Chapter 8: Communicative Competence

Chapter 8: Communicative Competence

1. (1) Defining Communicative Competence (CC)

   • Coined by Dell Hymes (1972)
     • Refers to our competence that enables to convey/interpret/negotiate any messages within contexts.
   • Proposed by James Cummins (1979,1980)
     • Basic interpersonal communicative skills. (BICS ) also known as context-embedded
       • Communicative capacity we use in daily lives for interpersonal exchanges.
       • Language used in friendly/casual exchanges
         • informal settings
         • often with friends/peers
         • Slang/conversational metaphors
           • Ex: (a) Hey what's wrong? Are you ok? (b) Nothing...I'm fine or (a) Eat my dust, loser!
     • Cognitive/academic language proficiency (CALP) also known as context-reduced
       • More sophisticated or formal usage of language.
         • Eamples
           • Manage classrooms ("Please be seated!", "Ali come to the front and write down you answer."
           • Convey information academically ("The following data analysis indicated that....")
           • Frame test questions like objective questions ('According to the reading passage, do you feel John is (a) guilty (b) innocent? Choose (a) or (b).
           • Engage in classroom discourse ('I see you poijnt, but I think...")

2. (2) Canale and Swain' Framework (1980)

   • Four components in relation to CC
     • 1. Grammatical Competence
       • Knowledge of lexical items (rules of morphology, syntaxm sentence-grammar semantics and phonology.)
     • 2. Discourse Competence
       • Ability to connect sentences in stretches of discourse and to form a meaningful utterances. (articles,books,journals)
     • Sociolinguistic competence
       • ability to follow sociocultural rules of language. Understand social context, participants' roles, interactions
     • Strategic Competence
       • Ability to use verbal/nonverbal communicative techniques.
         • Manipulate the language in order to meet our communication goals. Ex: politicians, salesperson.

3. (3) Later Modifications of CC Models

   • Lyle Bachman (1990)
     • Language Competence (with strategic competence as an 'executive function)
       • (A) Organization Competence
         • 1.Grammatical Competence
         • 2. Discourse Competence)
       • (B) Pragmatic Competence
         • 3. Illocutionary (Functions of language)
         • 4. Sociolinguistics

4. (4) Language Functions

   • Functions and Forms work hand in hand
     • Functions: The purposes that we accomplish with language eg: stating, requesting, greeting etc
     • Forms: morphemes, words, grammar rules, discourse rules
   • Speech Acts / Communicative Acts
     • An utterance defined by the speaker's intention and the effect it has on the listener
     • 6 Components of Speech Acts (Hymes 1974)
       • 1. Sender 2. Message Channel 3. Language form 4. topic 5. receiver 6. context
     • 3 different meanings of Speech Acts (Austin 1962)
       • Locutionary Meaning
         • Basic or literal meaning of utterances/written texts
       • Illocutionary Force
         • The intended effect on the hearer/reader
       • Prelocutionary Force
         • The actual effect the utterance has on the hearer

5. (5) Halliday's 7 Functions of Language (Micheal Halliday 1973)

   • -These functions overlaps  -Narrowed down to  1. Apologizing and thanking 2.Complaning politely 3. Confirming and correcting 4. Expressing a wish; making suggestions 5. Giving advice 6. Giving commands 7. Making small talk
   • 1. Instrumental
   • 2. Regulatory
   • 3. Representational
   • 4. Interactional
   • 5. Personal
   • 6. Heuristic
   • 7. Imaginative

6. (6) Functional Approaches to Language Teaching

   • Notional-Functional Syllabuses / Functional Syllabuses
     • 1. Introducing self and other people 2. Providing personal information 3. Identifying and describing people 4. Acceptiing and declining an invitation 5. Ordering from a menu 6. Giving directions 7. Booking travel services
     • Eclectic blend of interactive group work, grammar, vocab, pronunciation, listening, writing

7. Corpus Analysis

   • Linguistics research that utilizes computer analyses of language

8. Nonverbal Communication

   • Kinesics
     • Body movements and gestures regarded as a form of non-verbal communication
       • Shoulder shrug
         • Shows that a person does not know or understand what you are talking about
       • Rubbing thumb and index finger
         • signs of money
   • Eye Contact
     • Oculesics
       • The study of eye movement, eye behavior, gaze, and eye-related nonverbal communication
   • Facial Expressions
     • One or more motions or positions of the muscles beneath the skin of the face which convey the emotional state of an individual.
   • Proxemics
     • The branch of knowledge that deals with the amount of space that people feel it necessary to set between themselves and others.
   • Artifacts
     • clothing, jewellery & ornamentation signals a person's sense of Self-Esteem, Socioeconomic Class & Character.
     • a significant factor in lifting barrier, identifying certain personality characteristics.
   • Kinesthetics
     • also called Haptics, signals a very personal or intimate style (in some cultures)!
       • Knowing the limits is important for clear & unambiguous communication!
   • Olfactory Dimensions
     • natural human odors; perspiration is deemed undesirable!
       • accepted or even attractive in some societies.

9. INTERACTIONAL COMPETENCE

   • Participation Framework
   • Register
   • Speech Act
   • Selection of forms in Modes of Meaning
   • Turn-Taking
   • Repair
   • Boundaries

10. DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

    • Interaction between form and function
    • String of words that extends beyonds the sentence.

11. CONVERSATION ANALYSIS

    • Attention Getting
    • Topic Nomination
    • Turn-Taking
    • Topic Clarification
    • Repair
    • Shifting,Avoiding & Interrupting
    • Topic Termination

12. STYLES

    • Oratorical
    • Deliberative
    • Consultative
    • Casual
    • Intimate/Personal

13. WRITTEN DISCOURSE: Intercultural Rhetoric

    • Constrastive Rhetoric
    • Intercultural Rhetoric

14. PRAGMATICS

15. SOCIOPRAGMATICS & PRAGMALINGUISTIC

    • Sociopragmatic
      • Interface between pragmatic & social organization
    • pragmalinguistic
    • Address
    • Apologizing, complimenting, face-saving
    • Expressing Gratitude
    • Cooperation
    • Politeness

16. Language and Gender

    • Sexist language
      • Language demeaning to one gender
    • Man vs Woman

17. CLT - Communicative Language Teaching

    • Best understood as an Approach, broadly based theoratical positions about the nature of language & of language learning & teaching.
    • serves a useful function as an UMBRELLA term to capture the essence of classroom methodological approach designed to improve students ability to communicate.
    • 4 Interconnected Characteristics of CLT
      • Classroom goals are focused on all of the components of CC, not restricted to grammatical / linguistic competence
      • Language techniques; engage learner in the pragmatic, authentic, functional use of language for meaningful purpose.
      • fluency & accuracy: complementary principles underlying communicative techniques,
        • fluency can take more importance than accuracy, to keep learners meaningfully engaged in language use.
      • students ultimately have to use language, productively & receptively (in unrehearsed contexts)
    • a great deal of authentic language is implied, as fluence is built (Littlewood, 2011)
    • mushrooming capabilty of technology can come to the aid of teachers to center on "unrehearsed" communicative contexts

18. TBLT - Task Based Language Teaching

    • emphasize classroom interaction, learner-centered teaching, authenticity, learner's own experience is important contributor to learning
    • draws the attention of teachers & learners to tasks in the classroom.
    • TASK
      • an activity or a related set of techniques in which
        • meaning is primary
        • there is a problem to solve
        • a relationship to real-world activities
        • an objective that can be assessed in terms of an outcome
      • Target TASKS - uses of languages in the world beyond the classroom
      • Pedagogical TASKS - those that occurs in the classroom
        • Map-oriented problem solving task
          • teacher-initiated schema setting comment
          • a review of appropriate grammar/vocabulary useful for the task
          • pair/group work to propose & discuss solutions
          • a whole-class reporting procedure
    • urges teachers, to focus on many of the communicative factors
    • in order to accomplish a task,
      • organizational competence
      • illocutionary competence - to convey intended meaning
      • strategic competence - choose linguistic options & repair attempts to communicate
      • interactional competence, pragmatics, nonverbal ability

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