Competence and Performance

616 Words3 Pages
Introduction: The distinction between competence and performance is at first drawn by De Saussure by using the terms langue/parole. Then Noam Chomsky has taken back it and uses competence instead of langue and performance instead of parole. The similarity between the two works is that both of them are based on the possibility of separating what is linguistics from what is non-linguistic; and they both subscribe to the fiction of the homogeneity of the language-system. In this essay we will focus on Chomsky’s theory through the learning of language and its use. I* What is competence: Chomsky prefers to use competence instead of “langue”. Competence can be defined as the possession of vocabulary and grammar; it can be called the knowledge of language. According to Chomsky, competence is the speaker’s knowledge of language. The competence consists in the knowledge of language which the language user has. Competence is the knowledge that we have about our language, knowledge which goes beyond what we produce, to include the recognition of ambiguities, ungrammatical utterances, and so forth. The competence may be innate or acquired. Therefore, a speaker's linguistic competence is a set of rules that he has constructed in his mind by virtue of his application. The grammar that the linguist constructs for the language-system in question can be seen as a model of the native speaker's competence. II* What is performance: N. Chomsky prefers to use the word performance instead of parole. Performance may be defined as the use actually of competence. For Chomsky, performance means or is the speaker’s use of language. Performance is the result of the psychological process that is uttered by the speaker (in producing or in interpreting language utterances). It refers to what we actually produce, or our linguistic behavior,
Open Document