Communicative Competence

UNIT 4 COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE. ANALYSIS OF ITS COMPONENTS

1. INTRODUCTION 2. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK FOR UNDERSTANDING THE CONSTRUCT “COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE” 2.1. The term communicative competence in historical perspective. 2.1. The nature of communication 2.2. Communicative competence and actual communication 3. THE COMPONENTS OF COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE 3.1. Grammatical competence 3.2. Sociolinguistic competence 3.3. Discourse competence 3.4. Strategic competence 4. GUIDING PRINCIPLES FOR A COMMUNICATIVE APPROACH TO FOREIGN LANGUAGE TEACHING 4.1. Coverage of competence areas. 4.2. Communicative needs. 4.3. Interaction. 4.4. Learner’s native language skills. 4.5. Curriculum-wide approach. 5. CONCLUSION

1. INTRODUCTION The aim of this unit is to offer a broad account of the concept of communicative competence, and its importance in society, and especially, in the language teaching community. Firstly we will account for what is considered one of the most adequate theoretical frameworks for the understanding of communicative competence –that developed by Canale and Swain. We will do this by considering first, the nature of communication and we will then move on to consideration of communicative competence versus actual communication. In a following section will deal with the analysis of the different components of communicative competence. Finally, we will outline some pedagogical considerations, trying to analyze how this framework is relevant for foreign language teaching and how it can be integrated in a communicative approach of foreign language teaching. The information we will use is taken from Richards, Halliday, Hymes and Canale. 2. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK FOR UNDERSTANDING THE CONSTRUCT “COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE” 2.1. The term communicative competence in historical perspective. During the past twenty-five years, communicative language teaching has been the dominant approach to the teaching of foreign and second languages. Much of its importance is due to the sociolinguist Dell Hymes (1972) who developed the notion of communicative competence in a series of articles. Hymes was convinced that Chosky’s (1965) notion of linguistic competence was too narrow. N. Chomsky’s Aspects of the Theory of Syntax emphasised the distinction between competence and performance. He defines competence as a speaker’s intuitive knowledge of the rules of language and performance as the actual message produced by applying those rules. Instead, Hymes

defines this notion not only in terms of grammatical competence, but also in terms of the knowledge of the appropriateness of the message to the context of communication. 2.1. The nature of communication The construct communicative competence presupposes a model of communication due to the fact that it is a concept basic to understanding social interaction. For Canale, communication is understood as the exchange and negotiation of information between at least two individuals through the use of verbal and non-verbal symbols, oral and written. Furthermore, as pointed out by Haley (1963) and others, such information is never permanently worked out nor fixed but it is constantly changing and qualified by such factors as further information, context of communication, choice of language forms, and non-verbal behaviour. In this sense, communication involves the continuous evaluation and negotiation of meaning on the part of the participants. Finally, it is assumed that authentic communication involves a “reduction of uncertainty” on behalf of the participants. Following Widdowson (1978) the nature of this communication process is understood to have general characteristics: - it is a form of social interaction - it involves a high degree of unpredictability and creativity. - it takes place in discourse and sociocultural contex. - it is carried out under limiting psychological and other conditions such as memory constraints, fatigue and distractions. - it always has a purpose (to establish social relations, to persuade, etc) - it involves authentic, as opposed to text book-contrived language

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it is judged as successful or not on the basis of actual outcome.

2.2. Communicative competence and actual communication In Canale and Swain (1980), communicative competence is understood as the underlying system of knowledge and skill required for communication (eg. knowledge of vocabulary and skill in using the sociolinguistic conventions for a given language). Furthermore, in Canale (1983) a distinction is drawn between communicative competence and actual communication – the realization of such knowledge and skill under limiting psychological and environmental conditions such as memory and perceptual constraints, fatigue, nervousness, distractions and interfering background noises. It is important to stress that communicative competence refers to both knowledge and skill in using this knowledge when interacting in actual communication. Knowledge would refer to what one knows (consciously or unconsciously) about the language and about other aspects of communicative language use; skill refers to how well one can perform this knowledge in actual communication. Both knowledge and skill underlie actual communication in a systematic and necessary way, and are thus included in communicative competence. Furthermore, this vies is not only consistent with the distinction between communicative competence and actual communication but depends crucially on it; in particular, this notion of skill –how well one can use knowledge in actual situations- requires a distinction between underlying capacities (competence) and their manifestation in concrete situations (actual communication). Now that we have clarified a few important points in relation to the very nature of communication, let us deal with the different subcompetences gathered under communicative competence. It is important to realise that these subcompetences

are laid out in the Spanish curriculum as being relevant to the teaching of a foreign language, and have been adapted from the work by Canale and Swain, (1983). 3. THE COMPONENTS OF COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE The most important study on developing the notion of Communicative Competence from Dell Hymes work has been done by Canale and Swain (1980). Here the notion of communicative competence is divides up into four subcomponents, or areas of knowledge and skill, which have been mentioned before, thus, grammatical, discourse, sociolinguistic and strategic competence are glossed below. Grammatical competence simply refers to the mastery of the language code itself. That is to say, the knowledge of the linguistic signs needed in order to communicate through language. It takes into account the need for the speaker to be able to make correct use of language features such as morphology, syntactics, semantics, phonology and lexis. This aspect is important for students to attain a higher level of proficiency where accuracy is important. Sociolinguistic competence is the appropriate use of utterances in different sociolinguistic contexts. There are different factors that the participants will have to take into account in order to successfully reach that appropriateness: the status of the participants, the purpose of the interaction and the different norms and conventions shared between the people involved in the exchange will have to be taken into account. They will also need to show appropriateness of meaning (eg. communicative functions, different ideas or attitudes which are proper in a given situations, like inviting or commanding) and form (proper verbal and non-verbal forms in a sociolinguistic context). This competence is particularly difficult to achieve as the skilled use of appropriate registers requires sensitivity to cross-cultural

differences. So going beyond the sociolinguistic use of the language, we have the sociocultural subcompetence: This is the degree of familiarity with the cultural and social context in which a language is used. The speaker must also know the different norms of conversation that are used by native speakers. Discourse competence refers to the mastery of how to combine grammatical forms and meanings to achieve a unified spoken or written text in different genres or types of text (a scientific paper, an argumentative essay, and oral and written narrative among others) according to the purpose of the communicative exchange and the interlocutors involved. The unity of a text is achieved through cohesion in form and coherence in meaning. It points to how the different utterances are linked structurally and how they must be understood as a text. Strategic competence is referred to the mastery of verbal and non-verbal communicative strategies to solve problems during communication. The main goal to attain with this competence is first, to compensate for breakdown in communication, and secondly, to enhance the effectiveness of communication. To initiate, terminate, maintain, repair, and redirect communication may be achieved by paraphrase, circumlocution, repetition, hesitation, avoidance, guessing as well as shifts in register and style. With the changes to the curriculum, as established by Royal Decree 937/2001 3rd August, we can find the addition of Linguistic Competence which deals with syntax, morphology and semantics. 4. GUIDING PRINCIPLES FOR A COMMUNICATIVE APPROACH TO FOREIGN LANGUAGE TEACHING The theoretical framework presented in this unit can be applied to foreign language teaching through a communicative approach. Today, Communicative Competence is the central aim of foreign and second language teaching, providing a number of

suggestions as to how teacher can give students optimum frameworks for acquiring a good communicative competence. Canale (1983) presents five principles that would guide this communicative teaching approach, especially relevant for the present discussion: Coverage of competence areas. Communication is intended to involve the integration of the four areas of knowledge and skills mentioned before. There is no evidence for the analysis that grammatical competence is any more or less crucial to successful communication than the other subcompetences. The primary goal of a communicative approach must be to facilitate the integration of these types of competence for the learner. Communicative needs. A communicative approach must be based on and respond to the learner’s (often changing) communication needs and interests. These must be specified with respect to all the subcompetences. There is an emphasis on fluency rather on linguistic accuracy, since learners need many different opportunities to communicate without having to concentrate on structure and form. Interaction. There is an emphasis on authentic and meaningful communication which should be the goal of classroom activities. Learners need to have opportunities to take part in realistic communicative situations. Learner’s native language skills. The use of native language skills is essential in early stages. More arbitrary/less universal features in L2 must be practiced in less arbitrary/more universal contexts. Learning is view as a process of creative construction which involves testing and error. Students should be tested in communicative interactions rather than in particular areas of competence. Curriculum-wide approach. The primary objective of a communication-oriented foreign language programme must be to provide the learner with information, practice and much of the experience needed to meet their communication needs in the

second language. In addition, learners should be taught about language and about the foreign language culture. It is believed that such a curriculum-wide approach may facilitate a natural integration of knowledge of the second language, knowledge of the second language culture and knowledge of language in general. 5. CONCLUSION As we have seen, reaching communicative competence is the main aim of language teaching, and it is laid out as such in the curriculum. For over twenty five years, many researchers have concentrated on the development of the notion of communicative competence. Theories of this type imply that teachers must do more than just supply learners with a number of language structures to manipulate, that foreign language teachers must focus on the sociolinguistic and cultural aspects of language for students to be familiar with. Therefore matching what is taught in the classroom and what they will find outside is of utmost importance. This means that language teaching has to place the students in different communicative situations, the kinds of which they could find in day to day life.