Introduction to Language, Society, and Culture.pdf -...

Introduction to Language, Society, and Culture
Chapter 1: Introduction to Linguistic Performance and Sociolinguistic
Competence
1
Course Module
Module 001 Introduction to Linguistic
Performance and Sociolinguistic Competence
At the end of this module, you are expected to:
1. Differentiate term Linguistic Performance and Sociolinguistic
Competence
2. Identify the influences and errors in Linguistic Performance
3. Discuss the features of Sociolinguistic Performance
 “ Communicative competence has to be recognized as the most
significant component in the language user’s way of speaking, way of
writing, way of listening, way of reading and above all, the way of
using the language in the practical context. ”
 “ It has been explicated that the innate ability of using the language in
the practical context can very well be decided only on the potentiality
that the learner acquires unconsciously the language norms together
with the societal norms. ”
 “ The concept of communicative competence was originally derived
from Chomsky’s distinction between competence and performance.
By competence Chomsky meant the shared knowledge of the ideal
speaker-listener set in a completely homogeneous speech
community.”
 “ Such underlying principle enables a user of a language to produce
and understand an infinite set of sentences out of a finite set of rules.
Performance on the other hand is concerned with the process of
applying the underlying principle to the actual language use
commonly stated as encoding and decoding. ”
 “Language use in a certain communication couldn’t be understand if a
person doesn’t know how to use proper words that is acceptable by
the society. This module will discuss the difference between Linguistic
performance and Socioling uistic competence of a person.”
 “It also discusses the different reasons why there’s a problem on how
a certain person speak through his communicative performance and
competence.”

The History and the proponents of Competence and Performance
 Ferdinand de Saussure – “ A Swiss linguist whose ideas on structure in language
laid the foundation of the 20
th
century linguistics. He used the terminology: la
langue and parole. ”
 Noam Chomsky – “A n American linguist, first introduced the concept of
performance and competence as part of the foundation for his Generative
grammar. ”
“
De Saussure’s Theory”
La langue – “ it has a large number of elements whereby meaning is created by the
arrangements between the elements and their consequent relationships. While learning a
language, we master the system of grammar, spelling, syntax, and punctuation (elements of
language). La langue precedes and makes speech possible.”
Parole –“ is the actual utterances. It is an external manifestation of langue. It is the usage of
the system, but not th e system.”
 “ His theory differentiates between the language and how it is used, and therefore
enables these two very different things to be studied as separate entities. Saussure