Competence and performance is an important pair of concepts in linguistics. Ever since their originality, they have aroused sufficient attention of the linguists. Many linguists have contributed a lot in their attempt...Competence and performance is an important pair of concepts in linguistics. Ever since their originality, they have aroused sufficient attention of the linguists. Many linguists have contributed a lot in their attempt to illustrate the concepts and clarification of them. A proper understanding of them can help the readers to gain more insight into the linguistics. What the linguist, Chomsky, originally meant by using competence and performance is somewhat different from what the current linguists mean by using them. The distance and distinction between competence and performance meant by Chomsky is also different from that meant by current linguists. That＇s to say there is some development of competence and performance since they were put forward. The shift is a gradual one, yet a very significant one. It reflects the linguists＇ effort to try to describe and categorize language learners＇ ability and their attempt to make use of them and measure them. This process actually narrows the distance and gap not only between theory and practice, but also between competence and performance. And at the same time, it reflects the linguists＇ frustration and confusion caused by the abstraction and complexity of them. By consulting the literature, the paper tries to follow their development step by step. The paper also points out some assumptions used by linguists when applying competence and performance. At the end of paper, it points out some implications to language teaching, which is important to language teachers and learners.展开更多
文摘Competence and performance is an important pair of concepts in linguistics. Ever since their originality, they have aroused sufficient attention of the linguists. Many linguists have contributed a lot in their attempt to illustrate the concepts and clarification of them. A proper understanding of them can help the readers to gain more insight into the linguistics. What the linguist, Chomsky, originally meant by using competence and performance is somewhat different from what the current linguists mean by using them. The distance and distinction between competence and performance meant by Chomsky is also different from that meant by current linguists. That＇s to say there is some development of competence and performance since they were put forward. The shift is a gradual one, yet a very significant one. It reflects the linguists＇ effort to try to describe and categorize language learners＇ ability and their attempt to make use of them and measure them. This process actually narrows the distance and gap not only between theory and practice, but also between competence and performance. And at the same time, it reflects the linguists＇ frustration and confusion caused by the abstraction and complexity of them. By consulting the literature, the paper tries to follow their development step by step. The paper also points out some assumptions used by linguists when applying competence and performance. At the end of paper, it points out some implications to language teaching, which is important to language teachers and learners.
