The role of mother tongue in english language teaching

well as to many other symbolic systems.
3.
Communicative competence is context specific. 
4.
There is a difference between competence and performance.
5.
Communicative competence is relative, not absolute, and depends on the 
cooperation of all the involved participants. 
(1983,8-9). 
To simplify these characteristics, number one suggests that communicative competence 
is an interpersonal rather than intrapersonal attribute since it depends on the negotiation 
of meaning between people who share the same symbolic system; number three assigns 
that communication takes place in different situations, and success depends on the 
context understanding; number four suggests that competence is what one knows, 
whereas performance is what one does (Savignon, 1983:8-9).
In the mid-twentieth century, linguist Noam Chomsky moved linguistic studies 
away from structuralist concerns with procedures for isolating phonemes and 
morphemes in linguistic description. Unlike the structural linguists like Bloomfield
focused on surface features of phonology and morphology, 
Chomsky concerned himself with ‘deep’ semantic structures, or the way in 
which sentences are understood. Transformational-generative grammar focused 
on the underlying grammatical competence assumed to be common to all native 
speakers. The distinction made by Chomsky between this underlying 
grammatical competence and its over manifestation in language performance is 
important to an understanding of Chomskyan linguistics and the reactions it 
provoked (Savignon, 1983:11).
While those structural linguists interested in surface forms of language relied on native 
speakers´ speech and writing, Chomsky considered such samples inadequate (Savignon, 
1983:11) since: 
Linguistic theory is concerned primarily with an ideal speaker-hearer, in a 
completely homogeneous speech community, who knows its language perfectly 
and is unaffected by such grammatically irrelevant conditions as memory 
limitations, directions, shifts of attention and interest, errors (random or 

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23 
characteristic) in applying his knowledge of the language in actual performance 
(Chomsky, 1965:3).
“For Chomsky, the focus of linguistic theory was to characterize the abstract abilities 
speakers possess that enable them to produce grammatically correct sentences.” 
(Richards and Rodgers, 2005:159). However, such a statement of linguistic theory 
criticizes Hymes as irrelevant as far as the language problems of disadvantaged children 
are concerned (Acar, 2003). It is very improbable that such an ideal speaker-hearer 
exists. “We seek to understand and help such a statement may seem almost a declaration 
of irrelevance. All the difficulties that confront the children and ourselves seem swept 
from view.” (Hymes cited in Acar, 2003). Further, “Hymes looks at the real speaker-
listener in that feature of language of which Chomsky gives no account: social 
interaction.” (Savignon, 1983:11). Hymes´s theory is a more general theory involving 
communication and culture and suggests four parameters to the systems of rules that 
underlie communicative behaviour (Savignon, 1983:12):
1.
Whether (and to what extent) something is formally possible.
2.
Whether (and to what degree) something is feasible in virtue of the means of 
implementation available. 
3.
Whether (and to what degree) something is appropriate (adequate, happy, 
successful) in relation to a context in which it is used and evaluated. 
4.
Whether (and to what degree) something is in fact done, actually performed, and 
what its doing entails. 
(Hymes cited in Savignon, 1983:12). 
With respect to each of the parameters listed above, a person who acquires 
communicative competence acquires both ability and knowledge for language use 
(Richards and Rodgers, 2005:159). Moreover, the ability for use includes noncognitive 
factors such as motivation, attitude, and general interactional competence, that is, 
composure, courage, and sportmanship, which mean that people vary not only in their 
knowledge, but also in their ability to use that knowledge, and hence the way a 
speaker´s communicative competence develops is unpredictable (Savignon, 1983:12). 
Concerning this suggestion, the learner must not only be linguistically competent but 
also communicatively competent, having “the knowledge of linguistic and related 
communicative conventions that speakers must have to create and sustain 

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24 
conversational cooperation” (Gumperz, 1982:209). The distinction between the norms 
of behaviour is connected to speech acts
7
.
In a speech act the relationship between grammatical form and communicative 
function is accounted for by saying that each utterance is associated with a 
certain illocutionary force indicating device or illocutionary act potential (Searle 
cited in David, Internet 11). 
Since the speech acts are not cross-culturally comparable, Khemlani further continues: 
learners of English must be made consciously aware of the differences in certain 
speech acts when used by a native speaker of English and by a second language 
learner of the language because the values and cultural norms underlying the 
English language which a non-native speaker uses are not necessarily the same 
as those of a native speaker (1999).
This means that learners of the second language should be aware of these cultural 
differences to improve their communicative competence. Savignon adds: “we need to 
look at what people say 
[
…
]
in context rather than at the possible linguistic production 
of an ‘ideal’ speaker who knows all the formal rules.” (1983:15). 
“Another linguistic theory of communication 
[
…
]
is Halliday´s functional 
account of language use.” (Richards and Rodgers, 2005:159).
Linguistics … is concerned … with the description of speech acts or texts, since 
only through the study of language in use are all the functions of language, and 
therefore all components of meaning, brought into focus (Halliday cited in 
Richards and Rodgers, 2005:159).
Savignon supports both Halliday and Hymes and sums up: “A language function has to 
do with what is said as opposed to how something is said.” (1983:13). Learning a 
second language was similarly viewed by proponents of Communicative Language 
Teaching as acquiring the linguistic means to perform different kinds of functions.
Another theorist who concerned the views on the communicative competence of 
language was Henry Widdowson. According to Richards and Rodgers, Widdowson 
focused on the communicative acts underlying the ability to use language for different 
purposes and presented a view of the relationship between linguistic systems and their 
communicative values in text and discourse (2005:160).
7
Speach acts are in general acts of communication. To communicate is to express a certain attitude, and 
the type of speech act being performed corresponds to the type of attitude being expressed. For example, 
a statement expresses a belief, a request expresses a desire, and an apology expresses a regret. As an act 
of communication, a speech act succeeds if the audience identifies, in accordance with the speaker´s 
intention, the attitude being expressed (Internet 9). 

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3.1.1. Components of communicative competence 
According to Canale and Swain, communicative competence consists of four 
components which are grammatical competence, sociolinguistic competence, discourse