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Lexical competence

The term “communicative competence” is comprised of two words, the combination of which means ’’competence to communicate”. This simple lexicosemantical analysis uncovers the fact that the central word in the syntagm “communicative competence” is the word ‘‘competence”. “Competence” is one of the most controversial terms in the field of general and applied linguistics. “Knowing a word” is a multifaceted task for language users and the assessment of that knowledge is a “mammoth task for the test constructor” Communicative language competence can be considered as comprising several components:  Linguistic - Linguistic competences include lexical, phonological, syntactical knowledge and skills and other dimensions of language as system, independently of the sociolinguistic value of its variations and the pragmatic functions of its realizations. This component, considered here from the point of view of a given individual’s communicative language competence, relates not only to the range and quality of knowledge but also to cognitive organization and the way this knowledge is stored and to its accessibility . Knowledge may be conscious and readily expressible or may not. Its organization and accessibility will vary from one individual to another and vary also within the same individual. It can also be held that the cognitive organization of vocabulary and the storing of expressions, etc. depend, amongst other things, on the cultural features of the community or communities in which the individual has been socialized and where his or her learning has occurred.  Sociolinguistic - Sociolinguistic competences refer to the sociocultural conditions of language use. Through its sensitivity to social conventions (rules of politeness, norms governing relations between generations, sexes, classes and social groups, linguistic codification of certain fundamental rituals in the functioning of a community), the sociolinguistic component strictly affects all language communication between representatives of different cultures, even though participants may often be unaware of its influence.  Pragmatic - Pragmatic competences are concerned with the functional use of linguistic resources (production of language functions, speech acts), drawing on scenarios or scripts of interactional exchanges. It also concerns the mastery of discourse, cohesion and coherence, the identification of text types and forms, irony, and parody. For this component even more than the linguistic component, it is too necessary to stress the major impact of interactions and cultural environments in which such abilities are constructed. Lexical competence is the ability to recognize and use words in a language in the way that speakers of the language usually use them. Lexical competence includes understanding the different relationships among families of words and the common collocations of words. Lexical competence in a second language can be described in the following four different ways: 1.with respect to what is known about words, 2.how well words are known, 3.how many words are known, 4.which words are known. Each of these will be discussed in what follows and the treatment of these aspects in the C.E.F. will be evaluated. Patrick Olivier
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