Competence vs. Performance

[Gordon, Peter]

Robin,
 
Miss South Carolina was perfectly coherent the next day on talk shows after her embarrassing moment was broadcast over YouTube. 
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQKNvPn3V-8&mode=related&search=
 
My slightly less than serious point was that to not make a distinction between competence and performance is to say that her "performance" at the beauty pageant should not be distinguished from her actual knowledge of language, which seems to be your implication when you say that "language learning has fallen badly short here."  This is precisely the conclusion that you would have to draw if you do not make allowances for impaired performance under stressful conditions.  The claim about competence/performance is simply that the whole spectrum of everyday speech contains minor to major stresses and often fails to fully reveal the underlying knowledge of language (i.e., the natural language exemplified by the local dialect of one's culture).
 
Peter
 
 
Peter Gordon, Associate Professor
525 W 120th St. Box 180
Biobehavioral Sciences Department
Teachers College, Columbia University
New York, NY 10027
Office Phone: (212) 678-8162
FAX: (212) 678-8233
Web Page: www.tc.edu/faculty/index.htm?facid=pg328

________________________________

From: r.n.campbell [mailto:r.n.campbell at stir.ac.uk]
Sent: Thu 10/18/2007 12:27 AM
To: Gordon, Peter; info-childes at mail.talkbank.org
Subject: RE: Competence vs. Performance


While this is moderately amusing to those with a taste for schadenfreude, it is not data which forces adoption of a competence-performance distinction. Rather, this data strongly suggests that language ability is not any sort of uniform trait, and that language learning has fallen badly short here.

Robin



	I would suggest that anyone who claims there is no competence/performance distinction in language is being terribly unfair to Miss Teen USA, South Carolina

	 

	http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj3iNxZ8Dww

	 

	Peter Gordon, Associate Professor 525 W 120th St. Box 180 Biobehavioral Sciences Department Teachers College, Columbia University New York, NY 10027 Office Phone: (212) 678-8162 FAX: (212) 678-8233 Web Page: www.tc.edu/faculty/index.htm?facid=pg328


-- 
Dr Robin N Campbell
Dept of Psychology
University of Stirling
STIRLING FK9 4LA
Scotland, UK

telephone: 01786-467649  facsimile: 01786-467641
email: r.n.campbell at stir.ac.uk
Website: http://www.psychology.stir.ac.uk/staff/rcampbell/index.php

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