competence, strategic competence, and discourse competence (see explanations of these terms below). While the Canale and Swain (1980) model served as the primary framework for debate regarding the meaning of communicative language proficiency and implications for teaching, in 1995, Celce- Murcia, Dörnyei, and Thurrell revised the Canale-Swain model to expand it and to illus- trate the interrelatedness of the various components in the model. More recently, Celce- Murcia (2007) refined the model further, and this most current model of communicative competence is shown in Figure 1.1. The following points regarding this model should be noted:
1. Sociocultural competence (called sociolinguistic competence in the Canale and Swain [1980] model) refers to pragmatic knowledge—that is, how speakers express them- selves within the social and cultural context of communication—and it has a promi- nent top-down role in the model. For example, our sociocultural competence enables us to greet friends in an informal gathering using appropriate words, gestures, and body language; what we say and do is likely to be different in a more formal setting with people we don’t know. Celce-Murcia (2007) cites the following three components as being crucial in this regard: social contextual factors—participants’ age, gender, status, social distance; stylistic appropriateness—politeness strategies, knowledge of appropriateness given different speech registers such as formal/informal; and cultural factors—background knowledge of the TL group, regional differences, cross-cultural awareness (p. 46).
2. The central role in this model is attributed to discourse competence, which refers to the way in which language elements, such as words and phrases, are selected, sequenced, and arranged into utterances to express a unified message on a particular topic. This involves the ability to combine utterances using cohesive devices such as pronouns and connectors (e.g., conjunctions, adverbs) to express continuity of thought. Additionally, it refers to the ability to organize thoughts coherently and to link one idea to subsequent utterances through conventions for expressing purpose/ intent, managing old and new information, etc. (Celce-Murcia, 2007, p. 47).
3. Linguistic competence (called grammatical competence in the Canale and Swain [1980] model) is the ability to make meaning when using four types of knowledge: phonological—sound system, intonation/stress; lexical—words; morphological parts of speech, how words are formed; syntactic—sentence structure, word order.
4. Formulaic competence accounts for the often unanalyzed chunks of language that speakers use extensively in interacting with others. These chunks include routines such as “Nice to meet you; Same here”; idioms such as “to pull one’s leg”; and lexical frames such as “See you _____ (later/tomorrow/next week, etc.)” (p. 48).
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FiGuRe 1.1 Communicative Competence