Competence versus performance within a practical work

Abstract EN

Language is a social phenomenon used to satisfy communicative needs.

Since people use language in any social interaction as a means of communication, language, then, has a great role in any social interaction exchange ideas, attitudes and feelings in term of meaning.

Meaning can be categorized into different levels and types according to the ideas or the attitudes it conveys.

Accordingly, the present study seeks to find the correlation between the two concepts (competence and performance) expressed in linguistic interactions.

It discusses the problematic area relative to how linguistic knowledge conveys these two concepts, and how they contribute to overall communicative values of the verbal interaction.

The study tackles some problems that arise in the process of verbal interaction.

It explores the relation between competence and performance, which may often be blurred.

The framework of this research is systematically embodied in five chapters.

First of all, chapter one covers the problem, aim of the study, hypothesis, limits of the study, procedures and value of the study.

Chapter two offers an over view of a theoretical background of the traditional, structural and transformational view points for the two concepts (competence and performance).

Chapter three talks about the interpretations of Chomsky`s competence and performance distinction and the analogy between Chomsky`s works and other linguists, whereas chapter four conducts the analysis of the two concepts (competence and performance) distinction within the Transformational Generative Grammar.

Transformation lists hope to specify a comprehensive generative grammar that offers a logical and complete explanation for the linguistic knowledge.

Finally, chapter five presents an empirical study for the researcher to analyze the student`s competence and performance within a test.

The results revealed that the sample subjects have many errors which the researcher classified into Semantic and Syntactic errors.

Syntactic errors formed the largest percentage of the total number of errors.

This investigation has revealed that there is a shortage in the knowledge of language or lack of competence for our students.

In the light of the obtained results, some conclusions are drawn, number of recommendations are made and several suggestions for further researches are presented.