LANGUAGE AND COMMUNICATION

UNIT 5

LANGUAGE AND COMMUNICATION

A.     Knowing a Language

Traditional grammar-translation language teaching, assumed that knowing the rules of a language and being able to use them were one and the same thing. Yet there are many cases where someone knows the rules of a language but is still not a successful communicator. They may, for example, not use the language fast enough or they may understand what is being said and have something to say themselves, but still somehow fail to join in. or perhaps their language seems stilted and old-fashioned, for example, they may say things like ‘whom do you want?’ or it’s raining cats and dogs. Or they may send the wrong kinds of signals with their body and tone of voice, shaking their head instead of nodding it, sounding bored or unfriendly when do not intend to or they may understand the literal meaning of what is said , but not why it is said. They fail to realize that something is a joke, for example, and take offence.

In other words, knowing the grammar and vocabulary of the language, although essential, is one thing being able to put them to use involves other types of knowledge and ability as well.

B.     Linguistic Competence

Despite this rather obvious point, isolating the formal systems of language (i.e. its pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary) either for learning or for analysis, is a useful first step. However, the adoption of traditional language-teaching methods need not imply that this is all that learning a language involves, but only that a sound knowledge of the rules and an accurate, if slow, deployment of them is the basis for further development.

We need to take further account of his ideas because they have been so extraordinarily influential in all areas of language study. A good deal of applied linguistic work has either followed on from them, or defined itself in opposition to them.

Chomsky’s idea is that the human capacity for language, as illustrated by a child’s acquisition of the language  around them, 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 require only minimal exposure to active our connection to the particular language around us rather as a bird learning to fly adapts to the environment outside the nest. In this view, the newborn infant brain already contains a Universal Grammar (UG) which forms the basis of competence in the particular language the child goes on to speak. This linguistic competence is seen as modular, that is to say separate from other mental abilities. In addition, language is separated from other factors involved in its use such as body language or cultural knowledge.

C.     Communicative competence

A Hymes observes, a person who had only linguistic competence would be quite unable to communicate. They would be a kind of social monster producing grammatical sentences unconnected to the situation in which they occur. What is needed for successful communication, Hymes suggest, is four types of knowledge: possibility, feasibility, appropriateness, and attestedness.

Firstly, a communicatively competent speaker knows what is formally possible in a language. i.e. whether an instance conforms to the rules of grammar and pronunciation. Secondly, a communicatively competent person knows what is feasible. This is a psychological concept concerned with limitations to what can be processed by the mind, and is best illustrated by an example. The rules of English grammar make it possible to expand a noun phrase, and make it more specific, by adding a relative clause. A third component of communicative competence is knowledge of appropriateness. This concerns the relationship of language or behavior to context, and as such covers a wide range of phenomena. Its importance is clear if we consider its opposite, inappropriateness. And Hymes’ fourth component of communicative competence is knowledge of attestedness.

D.     The influence of communicative competence

In speech therapy it justified an increased emphasis on social knowledge and skills in addition to deficiencies in grammar and pronunciation. In translation it strengthened the case for seeking an equivalent effect rather than only formal and literal equivalent.

The biggest single influence however, as is so often the case in applied linguistics has been upon the teaching of English as a foreign language. There were a number of contributory factors. Some advocates of the communicative approach found common cause with the so-called ‘natural’ approach and the idea, the foreign-language learner can repeat the child’s acquisition of language through use and exposure alone. In this version of CLT, the emphasis did not really shift away from grammar as the sole yardstick of success, there was just a different route to attaining that end.

In addition, CLT often over-reacted against the past. The new emphasis, mention above, was almost exclusively upon appropriateness, while the other elements of communicative competence received little attention. Focus upon what is possible was rejected as old-fashioned, while the notions of feasibility and attestedness, being more difficult to grasp, had little or no impact.

A typical ‘communicative’ activity might involve simulating the successful ordering of a meal in a restaurant in London or New York, or knowing how to make polite requests and apologies at a party. Communicative competence remains, however, an extremely powerful model for applied linguistics, not only in language teaching but in every area of enquiry. It moves beyond the rarefied atmospheres of theoretical linguistic and traditional language teaching, and while itself also an idealized model, can aid the process of referring linguistic abstraction back to the actually from which it is derived.

It has also contributed to a growing interest in the analysis of language use, not only as a source of examples illustrating an underlying system but also as social action with important effects both at the micro level of personal experience and at the macro level of social change.

Cook, Guy. 2003. Applied Linguistics. Oxford University Press: New york.