The knowledge of language is rarely conscious of a langunge are they cannot provide a complete desciption of the sounds they th speech or writing, Furthermore our use of this unconscious knowledge is ofte to say,
are distracted or ey speak, nor can they state all of the rules they follow in converting theur thoug error We all occas produce an ungrammatical sentence. But such erors do not mean that we do no sionally make slips of the tongue, fal to complete a sentence cted while listening or reading and subsequently misu edge is present in our minds, but sume factor has inter ability to use that knowledge.
Thus, someone may say sentence () rather than (2 (1) I took the hook bome (2) 1 took the book home words book and home.
Instead, it would simply be assumed that the speaker's sorme similar factor that interfered with speech production No one would claim that () reflects a lack of knowledge about the pronunciation df was not reflected by what was said because the speaker was tired, drunk,
or affected nowlade The knowledge of language, therefore, is not always accurately reflected by the of language Because of this linguists have found it useful to distinguish heren competence and performance.
Linguistic competence is the unconscious know t sounds, meanings, and syntax possessed by the speakers of a language Lingus performance is actual language behavior-the use of language in daly life The distine tion between competence and performance is important
for it represents a major ditla ence between the linguist's approach to the study of language and the approach of ote scholars in education,
psychology, sociology, foreign language teaching and simla disciplines. The linguist is primarily imerested in competence the body of knowlalge that makes linguistic performance pussible Scholars in other tields are usually concemed with perfomance- the use of language Any instance of linguistic performance naturally requires chat the speaker or hca involved possess a knowledge of the language. But performance involves other
noaln guistic factors as well. A person's health, emotionail state, memory and attention span, ee topic and the context-all of these factors, as well as many others, will affact that The study of linguistic performance is, therel ox use of language. The study of linguistic performance is, therelre, an exceedingly com plex task.
The investigator must determine a wide vaniety of facts ahot tie situatia fore he or she can explain why somcone used the language in the way that it waw By isolating linguistic competence from the other factors involved in limgunstk pale s be explain the chief basis ot perfomance whe mance,
the linguist hopes to br shle to 2having to cope with all of the external factor s that also atfect language e Linguistic competence is an abstraction from reality Since it is knowledge
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