Theory of Communicative Approach
Theory of language
The communicative approach in language teaching starts from a theory of language as communication. The goal of language teaching is to develop what Hymes (1972) referred to as “communicative competence”. Hymes coined this term in order to contrast a communicative view of language and Chomsky’s theory of competence—linguistic competence. Hymes’s theory of communicative competence was a definition of what a speaker needs to know in order to be communicatively competent in a speech community. In Hymes’s view, a person who acquires communicative competence acquires both knowledge and ability for language use with respect to:
1. Whether (and to what degree) 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 relations 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, 1972: 281)
Another linguistic theory of communication favored in CLT is Halliday’s functional account of language use. “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, 1970: 145). He described (1975: 11-17) seven basic functions that language performs for children learning their first language:
1. The instrumental function: using language to get things;
2. The regulatory function: using language to control the behavior of others;
3. The interactional function: using language to create interaction with others;
4. The personal function: using language to express personal feelings and meanings;
5. The heuristic function: using language to learn and to discover;
6. The imaginative function: using language to create a world of the imagination; 7. The representational function: using language to communicate information.
Another theorist frequently cited for his views on the communicative nature of language is Henry Widdowson. In his book Teaching Language as Communication (1978), Widdowson presented a view of the relationship between linguistic system and their communicative values in text and discourse. He focused on the communicative acts underlying the ability to use language for different purposes. A more pedagogically influential analysis of communicative competence is found in Canale and Swain (1980), in which four dimensions of communicative competence are identified: grammatical competence, sociolinguistic competence, discourse competence, and strategic competence. Grammatical competence refers to what Chomsky calls linguistic competence and what Hymes intends by what is “formally possible”. It is the domain of grammatical and lexical capacity. Sociolinguistic competence refers to an understanding of the social context in which communication takes place, including role relationships, the shared information of the participants, and the communicative purposes for their interaction. Discourse competence refers to the interpretation of individual message elements in terms of their interconnectedness and of how meaning is represented in relationship to the entire discourse or text. Strategic competence refers to the coping strategies that communicators employ to initiate, terminate, maintain, repair, and redirect communication.
Some of the characteristics of this communicative view of language as follows:
1. Ion and paraphraseem for the expression of meanings;
2. The primary function of language is to allow interaction and communication;
3. The structure of language reflects its functional and communicative uses;
4. The primary units of language are not merely its grammatical and structural features, but categories of functional and communicative meaning as exemplified in discourse.
Theory of learning
In contrast to the amount that has been written in Communicative LanguageTeaching literature about communicative dimensions of language, little has been written about learning theory. Elements of an underlying learning theory can be discerned in some CLT practices, however. One such element might be described as the communication principle: activities that involve real communication promote learning. A second element is the task principle, activities in which language is used for carrying out meaningful tasks promote learning (Johnson, 1982). A third element is the meaningfulness principle: language that is meaningful to the learner supports the learning process. Learning activities are consequently selected according to how well they engage the learner in meaningful and authentic language use (rather than merely mechanical practice of language patterns). Other accounts of Communicative Language Teaching, however, have attempted to describe theories of language teaching processes that are compatible with the Communicative Approach: Savignon’s (1983) second language acquisition research; Krahsen’s Monitor theory; Johnson (1984) and Littlewood’s (1984) alternative learning theory—a skill-learning model of learning, are all be compatible with CLT. Even it involves both a cognitive and a behavioral aspect, which encourages an emphasis on practice as a way of developing communicative skills (Richards & Rodgers, 2002: 161-162).
Some of the characteristics of the communicative view of language are as follows:
1. Language is a system for the expression of meaning;
2. The primary function of language is for interaction and communication;
3. The structure of language reflects its functional and communicative uses;
4. The primary units of language are not merely its grammatical and structural features, but categories of functional and communicative meaning as exemplified in discourse.