COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE Language, Culture, and Society

Communicative Competence Knowledge of how to use language in culturally appropriate ways: what to say, when, to whom, and how Linguistic knowledge (grammar, vocabulary) Cultural knowledge (values, beliefs, attitudes) Interactional knowledge (norms, routines, rituals) Linguistic knowledge: - jargon, slang, using codeswitching into certain languages in certain ways, common expressions. Cultural knowledge: - some can be about language: for example – is slang seen as proper or improper language? is codeswitching deemed good or bad use of language? which languages or ways of speaking have more prestige (or are more accepted). Interactional knowledge: - some can be about language: when/where/with whom certain phrases are used (for example: “how are you?” as a mini-routine when we meet people. we generally don’t really care about how they’re actually doing, as can be seen when someone answers something negative “bad” or “horrible”).

Think about the linguistic, cultural, and interactional knowledge for the following situation: spatial knowledge (customer cannot enter cashiers' space) interactional and cultural knowledge (customer has to place items on conveyor belt, cashier will handle and scan all the items customer picked out, if there are multiple customers in line, they may choose to separate their goods with a little plastic bar, who is going to bag the groceries) - linguistic knowledge (the types of conversations people would typically have in a grocery line, with other customers as well as the cashier, the cashiers' more formal greetings to customers)

Communicative Competence Social relations address terms, word choice, politeness, formality Social regulation teasing, gossip, silence, commands (how do these contribute to power?) Routines greetings, goodbyes, condolences, compliments Rituals weddings, voting, rites of passage Study the ways in which speech communities do the following: (go through slide) How do people enter/greet a group? Different greeting people in the office as compared with your friends? How might people regulate relations within the group? power? Are there any language routines or rituals? Things that are said over and over, every day? At a certain time? Pledge of allegiance? Announcements?   Goal in our ethnographies: figuring out what communicative competence means in the community/field site we are studying, especially as related to language, looking for patterns in language use.

Think about the how language plays a part in the social regulation of this community (or communities):