Communicative Competence and Language Teaching

[Leo VanLier]

There are several other early sources on CC; two of them are: Campbell &
Wales (in John Lyons: New horizons in linguistics. Penguin- I don't have
the exact year here), and a Jürgen Habermas paper on communicative
competence (I think 1971). Habermas argues, e.g.  that communicative
competence underlies linguistic competence.
LvL
Leslie K Harsch <harsch at dolphin.upenn.edu> writes:
>> Hey Francis,  After giving you everything you didn't want to consider
>> about communicative competence in LT (based on the assumption that to
>> understand the LT realization of CC, you need to understand what feeds
>> into it, which would include the general notions of language as
>> communication "in the air" at the time), I went back to my reading and
>> happened to turn to an interesting article you might actually find
>> useful:  Watson-Gegeo and Nielsen "Language Socialization in SLA" in
>> Doughty and Long 2003, _The Handbook of SLA_.  Beginning on p. 163,
>> they critique Canale and Swain's modularizing Gumperz notion of CC,
>> contrasting it with Gumperz arguement that CC is not about rules but
>> conditions of shared interpretation.  Anyway, you might want to check
>> this piece out, despite its overall focus on SLA rather exclusively on
>> LT.  - Leslie
>>
>>>
>>>Francis M Hult wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>hey leslie.  thanks for this response.  it is interesting to think
>about
>>>>where ideas (and developments of ideas come from).  i can't help but
>>>>think they were pulling from hymes.  nothing they say really departs
>>>>much from what hymes says (at least i don't think so).
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>Hi Francis,  The sources and the notion of communicative competence
>in
>>>>>LT are broad, in my view (I wonder what Tere would say).  I remember
>a
>>>>>discussion with Tere in which she pointed out that Sandra Savignon
>>>>>applied the notion of communicative competence to language teaching
>>>>>right around the same time as Canale and Swain.  See her book, on the
>>>>>topic _Communicative Competence_ (1983).  She gives Canale credit for
>>>>>reading the MS in the acknowledgements.  In chapter 1, she says CC
>has
>>>>>two sources: (1)  theoretical(psychology, linguistics and
>communication
>>>>>theory and (2) practical/pedagogical.  Theoretical sources include
>Hymes and Halliday.
>>>>>Hymes' response to Chomsky (the best articulation of that, in my
>view, is in
>>>>>Hymes' _Foundation of Sociolinguistics_) might be a place to start.
>The pedagogical sources
>>>>>she describes come out of criticism of ALM.  [One wonders if the
>>>>>deficiencies of ALM didn't become apparent in light of the
>theoretical
>>>>>debates of the time, eg Chomsky's refutation of Skinner's Verbal
>>>>>Behavior (1964).].
>>>>>
>>>>>There is a whole piece of this in the British ELT tradition that is
>not
>>>>>captured in either Canale & Swain or Savignon.  There is, for
>example,
>>>>>formal and functional syllabus design.  Brits to look at in this are
>>>>>Breen, Brumfit and Candlin.  Also important is Widdowson's _Teaching
>>>>>Language As Communication_ (1978).  You have probably looked at this,
>but Richards and Rogers on CLT is
>>>>>worth a look as a source for others.
>>>>>
>>>>>Finally, digging futher back, we could touch on Jespersen, Comenius,
>and
>>>>>even St. Augustine (Christian theologians speak about language
>>>>>teaching--imagine that)  But that's off your topic.
>>>>>
>>>>>Love those historical views...Please let me know what you think.
>>>>>
>>>>>Leslie
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>Francis M Hult wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>I wonder if anyone on the list has a knowledge of the historical
>>>>>>development of communicative competence in language teaching.  In
>>>>>>particular, I'm interested in finding out if anyone knows the
>'behind the
>>>>>>scenes' thinking of Canale and Swain(1980)/Canale (1983).
>>>>>>
>>>>>>The timing of their work leads me to think they were operating
>largely with
>>>>>>the findings of people that were doing work in language
>socialization
>>>>>>(e.g. Ochs and Schieffelin), following on Hymes' work in the 60's
>and
>>>>>>70's on communicative competence and the ethnography of
>communication.  What
>>>>>>I'm mainly curious about is the extent to which they were responding
>>>>>>particularly to Hymes or more so to the language socialization folks.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Francis