

user

to

communicate

with

others

successfully in a speech community.

Communicative competence

It

is

an

obvious

fact

that

any

foreign

language

teaching/learning

program

is

aimed to make its learners competent enough to use the target language for effective

the early 70s, the term

“communicative competence”

was

coined

by

Dell

Hymes

(1972),

a

sociolinguist

who

was

believed

that

the

linguistic

competence is too limited. Then the communicative competence is “the aspect of our

1

霍佳漩

12835008

competence

that

enables

us

to

convey

and

interpret

messages

and

to

negotiate

meanings interpersonally with specific context (Brown, 2002).” Michael Canale and

Merrill

Swain

(1980)

suggested

that

four

different

subcategories,

grammatical

competence, discourse competence, sociolinguistic competence, strategic competence,

make

up

the

construct

of

communicative

competence.

The

first

two

competences

reflect

the

use

of

linguistic

system

itself.

It

is

suggested

that

the

communicative

competence encompasses the linguistic competence.

The relationship between the two competences

The

communicative

competence

theory

suggests

that

a

good

mastery

of

grammar is far enough to make an appropriate language use in a real social context,

and the language learners should not only stay in the stage of linguistic competence,

but also need to struggle for the development of communicative competence. A good

example

is

the

sentence

“Colorless

green

ideas

sleep

furiously.”

This

sentence

is

grammatically

possible,

and

idiomatically

feasible,

but

semantically

either

inappropriate or

absurd,

and practically

rarely, if not

never, used in

a

real

language

interaction situation (Brumfit, 2000).

So

are

these

two

competences

incompatible?

Brumfit

gives

us

a

diagram

to

show the logical relationship between the two competences.

Diagram 1:

CC: communicative competence

LC: linguistic competence

The

diagram

implies

that

some

areas

of

linguistic

competence

are

essentially

irrelevant to the communicative, but in

general,

linguistic competence is

the part of

the

communicative

competence.

Thus

we

can

know

that,

teaching

the

linguistic

competence

will

necessarily

leave

a

large

area

of

the

communicative

competence

untouched.

The

mastery

of

the

linguistic

competence

is

sure

to

enable

a

speaker

to

produce

grammatical

sentences,

but

can

not

sure

to

enable

the

speaker

to

have

the

2