PRACTICES ON BASIC TEACHING SKILL

“COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE”

Dosen pengampu : Yasyir Fahmi Mubarak, M.Pd

Disusun Oleh:

Oktavia Dhamayanti
(3061712001)
Nurul Hikmah

SEKOLAH TINGGI KEGURUAN DAN ILMU PENDIDIKAN

PERSATUAN GURU REPUBLIK INDONESIA
(STKIP-PGRI)
BANJARMASIN
TAHUN 2019
 Introduction

Social constructivist prespectives drew our attention to language as communication across

individuals. Researchers looked at discourse, interaction, pragmatics, and negotiation, among other
things. Teachers and materials writers treated the language classroom as a locus of meaningful,
authentic exchanges among users of language. Foreign language learning started to be viewed not
just as potentially predictable developmental process but also as the creation of meaning through
interactive negotiation among lerners. “Communicative competence” became a household word in
SLA, and still stands as an appropriate term to capture current trends in teaching and research.
DEFINING COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE

The term communicative competence was coined by Dell Hymes (1967, 1972). Hymes
referred to communicative competence as that aspect of our competence that enables us to convey
and interpret messages and to negotiate meanings interpersonally within specific context. Savignon
(1983: 9) noted that “communicative competence is relative, not absolute, and depends on the
cooperation of all the participants involved.”

In the 1970s, research on communicative competence distinguished between linguistic and

communicative competence (Hymes 1967; Paulston 1974) to highlight the difference between
knowledge about” language forms and knowledge that enables a person to communicate
functionally and interactively. In a similar vein, James Cummins (1979, 1980) proposed a distinction
between cognitive/academic language proficiency (CALP) and basic interpersonal communicative
skills (BICS). CALP is that dimension of proficiency in which the learner manipulates or reflects upon
the surface features of language outside of the immediate interpersonal context. It is what learners
often use in classroom exercises and tests that focus on form. BICS, on the other hand, is the
communicative capacity that all children acquire in order to be able to function in daily interpersonal
exchanges. Cummins later (1981) modified his notion of CALP and BICS in the form of context-
reduced and context-embedded communication, where the formers resembles CALP and the letter
BICS, but with the added dimensions of considering the context in which language is used. A good
share of classroom, school-oriented language is context-reduced, while face-to-face communication
with people in context-embedded.

In Canale and Swain’s and later in Canale’s (1983) definition, four different components, or
subcategories, make up the construct of communicative competence. The first two subcategories
reflect the use of the linguistics system itself; the last two define the functional aspect of
communication.

1. Grammatical competence is that aspect of communicative competence that encompasses

“knowledge of lexical items and of rules of morphology, syntax, sentence-grammar
semantics, and phonology” (Canaly & Swain 1980: 29). It is the competence that we
associate with mastering the linguistics code of a language, the "linguistic" competence of
Hymes and Paulston, referred to above.
2. Discourse competence, the complement of grammatical competence in many ways. It is the
ability we have to connect sentences in stretches of discourse and to form a meaningful
whole out of a series of utterances. Discourse means everything from simple spoken
conversation to lengthy written texts (articles, books, and the like). While grammatical
competence focuses on sentence-level grammar, discourse competence is concerned with
intersentential relationship.
3. Sociolinguistics competence is the knowledge of the sociocultural rules of language and of
discourse. This type of 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. Only in full context of this kind can judgments be made on the
appropriateness of a particular utterance” (Savignon 1983: 37). Or the simple definition is
the knowledge of sociocultural rules of use, i.e. knowing how to use and respond to
language appropriately. The appropriateness depends on the setting of the communication,
 the topic, and the relationships among the people communicating. Moreover, being
appropriate depends on knowing what the taboos of the other culture are, what politeness
indices are used in each case, what the politically correct term would be for something, how
a specific attitude (authority, friendliness, courtesy, irony etc.) is expressed etc.

4. Strategic competence is the ability to recognize and repair communication breakdowns

before, during, or after they occur. For instance, the speaker may not know a certain word,
thus will plan to either paraphrase, or ask what that word is in the target language. During
the conversation, background noise or other factors may hinder communication; thus the
speaker must know how to keep the communication channel open. If the communication
was unsuccessful due to external factors (such as interruptions), or due to the message
being misunderstood, the speaker must know how to restore communication. These
strategies may be requests for repetition, clarification, slower speech, or the usage of
gestures, taking turns in conversation etc.

LANGUAGE FUNCTIONS

Functions are essentially the purposes that we accomplish with language, e.g., stating,
requesting, responding, greeting, parting, etc. functions cannot be accomplished, of course, without
forms of language: morphemes, words, grammar rules, discourse rules, and other organizational
competencies.

Second language learners need to understand the purpose of communicative act is and how
to achieve that purpose through linguistics forms. Michael Halliday (1973), who provided one of the
best expositions of language functions, used the term to mean the purposive nature of
communication, and outlined seven different functions of language.

1. Instrumental Language is used to express a need, directly concerned with obtaining food,
drink and comfort.
2. Regulatory Language is used to direct others by the act of persuading, commanding and
requesting others to do things.
3. Interactional Language is used to make contact and form relationships with others.
4. Personal Language is used to express personal feelings.
5. Heuristic Language is used to gain knowledge about the environment.
6. Imaginative Language is used to tell jokes or stories as well as creating an imaginary world.
7. Representational Language is used to convey facts or information. A child uses language to
relay or request facts and information.

FUNCTIONAL SYLLABUSES

The most apparent practical classroom application of functional descriptions of language

was found in the development of functional syllabuses, more popularity notional-functional
syllabuses. The “functional” part of the notional-functional syllabus corresponded to what we have
defined above as language functions. Curricula were organized around such function as identifying,
reporting, denying, declining an invitation, asking permission, apologizing, etc. Van Ek and
Alexander’s (1975) exhaustive list of language functions became a basic reference for notional-
functional syllabuses, now simple referred to as functional syllabuses. Functional syllabuses remain
today in modified form. A typical current language textbook will list a sequence of communicative
functions that are covered. For example, the following functions are covered in the first several
lessons of an advanced-beginner’s textbook, New Vistas 1 (Brown 1999).

1. Introducing self and other people

2. Exchanging personal information
3. Asking how to spell someone’s name
4. Giving commands
5. Apologizing ang thanking
6. Identifying and describing people
7. Asking for information

A typical unit in this textbook includes an eclectic blend of conversation practice with classmate,
interactive group work, role-plays, grammar and pronunciation focus exercises, information-gap
techniques, internet activities, and extra-class interactive practice.

DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

The analysis of the relationship between forms and functions f language is commonly called
discourse analysis, which encompasses the notion that language is more than a sentence-level
phenomenon. A single sentence can seldom be fully analyzed without considering its context. We
use language in stretches of discourse. We string many sentences together in interrelated, cohesive
units. In most oral language, our discourse is marked by exchanges with another person or several
persons in which a few sentences spoken by one participant are followed and built upon by
sentences spoken by another. Both the production and comprehension of language are a factor of
our ability to perceive and process stretches of discourse, to formulate representations of meaning
not just from a single sentence but from referents in both sentences and following sentences.

Without the pragmatic context of discourse, our communications would be extraordinarily

ambiguous. A stand-alone sentence such as “I didn’t like that casserole” could, depending on
context, be agreement, disagreement, argument, complaint, apology, insult, or simply a comment.

CONVERSATION ANALYSIS

Every early in life, children learn the first and essential rule of conversation: attention
getting. If you wish linguistic production to be functional and to accomplish its intended purpose,
you must of course have the attention of you audience. The attention-getting conversations within
each language -both verbal and nonverbal- need to be carefully assimilated by learners. Without
knowledge and use of such conventions, second language learners may be reluctant to participate in
a conversation because of their own inhibitions, or they may become obnoxious in securing
attention in ways that “turn off” their hearer to the topic they wish to discuss.

Once speakers have secured the hearer’s attention, their task becomes one of topic
nomination. Rules for nominating topic in conversation, which involve both verbal and nonverbal
cues, are highly contextually constrained.
 Once a topic is nominated, participants in a conversation then embark on topic
development, using conventions of turn-taking to accomplish various functions of language. Each
language has verbal and nonverbal signals for termination. It is important for teachers to be acutely
aware of the rules of conversation in the second language and to aid learners to both perceive those
rules and follow them in their own conversation.

H.P. Grice (1967) once noted that certain conversational “maxims” enable the speakers to nominate
and maintain a topic of conversation:

1. Quantity: say only as much as it necessary for understanding the communication.

2. Quality: say only what is true.
3. Relevance: say only what is relevant
4. Manner: be clear.

PRAGMATICS

Pragmatics is a branch of linguistics concerned with the use of language in social contexts
and the ways in which people produce and comprehend meanings through language. In other
words, pragmatics refers to the way people use language in social situations and the way that
language is interpreted. Pragmatics constraints on language comprehensions and production may be
loosely thought of as the effect of context on strings of linguistics events.

Pragmatics focuses not on what people say but how they say it and how others interpret
their utterances in social contexts, says Geoffrey Finch in "Linguistic Terms and Concepts."
Utterances are literally the units of sound you make when you talk, but the signs that accompany
those utterances are what give the sounds their true meaning.

The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) gives two examples of how

pragmatics works, or how it influences language and its interpretation. In the first, ASHA notes:

"You invited your friend over for dinner. Your child sees your friend reach for some cookies and
says, 'Better not take those, or you'll get even bigger.' You can't believe your child could be so
rude."

In a literal sense, the daughter is simply saying that eating cookies can make you gain
weight. But due to the social context, the mother interprets that same sentence to mean that her
daughter is calling her friend fat. The first sentence in this explanation refers to the semantics—the
literal meaning of the sentence. The second and third refer to the pragmatics, the actual meaning of
the words as interpreted by a listener based on social context.

Lodge says that pragmatics is needed because it gives humans "a fuller, deeper, and
generally more reasonable account of human language behavior." Without pragmatics, there is
often no understanding of what language actually means, or what a person truly means when she is
speaking. The context—the social signs, body language, and tone of voice (the pragmatics)—is what
makes utterances clear or unclear to the speaker and her listeners.
LANGUAGE AND GENDER

One of the major pragmatic factors affecting the acquisition of communicative competence
in virtually every language, and one that has received considerable attention recently, it the effect of
one’s sex on both production and reception of language. Women appear to use language that
expresses more uncertainty (hedges, tag questions, rising intonation on declaratives, etc.) that men,
suggesting less confidence in what they say. Men have been reported to interrupt more than
women, and to use stronger expletives, while the letter use more polite forms.

STYLES AND REGISTERS

A style is not a social or regional dialect, but a variety of language used for a specific
purpose. When you converse informally with a friend, you use a different style than you use in an
interview for a job with a prospective employer.

Martin Joos (1967) provided one of the most common classifications of speech styles using the
criterion of formality, which tends to subsume subject matter, audience, and occasion. JOOs
described five levels of formality.

1. An oratorical style is used in public speaking before a large audience; wording is carefully
planned in advance, intonation is some-what exaggerated, and numerous rhetorical devices
are appropriate.
2. A deliberative style is also used in addressing audiences. A typical university classroom
lecture is often carried out in a deliberative style.
3. A consultative style is typically a dialogue, through formal enough that words are chosen
with some care. Business transactions, doctor-patient conversations,etc.
4. Casual conversation are between friends od colleagues or sometimes member of a family.
5. An intimate style is one characterized by complete absence of social inhibitions. Talk with
family, loved ones, and very close friends, etc.

Styles are manifested by both verbal and nonverbal features. Differences in style can be conveyed in
body language, gestures, eye contact, and the like—all very difficult aspect of language for earners
to acquire.

Related to stylistics variation is another factor that called “register”, sometimes incorrectly used
as a synonym for style. Registers are commonly identified by certain phonological variants,
vocabulary, idioms, and other expressions that are associate with different occupational or
socioeconomic groups. Registers sometimes enable people to identify with a particular group and to
maintain solidarity. Colleagues in the same occupation or profession will use certain jargon to
communicate with each other, to the exclusion of eavesdroppers.

NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION

We communicate so much information nonverbally in conversation that often the verbal

aspect of the conversation is negligible. This is particularly true or interactive language functions in
which social contact is of key importance and in which it is not what you say that counts but how you
say it- what you convey with body language, gestures, eye contact, physical distance, and other
nonverbal messages. The expression of culture is so bound up in nonverbal communication that the
barriers to culture learning are more nonverbal than verbal.

KINESICS

Every culture and language uses body language, or kinesics, in unique but clearly
interpretable ways. But as universal as kinesics communication is, there is tremendous variation
cross-culturally and cross-linguistically in specific interpretations of gestures. Human beings all move
their arms and hands, but the significance of these movements varies from society to society.

1. Agreement. “Yes”
2. “No!”
3. “Come Here”
4. Lack of interest, “I don’t know”
5. Flirting signals, sexual signal
6. Insults, obscene gestures

There are conventionalized gestural signals to convey these convey these semantics categories. Are
those signals the same in another language and culture? Sometimes they are not. And sometimes a
gesture that is appropriate in one culture is obscene or insulting in another. Nodding the head, for
example, means “yes” among most European language speakers. But among the Ainu of Japan,
“yes” is expressed by bringing the arms to the chest and waving them.

EYE CONTACT

Not only is eye contact itself an important category, but the gestures as it were, of the eyes
are in some instance keys to communication. Eyes can signal interest, boredom, empathy, hostility,
attraction, understanding, misunderstanding, and other messages. The nonverbal language of each
culture has different ways of signaling such messages. An important aspect of unfettered and
unambiguous conversation in a second language is the acquisition of convention for conveying
messages by means of eye signals.

PROXEMIC

Physical proximity, or proxemic, is also a meaningful communicative category. Cultures vary

widely in acceptable distances for conversation. Sometimes objects- desks, counters, other
furniture- serve to maintain certain physical distances. Such object tend to establish both the overall
register and relationship of participants. Thus, a counter between two people maintains a
consultative mood. Again, however, different cultures interpret different messages in such objects.
In some cultures, objects might enhance the communicative prosses, but in other cases they impede
it.

ARTIFACT

The nonverbal messages of clothing ang ornamentation are also important aspects of
communication. Clothes often signal a person’s sense of self-esteem, socioeconomic class and
general character. Jewelry also conveys certain messages. In multicultural conversation group, such
artifacts, along with other nonverbal signals, can be significant factor in lifting barriers, identifying
certain personality characteristics, and setting a general mood.

KINESTHETICS

Touching, sometimes referred to as kinesthetics, is another culturally loaded aspect of

nonverbal communication. How we touch others and where we touch them sometimes the most
misunderstood aspect of nonverbal communication. Touching in some cultures signals a very
personal or intimate register, while in other cultures extensive touching is commonplace. Knowing
the limits and conventions is important for clear and unambiguous communication.

OLFACTORY DIMENSIONS

Our noses also receive sensory nonverbal messages. The olfactory modality is of course an
important one for the animal kingdom, but for the human race, too, different cultures have
established different dimensions of olfactory communication. The twentieth century has created in
most technological societies a penchant for perfumes, lotions, creams, and powders as acceptable
and even necessary; natural human odors, especially perspiration, are thought to be undesirable. In
some societies, of course, the smell of human perspiration is quite acceptable and even attractive.
Reference

CHAPTER 9 Communicative Competence

https://www.academia.edu/33270583/Communicative_Language_Teaching

https://linguisticator.com/communicative-competence/

https://www.thoughtco.com/pragmatics-language-1691654