“Language is … to be considered in two contexts: on

the one hand, human system of conceptualization and

perception, and on the other, the actual use of
language in society.” (J. Yalden, The Communicative Syllabus,
1987)
How is a language acquired /
learned?
 LANGUAGE ACQUISITION THEORIES

Skinner, Bloomfield etc  BEHAVIOURISM 

How do children acquire a language?
Language acquisition and learning  formation of
habits  imitation

The process: Stimulus response  reinforcement

 LANGUAGE ACQUISITION THEORIES

Noam Chomsky  Cognitivism

How do children acquire a language?

• The capacity of acquisition of a language is

innate.

• Every human being was born with a LAD

(Language Acquisition Device)

 Noam Chomsky  Cognitivism

• Language is a phenomenon internal to speakers,

rather than a social phenomenon

• Focus on the speakers’ competence= mental

representation of language rules, that is the speakers’
knowledge of the language or the intuitions that they
have about it.

• Interest in the mental processes involved in using a

language and in learning to speak
 Noam Chomsky  Cognitivism

• “Language is creativity governed by rules”:

with a finite number of grammar rules and a
limited vocabulary, speakers can generate an
infinite number of sentences, many of which may
have never been said before.

• All speakers go through a process in the use of

language, “period of interlanguage” , in which
they produce their own creative constructions by
applying internal rules and an internal grammar
(Ex: errors of overgeneralization are considered
as “developmental errors”).
Noam Chomsky  COMPETENCE / PERFORMANCE

COMPETENCE: a person’s internalised knowledge

of a language. This means a person’s ability to
create and understand sentences, including
sentences they have never heard before.

COMPETENCE refers to the “ideal” speaker/hearer

COMPETENCE is a cognitive (mental) skill.

 Noam Chomsky  COMPETENCE / PERFORMANCE

Grammatical competence (correctness)

Communicative competence (appropriateness)

Pragmatic competence (capacity to interpret

sentences using non-linguistic information)
Poetic/creative competence
Noam Chomsky  COMPETENCE / PERFORMANCE

PERFORMANCE:
“ the actual use of language in concrete situations”

how a person actually uses his/her language

knowledge in producing and understanding
utterances, including errors..
“There are rules of use without which the rules of
grammar would be useless”
 Langue / Parole - Competence / Performance

De Saussure’s distinction between LANGUE and

PAROLE is similar to Chomsky’s distinction between
COMPETENCE and PERFORMANCE,

BUT

for De Saussure the repository of LANGUE is the

speech community, for Chomsky the repository of
COMPETENCE is the individual ideal
speaker/hearer.