During the 19th century, language study followed a comparative approach known as comparative philology. Language researchers put their studies into a historical perspective to study the diachronic evolution and the change of languages over time. They also compared different languages to classify them into language families such as the Indo-European one and reconstruct the proto-language. Yet, this approach was based on item-centered investigation. It could not hold on because of the criticism of its unscientific methods that weakened the significance of its contribution to linguistic research.
2. Structuralism
At the beginning of the 20th century, structuralism as an approach to human sciences started to prevail in the study of language with the publication of Ferdinand de Saussure’s book of ‘Cours de Linguistique Générale’ in 1916. In this book, de Saussure introduces important ideas that illustrate the influence of structuralism through his focus on the structure of language as a primary concern in the linguistic research in order to describe linguistic facts.He postulates that language should not be studied in terms of its isolated words as comparative philologists did in the 19th century, but in terms of a system of interrelated signs that constitute the structure of the language. He explains his understanding of language in two concepts 'langue' and 'parole’ .De Saussure (1915) defines langue as "a social product of the faculty of speech and a collection of necessary conventions that have been adopted by a social body to permit individuals to exercise that faculty" (as cited in Williams, 1992, p. 37). Langue is regarded as an abstract linguistic system of signs that exist in the minds of a group of speakers who belong to the same speech community. This social phenomenon is not complete in any individual speaker; it is fully stored in the collectivity. Thus, we can say that langue is a common possession since it is shared by the members of the speech community. On the other hand, he defines parole as the actual realization and the concrete manifestation of the abstract linguistic system that can be observed when the individual speakers use interrelated signs from langue to express their thoughts. During the act of speaking, individuals can produce different sentences to express the same idea through the selection and the combination of a set of different signs that exist in langue. Accordingly, the linguistic variation is constantly observed only in parole, and not langue. This distinction between langue and parole is primarily a distinction between what is social and what is individual, what is abstract and what is concrete, and what is homogeneous and what is heterogeneous. De Saussure who was concerned with the structure of language eliminated parole from the study of language because he believed that parole cannot be structured due to its linguistic variation. Hence, his linguistic theory prioritizes the study of langue over parole. He insists on the study of language as an abstract homogeneous linguistic system apart from the influence of social, psychological and cognitive factors that can lead to significant progress in the linguistic research. In his description of this approach, Albrecht (2011, p. 821) states that this view:
[T]reats the language system as an autonomous object which can and should be abstracted from adjacent factors such as the history of the language, the anatomic and neurological requirements for the faculty of speech, the cognitive and social conditions of verbal communication and, last but not least, the practical purposes of speech acts.
3. Universal Grammar
Noam Chomsky (1965) adopts the structural ideas proposed by the founders of modern general linguistics like de Saussure because he views that "no cogent reason for modifying it has been offered" (p. 4), though this argument is not supported by strong evidence. He introduces a distinction between competence and performance that are similar to de Saussure’s dichotomy of langue and parole. Chomsky (1965, p. 4) conceives competence as "the speaker-hearer’s knowledge of his language.” It is an innate knowledge about the rules of the pronunciation of words (phonology), the meaning of words(semantics) and the class of words (syntax). Such mental knowledge of the linguistic system that exists in the mind of speakers governs the linguistic behavior and allows speakers to judge structures as being grammatical or ungrammatical. On the other hand, Chomsky (1965, p. 4)defines performance as "the actual use of language in concrete situations." In other words, it is the concrete linguistic behavior itself that is manifested through the selection and the execution of the abstract rules of competence. As mentioned before, Chomsky's competence–performance distinction is inspired by de Saussure’s distinction between langue and parole.
When we compare and contrast the researchers' conceptions of these dichotomies, we conclude that Chomsky’s performance is very similar to de Saussure’s parole. Yet, the concept of langue differs from the concept of competence in two ways:
· While de Saussure claims that langue is a set of signs, Chomsky argues that langue should not be limited to the knowledge of a set of linguistic signs since the linguistic system is governed by rules. Therefore, he develops the concept of competence ewhich includes knowledge of not only linguistic signs but also, more importantly, thecombinatorial rules of the system;
· Unlike langue, competence is not a social product since it consists of universalfeatures that exist innately in the mind of individual speakers while langue exists inthe collectivity. Therefore, competence is the property of the individual, not thecommunity.
Chomsky (1975) asserts that in order to construct linguistic theories "it is the linguist’stask to characterize what speakers know about their language, that is, their competence, notwhat they do with their language, that is, their performance" (as cited in Wardhaugh, 2006, p.4). The use of language in the social context is not relevant to Chomsky’s linguistic theorysince he believes that language can be better understood when linguists describe combinatoryrules and features that are universal to human languages. Thus, he sets competence as themain object of study in theoretical linguistics while performance has been excluded because,according to him, the real use of language is always subject to some limitations andconstraints like errors and distraction and, consequently, it cannot significantly contribute tothe study of language. Chomsky’s (1979) most controversial view considers linguisticvariation that we constantly observe in the individual performance as an error in theapplication of the universal rules that cannot be structured. Therefore, he believes thatvariation in the use of language by different speakers is not worth to be studied in theoreticallinguistics. To overcome the influence of the possible limitations of the daily use of languagein real-life situations, Chomsky describes the linguistic system of an ideal speaker-hear usedin a homogeneous speech community to reach the possible generalization of his linguistictheory. Chomsky (1965, pp. 3-4) expounds this point of view as follows:
Linguistic theory is concerned primarily with an ideal speaker–listener, in acompletely homogeneous speech community, who knows its language perfectlyand is unaffected by such grammatically irrelevant conditions as memorylimitations, distractions, shifts of attention and interest, and errors (random orcharacteristic) in applying his knowledge of the language in actual performance.
Chomsky has been criticized by many researchers for his assumption that the linguistictheory can only be developed through the study of the homogeneous speech communitybecause linguistic behaviors cannot be uniform in real situations. They reject the idea of thehomogeneous speech community since language does not exist in isolation of the socialcontext where it is used. In this respect, Labov (as cited in Waurdhaugh, 2006, p. 3) maintainsthat "the linguistic behavior of individuals cannot be understood without knowledge of thecommunities that they belong to." Thus, Chomsky’s knowledge of universal features(competence) is not sufficient to reach a deep understanding of language. Moreover,Wardhaugh and Fuller (2015, p. 6) argue that "meaningful insights into language can begained only if performance is included as part of the data which must be explained in a comprehensive theory of language." The link between language and social context where it exists urges sociolinguists to focus on the use of language in real-life situations (performance)because linguistic and social structures are "by no means co-extensive"(Labov, 1970, p. 199).As speakers never use the same linguistic forms in different situations, sociolinguists view that the study of language should transcend the description of homogeneous linguistic structures, proposed by theoretical linguists, and they attempt to explain how and why linguistic variation that is structured by the norms of the speech community occurs within and across social groups. They relate the use of different linguistic forms to social factors like age,social class and gender. Thus, they assert that knowing a language is more than the mastery of its grammatical rules and principles; "knowing a language also means knowing how to use that language, since speakers know not only how to form sentences but also how to use them appropriately" (Wardhaugh& Fuller, 2015, p. 5 ).
A great chasm between theoretical linguistics and sociolinguistics is clearly manifested in the structural and the sociolinguistic arguments. For theoretical linguists, only homogeneous speech community can be structured while linguistic variation cannot.Therefore, it has been discarded in their research. On the other hand, sociolinguists agree that variation is not an error of performance. It is a natural evidence of the link between language and society. Hence, they assert that any realistic study of human language must take into account the social aspects of language use.
4. Communicative Competence
The concept of Communicative Competence has been introduced by Dell Hymes (1972)as a reaction against Chomsky's linguistic competence (1965). While Chomsky (1965)focused on the innate faculty and the abstract knowledge of the system of language, Hymes(1972) was interested in the concrete use of language in social interactions. His study oflanguage was oriented towards the role of the socio-cultural factors that influence the use oflanguage is communicative situations. He expressed his dissatisfaction towards Chomsky'sidealized linguistic theory because it cannot be applied in real social contexts. Hence, heexpanded the concept of linguistic competence to the concept of communicative competencewhich includes, beside the linguistic competence, other types of competences that arenecessary to use language appropriately in daily life communications. In this regard, Hymes(1971, p. 55) argues that "the term ‘competence’ promises more than it in fact contains.Restricted to the purely grammatical, it leaves other aspects of speakers’ tacit knowledge andability in confusion, thrown together under a largely unexamined concept of ‘performance’."Chomsky's linguistic competence is constrained to the speakers' innate ability toproduce utterances that are grammatically correct. For Hymes, being competent in onelanguage requires more than the mastery of the linguistic system. He (1972, p. 281) conceiveda competent speaker as someone who is able to use language in relation to:
· Whether (and to what degree) something is formally possible;
· Whether (and to what degree) something is feasible in virtue of the means ofimplementation available;
· Whether (and to what degree) something is appropriate (adequate, happy, successful)in relation to a context in which it is used and evaluated;
· Whether (and to what degree) something is in fact done, actually performed, and whatits doing entails.
Many speakers may exhibit a great proficiency of grammatical, phonological andlexical rules of the language, but they fail to communicate since they do not master the appropriate use of language which is tied to “when to speak, when not… what to talk about,with whom, when, where, in what manner” (Hymes, 1972, p. 277). To select the appropriatespeech acts from the existing repertoire in one context, speakers should be equipped with akind of knowledge related to the socio-cultural norms and rules that govern the use oflanguage in a given situation. To account for his social perspective of language theory, Hymes(1972, p. 278) writes:
There are rules of use without which the rules of grammar will be useless. Just asrules of syntax can control aspects of phonology, and just as rules of semanticsperhaps control aspects of syntax, so rules of speech acts enter as a controlling factorfor linguistic form as a whole.
Although Hymes was the first who provided a solid theoretical ground for thedevelopment of Communicative Competence theory in the fields of second/ foreignlanguage teaching, learning and testing, this concept has been advocated by many scholars.
Saville-Troike (1982) also highlighted the important role of the context in successfulcommunications. For her, in each speech community, there are some skills and knowledge that the members must be aware of, beside their linguistic knowledge.Socio-cultural and interactional knowledge and interpersonal skills are necessary toaccomplish and understand the communicative act. Similarly to Hymes view ofcommunicative competence, Saville-Troike (1982, p. 21) explains that:
Communicative competence extends to both knowledge and expectation of whomay or may not speak in certain settings, when to speak and when to remainsilent, whom one may speak to, how one may talk to persons of different statusesand roles, what appropriate nonverbal behaviours are in various contexts, what theroutines for turn-taking are in conversation, how to ask for and give information,how to request, how to offer or decline assistance or cooperation, how to givecommands, how to enforce discipline, and the like.Since communication in a particular speech community is shaped by socio-culturaland contextual factors like social status and age, understanding the socio-cultural contextwhere speech is produced helps to grasp the real meaning of the linguistic forms employed ina given situation. One linguistic form may have different interpretations depending on thecontext where it occurs. In the same vein, Widdowson (1990, p. 102) supported the influenceof the context on our understanding of the intended meaning of the speech by stating that"understanding what people mean by what they say is not the same as understanding thelinguistic expressions they use in saying it… [e] very linguistic expression contains thepotential for a multiplicity of meanings and which one is realised on a particular occasion isdetermined by non-linguistic factors of context."
The occurrence of communication breakdowns and misunderstandings is veryfrequent among people who are not equipped with the socio-cultural and the contextualrules of language use. Therefore, we cannot say that language is free of its context, aswe cannot extract it from its communicative framework. Our linguistic behaviors aredeeply conditioned by the contextual demands.
1.1. Canale and Swain's model of communicative competence.
Communicative competence is a central concept in Canale and Swain's (1980) study oflanguage teaching. These applied linguists (1980, p. 20) define communicative competence as"a synthesis of knowledge of basic grammatical principles, knowledge of how language isused in social settings to perform communicative functions and knowledge of how utterancesand communicative functions can be combined according to the principles of discourse."They identified three components of communicative competence: grammatical,sociolinguistic and strategic competences. In 1983, Canale refined the model by dividingsociolinguistic competence to include discourse and sociolinguistic competences.
1.1.1. Grammatical competence.
Grammatical competence refers to knowledge of lexical items and rules of morphology,syntax, sentence-grammar, semantics and phonology. It is equated with Chomsky's linguisticcompetence because it is concerned with the mastery of the system of language and theability to produce well-formed sentences like the use of subjects, verb tenses... etc. AlthoughChomsky has been criticized for his linguistic competence, this type of competence is veryimportant for a competent communicator since "it is impossible to conceive of a person beingcommunicatively competent without being linguistically competent" Faerch et al. (1984,p.168). The person who does master the grammatical, lexical, phonological andmorphological rules cannot communicate appropriately and effectively in a given languagebecause of his/her linguistic deficiency.
1.1.2. Sociolinguistic competence.
It refers to knowledge of the social-cultural rules and the conventions that govern theuse of language in a particular social context. This kind of competence is necessary to decideon the appropriateness of speech in different situations and to understand the real meaning ofthe message because it is responsible for the deep understanding of the social context oflanguage use. Selecting the appropriate sentences and utterances that fit the communicativesituation depends on contextual and social factors like age, social status, topic and relationshipbetween speakers. For instance, the speaker who is sociolinguistically competent is able toselect when and with whom to use the formal speech style and when not since his/ hersociolinguistic knowledge allows him/her to relate the speech patterns to the social and thecontextual rules prevailing in a particular society to convey the intended meaning. This kindof knowledge is not universal, it differs from one situation to another, from one culture toanother and from one speech community to another. In this regard, Cummins and Swain(1998, p. 168) write:
Sociolinguistic competence addresses the extent to which utterances are producedand understood appropriately in different sociolinguistic contexts, depending oncontextual factors such as topic, status of participants, and purposes of theinteractions. Appropriateness of utterances refers to both appropriateness ofmeaning and appropriateness of form.
1.1.3. Strategic competence.
Canale and Swain (1980, p. 30) describe strategic competence as "the verbal and nonverbal communication strategies that may be called into action to compensate for breakdownsin communication due to performance variables or to insufficient competence." In order toreach the communicative ends, speakers must be competent in using the adequate and theeffective verbal and non-verbal strategies to avoid communication breakdowns and to repaircommunication problems and deficits related to their limited and imperfect knowledge oflanguage like avoidance strategies, reduction strategies and achievement strategies.
1.1.4. Discourse competence.
Discourse competence was added by Canale (1983) in the revised model. Unlikegrammatical competence which is concerned with the production of sentences that aregrammatically correct, discourse competence goes beyond the sentence level to focus on theintersentential relationship and the ability to arrange, organize and combine sentences in orderto produce spoken or written texts and discourses that are unified in terms of cohesion andcoherence. According to Brown (2003, pp. 219-220), discourse competence is "the ability wehave to connect sentences in stretches of discourse and to form a meaningful whole out of aseries of utterances." For communicative ends, people's daily use of language exceeds thesentence formation to the production of meaningful and unified texts and discourses. Themastery of the formation of isolated sentences that are grammatically correct reduces theeffectiveness and the success of communication. Therefore, knowledge of the combinationalrules of grammatical forms and semantic meanings ensures the unity of texts that is"achieved through cohesion in form and coherence in meaning" (Cummins & Swain, 1998, p.168).
1.2. Bachman model of communicative language ability.
An elaborated explanation of communicative competence was conceptualized byBachman in his Communicative Language Ability model presented in 1990. The significantmove in this theory was inspired by Hymes (1972), Canale and Swain (1980) and Canale's(1983) models of communicative competence. According to Bachman (1990, p. 840),Communicative Language Ability consists of "both knowledge, or competence, and thecapacity for implementing, or executing that competence in appropriate contextualizedcommunicative language use." This means that the proposed model is concerned with bothcompetence and performance. The CLA framework includes three components which are:language competence, strategic competence and psycho-physiological mechanisms.
Language competence refers to "a set of specific knowledge components that areutilized in communication via language" (Bachman, 1990, p. 84). It comprises organizationalcompetence and pragmatic competence. The organizational competence concerns the waysentences and texts are organized, and it is further divided into grammatical and textualcompetences. Grammatical competence refers to knowledge of vocabulary, phonology, syntaxand morphology. Textual competence deals with knowledge of rules to join sentences andinformation together to form a well-organized text. The second component of languagecompetence, pragmatic competence, which is concerned with the relationships betweenutterances and the acts or functions that speakers intend to perform through these utterances(Bachman, 1995) is also divided into illocutionary competence which is the knowledge of thepragmatic conventions for performing acceptable language functions, and sociolinguisticcompetence which is the knowledge of the sociolinguistic conventions for performingacceptable language functions appropriately in a given context.
The second type of competence, strategic competence, is explained by Bachman
(1990, p. 102) as follows:
The interpretation of discourse, in other words, requires the ability to utilizeavailable language competences to assess the context for relevant information andthen match this information to information in the discourse. It is the function ofstrategic competence to match the new information to be proceeded with relevantinformation that is available (including presuppositional and real-worldknowledge) and map it onto the maximally efficient use of existing language abilities.
Unlike Canale and Swain (1980), for Bachman, strategic competence is not a part oflanguage competence. In this model, it is viewed as "a general ability which enables anindividual to make the most effective use of available abilities in carrying out a given task"(Bachman, 1990, p. 106). It is conceived as a general capacity rather than a specificknowledge of language. Therefore, it has been separated from language competence. Strategiccompetence includes assessment, planning and execution.The last component of CLA is the psycho-physiological mechanisms that are related toneurological and the physiological processes that intervene during the execution oflanguage like the articulation of speech. It is important to point out that, although the model iscomplex to be applied in reality, it attempts to explain how the different components of CLAinteract with each other and with the context where language is used.
1.3. Celce-Murcia model of communicative competence.
Celce-Murcia, Dornyei and Thurrel (1995) viewed that the models of communicativecompetence of Canale and Swain (1980) and Canale (1983) were based on the individualdescription and definition of each component of communicative competence. They also criticizedBachman 's (1990) model because it works more in the field of language assessment rather thanlanguage teaching. Subsequently, Celce-Murcia et al. (1995) refined Canale and Swain (1980)andCanale 's (1983) models by introducing some modifications in terminology, proposing a newtype of competence, while strategic competence and discourse competence were maintained.Besides, Celce-Murcia et al. (1995) proposed a functional-relational model of communicative competence that focused on the link and the interaction between its components and covered important aspects and components that are needed for successful communications. Therefore,it is believed that their contribution to the theory of communicative competence is more elaborated and more sophisticated.Grammatical competence was substituted into linguistic competence to contend that tthis type of competence does not only include grammar, but also phonology and lexicon.
Furthermore, sociolinguistic competence became socio-cultural competence which is defined
as "the cultural background knowledge needed to interpret and use a language effectively"(Celce-Murcia, 2007, p. 42). More interestingly, in this model, they added a fifth type of competence, actional competence, which refers to the competence in " conveying and understanding communicative intent, that is matching actional intent with linguistic form based on the knowledge of an inventory of verbal schemata that carry illocutionary force(speech acts and speech act sets)" (Celce-Murcia et al., 1995, p. 17). It is worth noting that this pragmatic ability was integrated within the sociolinguistic competence of Canale and Swain (1980) and Canale (1983) models.Celce-Murcia et al. (1995) placed discourse competence at the center of the model as a core competence because it shapes and also is shaped by linguistic, sociolinguistic and actional competence. They (1995, P. 9) explain this relationship as follows:
Our construct places the discourse component in a position where lexicogrammatical building blocks [i.e. linguistic competence], the actional or ganizational skills of communicative intent, and the sociocultural context come together and shape the discourse, which, in turn, also shapes each of the other three components.
Within the same theoretical framework, strategic competence links all the competences together as "an ever-present, potentially usable inventory of skills"(Celce-Murcia et al., 1995, p. 9). This competence is important for speakers to cope with communication problems, compensate for deficiencies and negotiate meanings.
This relational model has been further revised and updated by Celce-Murcia(2007) who introduced Interactional Competence which encompasses actional,conversational and formulaic competence, beside socio-cultural, discourse, linguistic and strategic competences.
1.3.1. Sociocultural competence.
Sociocultural competence refers to "the speaker’s pragmatic knowledge, i.e. how toexpress messages appropriately within the overall social and cultural context ofcommunication" (Celce-Murcia, 2007, p. 45). That is to say, this kind of competence dealswith knowledge of the sociocultural norms and the contextual rules that are related tolanguage variation and use. Celce-Murcia (2007, p. 45) identifies three importantsociocultural variables within this competence:
· Social contextual factors: the participants’ age, gender, status, social distance and theirrelations to each other, power and effect;
· Stylistic appropriateness: politeness strategies, a sense of genres and registers;
· Cultural factors: background knowledge of the target language group, majordialects/regional differences, and cross-cultural awareness;
Celce-Murcia contends that cultural and social blunders can be far more serious thatlinguistic errors. Thus, foreign language teachers should raise learners' awareness of theimportant role of the socio-cultural factors to use language appropriately by teaching themabout the target community traditions, literature and history as well as exposing them to thetarget speech community where language is used as a native one.
1.3.2. Discourse competence.
Discourse competence refers to the organization and the arrangement of words and utterances to produce a unified and a coherent text. In this model, it represents the intersection between linguistic competence, socio-cultural competence, formulaic competence and interactional competence. To clarify better how this competence can be achieved, CelceMurcia (2007, p. 47) mentions four elements that are essential in discourse competence:
· Cohesion: conventions regarding use of reference (anaphora/cataphora), substitution/ellipsis, conjunction, and lexical chains;
· Deixis: situational grounding achieved through use of personal pronouns, spatial terms(here/there; this/that), temporal terms (now/then; before/after), and textual reference(e.g. the following table, the figure above);
· Coherence: expressing purpose/intent through appropriate content schemata,managing old and new information, maintaining temporal continuity and other organizational schemata through conventionally recognized means;
· Generic structure: formal schemata that allow the user to identify an oral discourse segment as a conversation, narrative, interview, service encounter, report, lecture,sermon, etc.
1.3.3. Linguistic competence.
Linguistic Competence refers to phonological, lexical, morphological, syntacticknowledge of language. Celce-Murcia's conception of this competence is identical to Canaleand Swain's (1980) grammatical competence (for more explanation, see pages 17-18).
1.3.4. Formulaic competence.
In her revised model, Celce-Murcia (2007) highlighted the importance of formulaic competence along with knowledge of the linguistic system for language fluency. It is meant by formulaic competence the mastery of "those fixed and pre-fabricated chunks of language that speakers use heavily in everyday interaction" (Celce-Murcia, 2007, p. 48). To clarify better, she lists some formulaic expressions that fluent speakers often use in every day communications:
· Routines: fixed phrases like of course, all of a sudden and formulaic chunks like How do you do? I’m fine, thanks; how are you?
· Collocations: verb-object: spend money, play the piano, adverb, adjective: statistically significant, mutually intelligible, adjective-noun: tall building, legible handwriting;
· Idioms: e.g. to kick the bucket = to die; to get the ax = to be fired/terminated;
· Lexical frames: e.g. I’m looking for ______________. See you (later/tomorrow/ next week, etc.).
1.3.5. Interactional competence.
Celce Murcia (2007) introduced the concept of interactional competence in the refined;model to refer to speakers' knowledge of interactional rules that are needed to communicateeffectively in socio-cultural settings. In her elaboration on this competence, she divided it into
three subcomponents: Actional competence, conversational competence and non-verbal(paralinguistic) competence.
1.3.5.1. Actional competence.
Actional competence is defined by Celce-Murica (2007) as knowledge of how to perform and interpret common speech acts and speech act sets in the target language during interactions such as information exchanges, interpersonal exchanges, expression of opinions and feelings, problems (complaining, blaming, regretting, apologizing, etc.) and future scenarios (hopes, goals, promises, predictions, etc.). This pragmatic ability is a very important component of communicative competence since it allows to create a natural and a smooth interaction among communicators. In second/foreign language teaching and learning context, developing actional competence is a prerequisite to ensure the successful use of language because the performance of speech acts like request, compliment and apology differs from one language to another, and from one social group to another. Therefore, second/foreign language learners need to acquireactional competence as a part of communicative competence in order to function appropriately when performing and interpreting different speech acts.
1.3.5.2. Conversational competence.
Conversational competence requires knowledge of conversational rules such as:
· How to open and close conversations;
· How to establish and change topics;
· How to get, hold, and relinquish the floor;
· How to interrupt;
· How to collaborate and backchannel.
The conversational norms that usually intervene in social interactions like turn-taking, opening and closing a conversation and interruption also differ not only from one language to another, but also from one speech community to another. Rules for closing a conversation that are perceived as normal and appropriate in one culture may be completely offensive in another cultural group. For this reason, Celce-Murcia (2007, p. 49) claims that "awareness of the conversation norms of the target language community and of the important differences between L1 and L2 norms is very important for conversational competence."
1.3.5.3. Non-verbal/paralinguisticcompetence.
When people interact with each other, they usually move some parts of their body along with their speech to effectively achieve their communicative ends. Celce-Murcia (2007) claims that issues like eye contact, proxemics, kinesics, greetings, gestures, postures, Haptic behavior, silence and pauses should be addressed in foreign language classes because they are central to oral communication and communicative competence. According to her, foreign language learners need to acquire paralinguistic knowledge to adapt their non-verbal behaviors according to the communicative situation where language is used and to understand the real significance of the different postures and gestures that people display during their interactions.
1.3.5.4. Strategic competence.
In the refined model, Celce-Murcia (2007) emphasizes both, the learning strategies and the communication strategies. Concerning the learning strategies, she makes the distinction between cognitive strategies (the use of outlining, note-taking and summarizing that rely on logical and analytical methods), metacognitive strategies (self-evaluation, guessing the meaning of words from the context and other monitoring functions), and memory-related strategies (the use of acronyms, images and sounds to memorize words). On the other hand, five strategies are specified within communication strategies:
· Achievement strategies: strategies of approximation, circumlocution, codes-witching,miming, etc.;
· Stalling or time gaining strategies: using phrases like Where was I? Could you repeatthat?
· Self-monitoring strategies: using phrases that allow for self repair like I mean….;
· Interacting strategies: these are strategies that include appeals for help/clarification,that involve meaning negotiation, or that involve comprehension and confirmationchecks, etc.;
· Social strategies: these strategies involve seeking out native speakers to practice with,actively looking for opportunities to use the target language.
After reviewing the different models of communicative competence, the refined model ofCelce-Muricia (2007) seems to be the most comprehensive one because she identified the most important aspects that contribute to the success of communication such as interactional competence as she highlighted how these components interact with each other. However, her model took the target speech community as the standard to be imitated by second/foreign language learners.