COMPETENCE AND PERFORMANCE

Competence and performance

Victor Andrés Bello Díaz

Teacher
William Farid Navarro Arroyo

Lingüística

Corporación Universitaria del Caribe – CECAR

Facultad de humanidades y educación
Programa licenciatura en inglés
Modalidad Virtual
Sincelejo
  2022

Competence and performance

 COMPETENCE AND PERFORMANCE

1. Chomsky states the “distinction between competence (the speaker-hearer's

knowledge of his language) and performance (the actual use of language in concrete
situations)” He further states that “Observed use of language cannot constitute the actual
subject matter of linguistics.

a. Based on Chomsky’s definition of competence and performance, describe

how this competence could be evident in an L2 classroom. (You can give examples.)
For Chomsky, linguistic competence helps us to improve our interaction with others
when communicating and in the same way, when we listen to them, thus achieving a good
performance thanks to it, this helps us when teaching in the classroom, because implementing
this competence in the classroom, it allows students to interact and in this same way put into
practice what they have learned, which helps them to function in specific situations, this
competence can be done when teaching classes where students interact and have a topic to talk
about clearly and coherently, either in their language or in a foreign language, thus allowing the
strengthening of said aforementioned competence. (Nebwy, 2011)
b. Give reasons why performance cannot constitute matter of linguistics but
competence can? Cite at least an author
Performance is related to competence, since thanks to this we can evaluate the linguistic
ability of each person, however, although this is essential to know if we are implementing good
linguistics, it cannot constitute linguistics as competence does it since it is only based on
measuring or evaluating if the competences have been acquired, however, it does play a very
important role for linguistics since without it we would not be able to know what we have to
improve or at what level we are, According to Chomsky, competence "is the speaker listeners
knowledge of their language", and performance "is the actual use of language in specific
situations", which suggests that as such competence is what is responsible for obtaining the
linguistic knowledge necessary to be able to communicate and interact with others. (Nebwy,
2011)
 COMPETENCE AND PERFORMANCE

2. “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, in
what manner (Hymes).” What does this sentence mean? And how the idea does not
necessarily show Chomsky’s idea about competence and performance?
When we are children, we usually tend to repeat what people say, whether they are
words, sentences or sounds, in this way we learn to express ourselves, it can be said that the
stage of childhood is very important when obtaining our language, because this will be of great
help to be able to learn to communicate, mainly in the family the fundamental thing is learned to
learn to speak, then in school, the conformation of sentences and how to speak coherently and
understandably are deepened, Likewise, we are taught how to write and improve our linguistics.
This statement is not related to what Chomsky talks about competition and performance
since for him, competition is a mental reality that underlies real behavior, that is, language
learning occurs mainly thanks to the mental process and not to the interaction we have with
others, which gives us to understand that this is not related to said statement since children learn
through the social interaction they have with those around them, which helps them obtain the
knowledge needed to start talking. (Nebwy, 2011)

3. Halliday states “Can mean is a ‘realization of can do” this corresponds to the
second criticism of Chomsky’s view of competence and performance and also concern the
functional dimension of a language. Describe the second criticism and the functional
dimension.
The second criticism deals with the functionality of language, which makes us understand
that it is based on what language can do and what the speaker can do with it, seeking in this way
that the speaker can develop and function in society coherently and put into practice the language
skills obtained. (Nebwy, 2011)

4. Is language a unit of linguistic analysis? Explain and cite author(s).

 COMPETENCE AND PERFORMANCE

If it is, then according to Halliday, the unit of linguistic analysis is based on the discursive
capacity that the individual has, whether oral or written, because for people to be able to obtain
language, it is necessary to make use of discourse, which helps us To improve our way of
expressing ourselves, so that other people understand us and can interact with us, to express a
good speech, it is necessary to take into account the use of grammar, knowing how to structure
sentences with good spelling and coherence. (Nebwy, 2011)

5. What does Chomsky say opposite to the affirmations on the left?

Langacker, Heine , Tomasello Chomsky
and Jackendoff
 language is not an  Language must draw a line that
autonomous cognitive faculty divides the reality of linguistics
 grammar is and the general.
conceptualization  Grammar is universal.
 knowledge of language  The knowledge of a language is
emerges from language use given from a mental reality.

6. What are the schematic constructs?

They are those that allow the use of constructivist views of language, which seek to create
representations of language so that it is clearer and more coherent, through which people can
improve the interpretation and understanding of language, due to practice and experimentation in
certain environments and situations in which you need to capture what you have learned related
to language. (Nebwy, 2011)
7. In 1980 Canale and Swain provided a description of competence based on
four categories. What are those categories? Explain.
Grammatical competence: Knowledge of lexical items and rules of morphology,
syntax, semantics, orator, metrics, and phonology. This is responsible for improving the
cognitive ability that allows a person to convert their mental representations into words and
combine them to produce texts. (Menegotto, 2016)
 COMPETENCE AND PERFORMANCE

Sociolinguistic competence: the ability to communicate appropriately in a variety of

contexts. This implies the interrelation between society and language and how language
expresses meaning according to the context in which it develops. (Criollo, 2020)
Discursive competence: the ability to use language that goes beyond the sentence level.
This is based on the knowledge and ability necessary to produce and interpret texts according to
the structural scheme and the linguistic conventions of the different genres of discourse that we
use. (Inter-ecodel, S,f)
Strategic competence: adequate use of communication strategies to overcome or repair
failures in communication, perhaps due to a lack of linguistic competence. Through this, they
intervene in the effective use of language by a person. It refers to the ability to use verbal and
non-verbal resources in order both to promote effectiveness in communication and to
compensate for failures that may occur in it. (Centro Virtual Cervantes, S,f)

8. After reading all the competences described in the CEFR what do you think
CEFR perception about competence and performance? Is it more related to social or
individual? Is it more linguistic? Or not?
For the MERC, competence and performance develop when we put into practice what we
have learned thanks to linguistic competencies, which allow us to develop our language and what
we have learned about it, in certain situations or contexts.
It is related both socially and individually because for it to occur in people, it must mainly
be internalized by each one, that is, this happens mainly in the minds of people, then it proceeds
to express itself, which gives understanding that the individual is also important, although, for
the MERC, it is related more to the social, when people interact with others.
According to the MERC, it is linguistic, since, within it, certain linguistic competencies
are given which implies from the beginning that it is based on linguistics, which seeks the
improvement and structuring of coherent discourses. (Nebwy, 2011)

9. Write your own conclusions about competence and performance and how
these two terms affect the SLA?
 COMPETENCE AND PERFORMANCE

Language is how we can express what we feel and want, and thanks to this we can live in
society, so it is of great importance to learn this in people's lives, that is why as in the proposed
text and many more, you can learn how we should learn it and how to acquire it, in this case,
they teach us about the linguistic skills necessary to obtain a language and how to put it into
practice in different situations, which allow us to improve every time plus.
Competence and performance play a fundamental role in linguistics, as we can see,
different authors have spoken about these and given their points of view, although I consider that
some are a little more right than others, each one complements the other, thus achieving help us
identify what we need to be able to learn a language or several languages, depending on our
interest.
The implementation of linguistic skills such as grammar, phonetics, and semantics,
among others, allow us to obtain communication and interaction with others coherently and
clearly since these allow us to understand what other people want to say or what we want to say,
to be able to start a conversation which helps us to improve in learning either a new language or
our language.
Competence and performance help the improvement of language and interaction in
classrooms because as we know these are responsible for obtaining and measuring the necessary
knowledge to be able to handle a language, these help students to express themselves clearly and
coherently, making use of grammar, spelling, semantics, among other fundamental aspects for
language acquisition.
 COMPETENCE AND PERFORMANCE

References

Centro Virtual Cervantes. (S,f). Competencia estratégica. Obtenido de Centro Virtual Cervantes:
https://cvc.cervantes.es/ensenanza/biblioteca_ele/diccio_ele/diccionario/
competenciaestrategica.htm
Criollo, M. e. (2020). Linguistic Competencies of English Teachers in relation to professional
performance standards in a globalized world. Obtenido de Archivos Venezolanos de
Farmacología y Terapéutica:
https://www.redalyc.org/journal/559/55969796013/html/#:~:text=La%20competencia
%20socioling%C3%BC%C3%ADstica%20se%20refiere,en%20el%20que%20se
%20desarrolla.
Inter-ecodel. (S,f). competencia discursiva. Obtenido de Inter-ecodel:
https://www.upf.edu/web/ecodal/glosario-competencia-discursiva
Menegotto, A. (2016). Reflexiones sobre la competencia gramatical y su relación con la
competencia comunicativa. Obtenido de Sedici:
http://sedici.unlp.edu.ar/handle/10915/112079
Nebwy, D. (2011). Competence and performance in learning and teaching: theories and
practices. Obtenido de University of Graz : file:///C:/Users/esthe/Downloads/Competence
%20and%20performance%20in%20SLA%20(1).pdf