Speculations on performance models

Bibliographic Data

ID10141347
AuthorsVictoria Fromkin, Victoria A Fromkin (University of California, Los Angeles, corresponding author)
Year1968
Volume4
Issue1
Pages47-68
Publication date1968-04-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Linguistics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0022-2267 • E-ISSN: 1469-7742
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s002222670000164x
OpenAlexW2110100363
LanguageEN
Citations received16
References cited15

The publication of Syntactic Structures in 1957 stimulated a much-needed re-evaluation among linguists as to the goals of linguistic theory and the nature of language. Part of the discussion which has ensued has centred around the question of linguistic competence versus performance. Competence has been related to performance as ‘langue’ is to ‘parole’. ‘Competence’ thus refers to the ‘underlying system of rules that has been mastered by the speaker-hearer’ (Chomsky, 1965) and ‘performance’ to the way the speaker-hearer utilizes this ‘internalized grammar’ when he actually produces and understands utterances. Despite the continued controversy about this distinction, little can be added to the justifications for it put forth over many decades (cf. Chomsky, 1957, 1964, 1965; Katz, 1964, 1966; Postal, 1966; Sapir, 1933; Levin, 1965; de Saussure, 1916; etc.). Yet there remains much vagueness as to the limits of each and the relationship between the two. For many years the confusion was due to the influence of Bloomfield who centred his attention on the speech act; his aim was the classification of the OUTPUT of performance, i.e. the utterances, and led to no theory about the dynamic process of performance itself (Bloomfield, 1924, 1926, 1927, 1933). While giving lip service to a concern for ‘langue’, his own mechanistic approach negated any possibility for the rules of ‘langue’ to be anything more than lists of recurrent patterns found in ‘parole’. And since he was of the opinion that ‘the physiologic and acoustic description of acts of speech belongs to other sciences than ours’ (Bloomfield, 1926: 153) he did not direct himself to those aspects of ‘parole’ which could explain speech performance

Competence (human resources · Confusion · Grammar · Linguistic competence · Linguistic performance · Linguistics · Speech act · Vagueness · Computer Science · Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies · Multilingual Education and Policy · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Psychology · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation