Danao, Jerson Kent H.

BLL 101-B

In the know: Linguistic competence, Linguistic acquisition, and Descriptive grammar

The current fad among Filipino families is to immerse their children on foreign television

shows and/or to have a profound screen time on youtube watching English speaking natives. The

underlying concept behind this neo-colonial mentality is that fluency [of the English language] has

become the one of the major criteria of literacy, to measure whether an individual is well-educated

and properly raised. The goal of the parents is not wrong but I will insist that it is neither right. The

one-directional communication that is taking place does not promote effective and efficient

language acquisition among children. The development of communicative competence depends

largely on communicative efficacy that children receive from different interactants (Tomasello

1992).

Let me emphasize two different points, first, an individual who has a good grasp of a

foreign or native language that he/ she can express himself/herself eloquently can be

characterized as verbal-linguistic intelligence in respect to Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple

intelligences (Checkley 1997). Second, though, somehow figurative, a fair coin always have two

sides, one that faces the opposite and the other that faces directly to us that can be seen and

observed by our naked eyes.

This goes further by adhering to the concept of linguistic competence, our potential to

speak a language and linguistic performance as the ability to produce and comprehend a

language. The latter stand as the observable though invisible and intangible factors. The ability

shown during an utterance can be used to qualify whether a child is learning or not. The former,
just like the opposite side of the coin, the thing that cannot be seen, yet, it is evident that it is

somewhere out there that resides in our cognitive realm.

The quest of a child to decode a riddle is as fascinating as flipping the fair coin to take a

glimpse of the opposite side. The process in which linguistic competence reveal descriptive

grammar as a factor in affecting a child’s language acquisition. A descriptive grammar per se is a

set of rules on language base on how it is used, there is no right or wrong language ( British

Council n. d.).

This reveals that descriptive grammar plays a role in formulating syntactic rules that are

based on the way language is used as a tool for communication (Hinkel n.d.), therefore a child

unconsciously absorbs such things from his or her immediate environment by observing the

linguistic performance of speakers that surrounds him/her, thus, linguistic acquisition takes place.

It also explains that descriptive grammar makes up our schema that is responsible in building a

child’ s potential- to adapt on his/ her environment, to learn, and to speak little by little eventually

completely.

This concludes that linguistic competence is interdependent on descriptive grammar

which is exhibited through one’s linguistic performance. The deep analysis of descriptive grammar

elevates the comprehension towards linguistic competence- on things that are abstract.

We have to use a lens to widen our perspective and to witness what is beyond human

capacity. For real things sometimes do not register to our sense of sight. The complexity of the

human mind makes it harder to qualify and quantify the totality of human capacity and potential.

In our efforts to understand, we make assumptions. In order to arrive to a certain generalization,

we investigate, theorize, and study. We may come close to the answer but we can never know
everything with exactness, we can never know the whole truth. Hence, the phrase “the more you

know, the more you realize that you do not know.” Where do correct ideas come from anyway?

References

British Council. n.d. Teaching English. Descriptive grammar. Accessed August 22, 2019.

https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/descriptive-grammar.

Checkley Kathy. 1997. Educational leadership. The first seven and eight a conversation with

Howard Gardner. Accessed August 21, 2019.

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=gardner%27s+linguist

ic+intelligences&btnG=#d=gs_qabs&u=%23p%3DGFCT55a0lhsJ.

Hinkel Eli. n.d. TESOL Encyclopedia of English Language Teaching. Descriptive versus

Prescriptive grammar. Seattle Pacific University. Accessed August 22, 2019.

http://www.elihinkel.org/downloads/Descriptive%20v%20Prescriptive.pdf

Tomasello Michael. 1992. Social development. The social bases of language acquisition.

Accessed August 21, 2019.

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=effective+language+a

cquisition+on+children&btnG=#d=gs_qabs&u=%23p%3DW_9Hs4Buz4EJ