Introduction In recent years, there was a growing demand for more and more communication; many facilities were made in this field in order to enable people from different cultures to easily interact with each other, thanks to technological advancements. This present chapter provides a clear overview of the concepts of communicative and pragmatic competence with all its components. Also, it accounts for cross-cultural communication and its different aspects.
1. 1. Communicative Competence The notion of communicative competence was first introduced by Hymes in the 1970’s as a reaction to Chomsky’s idealized linguistic competence. According to Chomsky, competence is the speaker-hearer’s knowledge of a language while performance means the actual use of the language in authentic situations (Hymes, 1965:4). However, Chomsky’s distinction was hardly criticized for …show more content…
In other words, it refers to the ability to produce socially and culturally appropriate utterances (including what to say in what context as well as what not to say, how to speak in one context as opposed to another). In the same light, Bachman (1990: 94) states that sociolinguistic competence refers to “the sensitivity to or control of the specific language context”. Similarly, Canale and Swain (1980, 30) admit that sociolinguistic competence refers to the knowledge of socicultural rules of use and rules of discourse that are needed in interpreting utterances. Therefore, the language user has to choose the appropriate language to be used taking into consideration the context of conversation and social relationships between the participants. For example, when talking to a teacher it is appropriate to use a formal language and less formal one when talking to a
1. 1. Communicative Competence The notion of communicative competence was first introduced by Hymes in the 1970’s as a reaction to Chomsky’s idealized linguistic competence. According to Chomsky, competence is the speaker-hearer’s knowledge of a language while performance means the actual use of the language in authentic situations (Hymes, 1965:4). However, Chomsky’s distinction was hardly criticized for …show more content…
In other words, it refers to the ability to produce socially and culturally appropriate utterances (including what to say in what context as well as what not to say, how to speak in one context as opposed to another). In the same light, Bachman (1990: 94) states that sociolinguistic competence refers to “the sensitivity to or control of the specific language context”. Similarly, Canale and Swain (1980, 30) admit that sociolinguistic competence refers to the knowledge of socicultural rules of use and rules of discourse that are needed in interpreting utterances. Therefore, the language user has to choose the appropriate language to be used taking into consideration the context of conversation and social relationships between the participants. For example, when talking to a teacher it is appropriate to use a formal language and less formal one when talking to a