Communicative competence and communicative approach: Dell Hymes fragmented

Abstract

In his seminal article On Communicative Competence (1972), Dell Hymes presented arguments to defend that Chomsky’s concept of ‘competence’ (the ideal language speaker in a homogeneous language community) is, in a way, incomplete. For Hymes, more than acquiring the formal rules of a language, the native speakers also acquire other (sociolinguistic) rules that can also be analyzed and described. Although Hymes did not have second language learning on his analytic horizon, his article led others to present new approaches to second language learning in a time when the audio-lingual method was already fading. This paper analyzes how EFL textbooks from the so called communicative approach incorporated the four pillars of Communicative Competence proposed by Hymes, viz., language which is (i) "formally possible", (ii) "feasible in virtue of the means of implementation available”, (iii) "appropriate in relation to a context in which it is used and evaluated", and (iv) "actually performed". Analysis of typical classroom behavior, of ESL textbooks, and of general teacher practice – particularly in the search of native- or near-native-like pronunciation – indicates that it is still the model of grammatical/structural competence presented by Chomsky that serves as a model for learners.