Communication competence in ESL learning: Chomsky, Stubbs, and Halliday

¶ … ESL Learning: Comparative Analysis of the works of N. Chomsky, M. Stubbs, and M. Halliday & R. Hasan

The prevalence of multiculturalism in American society today denotes an important phenomenon that is confronted by society and human culture -- the evolution of the English language as one of the dominant and oft-used languages in the world. As a response to the increased use and evolution of the English language, English as a Second Language (ESL) has been taught formally to individuals who want to become "competent" and "able" in communicating through the English language, both verbally and non-verbally.

The issue of communication competence as it relates to the ESL experience is an important issue in the field of linguistics today. This paper's objectives involves two important processes involved in learning ESL: (1) first, society's/culture's perceived communication competence of an individual learning ESL, and (2) the individual's adaptation and use of English as second language per se. The actual and perceived competence of the individual while communicating in the English language is discussed thoroughly in this paper -- more specifically centering the discussion on the concept of heterogenous (communication) competence. Drawing from the theories and concepts of linguists such as N. Chomsky, M. Stubbs, and M. Halliday & R. Hasan, the researcher posits that heterogenous communication competence is a pragmatic concept that is developed, ironically, from linguistic theories and concepts.

Heterogenous communication competence posits that communication, specifically ESL communication, is largely a culturally-dependent concept. That is, competence in the heterogenous communication competence concept is dependent not on the rules governing the English language, but instead, on the rules governing languages in general. This important distinction is made explicit in the critical discourse analysis section that will be tackled further in Chapter 3.

The case under study

The text used for the discourse analysis is a recollected story from a 6th grade ESL student, Marcella (observed last September 26, 2006). Marcella's background shows that she has been in the United States for 3 years and is under the ESL program for 2 years, with 45 minutes pull-out ESL program at school. As a communicator, Marcella primarily converses in Spanish at home. The following extracted text was generated from an observation of a reading comprehension activity in her ESL Language Arts class:

they heard 'em undergroung ca-cause they went through a hoyle -- a hole -- and they pulled a rock from underground and then they saw a wave going in -- that the hole -- and they brought a table and the wave brought 'em out the k-tunnel and then the- they went away and then-uh-m-ah-k back on the top and it was-uh-going under a bridge and they went-then the braves hit the- the bridge-they-all of it -th-then they looked there then they - then they were safe."

Analysis

Using the text in the previous chapter as the focus of the discourse analysis, different linguistic perspectives are applied to better understand how, linguistically, Marcella is a heterogeneously competent communicator of English as a second language. Works from Chomsky, Stubbs, and Halliday and Hasan demonstrate this argument, wherein a collective analysis of their arguments show that communication competence in the context of ESL is not exclusively bound to standard English language rules, but more generally (and on a wider scope), is actually bound to the standard rules of language. The texts that follow look into each linguist's theories and concepts on language learning, providing readers with a viewpoint of each linguist's position on Marcella's case.

Noam Chomsky: "Competence" and "performance" in the ESL context

Applying Marcella's case and text discourse under the scrutiny of Chomsky's theories and ideas on language and language learning, the central focus would be on grammar usage and phonetic representation. Chomsky provides two important insights into the concept of heterogenous communication competence. The first insight looks into his analysis of communication competence as it relates to the psychology of the individual (i.e., perceived competence of the individual). This insight actually provides the notion that ESL learners and speakers are not incompetent communicators per se -- that is, they only become incompetent within the locale of the language (English language).

In arguing this point, he distinctly provided definitions and a discussion on the difference between competence and performance (Chomsky, 1991:3):

Competence, in this sense, is not to be confused with performance. Performance, that is, what the speaker-hearer actually do, is based not only on his knowledge of the language, but on many other factors as well -- factors such as memory restrictions, inattention, distraction, nonlinguistic knowledge and beliefs, and so on. We may, if we like, think of the study of competence as the study of the potential performance of an idealized speaker-hearer who is unaffected by such grammatically irrelevant factors.

From this distinction between competence and performance, it is apparent that Marcella's case, which is her perceived incompetent recall of a story read and comprehended, is not incompetent in the terms Chomsky has defined competence to be. That is, Marcella's competence can be analyzed if and only if she becomes "unaffected by such grammatically irrelevant factors" -- that is, devoid of any culture-dependent factors enumerated in the passage quoted. As an ESL student, Marcella is undergoing communication as a performance: a process that is a function of both Spanish and American cultures (languages).

Proof of Marcella's reading comprehension and recall as a "performance" is evidenced by the existence of misspelled words ("undergroung"), wrong word choice ("m-ah-k back on the top" and "braves"), and hesitation points in the communicator's recollection of the story. Illustratively, common knowledge would tell us that Marcella is incompetent communicatively because of these simple 'imperfections' in the narrative -- her lack of command of the English language. But defined in Chomsky's terms, these simple imperfections become 'accepted facts' that are common occurrences among learners of ESL.

In addition to this culture-bound perspective in looking at communication competence, Chomsky furthered his analysis to include that "[w]e cannot, in other words, characterize the internalized, mentally represented system of rules that we call "grammar" in terms of any other significant concept of psychology" (4). This means that though it is inevitable to link communication competence with the individual's mental competence, Chomsky warns us against doing so, for communication competence is not a proven manifestation of one's intellectual ability or psyche (unless, of course, the individual is diagnosed as having communication problems physiologically/biologically).

The second insight generated from these linguistic theories and concepts that Chomsky developed is the application of communication competence to the "bigger picture": the politics and power connected with one's communication competence. An important issue addressed in Chomsky's linguistics is the question of whether it is important to have an "idealized" communicator, which necessitates, of course, the concept of communication competence. This is because the vision of an "idealized" communicator is not applicable in real life, because all individuals as communicators are influenced and sometimes bound by the culture they were strongly influenced with. And because all communicators are culture-bound, all communication therefore are also culture-bound -- making communication and language susceptible to becoming a process, a performance (Smith, 1999:12).

Thus, to apply Marcella's case as a question of her competence / incompetence as a communicator means subjecting her to the problem of 'idealizing' her as a speaker-hearer or communicator. Because it is already a given fact that Marcella is strongly influenced by the Spanish language, the competence question is no longer relevant in her case, and, in Chomskyan terms, Marcella's performance as an ESL communicator becomes a more relevant and significant issue.

M. Halliday & R. Hasan: Communication competence and social relations

Looking into the meaning of texts and language as a communication tool, Halliday and Hasan how meanings are generated in second language acquisition, a situation appropriate to the ESL context applied in Marcella's case. In the previous sections, contrasting forms of analysis became apparent with Chomsky's and Stubb's linguistic theories and concepts. Chomsky assumed a more conciliatory tone in his explication of the dynamics surrounding ESL learning and communication competence, while Stubbs provided a quantitative and more defined measure of ascertaining communication competence (i.e., in relation to verbal intelligence).

Halliday and Hasan's analysis is linked with Chomsky because of the pragmatic manner in which the former tried to explain communication competence and its influence on the interaction of the communicators. While the linguists considered communication competence as extant and one of the underlying processes governing language use, and that there is power relations created from communicating, they took into consideration to account for both sides of the power relations/conflict that emerges from a specific communication/interaction process.

Vital to the linguists' discussion of competence is the context in which communication and social interaction occur. To provide an appropriate and correct interpretation of an interaction between communicators, linguists must be able to understand the role that communicators take or assume in the process of interacting with each other. Halliday and Hasan consider communication competence as a function of culture -- that is, creating meanings from discourse requires a knowledge of the context or situation from which the discourse was developed. More than just creating meaning from context, they also looked into communication as it happens between the communicators, and how this interaction or exchange is viewed generally (i.e., against social norms). The linguists posit that, "context in terms of social norms... 'is not to side with the group wielding power any more than to describe working class dialects is to bring about a social revolution...The recognition of norms would be misleading if...a scholar chose to ignore the presence of conflicting norms" (Young, 1992:66).

Looking into Marcella's narrative highlights this important insight by Halliday and Hasan. As previously mentioned in the preceding section, Marcella's use of the word "braves," rather than "waves," can create confusion to the other communicator when expressed. However, communication roles are assumed in the process of understanding her narrative: as the listener of the story, the other communicator seeks to understand the meaning of "braves" in the context of Marcella's story. Though this is the ideal situation -- that is, the other communicator would seek understanding in making sense of Marcella's story -- there will be cases in which she may not be understood by other listeners/communicators, and at the worst, being labeled as incompetent as a communicator because of her wrong word choice and usage. Power relations (conflict) emerges when this happens, wherein the other communicator, more knowledgeable of the English language, fails to understand the context in which Marcella's story is applied, thereby generating confusion and ineffective communication between Marcella and the communicator.