Communicative competence

COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE

Presented by :1.SITI SARAH MUHAMMAD SHAFIE (GS32247)2.NOR SHERINA MUSTAFFA (GS 39442 )3.RASYIDAH YAHYA (GS 39443 ) )

Communicative competence

‘That aspect of our competence that enables us to convey and interpret messages and to

negotiate meanings interpersonally within specific contexts’

Hymes (1967)

Defining Communicative Competence

• Pragmatic or sociolinguistic competence • Knowledge necessary to use language in social

context. • Coined by Dell Hymes (1967) In reaction to

Chomsky’s linguistic competence.

Components of CC

Canale & Swain (1983)

Language competence

Language Competence

Organization PragmaticCompetence Competence

Grammatical Textual Illocutionary SociolinguisticCompetence Competence Competence Competence

(Bachman, 1990)

Language functionHalliday (1973)

Language functionHalliday (1973)

CALP & BICS

• Cummins (1979) proposes a distinction between CALP and BICS.

DISCOURSE ANALYSIS•The examination of the relationship between forms and functions of language.•It is the language beyond the sentence. A single sentence can seldom be fully analyzed without considering its context.•In most oral language, our discourse is marked by exchanges with another person or several persons in which a few sentences spoken by one participant are followed and built upon by sentences spoken by another.• Production and comprehension of language are a factor of our ability to perceive and process stretches of discourse, to formulate representations of meaning not just a from a single sentence but from referents in both previous sentences and following sentences.

Consider the following three different exchanges : 1. A : Got the time? B : Ten-fifteen. 2. Waiter : More coffee? Customer : I’m okay 3. Parent : Dinner! Child : Just a minute!

A single sentence sometimes contains certain presuppositions or entailments that are not overtly manifested in surrounding sentence-level surface structure, but that are clear from the total context.

All three of the above conversations contained such presuppositions ( how to ask what time of day it is ; how to say “no more coffee” ; how to announce that dinner is ready and then indicate that one will be there in a minute)

In written language, similar intersentential discourse relations hold true as the writer builds a network of ideas or feelings and the reader interprets them.

Conversation Analysis

Grice’s maxims H.P Grice (1967) once noted that certain conversational

“maxims” enable the speaker to nominate and maintain a topic of conversation :

1. Quantity : Say only as much as is necessary for understanding the communication. 2. Quality : Say only what is true. 3. Relevance : Say only what is relevant. 4. Manner : Must be clear. Grice’s maxims have been widely used as criteria for analyzing

why speakers are sometimes ineffective in conversations, and as suggestions for improvement of ones’s “power” over others through conversation.

PragmaticsPragmatics constraints on language comprehension and production may be loosely thought of as the effect of context on strings of linguistics events. Consider the following conversation :

[Phone rings, a 10-year-old child picks up the phone]Stefanie : Hello.Voice : Hi, Stef,is your Mom there?Stefanie : Just a minute. [Cups the phone and yells] Mom!Phone!Mom : [from upstairs] I’m in the tub!Stefanie : [returning to the phone] She can’t talk now. Wanna leave a message?Voice : Uh, [pause] I’ll call back later. Bye.

Sociopragmatics and Pragmalinguistics

Sociopragmatic : The interface between pragmatics and social organization.Pragmalinguistics : the intersection of pragmatics and linguistics forms.Kasper and Roever (2005), Kasper and Rose (2002), Bardovi- Harlig(1999), Kasper (1998), LoCastro(1997),Turner(1996,1995),Scollon and Scollon(1995), Kasper and Blum-Kulka(1993), Harlow(1990) and Holmes and Brown(1987) have all demonstrated the difficulty of such conventions because of subtle cross-cultural contrasts. Variations in politeness and formality are particularly touchy :

(cont..) American : What an unusual necklace. It’s beautiful! Samoan : Please take it.( Holmes and Brown,1987,p.526) American teacher : Would you like to read? Russian student : No, I would not( Harlow,1990,p.238)

In both cases the nonnative English speakers misunderstood the illocutionary force(intended meaning) of the utterance within the

contexts.

Language and Gender Differences between the way males and females speak :MALES MALES FEMALES FEMALES

Interrupt more than women

Place more value in conversational interactions, on status and report talk

Produce more ‘standard language

Use language that expresses uncertainty(hedges, tag questions, rising intonation

Use stronger expletives, while

the latter use more polite forms

A pattern that continues on adulthood

Suggesting less confidence in what they say

Discourse Styles

In describing Communicative Competence , the way we use language in different styles depending on the context of a communicative act in terms of subject matter, audience, occasion, shared experience, and purpose of communication.

Styles are not social or regional dialects, but sets of conventions for selecting words, phrases, discourse and nonverbal language in specificied contexts

Martin Joos(1967) provided one most common speech styles using the criterion of formality. There are five levels of formality:

1. Oratorical style : used in public speaking before a large audience; wording is carefully planned in advance, intonation is somewhat exaggerated, and numerous rhetorical devices are appropriate.

2. Deliberative style : used in addressing audiences, usually too large audiences to permit effective interchange between speaker and hearers, although the forms are normally not as polished as those in oratorical. A typical university classroom lecture is often carried out in a deliberative style

3. Consultative style : typically a dialog, words are chosen with some care. Business transactions, doctor-patient conversations, and the like are usually consultative in nature

4. Casual style : Typical of conversations between friends or colleagues sometimes members of a family ; in this context words need not be guarded and social barriers are moderately low.

5. Intimate style : One characterized by complete absence of social inhibitions. Talk with family, loved ones, and very close friends, where, the inner self is revealed, is usually in an intimate style.

NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION

• Edward Hall (1959) called it as ‘silent language’.

• Key importance: ‘it is not what you say, but how you say it’.

• To convey message with body language, gestures, eye contact, physical distance, etc.

Types of nonverbal communication

Kinesics

How do you express these statements:

Eye Contact

Proxemics

(con..)

(cont…)

Artifacts

Kinesthetics

Olfactory Dimensions

CC IN THE CALSSROOM :CLT AND TASK-BASED TEACHING

• CLT : Communicative Language Teaching

• CLT is an approach, rather than method (Richards & Rodgers,2001).

• Based on the nature of language and of language learning and teaching.

Four (4) characteristics of CLT:

Task-Based Instruction

(cont…)

• Tasks are a subset of all techniques and activities that one might design for classroom.

• Task-based is designed to equip learners with the communicative language needed to give someone directions.

(cont…)

• May be described as a pedagogical task with a relationship to real- world situations, designed to enable learners to complete the target task of giving directions.

• An approach that urges teachers, in their lesson and curriculum design, to focus on communicative competence.