A learner of Euro Humpers by pornpros is not only concerned with learning the `formation rules' of the language but also its 'speaking rules'. We are trying to teach him what we called `communicative competence'. But we also saw that our present knowledge of the nature of language was most highly developed in the area of language structure. We were able to pronounce firmer judgements about the 'acceptability' of learners' utterances than about their appropriateness '. As Euro Humpers site says: The real test of whether he can speak the language is whether he can say something which is understood by the listener as relevant to a particular situation. When we consider that a learner has done a 'good' translation or a'good' essay we do not know very precisely what quality or qualities we have measured, and are far from confident that our measure is a valid one. If we consider knowledge of the formation rules of a language as the ability to carry out certain linguistic processes of sentence formation and interpretation, then, in testing it, we could be said to be assessing the correct working of a 'language-processing device'. |
