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COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE
DELL HYMES (Socio-linguist)
 Coined this term, ‘communicative competence’ (1967)
 Hymes felt that Chomsky’s competence was too limited
 Quote from his famous article “On Communicative Competence”:
“There are rules of use without which
the rules of grammar would be useless.”
“We have to account for the fact that a
normal child acquires knowledge of
sentences not only as grammatical but
also as appropriate. He or she acquires
competence as to when to speak, when
not, and as to what to talk about with
whom, when, where and in what
manner…”
 Hymes’ Communicative Competence
1.
2.
3.
4.
Whether (and to what degree) something is formally possible.
Whether (and to what degree) something is feasible.
Whether (and to what degree) something is appropriate.
Whether (and to what degree) something is in fact done.
 ETHNOGRAPHY OF SPEAKING
Setting
Participants
Scene
Topic
Purpose
Key
Channel
Code
Norms of interaction
Norms of interpretation
Genre
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CANALE and SWAIN (1980)
4 Components of Communicative Competence
1. Grammatical Competence
2. Discourse Competence
3. Sociolinguistic Competence
4. Strategic Competence
BACHMANN (1990)
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES:
Brown, D. (1994), Principles of Language Learning and Teaching, Prentice Hall
Regents.
Brumfit, C.J. & Johnson, K. (1991), The Communicative Approach to Language
Teaching, Oxford, Oxford University Press.
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