Competence and
Performance
Arjumand Ara
Introduction
In linguistics Language is considered as a system. Language is
used as a means of communication. Language has meaning
that cannot be separated from the language itself. The
scientific study of language is called Linguistics. In linguistics
competence and performance are two of the major ideas put
forward by Noam Chomsky, an American linguist. These ideas
form the basis of Chomsky’s theory of transformational
generative grammar. Chomsky’s ideas of competence and
performance are based on Ferdinand de Saussure’s ideas of
La langue and La parole which were included in his book “ A
Course in General Linguistic” (1916).
La Langue
La langue and la parole are French terms that mean language
(langue) and speech (parole) respectively. This theory deals
with the system in which language users operate. La
langue refers to the shared knowledge of a language of a
speech community which they agree to use. A language 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 langue).Langue precedes parole and makes
speech possible.
Parole
Parole is the actual utterances. It is an external
manifestation of langue. It is the usage of the system, but
not the system itself .
La parole is the application of language activities such as
speech. So, la langue is the rules of language system and la
parole is the utterance of the rules. For example, when we
meet our friend on our way home, and we want to greet
him/her. We know the words that we need to use in our
sentences. It is called la langue. Then we say “ Hallo Lisa,
where are you going?”. This activity is called la parole.
Competence
Chomsky also distinguished the underlying knowledge of language from the
way language is actually used in practice. According to him, Language
performance may be affected by such things as attention, stamina, memory,
etc. Therefore, a theory of language should be a theory of competence. Once
a full theory of competence is developed, it can be integrated into a theory
of performance, which will also consider other cognitive abilities.
Competence is a person’s underlying (subconscious) linguistic ability to create
and understand sentences, including sentences they have never heard before.
It’s a person's acquaintance with a set of grammatical rules and is different
from the actual linguistic activities. Linguistic competence includes
components such as phonetics, phonology, syntax, semantics and morphology.
Competence enables native speakers to recognize ambiguous sentences or
accept even apparently meaningless sentences as syntactically correct (and
even making some sense). Even if you’ve never heard these before, you know
which one is “English” and which one isn’t. For example: Eight very lazy
elephants drank brandy. *Eight elephants very lazy brandy drank.
According to Chomsky the complete knowledge of a language is possessed by
an ideal speaker/listener who is an imaginary person.
Performance
Performance is the real world linguistic output. It may accurately reflect
competence, but it also may include speech errors. Performance may be
flawed because of memory limitations, distractions, shifts of attention and
interest, and errors (random or characteristic) or other psychological factors.
It represents only a small sample of possible utterances.
The performance of a speaker may not be fault free, even though his
competence is perfect. For example : “Learning and riding a bike”.
Differences between the theories
Whereas the terms ‘performance’ (Chomsky) and ‘parole’ (de Saussure) can
be used almost interchangeably.
However, ‘competence’ and ‘langue’ are quite different from each other.
‘Langue’ is a static system of signs, whereas ‘competence’ is understood as a
dynamic concept, as a mechanism that will generate language endlessly.
Chomsky’s theory is more psychological whereas Saussure’s is more social in
nature.
Why is it important to make a distinction
between competence and performance?
It allows those studying a language to differentiate between a speech error
and not knowing something about the language. To understand this
distinction, it is helpful to think about a time when you've made some sort of
error in your speech.
For example, let's say you are a native speaker of English and utter the
following: “The phone ringed when he arrived.” Is this error due to
competence or performance? It isn't that you don't know that the past tense
of ‘ring’ is ‘rang’, you've just mistakenly applied the regular rule to an
irregular verb. Distinction between competence and performance illustrates
the difference between accidentally saying “ringed” and the fact that a child
or non-proficient speaker of English may not know that the past tense of ring
is “rang” and say “ringed” consistently. Your competence is fine, it is your
performance that has let you down.
How do competence and performance
apply to the language classroom?
The assumption used in many language instruction programs is that once the
learners have ‘learned’ the information, they will be able to use it through
reading, writing, listening and speaking. The disadvantage of this approach is
that having been trained to learn the language through “knowing”(competence),
learners have difficulty actually “doing”(performance) something with the
language.
Competence versus performance
Competence, being an ideal, is located as a psychological or mental property.
This is in contrast to performance, which refers to an actual event. Chomsky
argues that only under an idealized situation whereby the speaker-hearer is
unaffected by grammatically irrelevant conditions such as memory limitations
and distractions will performance be a direct reflection of competence.
