Communicative Competence in Language Teaching

Strategic Competence in the Context of Cultural Awareness

Language and culture cannot be dissociated from each other. This makes the communicative process a crucial one, where teaching Strategic Сompetence plays a major part in Communicative Competence development.

Fruitful work on defining Сommunicative Сompetence was carried out by Michael Canale and Merrill Swain [3]. According to their theory four different components, or subcategories, make up the construct of Сommunicative Сompetence as follows:

Communicative Сompetence consists of:
1. Grammatical
2. Discourse
3. Sociolinguistic
4. Strategic

The first two sub-categories reflect the use of language itself. Thus Grammatical Competence includes “knowledge of lexical items and of rules of morphology, syntax, sentence-grammar semantics and phonology” [3]. The second sub-category is Discourse Competence – the ability to connect sentences in discourse and to form a meaningful whole out of a series of utterances. While Grammatical Competence focuses on sentence-level grammar, Discourse Competence is concerned with intersentential relationships.

The last two sub-categories define the most functional aspects of communication. Sociolinguistic Competence “requires an understanding of the social context in which language is used: the roles of the participants, the information they share and the function of the interaction” [8]. The fourth sub-category is Strategic Competence, a construct that is exceedingly complex. Canale and Swain [3] describe Strategic Competence as “the verbal and non-verbal communication strategies that may be called into action to compensate for breakdowns in communication due to performance variables or due to insufficient competence”.

In fact, Strategic Competence is the way we manipulate language in order to meet communicative goals. An eloquent speaker possesses and uses a sophisticated Strategic Competence. For example, a salesman utilizes certain strategies of communication to make a product seem irresistible. A teacher also uses some strategies of communication to make a student not only remember the material he or she teaches but also to teach him to study.

Canale and Swain’s definition of Communicative Competence has undergone some other modifications over the years. These newer views are best described in Lyle Bachman’s [1] schematization of what he simply calls Language Competence.

Canale and Swain’s Sociolinguistic Competence is now broken into two separate pragmatic categories: functional aspects of language and sociolinguistic aspects. In keeping with current waves of thought, Bachman adds that Strategic Competence is an entirely separate element of the Communicative Competence skill. Here, Strategic Competence serves as an “executive function of making the final ‘decision’, among many possible options, on wording, phrasing, and other productive and receptive means for negotiating meaning” [3].

Cross-cultural research done by different linguists [2] has shown that there exist characteristics of culture that make one culture different from another, and it is cultural awareness that helps learners and teachers of a second language understand both cultural differences and the impact of culturally-induced behavior on language and communication. Cross-cultural awareness covers life and institutions, beliefs and values, everyday attitudes and feelings conveyed not only by language, but also by paralinguistic features such as dress, gesture, facial expression, stance and movement. The term “cultural awareness” from the standpoints of Barri Tomalin and Susan Stempleski [9, p.5] should include three qualities:

1. Awareness of one’s own culturally-induced behavior

2. Awareness of the culturally-induced behavior of others

3. Ability to explain one’s own cultural standpoint

Sociolinguistic Competence in the framework of pragmatics (the way in which language use is influenced by social context) includes the functional aspect of language. Pragmatic conventions of language are sometimes difficult to learn because of the disparity between language forms and functions. Linguistic studies in the field of pragmatics have heightened awareness of the degree to which cross-cultural communication is affected by culturally-related factors. Such factors include people’s expectations regarding the appropriate level of formality and degree of politeness in discourse.

The functional approach to describing language has its roots in the traditions of British linguist J. R. Firth, who viewed language as interactive and interpersonal, as a way of behaving and making others behave. Michael Halliday [4], who provided one of the best expositions of language functions, used the term “function” to mean the purposive nature of communication and outlined seven different functions of language: a) instrumental; b) regulatory; c) representational; d) interactional; e) personal; f) heuristic; g) imaginative.

Among these different functions Halliday outlined two functions which are of great importance from the view of Strategic Competence, namely: the interactional and personal functions of language. The interactional function serves to ensure social maintenance, that is such a communicative contact between and among human beings that simply allows them to establish social contact and to keep channels of communication open. Successful interactional communication requires knowledge of slang, jargon, jokes, folklore, cultural aspects, politeness and formality expectations, and other clues to social exchange. The personal function allows a speaker to express feelings, emotions, personality. A person’s individuality is usually characterized by his or her use of the personal function of communication. In the personal function, the nature of language, cognition and culture all interact. This can be covered by the “little c” (the culturally-influenced behavior) according to the theory proposed by G. Robinson, an expert in the area of cross-cultural education [7], who distinguishes “Big C” Culture (general information on Culture) from “little c” culture (culturally-influenced behavior, treated in an anecdotal, peripheral or supplementary way).

Of utmost importance has been the awareness of culturally-determined patterns of non-verbal communication (as an important part of Strategic Competence) such as gesture, posture, and facial expression. Studies have shown these non-verbal elements to be the most culturally-influenced part of behavior, for one thing because non-verbal signals acceptable in one culture may be completely unacceptable in another.

These seven different functions of language are neither discrete nor naturally exclusive. A single sentence or a conversation might incorporate many different functions simultaneously. Yet the problem is how to use these linguistic forms correctly. A learner might acquire correct word order, syntax, and lexical items but not understand how to achieve a desired and intended function through careful selection of words, structure, intonation, non-verbal signals, and perceptions of the context of a particular stretch of discourse.

The acquisition of styles and registers is a very important factor in Strategic Competence for second language learners. A major problem in cross-cultural variation is understanding cognitively and effectively what levels of formality are appropriate or inappropriate. The acquisition of verbal and non-verbal elements of Communicative Competence in the social cultural context leads to a proper Strategic Competence.


References

1. Bachman, L.F., (1990), Fundamental Consideration in Language Testing. New York: Oxford University Press.

2. Brown, H.D., (1994), Principles of Language Learning and Teaching. Prentice Hall Regents, Engwood Cliffs, New Jersey, 07632.

3. Canale, M. and Swain, M., (1980), Theoretical bases of communicative approaches to second language teaching and testing. Applied Linguistics 1:1-47.

4. Halliday, M., (1973), Explorations in the Function of Language. London: Edward Arnold.

5. Hymes, D., (1967), On communicative competence. Unpublished manuscript, University of Pennsylvania.

6. Hymes, D., (1972), On communicative competence. In Pride and Holmes 1972.

7. Robinson, G.L.N., (1985), Cross-cultural Understanding. New York: Prentice Hall.

8. Savignon, S.J., (1972), Communicative Competence: An Experiment in Foreign Language Teaching. Philadelphia: The Center for Curriculum Development, Inc.

9. Tomalin, B. and Stempleski, S., (1996), Cultural Awareness, Oxford University Press.


Courtesy: Alla Anisimova