DISCOURSE COMPETENCE

Written by:

Liya Eka Susanti (liyaeka11@gmail.com)

Utri Suciati (utrisuci@gmail.com)

INTRODUCTION

Communication is not just a mechanical, raw transfer of informationfrom the speakers

to their recipients. Nor is it a disorderly exchange of turns or a meaningless, indefnite
interactive tug of war. communication, realized through discourse construction, is a
spontaneous allocation of power and an unpredictable, yet logical low of ideas. it is, or rather
should be structured, poetry with its stanzas placed by the speaker in a specifc order, verses
interacting with one another and meaning inferable from the very specific context of this
social act. To master this competence is quite an undertaking for a second language (L2)
learner. Although successfully utilized in their first language, L2 discourse construction
requires the learner to demonstrate specifc knowledge of linguistic instruments,
understanding of L2 cultural codes and the skills to combine these elements into an individual
utterance, unique for the discourse maker, yet still not exceeding the bounds of the social
communicative rigor. There have been numerous studies on discourse construction in the last
few decades. The research has developed from linguistic analysis of discourse structures
through studies on discourse construction by separate speech communities to the analysis of
discourse in its semiotic dimension.

CONTEXT

Defining Discourse

The defnitions of discourse are aplenty. It can be specifed simplistically as “a

linguistic unit that comprises more than one sentences” (Fromkin et al 2003: 581) or
language production built of a minimum two stretches of speech (Kurcz 2005:161). Correct
as these definitions seem, they encompass only some discourse aspects investigated in this
study. The textuality of language production, to which these defnitions refer, is indeed a
significant discourse domain. But to really comprehend the phenomenon of discourse
construction, a further, perhaps more challenging, multi-dimensional linguistic inquiry must
be undertaken, that beyond the sentence itself (McCharty 2001; 96).

Discourse can be analyzed in at least three dimensions. In the frst one it is often
portrayed as social practice, “produced, circulated, distributed, consumed in society”
(Blommaert 2005:29). This conception of discourse, then, proposes its analysis on the level
of sociolinguistic communication with its unique setting to affect specifc implementations of
discursive routines. The focal point in this approach is the intertextuality of language
production,as realized in the relation of a given text to non-linguistic representations of the
society’s schematic concepts in which discourse operates, or in the relation of the outside of
the text to the text itself” (Fairclough 2003:15) ,e.g. through linking it “to an ill-defined
penumbra of other texts, what has been said or written or at least thought else where”
(Fairclough 2003:15). In this dimension then, dicourse as social practice is dependent upon,
not determined by the idiocratic speaking or writing conventions of a given society.

The second dimension of discourse analysis is that of particular discourses as products

of specific routines cultivated in a given community, whether professional or social. These
discourses are realized through the use of concrete linguistic objects, specifc texts or text
types (Blommaert 2005:29), which represent the common ideological, professional or
institutional interests of a given microworld of discourse makers as well as its participants.

Defining Discourse Competence

Discourse competence is a component of communicative competence.

Communicative competence is divided into four components: grammatical competence,
discourse competence, socio-linguistic competence and strategic competence according to
the classification of communicative competence as given by Canale and Swain (1980). They
define discourse competence as an ability to make larger patterns of stretches of discourse
into meaningful wholes. Later interpretation of discourse competence implies that discourse
competence is also concerned with language use in social context, and in particular with
interaction and dialogue between speakers (Gumperz, 1977). Contrary to it, Canale and
Swain (1980) place it as a separate component of communicative competence.
Discourse Competence and Discourse Analysis

The focus on communicative competence has resulted in the study of discourse or

pragmatic competence and has also encouraged discourse analysis. Discourse competence
and discourse analysis has been the subject of extensive and intensive study since the 1960s
and the early 1970s. The research has grown out from different disciplines such as linguistics,
psychology, anthropology and sociology. Discourse competence remains an important issue
of second language learning research. First of all, the interest in discourse is to be found in
Zellig Harris' (1952) paper 'Discourse Analysis'. He considers discourse connected with text
and social context. Discourse competence as mentioned before, is the use of communicative
knowledge and experience, or it is a pattern of human behavior, attitude and socio-cultural
rules and contexts through which they take part in communication. Discourse competence
and discourse analysis have embraced many extensive and intensive studies and approaches,
i.e., the study of rhetorical coherence of interaction in which the focus of attention is the
function of the language in the exchange of information.

Discourse analysis studies language in action whether it is the written text or any kind
of spoken communication. So, it seems to be important to describe briefly different meanings
related to the word discourse. Fairclough defines discourse, as a "particular view of language
in use .... as an element of social life, which is closely interconnected, with other elements"
(2004: 3). Further he states,

"I see discourses as ways of representing aspects of the world the

processes, relations and structures of the material world, the 'mental world' of
thoughts, feelings, beliefs and so forth, and the social world.... Different
discourses are different perspectives of the world, and they are associated with
the different relations people have to the world, which in turn depends on their
positions in the world, their social and personal identities, and the social
relationships in which they stand to other people.... Discourses constitute part
of the resources which people deploy in relating to one another- keeping
separate from one another, cooperating, competing, dominating and in seeking
to change the ways in which they relate to one another." (2004: 124)
Foucault (1972, 1984) has made significant identification and analysis of discourses a
preoccupation across the humanities and social sciences. His statement on 'discourse' makes it
clear that for Foucault (1984), analysis of discourse is the analysis of the domain of
'statements', "I believe I have in fact added to its meanings: treating it sometimes as the
general domain of all statements, sometimes as an individualizing group of statements, and
sometimes as a regulated practice that accounts for a number of statements." (Foucauh quoted
in Fairclough, 2004: 123)

Cook states the following about discourse analysis, "Discourse analysis examines how
stretches of language, considered in their full textual, social, and psychological context,
become meaningful and unified for their users." (Cook, 2000: ix) According to him,
discourse analysis provides "insights into the problems and processes of language use and
language learning" (Cook, 2000: ix). Cutting defines discourse analysis as "...approaches to
studying language's relation to the contextual background features" (Cutting, 2003: I).

Some researchers make a distinction between spoken discourse competence and

textual competence. Spoken discourse competence also refers to the understanding of the
context of situation and responding or speaking in different social context in cohesive and
coherent way. Textual discourse competence refers to the ability to understand and construct
monologues or written texts of different genres, such as narratives, procedural texts,
expository texts, descriptive texts and others. These discourse types have different
characteristics, but in each genre there are some elements that help in making the text
coherent, e.g., linking devices. Learning a language involves learning how to relate in such a
way that the reader or listener can understand the linguistic elements what is going on, and
see what is important. Thus, discourse competence relates information in a way that is
cohesive and coherent to the readers and hearers.

The study of the discourse competence owes discourse analysis and text linguistics
the repertoire of notions, concepts and terms language teaching theorists may use to
understand the role of discourse in language learning and teaching. There are many
introductions to discourse analysis the reader may turn to for a more detailed account of that
repertoire (see McCarthy 1991 for a complete introduction designed for language teachers,
and Martínez-Cabeza 2002 and Martínez-Dueñas Espejo 2002, for two recent updated
introductions within the fields of linguistics and rhetoric) but we would like to highlight here
some important concepts which may help us deal with discourse competence instruction and
evaluation.

Concept in Discourse Competence

Llobera (1996:379-391) summarises some important notions in relation to the

discourse competence. He starts with the distinction between ‘discourse conveyed in the FLT
classroom’ and ‘discourse generated in the FLT classroom’, which calls our attention towards
the fact that discourse competence is a dynamic procedural competence which is constantly
in action during the teaching and learning processes. Then, he goes on commenting upon
some important concepts in the field of relationships between participants: status (as
exemplified in the use of forms of address), social roles, distance (as related to the categories
of intimate, acquaintance and stranger), politeness and face, theme and rheme, new and given
information, genre, turn-taking and repairing. To this list we would like to add two other
concepts equally important.

- Cohesion
A text is any piece of language, spoken or written, of whatever length, which
forms a unified whole. A speaker of a language can easily distinguish between a text
and a collection of sentences. This is because texts have texture, that is, the quality of
functioning as a unity.
For a text to have texture it must include “ties” that bind it together. These
“ties” are called cohesive ties and, given that cohesion is expressed partly through the
grammar and partly through the vocabulary, there are different types of cohesive ties,
such as: reference, substitution, ellipsis, discourse markers and lexical cohesion.
These ties produce cohesion. Cohesion “refers to relations of meaning that exist
within the text, and that define it as a text” (Halliday & Hasan 1976:4). There is
cohesion when the interpretation of an element in the text is dependent on that of
another, that is, “cohesion is a semantic relation between an element in the text and
some other element that is crucial to the interpretation of it.”
- Coherence
Richards, Platt and Platt (1993:61) define coherence as the relationships which
link the meanings of sentences in a discourse. Let’s see the following example:

John hid Bill’s keys. He was drunk. (1)

John hid Bill’s keys. He likes spinach. (2)

In the first utterance, we presume that hiding someone’s keys can be an effect
of being drunk, so both sentences make sense even though they do not have anything
in common related to grammar or lexicon; we simply know that when someone drinks
a lot, he or she behaves in strange ways. However, in the second utterance, there is no
 coherence: the fact that John likes spinach does not have any relationship with that of
hiding Bill’s keys.

Two Meanings of Discourse Competence

After Zellig Harris' (1952) paper 'Discourse Analysis', many applied linguists and
sociologists have interpreted discourse competence into two different ways:

- First Meaning of Discourse

The first meaning of discourse has been considered the proper organization of
text. According to this view, discourse refers to the ability of providing for logical and
cohesive connection of sentences and utterances into meaningful and coherent
stretches of discourse. The term 'organization' for discourse competence was first
introduced by Bachman (1990). But, this concept is best exemplified by Canale and
Swain (1980), Savingnon (1983 and 1985), Brown (1987) and Qing (1990) as it has
been pointed out before. All of them have described discourse competence as an
organizational aspect of language above the sentence. It is the ability of combining
sentences into larger stretches of communication.
- Second Meaning of Discourse Competence
The second meaning of discourse refers to the socio-linguistic use of language.
According to this concept, discourse cannot be produced and understood without the
knowledge of socio-cultural contexts, values, attitudes and behaviors. This view of
discourse is best exemplified by Gumperz (1977) and Schachter (1990). Narang states
the following about discourse competence:

"A speaker-listener internalizes communicative grammar while he

undergoes the normal process of socialization. This process implies that the
learner's language acquisition ability is but a part of his total
learning/acquisition abilities and his interaction with the environment implies
not just the linguistic environment. In fact a child learning his language and
learning to interact with his environment never receives linguistic data isolated
from sociocultural context." (1996: 247)
Therefore, according to this view a child acquires discourse competence
through the learning of his/her social rules and conventions in addition to learning the
grammatical rules. Hymes says, "The linguist's problem is to explain how a child
comes rapidly to be able to produce and understand (in principle) any and all of the
 grammatical sentences of a language. If we consider a child actually capable of
producing all possible sentences he would probably be institutionalized, particularly
not only the sentences, but also speech or silence were random or unpredictable. We
then have to account for the fact that a normal child acquires knowledge of sentences
not only as grammatical but also as appropriate." (1971: 5)

Discourse competence has become a popular and burning issue in ESL studies and
research after Canale and Swain's categorization of communicative competence into four
components: grammatical competence, discourse competence, socio-linguistic competence
and strategic competence (1980). The question is asked is whether it should be learned
through grammatical structure of language or through a given social context. Some linguists
and researchers are of the view that discourse competence is the overlap of grammatical and
socio-linguistic competence enveloping both the meanings of discourse.

Schachter (1990) says that discourse competence and socio-linguistic competence are
not two parts of communicative competence but they are the same. Discourse competence is
knowledge of text (micro-socio-linguistic knowledge) and can be viewed as cohesion and
coherence, and it also refers to pragmatic knowledge. To her, discourse knowledge includes
both cultural conventions and appropriate grammatical choices. Gumperz (1977) is concerned
with conversation in socio-linguistic background in the interpretation of discourse. He
believes that in the interpretation of discourse, only grammatical competence is not necessary
but speaker's attitude, behaviorand socio-cultural values are also important. In his theoretical
study, Gumperz (1977) reported that social knowledge stored in the mind of speaker comes
out and mingles with grammatical competence at the time of speaking. So, he has highlighted
the role of socio-cultural assumptions in producing and perceiving the meaning of discourse
because without certain background perceptions, the listener or reader may lose track in
communication.

Finally, it may be concluded that discourse competence is the logical connection of

sentences into meaningful wholes in a given social context. But discourse can’t be understood
without studying both aspects of discourse: spoken discourse and discourse in terms of
cohesion.
Spoken Discourse

Discourse may, first of all, refer primarily to spoken interaction which is analyzed in
terms of units of meaning, organized into a hierarchy employing some or all of the terms like
act, move, exchange, transaction and others. Spoken discourse refers to the interaction orally
between and among persons in a social environment. Especially, spoken discourse relies upon
conversation in a social-context. Spoken discourse competence refers to the ability to make
and interpret the meaning of different functions of speech acts in different context: classroom
setting, interviews and interaction with native and non-native speakers in routine situations.

- The Birmingham Model

The Birmingham model of discourse analysis proposed by Sinclair and Coulthard
(1975) at the University of Birmingham is very influential with respect to the study of
conversational discourse with special reference to the classroom. It is a simple and
useful model analyzing different patterns of interaction and it handles those patterns
also that reflect the basic functions of conversation. Firstly, Sinclair and Coulthard
examine the traditional or conventional patterns between teachers and students in the
classroom and secondly, they examine the patterns of interaction outside the
classroom. Therefore, this model can be related to Cummins' context-embedded and
context-reduced situations. The following is an edited excerpt from his classroom
data:

(T=Teacher, P= pupil)
T: Now then...what's that, what is it?
P: Saw.
T: It's a saw, yes this is a saw. What do we do with a saw?
P: Cut wood.
T: Yes. (Sinclair and Coulthard, 1975: 93-94)
The above is a discourse process and discourse exchange between teacher and student
in the classroom. Classroom is a place where anyone can start to interact in an easy pattern
(initiation by teacher, answer of student and follow up comment by teacher) but outside of the
classroom, he/she faces the real world for interaction with different types of people. To
communicate in real life seems to be free from his rules of structured. For example:

A: What time is it?

 B: Six thirty.
A: Thanks, (p: 26)
Sinclair and Coulthard have provided a number of turns for analyzing discourse. An
'exchange' consists of a number of 'moves'. For example, the above exchange has the pattern:
question, answer and confirmation. The teacher asks a question, the pupil answers it and
again the teacher confirms the answer. The three types of moves are given the labels:
initiation, response and follow up by McCarthy (1991). Sinclair and Coulthard's model of
discourse analysis reflects the basic function of intention and also offers a hierarchical model
where smaller units combine together to form larger units. In its simplest form, the hierarchy
is as follows:

Transaction << >> Exchange << >> Move << >> Act

While 'transaction' is a combination of a number of exchanges, 'act' at the lowest

level, refers to speech acts, implying the functions performed through language.

Written Discourse

Several studies have laid emphasis on the role and importance of writing discourse
strategies in gaining writing competence. These strategies are writer's cognitive factors that
guide learners to use their second language linguistic, grammatical and contextual knowledge
in the process of writing. The first, written discourse strategy is planning that aids in choosing
method and material (linguistic structure, concept and content) for the given writing task.
After planning, writers revise their prior knowledge related to the present written discourse
perspective then they organize sentences at discourse level.

Organizational strategy shows how to plan explicitly [Roca de Lorios et.al. (1999) and
Zamel (1983)]. Other writing strategies such as: evaluation, transcription and translation help
in maintaining second language discourse production; and are based on writer's cognitive
capacity and his/her contextual and cultural knowledge of the task. When the writer faces any
problem in second language writing task, he/she takes the help of translation. His/her
knowledge (linguistic and conceptual), behavior and ability correspond to his second
language writing discourse production (Wang and Wen, 2002).

Many studies examine written discourse strategies used by 'good' and 'bad' writers.
Raimes (1985a), Roca de Larios, Marin and Murphy (2001) found that able writers are
involved more in planning and revising in discourse production process, while less skilled
second language writers are concerned with less planning, revision and more editing.
Evidence for this phenomenon was found by Planko (1979), Sommers (1980), Zamel (1983)
and Roca de Larios et al. (1999 and 2001). Thus, writing discourse strategies play an
important role in achieving written discourse competence. At present, teachers and
researchers are giving more attention to the study of discourse in their classrooms and in their
research. The question arises whether there is a need to give more time to the teaching of
discourse to ESL learners.

CONCLUSION

It is clear that communicative competence is the mother of discourse competence as the

various models presented by many linguists and researchers show. Canale and Swain (1980)
have described communicative competence as a combination of four categories: grammatical,
discourse, socio-linguistic and strategic. However, it has received criticism from Schachter
(1990) who does not accept this division of components. Savingon (1983) suggests a possible
relationship among four components. Bachman (1990) has developed a model of language
competence dividing it into two components: organizational and pragmatic competence.
Discourse competence as discussed, is a subcategory of communicative competence. But it
has also its own separate value in SLA because it is concerned with the use of language in
society and it is divided into two parts: organization of language, which includes the
grammatical/linguistic knowledge, and function of language that includes socio-linguistic and
strategic skills and knowledge.

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