COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE, p. 246-249
The term communicative competence was coined by Hymes (1967, 1972) because he was convinced
Chomsky’s (1965) notion of competence was too limited. According to Hymes, Chomsky’s theories about a
child’s language development at age 3 or 4 did not account for all the social and functional rules of language.
Hymes referred to communicative competence as that aspect of our competence (ability) that enables us
to convey and interpret messages and to negotiate meanings interpersonally within specific contexts.
Savignon (1983) noted that communicative competence is relative and depends on the cooperation of all
the participants involved; it is an interpersonal construct that is dynamic and can only be examined by means of
the overt performance of two or more individuals in the process of communicating. This contrasts with the
intrapersonal view of communicative competence from Chomsky’s early writings.
Research by Hymes (1967) and Paulston (1974) focused on differentiating between linguistic
competence and communicative competence to highlight the difference between knowledge “about” language
forms and knowledge that enables a person to communicate functionally and interactively.
In the 1980s, Canale and Swain (1983) developed a four-part construct of communicative competence.
Their model is considered the reference point for virtually all discussions of communicative competence in
regards to second language teaching.
1. Grammatical competence – sentence-level grammar

encompasses “knowledge of lexical items and of rules of morphology, syntax, sentencegrammar semantics, and phonology” (Canale & Swain, 1980, p. 29)

competence associated with mastering the linguistic code of a language

the “linguistic” competence of Hymes (1967) and Paulston (1974) → knowledge about
language forms
2. Discourse competence – intersentential relationships

complement of grammatical competence

ability to connect sentences into stretches of discourse and to form a meaningful whole out of
a series of utterances

discourse includes everything from simple spoken conversation to lengthy written texts
3. Sociolinguistic competence – cross-cultural communication

the knowledge of the sociocultural rules of language and discourse

requires an understanding of the social context in which language is used: roles of
participants, information they share, function of the interaction
4. Strategic competence – communication enhancement

exceedingly complex construct

Canale and Swain (1980, p. 30) – “the verbal and nonverbal communication strategies that
may be called into action to compensate for breakdowns in communication due to
performance variables or due to insufficient competence”

Savignon (1983, p. 40) – “the strategies that one uses to compensate for imperfect knowledge
of rules – or limiting factors in their application such as fatigue, distraction, and inattention”

the competence underlying our ability to make repairs, to cope with imperfect knowledge,
and to sustain communication through “paraphrase, circumlocution, repetition, hesitation,
avoidance, and guessing, as well as shifts in register and style” (Savignon, 1983, p. 40-41)

Canale and Swain (1980) was followed by Swain (1983), who amended the earlier notion of
strategic competence to include “communication strategies that may be called into action
either to enhance the effectiveness of communication or to compensate for breakdowns” (p.
189).

Yule and Tarone (1990) defined strategic competence as “an ability to select an effective
means of performing a communicative act that enables the listener/reader to identify the
intended referent” (p. 181).

Strategic competence is the way we manipulate language in order to meet communicative
goals.
Bachman (1990) developed an updated version of Canale and Swain’s (1980) original description of
communicative competence called “language competence.” Bachman’s model is divided into organizational
competence and pragmatic competence. Organizational competence includes categories for grammatical and
textual competence, and pragmatic competence includes categories of illocutionary competence and
sociolinguistic competence.
LANGUAGE FUNCTIONS, p. 248-253
Functions are essentially the purposes that we accomplish with language, e.g., stating, requesting,
responding, greeting, parting, etc. Functions cannot be accomplished without the forms of language:
morphemes, words, grammar rules, discourse rules, and other organizational competencies. While forms are the
outward manifestation of language, functions are the realizations of those forms.
Functions are sometimes directly related to forms. “How much does that cost?” is usually a form
functioning as a question, and, “He bought a car,” functions as a statement. However, linguistic forms can be
ambiguous in their function. Tone, pitch, volume, intonation and other paralinguistic features affect the
listener’s interpretation of an utterance. For example, if someone asks, “Have you seen my keys?” a reply of,
“Check your purse,” can function as a statement or a question depending on the speaker’s intonation.
Austin (1962) described language functions as speech acts. Locutionary acts are statements made by
speakers; illocutionary acts are the speaker’s intentions or meaning in making a locutionary act; and
perlocutionary acts are the effects of a locutionary act and refer to what the hearer does as a result of listening to
the speaker.
The functional approach to describing language has its roots in the early 20th-century writings of British
linguist Firth, who viewed language as interactive and interpersonal. The best exposition of the functions of
language was published by Halliday (1973), who used “language functions” to refer to the purposive nature of
communication. He outlined seven different language functions:
1. Instrumental – serves to manipulate the environment, to cause certain events to happen; they have a
specific perlocutionary force; they bring about a particular condition: This court finds you guilty.
Don’t touch the stove.
2. Regulatory – the control of events, the maintenance of power; the regulations of encounters among
people: approval, disapproval, behavior control, setting laws and rules: Upon good behavior, you
will be eligible for parole in 10 months.
3. Representational – the use of language to make statements, convey facts and knowledge, explain, or
report, i.e., to “represent” reality as one sees it: The sun is hot. The president gave a speech last
night.
4. Interactional – serves to ensure social maintenance (includes Malinowski’s notion of “phatic
communication”); successful interactional communication requires knowledge of slang, jargon,
jokes, folklore, cultural mores, politeness and formality expectations, and other keys to social
exchange.
5. Personal – allows a speaker to express feelings, emotions, personality, “gut-level” reactions,
expressions of individuality; in the personal nature of language, cognition, affect, and culture all
interact.
6. Heuristic – involves language used to acquire knowledge, to learn about the environment; often
conveyed in the form of questions that will lead to answers
7. Imaginative – serves to create imaginary systems or ideas that go beyond reality: fairy tales, jokes,
puns, literature, etc.
The seven functions of language can overlap, and an utterance can fall into more than one category.
Knowledge about how linguistic forms are used to achieve a certain function is the key to successful
second language acquisition.
Halliday’s examination of language functions had a major impact on second language teaching during
the end of the 20th century. Curricula were organized around such functions as identifying, reporting, denying,
declining an invitation, asking permission, apologizing, etc. Functional syllabuses are still in use today in
modified forms; however, most current syllabuses focus on contextual use of language to help learners better
internalize both form and function for authentic communication in real world situations.
STYLES AND REGISTERS, p. 260-262
Another important issue in describing communicative competence is 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. A style is not a social or regional dialect but a variety of
language used for a specific purpose. Styles vary considerably within a single language user’s idiolect (the
speech habits peculiar to a particular person), and as a native speaker matures, he or she learns the sociocultural
rules governing the use of different styles in different situations. Adult second language learners must acquire
stylistic adaptability in order to be able to encode and decode the discourse around them correctly.
Joos (1967) provided one of the most common classifications of speech styles using the criterion of
formality, which tends to subsume subject matter, audience, and occasion. Joos described five levels of
formality:
1. Oratorical – 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 – also used in addressing audiences, usually audiences too large to permit effective
interchange between speaker and hearers, although the forms are normally not as polished as those in
an oratorical style, e.g., a typical university classroom lecture is often carried out in a deliberative
style
3. Consultative – typically a dialogue, though formal enough that words are chosen with some care,
e.g., business transactions, doctor-patient conversations, etc.
4. Casual – style used between friends or colleagues or sometimes members of a family; words need
not be guarded, and social barriers are moderately low
5. Intimate – characterized by a complete absence of social inhibitions, e.g., talk with family, loved
ones, and very close friends where the inner self is revealed
Categories of style can apply to written discourse as well as spoken discourse. Most writing is addressed
to readers who cannot respond immediately; that is, long stretches of discourse – books, essays, even letters –
are read from beginning to end before the reader gives a response. Written style is therefore usually more
deliberative with the exception of friendly letters, notes, or literature intended to capture a more personal style.
Even the latter, however, often carry with them reasonably carefully chosen wording with relatively few
performance variables.
Styles are manifested by both verbal and nonverbal features. Differences in styles can be conveyed in
body language, gestures, eye contact, and the like – all very difficult aspects of “language” for the learner to
acquire. Verbal aspects of style are difficult enough to learn. Syntax in many languages is characterized by
contractions and other deletions in intimate and casual styles. Lexical items vary, too. Style distinctions in
pronunciation are likely to be most noticeable in the form of hesitations and other misarticulations, phonological
deletion rules in informal speech, and perhaps a more affected pronunciation in formal language.
Related to stylistic variation is another factor called register, sometimes incorrectly used as a synonym
for style. Registers are commonly identified by certain phonological variants, vocabulary, idioms, and other
expressions that are associated with different occupational or socioeconomic groups. Registers sometimes
enable people to identify with a particular group and to maintain solidarity. Colleagues in the same occupation
or profession will use certain jargon to communicate with each other, for example. Register is also sometimes
associated with social class distinctions, but here the line between register and dialect is difficult to define.
The acquisition of styles and registers poses no simple problem for second language learners. Crosscultural variation is a primary barrier – that is, understanding cognitively and affectively what levels of
formality are appropriate or inappropriate. For example, North American culture generally tends to accept more
informal styles for given occasions than some other cultures. Therefore, the acquisition of both styles and
registers combines a linguistic and culture-learning process.
DOMAINS TO INCLUDE IN A THEORY OF SLA, p. 272-277
The complex task of building a theory of second language acquisition should include information from
various domains. A theory of SLA is really an interrelated set of hypotheses and/or claims about how people
become proficient in a second language.
Yorio (1976) created a taxonomy of learner variables that should be considered when developing a
theory of SLA: age, cognition, native language, input, affective domain, and educational background.
Brown (2000) described nine domains that should be considered:
1. What is language, learning, teaching?

A theory of SLA includes an understanding, in general, of what language is, what learning is,
and for classroom contexts, what teaching is.
2. First language acquisition

Knowledge of children’s learning of their first language provides essential insights to an
understanding of SLA.
3. Child-adult differences

However, a number of important differences between adult and child learning and between
first and second language acquisition must be carefully accounted for.
4. SLA’s connections to human learning and intelligence

Second language learning is part of and adheres to general principles of human learning and
intelligence.
5. Individual cognitive and strategy-choice differences

There is tremendous variation across learners in cognitive style and within a learner in
strategy choice.
6. Personality

Personality, the way people view themselves and reveal themselves in communication, will
affect both the quantity and quality of second language learning.
7. Culture

Learning a second culture is often intricately intertwined with learning a second language.
8. Interference and interlanguage systems

The linguistic contrasts between the native and target language form one source of difficulty
in learning a second language, but the creative process of forming an interlanguage system
involves the learner in utilizing many facilitative sources and resources. Inevitable aspects of
this process are errors, from which learners and teachers can gain further insight.
9. Communicative competence

Communicative competence, with all of its subcategories, is the ultimate goal of learners as
they deal with function, discourse, register, and nonverbal aspects of human interaction and
linguistic negotiation.
However general those nine statements are, they, along with taxonomies such as Yorio’s, constitute a
framework for a theory of SLA. No single component of a theory of SLA is sufficient alone – the interaction
and interdependence of the other components is necessary for theory-building.
KRASHEN’S INPUT HYPOTHESIS, p. 277-281
One of the most controversial theoretical perspectives in SLA in the last quarter of the 20th century was
offered by Krashen (1977, 1981, 1982, 1985, 1992, 1993, 1997) in a host of articles and books. Krashen’s
hypotheses have had a number of different names. In the earlier years, the “Monitor Model” and the
“Acquisition Learning Hypothesis” were more popular terms; in recent years the “Input Hypothesis” has come
to identify what is really a set of five interrelated hypotheses:
1. The Acquisition-Learning Hypothesis – Learners internalize language information in two ways:
acquisition and learning. Krashen claims acquisition is subconscious and learning is conscious, and acquisition
is preferable to formal learning since acquisition is how a child naturally learns his or her first language.
Learning is when language learners attend to form, figure out rules, and are generally aware of their own
process of second language acquisition. Formal learning cannot become natural acquisition.
2. The Monitor Hypothesis – The “monitor” is involved in learning, not in acquisition. It is a device for
editing and making alterations or corrections as they are consciously perceived. Learners should not use
monitoring until they have reached fluency. (Over-monitors speak too little since they are too aware of their
language use, so their utterances are few but are mostly correct; under-monitors speak too frequently, but their
utterances are often incorrect.)
3. The Natural Order Hypothesis – Krashen claims we acquire language rules in a predictable or
“natural” order.
4. The Input Hypothesis – Krashen’s claim that a learner must receive input that is at i+1 level, that is,
just a bit beyond what he or she already comprehends. The language that learners are exposed to should be just
far enough beyond their current competence that they can understand most of it but still be challenged to make
progress. A related concept is that input should neither be so far beyond their reach that they are overwhelmed
(this might be, say, i+2), nor so close to their current stage that they are not challenged at all (i+0). Another
important aspect of the Input Hypothesis is that speaking should not be taught directly or very early in the
language classroom. Speech will “emerge” following a silent period once the acquirer has built up enough
comprehensible input (i+1).
5. The Affective Filter Hypothesis – The best acquisition will occur in environments where anxiety is
low and defensiveness absent, or in Krashen’s terms, in contexts where the “affective filter” is low (little
interference from emotions).
Many teachers find Krashen’s hypotheses appealing, but SLA is not as simple of a concept as Krashen
claims, and therefore his assumptions have been hotly disputed.
McLaughlin (1978, 1990) is psychologist who sharply criticized Krashen’s rather fuzzy distinctions
between subconscious (acquisition) and conscious (learning) processes. McLaughlin said that a theory of SLA
that relies on a conscious/subconscious distinction is greatly weakened by scholars’ inability to identify just
what the distinction is between those two mental states.
Gregg (1984) argued that there is no way to prove there is no interaction between subconscious
acquisition and conscious learning of forms and functions as Krashen claims. The two are on a continuum, not
two ends of a dichotomy. Numerous scholars found that Krashen’s “zero option” of never teaching grammar is
not supported by the literature: Swain (1998), Doughty and Williams (1998), Buczowska and Weist (1991),
Doughty (1991), Ellis (1990), Lightbown and Spada (1990), Long (1983, 1988).
Critics also doubt that success in a foreign language can be attributed to input alone. Such a theory gives
learners very little credit and underplays their use of strategies to be actively involved in their SLA process.
Also, Krashen is not very clear on how input (what the learner receives in the second language) becomes intake
(the input that gets assigned in long-term memory). Krashen says input becomes intake through a learner’s
process of linking forms to meaning and noticing “gaps” between the learner’s current internalized rule system
and the new input. However, the process is not clearly defined, so Krashen’s theory leaves learners at the mercy
of the input that others offer.
Finally, Krashen’s notion of teaching i+1 is not a new idea. Ausubel’s meaningful learning is similar in
that learners need to receive input that is relatable to existing cognitive structures, neither too far beyond the
structures (i+2) nor the existing structures themselves (i+0). Krashen presents his i+1 formula as if it were
possible to define a learner’s level i and what his or her i+1 would need to be; Gregg (1984), White (1987) and
others have pointed out that this is not possible. Also, the notion that speech will “emerge” in a context of
comprehensible input fails to explain how to help students who are unable to use the second language and
whose “silent period” might last forever.
Despite these criticisms, Krashen’s innatist model of SLA has had wide appeal to teachers who want
something simple and concrete on which to base their methodology. On the surface, Krashen’s claims seem to
reflect accepted principles in SLA, but in their oversimplicity, the claims have been exaggerated and are no
longer valid ways to describe SLA.
IMPLICIT AND EXPLICIT LINGUISTIC KNOWLEDGE FOUND IN MODELS
OF SLA, p. 285-286
Explicit knowledge refers to the facts that a person knows about language and the ability to articulate
those facts in some way.
Implicit knowledge is the information that is automatically and spontaneously used in language tasks.
For example, children implicitly learn phonological, syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic rules for language, but
they do not have access to an explanation to explicitly describe those rules. Implicit processes enable a learner
to perform language but not necessarily to cite the rules governing the performance.
Several models of SLA have been proposed using the implicit/explicit distinction.
1. Bialystok (1978) – Both implicit and explicit processing are central to the total act of learning a
second language. Her diagrammatic conception of SLA shows formal practicing and inferencing as having an
effect on implicit and explicit linguistic knowledge. She links strategies and processes in a flow cahrt, with
implicit linguistic knowledge subsuming the processes of linguistic output and explicit linguistic knowledge as
subsuming the strategies used for that linguistic output. Bialystok (1982) later equated implicit and explicit with
the synonymous terms unanalyzed and analyzed knowledge. Unanalyzed knowledge is the most general form in
which learners know things without being aware of the structure of that knowledge. At the other end of the
spectrum, learners are overtly aware of the structure of analyzed knowledge .
2. Automaticity – The implicit/explicit models feature a distinction between automatic and nonautomatic processing, building on McLaughlin’s conception of automaticity (McLaughlin, 1978; McLaughlin,
Rossman, & McLeod, 1983; McLeod & McLaughlin, 1986; McLaughlin, 1987, 1990). Automaticity refers to
the learner’s relative access to the knowledge. Knowledge that can be retrieved easily and quickly is automatic;
knowledge that takes time and effort to retrieve is non-automatic. Both automatic and non-automatic forms of
attention can be analyzed or unanalyzed. An important dimension of this distinction is time since processing
time is a significant factor in second language performance, one that has pedagogical implications in the
classroom. The length of time that a learner takes before oral production performance, for example, can be
indicative of the perceived complexity of certain language forms in a task.
An example of the practical application of implicit/explicit models is the work of Ellis (1994, 1997) and
Han and Ellis (1998), who proposed a theory of classroom instruction using implicit/explicit continua. Ellis
provides suggestions for grammar consciousness raising, for example, in which some explicit attention to
language form is blended with implicit communicative tasks.
HSIAO & OXFORD’S (2002) FORMULATION OF HYPOTHESIS 6
Conclusion: Oxford’s 6 strategies
are accurate although there could
be other statistical approaches
needed to better analyze their data.
Results showed that students use
the 6 strategies without needing to
place them into direct/indirect
categories
Based on Oxford’s 6 strategies
from the charts from the book but
without the direct/indirect
distinction