i

Communicative Competence in a
Second Language

Communicative competence is an essential language skill, the ability to

adjust language use according to specific contexts and to employ knowledge
and strategies for successful communication.
This unique text offers a multidisciplinary, critical, state-​of-​the-​art research
overview for this skill in second language learners. Expert contributors from
around the world lay out the history of the field, then explore a variety of
theoretical perspectives, methodologies, and empirical findings, and authori-
tatively set the agenda for future work.
With a variety of helpful features like discussion questions, recommended
further reading, and suggestions for practice, this book will be an invaluable
resource to students and researchers of applied linguistics, education, psych-
ology, and beyond.

Matthew Kanwit is Associate Professor in the Department of Linguistics

at the University of Pittsburgh, USA. His research on communicative
competence and functional approaches to L2 acquisition has appeared in
Applied Linguistics, Studies in Second Language Acquisition, Language Learning,
The Modern Language Journal, and the Routledge Handbook of Second Language
Acquisition and Sociolinguistics.

Megan Solon is Lecturer in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese

at Indiana University, USA. She researches the acquisition of phonetics/
phonology, including sociolinguistically variable features. She is co-​editor
of the Issues in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics book series and co-​author
of The Acquisition of Spanish as a Second Language: Foundations and New
Developments.
ii

Second Language Acquisition Research Series

Susan M. Gass and Alison Mackey, Series Editors
Kimberly L. Geeslin, Associate Editor

The Second Language Acquisition Research Series presents and explores issues
bearing directly on theory construction and/​or research methods in the study
of second language acquisition. Its titles (both authored and edited volumes)
provide thorough and timely overviews of high-​interest topics, and include
key discussions of existing research findings and their implications. A spe-
cial emphasis of the series is reflected in the volumes dealing with specific
data collection methods or instruments. Each of these volumes addresses the
kinds of research questions for which the method/​instrument is best suited,
offers extended description of its use, and outlines the problems associated
with its use. The volumes in this series will be invaluable to students and
scholars alike, and perfect for use in courses on research methodology and in
individual research.

Questionnaires in Second Language Research

Construction, Administration, and Processing, Third Edition
Zoltán Dörnyei and Jean-​Marc Dewaele

Longitudinal Studies of Second Language Learning

Quantitative Methods and Outcomes
Edited by Steven J. Ross and Megan C. Masters

Researching Creativity in Second Language Acquisition

Ashleigh Pipes

Communicative Competence in a Second Language

Theory, Method, and Applications
Edited by Matthew Kanwit and Megan Solon

For more information about this series, please visit: www.routle​dge.com/​

Sec​ond-Language-​Acquisition-​Research-​Series/​book-​series/​LEASLARS​
iii

Communicative
Competence in a
Second Language
Theory, Method, and Applications

Edited by Matthew Kanwit and

Megan Solon
iv

Designed cover image: © Getty Images

First published 2023
by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2023 selection and editorial matter, Matthew Kanwit and Megan Solon;
individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Matthew Kanwit and Megan Solon to be identified as the authors
of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been
asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized
in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or
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storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks,
and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
ISBN: 978-​0-​367-​75024-​4 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-​0-​367-​75023-​7 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-​1-​003-​16077-​9 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/​9781003160779
Typeset in Bembo
by Newgen Publishing UK
v

To Gloria and Peter Kanwit, Catherine Kanwit Rossignol

and Noel Rossignol, and Brandon Kujawski for encour-
aging me both to pursue my interests (even when they
brought me far from home) and to treat others well.
—​Matthew Kanwit

To my teachers and mentors, past and present. I am forever

grateful for all that you have taught me and for the role
models that you have been and continue to be.
—​Megan Solon
vi
vi

Contents

List of contributors ix
Acknowledgments xii

1 Introduction: Historical overview, key constructs, and

recent developments in the study of communicative
competence 1
M ATTH E W K A NWI T AND ME GAN SO LO N

PART I
Theoretical overviews of communicative competence 19

2 Generative considerations of communicative competence 21

ALAN JU F F S

3 Sociolinguistic approaches to communicative competence 40

K I M B E RLY L. GE E SLI N AND STACE Y HANSO N

4 Sociocultural considerations of communicative

competence 60
M ATTH E W E . PO E HNE R

PART II
Methodological tools for researching communicative
competence 77

5 Investigating communicative competence in

ethnographic research 79
RE B E C CA L URI E STARR
vi

viii Contents
6 Real-​time psycholinguistic measures of communicative
competence 98
JI LL J E GE RSK I AND SARA FE RNÁND E Z CUE NCA

7 Corpus-​linguistic and computational methods for

analyzing communicative competence: Contributions
from usage-​based approaches 115
STE FAN TH . G RI E S

PART III
Applications: How do learners show communicative
competence? 133

8 Interlanguage pragmatics as communicative competence 135

M I N H TH I T HUY NGUY E N

9 Applying a communicative competence framework to

the study and teaching of second language writing 152
C H ARLE N E PO LI O AND D. PHI LI P MO NTGO MERY

10 Computer-​assisted language learning and communicative

competence 171
GLE N N S TO CK WE LL AND Y URI K A I TO

11 Assessing communicative competence 187

LU K E H ARD ING, SUSY MACQUE E N, AND JO HN P IL L

12 Looking forward: Future directions in the study of

communicative competence 208
M E GAN SO L O N AND MATTHE W K ANWI T

Index 219
ix

Contributors

Sara Fernández Cuenca is an Assistant Professor of Spanish at Wake Forest

University, USA, where she teaches undergraduate courses in Spanish
language and linguistics. Her research focuses mainly on instructed heri-
tage and second language acquisition with a special interest in language
processing.
Kimberly L. Geeslin is Professor of Hispanic Linguistics at Indiana
University, USA. She investigates the geographic, social, and situation-
ally variable properties of second languages. Her recent publications
include Sociolinguistics and Second Language Acquisition (Routledge, 2014),
The Acquisition of Spanish as a Second Language (Routledge, 2021), and
The Routledge Handbook of Second Language Acquisition and Sociolinguistics
(Routledge, 2022).
Stefan Th. Gries is a Professor in the Department of Linguistics at the
University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), USA, and Chair of
English Linguistics at the Justus-​Liebig-​Universität Giessen, Germany. He
is a quantitative corpus linguist with interests in statistical methods in
linguistics, cognitive/​usage-​based linguistics, psycholinguistics, and com-
putational linguistics.
Stacey Hanson is a Doctoral Candidate in Hispanic Linguistics at Indiana
University Bloomington, USA. Her research focuses on second language
acquisition, as well as phonetics and phonology, with a particular interest
in the second language perception and production of geographically
indexed phones.
Luke Harding is a Professor in Linguistics and English Language at
Lancaster University, UK. His research interests are in applied linguis-
tics and language assessment, particularly assessing listening and speaking,
World Englishes and English as a Lingua Franca, language assessment lit-
eracy, and professional ethics.
Yurika Ito is a Research Associate in the School of International Liberal
Studies, Waseda University, Japan. Her research interests include
x

x List of contributors
computer-​assisted language learning (CALL), CALL teacher education,
and the role of online communities in teacher professional development.
Jill Jegerski is an Associate Professor of Spanish and SLATE (Second
Language Acquisition and Teacher Education) in the Department of
Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Illinois at Urbana-​Champaign,
USA. Her primary research interests include second language and bilin-
gual sentence processing, psycholinguistic research methods, and Spanish
as a heritage language.
Alan Juffs is Professor in the Department of Linguistics, University of
Pittsburgh, USA. He was the Director of the English Language Institute
at the University of Pittsburgh from 1998 to 2020. He has published
books on the lexicon, sentence processing, and language development in
Intensive English Programs.
Matthew Kanwit is Associate Professor in the Department of Linguistics
at the University of Pittsburgh, USA. His research on communicative
competence and functional approaches to L2 acquisition has appeared in
Applied Linguistics, Studies in Second Language Acquisition, Language Learning,
The Modern Language Journal, and the Routledge Handbook of Second
Language Acquisition and Sociolinguistics.
Susy Macqueen is Senior Lecturer in Applied Linguistics at the Australian
National University. Her research interests lie at the intersection of second
language learning, language assessment, and language use in health and
educational contexts. She has a background in second language teaching
and language test development.
D. Philip Montgomery is a Doctoral Student in Second Language Studies
at Michigan State University, USA. He is an educational linguist interested
in multilingual writers and teachers. Philip has published on adaptive
transfer of genre knowledge in multilingual contexts and is the Graduate
Assistant Director of the Writing Center at MSU.
Minh Thi Thuy Nguyen teaches TESOL at the University of Otago, New
Zealand. Her research interests include pragmatics in language teaching
and learning, interactional competence, second language acquisition,
heritage language maintenance, and child language learning.
John Pill is a Lecturer in the Department of Linguistics and English Language
at Lancaster University, UK. He teaches in the MA in Language Testing
program. His research interests include specific-​purpose language testing,
particularly in healthcare and academic contexts, speaking assessment, and
language assessment literacy.
Matthew E. Poehner is Professor of World Languages Education and
Applied Linguistics at The Pennsylvania State University, USA. His
research engages Vygotskian Sociocultural Theory to organize educa-
tional environments and activities to promote learner language abilities.
xi

List of contributors xi
A major line of this work involves the diagnosis of abilities through
Dynamic Assessment.
Charlene Polio is Professor in the Department of Linguistics, Languages,
and Cultures at Michigan State University, USA. She researches second
language (L2) writing and the interface between L2 writing, second lan-
guage acquisition, and corpus-​based methods. She is co-​editor of TESOL
Quarterly and The Routledge Handbook of Second Language Acquisition and
Writing (Routledge, 2022).
Megan Solon is Lecturer in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese
at Indiana University, USA. She researches the acquisition of phonetics/​
phonology, including sociolinguistically variable features. She is
co-​editor of the Issues in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics book series
(John Benjamins) and co-​author of The Acquisition of Spanish as a Second
Language: Foundations and New Developments (Routledge, 2021).
Rebecca Lurie Starr is an Associate Professor in the Department of English,
Linguistics and Theatre Studies at the National University of Singapore.
Her research focuses on children’s sociolinguistic development and lan-
guage variation and change in multilingual and dialectally diverse settings.
Glenn Stockwell is Professor in Applied Linguistics at Waseda University,
Japan. His research interests include language teacher and learner motiv-
ation, mobile learning, and the development of learner autonomy. He
is the author of four books and numerous articles and book chapters in
the field.
xi

Acknowledgments

This project has been a labor of love, and we must first express gratitude
for the chapter authors, who accepted our invitation six months into the
pandemic and whose drafting of abstracts, writing of chapters, and imple-
mentation of revisions ended up all taking place during what became an
ongoing pandemic. The authors could have had no way of knowing what
the conditions would be, and yet all of them completed each stage of the
process and maintained good spirits.Thus, our hats are off to Sara Fernández
Cuenca, Kim Geeslin, Stefan Gries, Stacey Hanson, Luke Harding, Yurika
Ito, Jill Jegerski, Alan Juffs, Susy Macqueen, Phil Montgomery, Minh Thi
Thuy Nguyen, John Pill, Matt Poehner, Charlene Polio, Rebecca Lurie Starr,
and Glenn Stockwell. We are so very grateful for their talents, expertise, and
collegiality.
We are thankful to the series editors, Susan Gass and Alison Mackey, for
thoughtfully guiding the project. We can’t thank Kimberly Geeslin enough
for her initial encouragement in submitting our proposal and for providing
such a wonderful editorial example on prior collaborative projects. Her
mentorship, guidance, and friendship are simply unparalleled. We are also
thankful to individuals at Routledge and Newgen whose helpful collabor-
ation has made the volume possible, including Victoria Chow, Harry Dixon,
Bex Hume, Amy Laurens, Helena Parkinson, Rebecca Willford, and Ze’ev
Sudry, whose early feedback on our proposal helped ensure the ultimate
success of the project.
We are grateful to the individuals who reviewed our proposal, whose
suggestions helped shape the chapters we decided to include and the con-
tent that could not be overlooked. These individuals were Luke Plonsky,
Katherine Rehner, Ming-​chung Yu, and four anonymous reviewers.
The chapter reviewers provided enormously useful suggestions for our
authors and did so with a collegial tone that helped maximize the even-
tual quality of the volume. These reviewers included: Kristin Davin, Bryan
Donaldson, Alice Foucart, María Pía Gómez Laich,Tania Ionin, Daniel Isbell,
Anna Jessen, Kristopher Kyle, Xiaoshi Li, Rosa Manchón, Robert McKenzie,
Teresa Pratt, Ute Römer, Maria Rydell, Shannon Sauro, Rachel Shively,
Jorge Valdés Kroff, Feng Xiao, Fang Xu, and Nicole Ziegler.
xi
newgenprepdf

Acknowledgments xiii
We offer gratitude to Lourdes Ortega, Luke Plonsky, and Vera Regan
for taking the time to consult our chapters and provide such kind, detailed
endorsements for the volume. It is incredibly meaningful to us to have such
generous sentiments offered by scholars whose work inspires us so greatly.
We are thankful for institutional support from colleagues whose work in
our departments helped make the completion of this project possible. Alan
Juffs, Shelome Gooden, and Scott Kiesling at the University of Pittsburgh
have thoughtfully held and delegated service positions to protect pre-​tenure
and early post-​tenure years to the extent possible, making projects such
as this achievable. Karen Park has been a wonderful support for years as
Co-​ director of Graduate Admissions, similarly making the research-​
teaching-​service balance possible. Likewise, at the University at Albany, Lotfi
Sayahi and Cynthia Fox provided invaluable early career mentorship as well
as support and continued collegiality during professional transitions. Hae In
(Lauren) Park enriched the scholarly environment through her establishing
of the Trends in SLA research group and has been a treasured collabor-
ator ever since. At Indiana University, Manuel Díaz-​Campos and Allen Davis
have provided support and flexibility for research endeavors, and Kimberly
Geeslin, Laura Gurzynski-​Weiss, and Erik Willis have encouraged a wel-
coming and engaging environment for sharing work and exchanging ideas.
We are also grateful to Kathleen Bardovi-​Harlig for outstanding discussions
shaping our knowledge of second language acquisition. The faculty and
graduate and undergraduate students in Pitt Linguistics and in Indiana
Spanish and Portuguese have helped foster a wonderful working environ-
ment that has served as inspiration for projects like this and as motivation to
persevere on the more challenging days.
Prior colleagues, mentors, and friends at SUNY Albany, Indiana University,
the University of Georgia, Miami University, UVA in Valencia, and the
University of Richmond helped to build the foundation of interest in lan-
guage, Spanish, linguistics, and language acquisition, and their fingerprints
are all over this volume. Matt thanks Margaret L. Quesada for sparking an
early passion for SLA.
Finally, Matt is grateful to Megan for her unsurprisingly ideal collabor-
ation as co-​editor.This has been a wonderful excuse for ample opportunities
to communicate and share time together, and I’m so very grateful for the
laughter, incredible support, stellar ideas, and close editorial eye. You are an
all-​around treasure.
Megan thanks Matt for extending the invitation for this collaboration in
the first place and for sharing his knowledge, experience, wit, and patience.
I have learned so much from you during this process and am grateful to be
able to (continue to) collaborate with someone I admire so deeply both pro-
fessionally and personally.
xvi
1

1 Introduction
Historical overview, key constructs, and
recent developments in the study of
communicative competence
Matthew Kanwit and Megan Solon

The construct of communicative competence has informed the field

of second language acquisition (SLA) for approximately 50 years (e.g.,
Bachman & Palmer, 1996, 2010; Canale, 1983; Canale & Swain, 1980; Celce-​
Murcia, 2008; Celce-​Murcia et al., 1995; Elder et al., 2017; Firth & Wagner,
1997, 2007; Galaczi & Taylor, 2018; Geeslin et al., 2018; Hall et al., 2006;
Harding, 2014; Hymes, 1972, 1992; Kanwit, 2022; Kramsch, 2006; Leung &
Lewkowicz, 2013; Morrow, 2012; Paulston, 1974; Regan, 2010; Savignon,
1972, 2017; Spolsky, 1989; Sun, 2014;Valdman, 2002). As outlined by Canale
and Swain (1980), it accounts for not only second language (L2) grammat-
ical competence (i.e., knowledge of the rules of phonology, morphology,
and syntax in the L2) but also sociolinguistic competence (i.e., knowledge of
when to use one form over another based on contextual or linguistic factors)
and strategic competence (i.e., strategies for successful communication, espe-
cially in the face of potential gaps in knowledge of the L2). As the field
has moved from a nearly exclusive emphasis on grammatical competence
toward a more holistic interest in the range of competences noted above
(Geeslin with Long, 2014; VanPatten & Williams, 2015), researchers from
across different theoretical approaches now analyze communicative com-
petence rather than only, for example, socioculturalists (Lantolf et al., 2020;
van Compernolle, 2019; van Compernolle & Williams, 2012; see Poehner,
Chapter 4, this volume) or variationists (Bayley & Tarone, 2012; Geeslin,
2022; Howard et al., 2013; Tarone, 2007; see Geeslin & Hanson, Chapter 3,
this volume).
Despite the increasing interest in the construct throughout the field,
to our knowledge, no volume has attempted to connect state-​ of-​the-​
art approaches to communicative competence across different theoretical
approaches, methods, and applications. Consequently, the current volume
amasses research perspectives from around the world and from diverse
traditions in order to provide a current overview of how communicative
competence is theorized, analyzed, and applied. Each chapter serves as a
review of seminal and recent research within the given domain, offers prac-
tical suggestions of how to perform research under the relevant theme, and
points to future directions ripe for further inquiry.
DOI: 10.4324/9781003160779-1
2

2 Matthew Kanwit and Megan Solon

In the present chapter, we review the history of communicative compe-
tence, consider current issues relevant to the analysis of the construct, and
discuss the organization of and connection among the following chapters in
the volume. Throughout the volume, each chapter is written with enough
detail, history, and recency to be relevant for current researchers and graduate
students while not assuming prior knowledge and while using accessible lan-
guage. It can thus be approached as a point of departure by individuals across
research disciplines or by beginning scholars interested in an initial overview.
Consequently, key terminology is defined at first use and unnecessary jargon
has been avoided.

Historical overview
Communicative competence began to play a recurring role in discussions
of SLA theory and practice in the 1960s as researchers and practitioners
reacted to prevailing tendencies at the time that generally prioritized gram-
matical accuracy, the ability to correctly conjugate and decline target-​
language forms, and error-​free repetition without much, if any, focus on the
ability to use language for communicative and expressive purposes (Canale,
1983; Canale & Swain, 1980; Corder, 1967; Hymes, 1967, 1972; Oller &
Obrecht, 1968; Paulston, 1974; Savignon, 1972; Selinker, 1972; Tarone, 1983;
Valdman & Moody, 1979; Van Ek, 1976). The substantial attention in L2
pedagogy and research afforded to grammatical accuracy and error avoidance
can be traced back to the evolving nature of the en vogue SLA theories of
the times.

Behaviorism, Universal Grammar, and cognitive-​functional approaches

Early SLA theory borrowed substantially from sources outside of linguis-
tics that aimed to account for how human behaviors were learned and
adapted.The psychologist B. F. Skinner’s behaviorism endeavored to explain
how humans’ responses to stimuli were either (1) more deeply entrenched
by reward and repetition or (2) were modified based on punishment or
unfavorable responses. Language learning, like other behavioral learning, was
conceptualized as being entirely based on the learner’s environment, which
was a purely external explanation that did not posit any sort of language-​
specific capacity at the learner’s disposal (see VanPatten & Williams, 2015).
The reinforcement of good habits, when applied to language pedagogy,
entailed requiring that students repeat grammatical utterances and being
certain to correct any ungrammatical language forms elicited in order to
avoid the formation of bad habits or language fossilization. Such practices
were paramount in the audiolingual method, or Army method, which
highlighted non-​contextualized repetition of words and phrases. Moreover,
the structures that were thought to be most difficult to acquire were those
that differed most from the native language. Thus, contrastive analysis (e.g.,
Lado, 1957) focused on identifying differences between the first language
3

Introduction 3
(L1) and L2, which formed the target of instruction (VanPatten & Williams,
2015). This early emphasis on differentiation was led by two assumptions
that would later be challenged: (1) that a structure similarly rendered across
the L1 and L2 would be easy to acquire and (2) that structural difference
was difficult in and of itself, regardless of whether there was a difference in
the frequency or complexity of the realization of the structure in the L1
compared to the L2.
Despite early attempts to prioritize grammatical utterances and avoid
errors, it also increasingly occurred to instructors and theorists that learners
were producing language they had never heard modeled in the classroom
and that the purely external, environmental component of language learning
offered by behaviorism seemed to be missing an internal component. Such
realizations led to several different attempts to explain the incongruity
between what had been presented to learners and what they were subse-
quently able to produce and comprehend.
At one end of linguistic theory, Noam Chomsky and colleagues took the
example that language learners were capable of producing utterances unlike
those present in the input and of understanding when a given linguistic
context was ambiguous (i.e., offered multiple construals of interpretation) as
potential evidence for the mental accessibility of Universal Grammar (UG)
for all speakers (Chomsky, 1957, 1968, 1986; White, 2018, 2020; see also
Juffs, Chapter 2, this volume). For this line of generativists, the poverty-​of-​
the-​stimulus (i.e., the limited amount of input that would fail to account
for the fuller abilities demonstrated by a language learner) was a discrepancy
that could be explained by the target-​language input’s activation of the rele-
vant principles and parameters allowed by UG (for more on the poverty-​
of-​the-​stimulus see Cook, 1991). One of the principal areas of interest of
generative research at the time was the question of what constituted a gram-
matical utterance—​this entailed a principal focus on syntax that was largely
uninfluenced by semantics (i.e., the autonomy of syntax). Accordingly, pos-
sible meaning differences between similar structures were of less interest than
the grammaticality of such sentences, and theoretical accounts for language
structure provided elegant description that attempted to account for as many
structures as possible with as few rules as needed to be posited (Tallerman,
2020). Consequently, exceptions to rules or instances where syntax yielded
notable effects on semantics were considered outside of the principal scope
of investigation. Because a speaker’s competence, or knowledge of grammat-
ical linguistic structure, was of primary importance in serving as evidence of
UG, this form of knowledge received more attention than performance, or
the use of language, which was depicted as susceptible to errors or lapses in
the moment of production and thus less indicative of the speaker’s ability to
rely on UG (White, 2018, 2020). This line of investigation thus prioritized
grammaticality judgment tasks, in which participants indicated whether or
not they deemed a sentence grammatical, and written language and ideal
sentence creation tended to be privileged over spoken language or the use
of language in context (Tallerman, 2020).1
4

4 Matthew Kanwit and Megan Solon

On the other hand, another body of researchers appealed to cogni-
tive and functional approaches to account for language acquisition and
learners’ ability to produce structures that had not been present in the input.
Although cognitive-​functionalists, too, acknowledged a biological capacity
for language learning, they viewed language learning as more comparable to
other human cognitive capacities, such as the ability to understand symbols,
recognize patterns, and extrapolate from prior experience (Brown, 2018;
Bybee, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2010, 2017; Goldberg, 1998, 2013, 2019;Tomasello,
1998, 2003, 2009). To the cognitive-​functionalists generally known today
as usage-​based linguists, grammatical structure was consequently seen as
being built from recurrent use rather than existing a priori (for more on
usage-​based approaches, see Gries, Chapter 7, this volume). In response to
generative priorities, cognitive-​functional research typically valued semantic
distinctions that could accompany the use of different forms. Accordingly,
language as a device for communication was privileged, and the meaning
and function of utterances in actual (typically oral) use became the focus
of study, rather than the acceptability of idealized written sentences. It was
also acknowledged that spontaneous spoken speech (SSS) contained notably
different characteristics from written language, including the use of inton-
ation units rather than the traditional notion of the sentence, the use of certain
structures that would pervade in one mode (e.g., greater use of exclamatives
and interrogatives in SSS), and relatively rare use of restrictive relative clauses
and full noun phrases (as opposed to pronouns or non-​expression [i.e., null
subjects]) in SSS (Tomasello, 2003). Consequently, pedagogy inspired by
cognitive-​functional theory tended to foreground meaningful language use
rather than the context-​devoid repetition that had been favored in behav-
iorism, and tasks used by researchers tended to involve more use of SSS than
the written grammaticality judgments favored by generativists at the time.
Having considered some of the prevailing theoretical positions leading up
to early discussion of communicative competence and the repercussions of
these positions on preferred research methods, we now turn to additional
constructs that played a critical role in describing and accounting for learner
abilities.

Critical constructs

Transitional competence and interlanguage

Amidst some of the early discussion of learner production that did not match
what had been presented in the input, the question of how to treat diver-
gent (i.e., non-​target-​like) language use began to gain traction. In fact, in the
late 1960s and early 1970s, numerous articles offered reconceptualizations
of language learning that went beyond a focus on grammatical accuracy.
In 1967, S. Pit Corder provided alternative explanations to the prevailing
opinions of the time, including different conceptualizations of the roles of
both errors and the L1. Unlike those who viewed errors as a problem that
5

Introduction 5
indicated deficiencies in the learner grammar, Corder emphasized that errors
were often the application of a rule that was present in the grammar of the
learner, such as knowledge of a regular pattern of -​s suffixation to form
the plural. Consequently, when a learner produces plural tooths, we become
aware that the learner has formed such a rule. On the other hand, when a
learner produces a target-​like form such as teeth, we cannot reach the same
conclusion about rule formation or pattern recognition, since we cannot
exclude the possibility that the production is merely an unanalyzed repeti-
tion of a form in the input. Thus, we can often learn more about a learner’s
current grammar from non-​target-​like productions than from grammatical
utterances. Such a notion is part of Corder’s construct of transitional com-
petence, which captures that a learner grammar is rule-​based, systematic,
and dynamically changing over time. Another main contribution of Corder
(1967) was the view that the L1 can serve as a useful resource present for the
learner and have a facilitative effect on language learning, as opposed to the
view of the L1 in behaviorism and contrastive analysis, for example, as an
obstacle to be overcome.
Although Corder’s work has an earlier publication date than other studies
that will be summarized here, it is important to note that these works were
generally contemporary to Corder’s and also played an important role in
moving L2 studies to new terrain. Larry Selinker is generally credited with
the construct of interlanguage, the focus of his article in 1972. Similar to
Corder’s, this work stressed that learner grammars are both governed by rules
and dynamic. Furthermore, Selinker argued that interlanguage may have
features of the L1, the L2, neither language, or both languages, often reflecting
linguistic universals. For instance, even though both English and Spanish
generally require the copula (i.e., “be” verb), an English-​speaking learner
of Spanish will still initially produce utterances such as Yo fuerte “I strong”
rather than Yo soy fuerte “I am strong” (Ryan & Lafford, 1992; VanPatten,
1987). Such an occurrence could be attributed to language universals, like
the propensity to omit forms that offer minimal semantic content, since
omission does not impede successful communication. Accordingly, it is not
surprising that children also often omit the copula in the course of acquiring
the L1 (Becker, 2004). Interlanguage thus offered a compelling construct that
enabled researchers and practitioners not to stigmatize but rather to value the
systematic grammars of L2 learners, since interlanguage systems follow pre-
dictable paths and are informed by rules of natural human languages rather
than merely those of the learner’s L1 (VanPatten et al., 2020).

Communicative competence
Contemporary with the changing attitudes about what language users were
able to produce and comprehend, Dell Hymes (1967, 1972, 1992) made ref-
erence to the social rules of language use. He suggested the term communica-
tive competence—​a phrase that numerous authors would adapt in subsequent
years and which has retained use to the present—​to refer to knowledge of
6

6 Matthew Kanwit and Megan Solon

the rules for understanding and producing the referential and social meaning
of language. Soon after Selinker’s (1972) publication on interlanguage,
Christina Bratt Paulston’s (1974) article in TESOL Quarterly emphasized the
cultural competence that had to be acquired along with the L2, stating: “In
language teaching we are always dealing with cross-​cultural encounters, and
what typically happens is that the student applies his native rules of speaking
to the target language, rules which may imply a very different social signifi-
cance” (p. 351).
The term communicative competence received further prominence
when it was treated in Canale and Swain’s seminal (1980) article in the
first issue of Applied Linguistics. Among the key arguments made included
the need to prioritize linguistic functions as opposed to language forms, as
advocated by Van Ek (1976) and similar to what occurs in L1 acquisition.
Canale and Swain also specified that a communicative approach should be
based on and respond to learners’ communicative needs. Furthermore, they
shared Savignon’s (1972) claim that grammatical knowledge is not a good
predictor of communicative ability, with the latter not necessarily accom-
panying the former.This claim was based on Savignon’s empirical results that
a learner group who was trained using communicative tasks performed no
differently on a grammar test from a learner group that focused on grammat-
ical accuracy while significantly outscoring the latter group on communica-
tive tests. Canale and Swain thus relayed Savignon’s suggestion to prioritize
the training of communicative skills from the onset of the language learning
program. They also drew attention to prior research that found patterned
drills to be significantly more effective when the language used in the drill
was related to communication, which further pointed to the teaching of
grammar within a meaningful context from the beginning of L2 curricula
(Oller & Obrecht, 1968). Canale and Swain further stressed an emphasis
on conveying meaning (i.e., communicating one’s message) as opposed to
concerns of appropriateness at the beginning of L2 study. The authors thus
argued that learners must be granted the opportunity to engage in mean-
ingful communication with highly competent speakers in realistic situations,
and that instructors should present the more arbitrary aspects of communi-
cation (e.g., syntactic requirements of the L2) in the light of more universal
aspects, such as turn-​taking and the appropriate conditions for requests.
The authors then presented a conceptualization of communicative com-
petence that defined the construct as the sum of three other
competences: grammatical competence, sociolinguistic competence, and
strategic competence (see Table 1.1). Grammatical competence, which
had received the lion’s share of attention in contemporaneous theories of
SLA and language classrooms, entailed knowledge of the lexicon and rules
of morphology, syntax, semantics, and phonology. Sociolinguistic compe-
tence was the product of rules of language use and rules of discourse, which
together enabled the interpretation of language for social meaning. Finally,
strategic competence was comprised of the (non-​)verbal communication
7

Introduction 7
Table 1.1 Sub-​competences of communicative competence (based on Canale &
Swain, 1980)

Sub-​competence Definition Example

Grammatical Knowledge of the Knowledge that French has tu and vous

competence lexicon and rules pronouns that correspond with singular
of morphology, “you” and contain corresponding verb
syntax, semantics, conjugations
and phonology
Sociolinguistic Rules of language Knowledge that it may be situationally
competence use and rules of more expected to use tu with a familiar
discourse interlocutor, of similar social status, in an
informal setting like a personal home
Strategic (Non-​)verbal When facing uncertainty about the tu
competence communication conjugation of a particular tense-​
strategies mood-​aspect combination for a
certain verb, listening to the form the
interlocutor uses and then repeating it
in later discourse or scaffolding one’s
contribution onto that of a more
proficient interlocutor

strategies that could be used to compensate for any breakdowns in commu-

nication due to deficits in competence (i.e., comprehension) or performance
(i.e., production). Accordingly, although Canale and Swain argued for the-
ories of SLA and language pedagogy to include consideration of language
use in context and communication strategies, they did not discredit the role
of grammar, instead complementing it with these constructs.
As detailed in the next section, subsequent considerations of communi-
cative competence have renamed, sub-​divided, and added competences to
these foundational three (e.g., Canale, 1983; Celce-​Murcia et al., 1995).

More recent developments

Although an entire volume could be dedicated to publications about com-
municative competence since the time of Canale and Swain (1980), in the
current section, we highlight a handful of more recent developments to give
the reader a sense of how subsequent work has reconsidered, adapted, and
problematized this construct and to prepare the reader for the contents of
the volume. In the present section, we divide more recent contributions to
the discussion of communicative competence according to (1) subsequent
models of communicative competence and (2) general guidance for the field
of SLA that has touched on the construct. For additional overviews of more
recent developments related to the conceptualization of communicative
competence, see Celce-​Murcia (2008), Bachman and Palmer (2010), Leung
and Lewkowicz (2013), Savignon (2017), and Kanwit (2022). See also recent,
8

8 Matthew Kanwit and Megan Solon

specialized considerations of communicative competence highlighting areas
including, for example, assessment and task types and notions of intercultural
and interactional competence (Galaczi & Taylor, 2018; Kanwit & Geeslin,
2020; Roever & Kasper, 2018; Schauer, 2021; Solon & Kanwit, 2022; van
Compernolle, 2019).

Subsequent models of communicative competence

Since Hymes’s (1967, 1972) introduction of the concept of communica-
tive competence and Canale and Swain’s (1980) elaboration of the three
component competences, additional theorizing has revisited and revised
the construct. For example, Canale (1983) proposed a four competence
revision, suggesting an explicit division between sociolinguistic com-
petence and discourse competence (i.e., “mastery of how to combine
grammatical forms and meanings to achieve a unified spoken or written
text in different genres”; Canale, 1983, p. 9). In 1995, Celce-​Murcia et al.
proposed a revised model of communicative competence that included five
core competences: linguistic competence, strategic competence, sociocul-
tural competence, actional competence (i.e., “competence in conveying
and understanding communicative intent, that is, matching actional intent
with linguistic form” through, for example, knowledge of speech acts and
speech act sets; Celce-​Murcia et al., 1995, p. 17), and discourse competence.
Celce-​Murcia et al. also specified the interrelated nature of the compo-
nent competences, proposing discourse competence as the core or central
competence, enclosed within a pyramid comprised of sociocultural, lin-
guistic, and actional competence, and encircled by strategic competence,
which could be used to compensate for deficiencies in the other compo-
nent competences. In 2008, Celce-​Murcia added formulaic competence
to her model, proposing a central role for formulaic language in learners’
communicative abilities. Additionally, within the realm of language testing,
Bachman and Palmer (1996, 2010) similarly proposed a multilevel model of
communicative language abilities that distinguished first between language
knowledge and metacognitive strategies (see Figure 1.1). Within language
knowledge, they further distinguished between organizational knowledge
(comprised of textual knowledge and grammatical knowledge) and prag-
matic knowledge (comprised of lexical knowledge, functional knowledge,
and sociocultural knowledge). Figure 1.2 illustrates and summarizes these
more recent models.
As this brief description illustrates, conceptualizations of the construct
of communicative competence differ. Nevertheless, it can also be observed
that, at their core, they recognize the importance of linguistic/​grammatical
knowledge in addition to social competence and contextualized language
use. More recent revisions differentially recognize the role of extended dis-
course and/​or formulaic language, highlight competence related to using
language to put communicative goals into action, and emphasize the import-
ance of communication strategies in facilitating L2 competence.
9

Introduction 9

Figure 1.1 Types of language knowledge

Source: Based on Bachman and Palmer (1996, 2010)

Figure 1.2 Five conceptualizations of communicative competence

Links to communicative competence in general guidance for the field of SLA

In the past two decades, several important articles have foregrounded
components of communicative competence while attempting to encourage
10

10 Matthew Kanwit and Megan Solon

SLA researchers and practitioners to consider aspects of language acquisition
that have been overlooked, taken for granted, or left unaddressed by the field
(e.g., Douglas Fir Group, 2016; Firth & Wagner, 1997, 2007; Hall et al., 2006;
Ortega, 2013, 2019). Such articles have challenged prior assumptions about
the types of skills, registers, and language varieties that are emphasized in
research and in the classroom. They have also explored how the field of SLA
can better contribute to other fields that have similar lines of inquiry (e.g.,
cognitive psychology, bilingualism, language education).
For example, in a pair of articles that argued for a reconceptualized SLA,
Firth and Wagner (1997, 2007) noted that social and contextual orientations
to language had been heretofore dwarfed by cognitive and mentalistic
orientations. In the 1997 paper, the authors extended Canale and Swain’s
(1980) work, arguing that interactional and sociolinguistic dimensions
needed a greater emphasis in SLA. They noted that the L2 learner tended
to be treated “as a defective communicator, limited by an underdeveloped
communicative competence” rather than as a language user able to success-
fully navigate joint conversations through relevant communication strategies
(Firth & Wagner, 1997, p. 285). The authors also called for the greater study
of noninstructional settings and of everyday occurrences (see Harding et al.,
Chapter 11, this volume, for consideration of language abilities in domains
such as healthcare). The follow-​up article (Firth & Wagner, 2007) furthered
the discussion, continuing to advocate for the agency of the L2 language user,
referring to various aspects of learning-​in-​action in transcripts of language use
through ethnomethodological conversation analysis (for more on ethnog-
raphy and conversation analysis, see Starr, Chapter 5, and Nguyen, Chapter 8,
this volume). Finally, the authors called on the field to focus attention on
uniting the social and the cognitive dimensions of language learning.
Hall et al. (2006) built on Cook’s (1991) notion of multicompetence, or
the language knowledge of multilinguals, to challenge the field of SLA to
reconceptualize our understanding of learner knowledge. Noting that the
field had been improving in providing a more positive view of L2 learners’
capabilities, the authors argued that prior research had been too rigid in its
division of L1 and L2 language knowledge as distinct systems, its qualita-
tive differentiation between monocompetence (i.e., competence in a single
language) and multicompetence, and its presumption of consistency (i.e.,
homogeneity) of language knowledge across speakers and speaking contexts.
The authors pointed the field forward in advocating for a usage-​based view
of multicompetence (for more on usage-​ based approaches to language
learning, see Gries, Chapter 7, this volume).
In her 2013 piece, Ortega called for SLA researchers to move beyond
the discipline (i.e., to demonstrate transdisciplinarity) in contributing to the
overall knowledge about the human capacity for language. Among these
calls for L2 researchers, Ortega encouraged research for greater real-​world
application and social impact (for more on these applications, see Starr,
Chapter 5, this volume), and she noted that cross-​disciplinary work would
generate knowledge that was greater than the sum of its parts. In addition,
she echoed Cook’s call that any comparisons of L2 learners should be made
1

Introduction 11
to bilinguals, rather than monolingual targets, and encouraged researchers
to focus on positive aspects of language learning rather than L2 deficiencies.
For instance, Ortega noted the advantage in rate of acquisition for language
users who already speak another language. In her transdisciplinary approach,
Ortega also highlighted that L2s are potentially more revealing of properties
of human language, since L2 systems tend to be more transparent.
The Douglas Fir Group (i.e., Atkinson, Byrnes, Doran, Duff, N. Ellis, Hall,
Johnson, Lantolf, Larsen-​Freeman, Negueruela, Norton, Ortega, Schumann,
Swain, & Tarone) united for a 2016 article which built on Ortega’s (2013)
call for greater transdisciplinarity in SLA. In continuing to urge a more posi-
tive depiction of L2 learners, the authors noted that the processes of lan-
guage learning are largely the same in the L2 as they are in the L1, and they
made numerous suggestions for L2 researchers, including the acknowledg-
ment of inter-​and intra-​individual variation in order to help counteract the
prevailing deficit accounts of L2 learning from earlier in the field’s history.
In other words, they continued the call for researchers to investigate what
learners can do, rather than emphasizing ways in which they may or may not
differ from (monolingual) “expert” speakers.Thus, they encouraged a holistic
view of learners’ communicative competence.
In recent work that continued to develop the proposed transdisciplinary
orientation of SLA, Ortega (2019) responded to her 2013 piece and to the
Douglas Fir Group (2016), noting that the need for researchers to advocate
for multilingual speakers and multilingualism was as dire as ever, given socio-
political developments that brought backlash to immigrants and multilingual
speakers. She advocates for making multilingualism the central object of SLA
inquiry and for prioritizing social justice as a goal for the discipline (for more
on this link, see Solon & Kanwit, Chapter 12, this volume). In making these
proposals, Ortega noted that the field would be able to continue recent pro-
gress in greater contributing to knowledge about the human capacity for
language. In sum, these articles and the conversation they engender have
encouraged the field to provide more holistic accounts of what learners are
able to accomplish in a L2, and they have challenged researchers to move
beyond biases that have privileged particular types of competence (i.e., the
purely grammatical), varieties (i.e., [inter]national or regional standards), and
registers (i.e., formal speech), among other linguistic features. This conver-
sation provides a useful foundation and background for the contents of the
current volume, which aims to advance the ongoing discussion surrounding
communicative competence and its role in SLA.

Overview of the volume

We now provide a brief overview of the volume’s three sub-​sections and their
component chapters.The book has been organized so that it can be read start
to finish and with overt connections made across chapters, but individual
chapters are also meant to stand independently, with key terms explained
at first use in each chapter. Each chapter’s consideration of communicative
competence includes a historical overview of the particular topic at hand,
12

12 Matthew Kanwit and Megan Solon

the main research methods that are used, current issues, and directions for-
ward, in addition to discussion questions and suggestions for further reading.
Given the importance of theory as a point of departure for any line of
academic inquiry, we begin with three theoretical overviews that make
connections to how particular SLA theories have accounted for commu-
nicative competence thus far. In Chapter 2, Alan Juffs provides an over-
view of Universal Grammar and generative SLA. Although grammatical
competence has been the usual focus of generative SLA, Juffs highlights
generative research informed by other aspects of communicative compe-
tence and points to many areas ripe for further investigation by innovative
generative researchers. Kimberly L. Geeslin and Stacey Hanson connect to
a number of cognitive-​functional theories in Chapter 3 as they consider
how acquisitionists have appealed to theory (e.g., functionalism, usage-​
based approaches, variationism, complex dynamic systems) to account for
competence beyond the grammatical (e.g., sociolinguistic competence). In
Chapter 4, Matthew Poehner provides an overview of Sociocultural Theory
and its unique contributions in accounting for language acquisition and
development, including how constructs such as mediation, internalization,
the Zone of Proximal Development, languaging, perezhivanie (“lived experi-
ence”), and the Social Situation of Development help inform what we know
about a learner’s communicative competence.
The volume then shifts to methods and explores how three different sets
of methodological tools can be used to study communicative competence.
In a chapter informed by linguistics, anthropology, education, and other
social sciences (Chapter 5), Rebecca Lurie Starr provides an in-​depth look at
how ethnographic methods, including participant observation, ethnographic
interviews, and digital ethnography, can reveal a learner’s communicative
competence. In the next chapter, Chapter 6, Jill Jegerski and Sara Fernández
Cuenca discuss the application of real-​time psycholinguistic measures to
the study of communicative competence, including eyetracking with text,
visual world eyetracking, self-​paced reading, and event-​related potentials;
the authors also consider issues related to real-​time language processing,
compensatory strategies, and the application of grammatical knowledge. In
Chapter 7, Stefan Th. Gries considers how sophisticated corpus-​linguistic
and computational methods can inform our knowledge of communica-
tive competence. The chapter touches on coarse-​and fine-​grained levels of
corpus methodology before shifting to issues related to data and its annota-
tion, the roles of constructs like dispersion and entropy in linguistic theory,
and recommendations for the adaptation of more powerful statistical tools
for observational data.
In the final third of the book, authors consider applications of commu-
nicative competence in the study of language acquisition. Minh Thi Thuy
Nguyen, in Chapter 8, provides an overview of the ways in which the
study of interlanguage pragmatics reveals learners’ communicative compe-
tence, touching on interdisciplinary issues including task types and inter-
actional competence, intercultural pragmatics, and individual variation and
13

Introduction 13
development during study abroad. In Chapter 9, Charlene Polio and D. Philip
Montgomery innovatively apply a communicative competence framework
to L2 writing, an area where the construct has rarely been invoked. The
authors explore communicative competence as a tool to address the balance
of language and genre in L2 writing instruction, to develop strategic compe-
tence in writing, and to contribute to debates in the assessment of writing.
Glenn Stockwell and Yurika Ito (Chapter 10) apply communicative com-
petence to the study of computer-​assisted language learning, exploring the
impact of technology on linguistic, pragmalinguistic, sociolinguistic, strategic,
and discourse competences. Stockwell and Ito also examine the ways in
which technology-​mediated communication differs from face-​to-​face com-
munication and explore the changes in research and language education that
have been brought about by technological advances. In the final application
chapter (Chapter 11), Luke Harding, Susy Macqueen, and John Pill address
communicative competence in relation to the field of language assessment,
touching on issues including assessing actual language use in the moment
of testing, test-​taking competence as a type of communicative competence,
negotiating the scope of communicative competence, and reconsidering
norms. The researchers also describe a range of assessment methods and
provide recommendations regarding refocusing assessment design on com-
municative repertoires and prioritizing understanding of communicative
competence within test situations themselves.
We conclude the volume by synthesizing what we consider some of the
principal takeaway messages from the aforementioned chapters, along with
pointing the reader to what we suggest as fruitful areas in the future study of
communicative competence and an explanation of some of the important
topics beyond what we were able to include among our final crop of chapters.

Conclusion
The present chapter has provided a historical overview of communicative
competence, including how it and its constituent sub-​competences were
considered in the 1960s through the early 1980s and how they have been
updated in more recent conceptualizations. We then reviewed a range of
recent notable SLA publications that have challenged the field to better inte-
grate communicative competence in our consideration of language learning.
The final section of the chapter included an explanation of the principal
content of the volume. We invite the reader to join us in considering how
communicative competence can be accounted for across different the-
ories, methods, and applications to the study of language learning and in
envisioning future directions for the construct across the field of SLA.

Discussion questions
1. In your own words, what is communicative competence? What does it
include? How does a learner show communicative competence?
14

14 Matthew Kanwit and Megan Solon

2. How did SLA researchers and practitioners differ in their focus
compared to what Canale and Swain (1980) argued should be
prioritized in the study of SLA? What do you think of the changes
suggested by Canale and Swain? What benefits do you note? Do you
note any drawbacks?
3. To what extent do more recent assessments of the field of SLA reflect
progress since the early discussion of communicative competence in the
late 1960s through early 1980s? To what extent do they offer critiques
and a need for further progress?
4. Think about a test (or activity) that you had to complete in a language
class (or that you administered as a language instructor). What different
types of language abilities were reflected in this test? What types of abil-
ities were absent? How might you modify the test to account for gram-
matical, sociolinguistic, and strategic competences?
5. Think about a particular structure or segment (i.e., sound) that was par-
ticularly difficult for you as a language student (or for your students).
Can you think of a creative way to study the acquisition of that linguistic
feature? How might we tap learners’ communicative competence as we
investigate that feature in detail? What issues might arise in trying to
perform such a study?

Note
1 Generative research on language acquisition has generally continued to prioritize
grammatical competence more than other forms of communicative competence.
Nevertheless, as the reader will see in the Juffs chapter (Chapter 2, this volume),
it is certainly possible to combine a UG perspective with a focus on competence
beyond the purely grammatical. We invite the reader to consider the recent work
and future directions posited by the author, as we encourage the exploration
of communicative competence for scholars across theoretical perspectives (and
methods and applications), hoping that the volume provides a useful point of
departure in that regard.

Suggestions for further reading

Bachman, L. F., & Palmer, A. S. (2010). Language assessment in practice: Developing lan-
guage assessments and justifying their use in the real world. Oxford University Press.
Canale, M., & Swain, M. (1980). Theoretical bases of communicative approaches to
second language teaching and testing. Applied Linguistics, 1, 1–​47.
Celce-​Murcia, M. (2008). Rethinking the role of communicative competence in
language teaching. In E. A. Soler & M. P. S. Jordà (Eds.), Intercultural language use
and language learning (pp. 41–​57). Springer.
Hall, J. K., Cheng, A., & Carlson, M. T. (2006). Reconceptualizing multicompetence
as a theory of language knowledge. Applied Linguistics, 27(2), 220–​240. https://​
doi.org/​10.1093/​app​lin/​aml​013
Hymes, D. (1972). On communicative competence. In J. B. Pride & J. Holmes (Eds.),
Sociolinguistics: Selected reading (pp. 269–​293). Penguin.
15

Introduction 15
Kanwit, M. (2022). Sociolinguistic competence: What we know so far and where
we’re heading. In K. Geeslin (Ed.), The Routledge handbook of second language
acquisition and sociolinguistics (pp. 30–​44). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/
9781003017325-4
Savignon, S. J. (2017). Communicative competence. In J. I. Liontas (Ed.), The TESOL
encyclopedia of English language teaching. Wiley. https://​doi.org/​10.1002/​978111​
8784​235.eelt0​047

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Introduction 17
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18 Matthew Kanwit and Megan Solon

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19

Part I

Theoretical overviews of
communicative competence
20
21

2 Generative considerations of
communicative competence
Alan Juffs

This chapter addresses generative second language acquisition (GenSLA)

in the light of the Hymes (1972) construct of communicative compe-
tence, which is most well-​ known to applied linguists as consisting of
grammatical, sociolinguistic, and strategic competence (Canale & Swain,
1980). Communicative competence, as outlined in Kanwit and Solon
(Chapter 1, this volume), is essentially the ability to use the linguistic system
(i.e., grammar, which includes stored representation of the lexicon, phon-
ology, and morpho-​syntax) in both language production and comprehen-
sion. The use of the grammar should be appropriate to the sociolinguistic,
and discourse contexts in which it is deployed. Thus, the chapter begins by
defining the GenSLA view of competence in contrast to performance. It then
details some findings that relate competence to real-​time performance in
second language (L2) sentence processing. The chapter then addresses some
features of grammatical competence that are relevant to discourse context,
pragmatics, cultural knowledge, and strategic competence. A brief review of
important considerations is provided along with some suggestions for fur-
ther reading.1

Historical context

Formal theories of language

Formal theories of language provide a precise description of unconscious
knowledge that speakers have about what is possible and not possible in
their languages (White, 2018).2 In generative theory, unconscious know-
ledge is termed “linguistic competence” (Chomsky, 1957, 1986), also known
as “I-​language.” Crucially, linguistic competence is separate from how such
knowledge is used in real-​time communication, which is termed “linguistic
performance” or “E-​language.” It was such performance that Hymes (1972)
focused on in his reaction to Chomsky’s insistence on the centrality of lin-
guistic competence in linguistics. This chapter will refer to linguistic com-
petence as “grammatical competence,” as this is the term that Canale and
Swain (1980) used. However, it is important to remember that grammatical
competence in GenSLA does not mean the same as declarative knowledge
DOI: 10.4324/9781003160779-3
2

22 Alan Juffs
of pedagogical grammatical rules or descriptive grammar. It also includes the
lexicon as well as more traditionally conceived constraints on phonology and
morpho-​syntax.
Generative theory is a theory of grammatical competence, in other words,
the cognitive representation of the grammar of a language. Although it has
evolved from original proposals in Chomsky (1957) to current formulations
based on Chomsky (1995), the theory’s goals remain constant: (1) a charac-
terization of the human language capacity; (2) how that capacity is acquired;
and (3) how it is used (Chomsky, 1986).Thus, Chomsky (1986) acknowledged
the importance of performance with (3) but set it outside his own research
focus. The essentials of generative theory are that grammatical competence
consists of a lexicon (i.e., a list of morphemes or words) and a computational
system (i.e., set of rules), which is best understood as a system that combines
elements from the lexicon into clauses. Although oversimplifying for expos-
ition, such principles apply in most languages and consist in part of constraints
on clause structure and syntactic and semantic relationships among elem-
ents in a sentence. Examples of such constraints can be seen in question
formation, co-​reference among noun phrases and pronominals, and case
marking (Carnie, 2012). In contrast, parameters account for variation among
languages. For example, whether predicates precede their complements as in
English and other subject-​verb-​object languages or follow their predicates as
Japanese and other subject-​object-​verb languages.3
Early GenSLA research focused almost entirely on representation of
the grammar, not its use (White, 2003, 2020). It concentrated on whether
constraints in morpho-​syntax remain available to adult L2 learners or whether
adult L2 grammatical competence is “fundamentally different” (Bley-​
Vroman, 1989; Schachter, 1989). Typically, adult L2 learners are identified as
post-​puberty learners, often 18 years of age and older (e.g., Abrahamsson &
Hyltenstam, 2009).The most well-​known example of such research relates to
wh-​questions (wh-​movement: movement of elements such as “who,” “what,”
“how,” etc.) in English and other languages as in e­xample 1b, where the
question word appears in sentence initial position but remains linked to a
position in the verb phrase where a noun phrase in a declarative sentence
would be as in 1a. Note that the extraction site of the wh-​word in each sen-
tence is indicated by “_​_​”, called a “gap.”

1. a. Sandy visited Pat.

b. Who did Sandy visit _​_​?

Sometimes a wh-​phrase can be moved outside its clause, as in ­example 2a,

but not always, as in 2b, even though the declarative version is grammat-
ical (2c):

2. a. Who does Jo believe Sandy visited _​_​?

b. *Who does Jo wonder whether Sandy visited _​_​?
c. Jo wonders whether Sandy visited Toni.
23

Generative considerations of communicative competence 23

Chomsky (1977) proposed a general constraint on wh-​movement known
as subjacency, which led to a large body of first language (L1) and L2 acqui-
sition research (e.g., de Villiers & Roeper, 1995; Juffs, 2005; White & Juffs,
1998). The current consensus among GenSLA researchers is that L2 learners
retain access to fundamental principles and constraints of morpho-​syntactic
structure as expressed in generative theory (White, 2018). However, other
factors such as L1 influence and crucially performance, sometimes in experi-
mental tasks in which researchers seek to access knowledge of grammatical
competence, may obscure such knowledge. Evidence for this position comes
from GenSLA research that has addressed the omission of subject pronouns
(e.g., Pérez-​Leroux & Glass, 1999), the role of inflection and its interaction
with abstract features such as tense and agreement (e.g., Lardiere, 2000;
Prévost & White, 2000), and co-​reference with pronouns and reflexives (e.g.,
Felser et al, 2009; Thomas, 1993).
An important claim of GenSLA is that grammatical competence is an
encapsulated module of the mind that is impermeable to memory constraints
and conscious knowledge (Schwartz, 1999; Truscott & Sharwood Smith,
2011). However, as indicated in the previous paragraph, research relies on
performance in experimental tasks or data collected from production. The
role of performance opens up GenSLA research to considerations of how
sociolinguistic, pragmatic, and strategic factors may influence the use of gram-
matical competence. Because the only way researchers can infer competence
is through performance, the challenge is determining the role such factors
play, which is the focus of much psycholinguistic research (see Jackendoff,
2019, Footnote 2, and Juffs & Rodríguez, 2014, Chapter 2, for discussion).
Although GenSLA research has addressed issues in the access to grammatical
competence in processing and production (see White, 2018 and Hopp, 2022
for recent reviews), researchers have not explicitly addressed how each aspect
of communicative competence relates to formal approaches to SLA.

Adding “communicative” to grammatical competence

Hymes (1992) himself traces his thought further back than his 1972 paper
because Chomsky’s proposal about the centrality of grammatical compe-
tence predated 1972; indeed, Hymes had already identified a range of issues
in communicative competence before 1972. In the field of L2 learning
and teaching, Paulston (1974) was one of the earliest scholars to introduce
Hymes’s (1972) communicative competence. She noted that control of form
might be easier than knowing when to use the forms appropriately in social
settings, linking her observations to bilingualism, biculturalism, and socio-
linguistic competence. Canale and Swain (1980) elaborated the construct to
include the well-​known four elements as the goals of language instruction
(see Chapter 1 for a review of communicative competence). Hymes (1992,
p. 41) noted that the “competence/​performance” distinction viewed from a
psycholinguistic point of view had been very productive. Thus, this chapter
focuses mostly on psycholinguistic aspects of “communicative competence”
24

24 Alan Juffs
and the extent to which principles of grammar (competence) are deployed
in real time and possibly affected by pragmatic, sociolinguistic, and strategic
factors. However, it also makes suggestions for new areas that GenSLA might
consider, especially with the lexicon.

Critical issues related to communicative competence

Second language grammatical competence and linguistic performance

Recall that for grammatical competence, GenSLA theory makes an important
distinction between (1) the lexicon, where morphemes are stored, and
(2) the computational system of morpho-​syntactic principles and constraints
that combine those elements into clauses. Using offline tasks, research
summarized in White (2003, 2020) has established that adult L2 grammars
can be characterized in part by constructs from Universal Grammar (e.g.,
co-​reference with pronouns and reflexives, morphology and functional
categories, and wh-​movement).Additional studies have revealed that language
processing for comprehension in both the L1 and L2 is incremental in the
sense that readers and hearers immediately construct and predict a represen-
tation based on very few words and then revise it as and when necessary
(Frazier, 2013; Juffs & Rodríguez, 2014). Importantly, psycholinguistic
research has been a key element in explaining how speakers use grammatical
competence because, as Pritchett (1992, p. 68) noted, processing can involve
the local application of global grammatical principles. In other words, pro-
cessing involves accessing grammatical competence in real time and as such
plays an important role in comprehension. The following paragraphs illus-
trate how the lexicon and abstract constraints guide performance.

The lexicon
Recall that one component of grammatical competence is the lexicon. Of
central importance in the lexicon are verbs, which describe events.Verbs vary
in the type and number of noun phrases and prepositional phrases that they
require across languages (e.g., Juffs, 2000; Juffs & Fang, 2022; Levin, 1993).
Verbs set up expectations for what will subsequently appear in the clause.
For example, an intransitive verb such as “arrive” in e­ xample 3 creates no
expectation of a direct object, and so the main clause “the bus departed” is
easily processed.

3. After the driver arrived, the bus departed.

In contrast, ­example 4 shows that the verb “ordered” is optionally transitive,

and so the expectation is that a noun phrase would be the direct object,
as in “After the customer ordered the muffin,” assuming that processing
requirements seek to incorporate every new word into an existing verb
phrase where possible (Frazier, 2013; Pritchett, 1992).
25

Generative considerations of communicative competence 25

4. After the customer ordered, the muffin was heated quickly in microwave.

However, in this case,“the muffin” turns out to be the subject of “was heated,”
creating a processing breakdown when “the muffin” has to be reassigned
from the object of “ordered” to the subject of “was heated.” This breakdown
is known as the “garden path” (GP) effect (Pritchett, 1988).4
As in L1 processing, GP effects in L2 processing are modulated by
morphology, other phrases in the clause, animacy, and pragmatic know-
ledge (e.g., Juffs, 1998; Just et al., 1996; MacDonald, 1994). Since Juffs and
Harrington’s (1996) early L2 work, researchers have confirmed GP effects
in L2 learners in online reading with a variety of methods (see section on
methods and Jegerski & Fernández Cuenca, Chapter 7, this volume), indi-
cating that learners use argument structure information incrementally and
in real time for comprehension. Differences among L1 and L2 speakers have
received a variety of explanations, including a fundamental difference in
how grammatical competence is used (Clahsen & Felser, 2018). However,
general differences between L1 and L2 speakers in processing have recently
been attributed to the memory of a previously abandoned parse that makes
L2 processing slower, not a qualitative failure to apply principles (Cunnings,
2017). Note that the lexicon may also contain multiword expressions which
also affect processing (Jiang & Nekrasova, 2007; Pellicer-​Sánchez et al.,
2022). Therefore, GenSLA research takes the deployment of the lexicon in
real-​time performance into account and shows that L2 learners use lexical
knowledge in performance.

Constraints
Researchers have also considered whether principles that constrain represen-
tation among elements across clause boundaries are operational in L2 sen-
tence processing performance (e.g., Felser et al., 2012; Juffs, 2005). Recall
that wh-​movement out of a clause is permitted in English as in ­example 5,
but that not all movement is possible, as in 6b. Note that the extraction site
of the wh-​word in each sentence is indicated by “_​_​”, called a “gap.”

5. Possible wh-​movement of either a subject or object from a complement

clause:
a. Who do the fans believe _​_​will be the goalie next season?
b. Who do the fans believe their team will beat _​_​next season?

6. Impossible wh-​movement out of a relative clause “island”:

a. The fans admire the general manager who fired the coach last year.
b. *Who do the fans admire the general manager who fired _​ _​
last year?

Following L1 researchers (Traxler & Pickering, 1996), Felser et al. (2012)

reasoned that if learners were using principles that constrain where an
26

26 Alan Juffs
upcoming gap would be, they should not anticipate a gap in a relative clause,
such as in 6b. In carefully designed experiments, they showed that German-​
speaking learners of L2 English did not posit gaps in relative clauses, although
processing effects were delayed in some conditions. Boxell and Felser (2017)
reported similar findings for other sentence types, although there was some
evidence of fleeting anticipation of “illegal” wh-​gaps.
The contribution of morphology is also an important consideration
in wh-​movement in other languages; for example, case marking, which is
inflectional, has been shown to be important in German (e.g., Jackson &
Bobb, 2009) and makes the research on so-​called “missing inflection” rele-
vant (Prévost & White, 2000).
In sum, it is clear that processing performance in a L2 is constrained in
part by principles whose source is the grammatical competence. This claim
is not meant to say that L1 and L2 communicative competence in compre-
hension are identical. Hopp (2022) points out that L2 learners have greater
difficulty in recovering from processing missteps, and remaining questions
include but are not limited to the timing of effects, the role of the bilingual
lexicon, constraints, the role of explicit knowledge, and individual differences.
Also relevant to the construct of communicative competence is the
notion of “strategic competence,” which is when readers and listeners
“make do” in order to understand or communicate. In comprehension,
both L1 and L2 speakers use a strategy of “good enough processing” in
which comprehension relies on a limited parse of the grammar of the
clause (e.g., Christianson et al., 2006). The important point here is that
variation in real-​time comprehension, which is a component of communi-
cative competence, is directly dependent on accessing grammatical compe-
tence and sometimes using such grammatical competence in strategically
efficient ways.
The next section raises some topics that deserve more attention in future
research in the light of sub-​constructs of communicative competence.

The interaction of grammatical competence with sociolinguistic,

discourse, and pragmatic competence

Discourse and pragmatic competence

The precise timing of effects during online processing is important to pin-
point as some effects of the application of Universal Grammar principles
during processing are not identifiable statistically at the same time for learners
as for expert speakers.5 There are many possible reasons for these differences
apart from the claim that L2 learners cannot access linguistic principles
(Clahsen & Felser, 2018; Hopp, 2022). Early research focused on processing
of single clauses, but it is clear that knowledge of grammatical competence
cannot be determined solely on the basis of single sentences without their
communicative context.Thus, L2 researchers now often provide a wider dis-
course context, which involves pragmatic competence, plausibility, and what
27

Generative considerations of communicative competence 27

the reader/​hearer already knows about the real world based on their L1 and
L2 experience (Felser et al., 2012;Williams et al., 2001). However, the natur-
alness of sentences and contexts requires care; simply providing an introduc-
tory sentence to an experimental item is inadequate if the second language
learners are from a completely different culture in which, for examples,
burgers and beer are not part of daily fare.
Contextual issues such as those discussed in the L1 literature have not
fully been addressed in L2 research. Gibson et al. (2005) provided an illus-
tration of how multiple aspects of context, including frequency, affect per-
formance in their paper on processing relative clauses (RCs), such as those
as in ­examples 7 and 8. RCs have been intensively studied in part because
they contain fillers (relative pronouns) and gaps (where the pronoun is
interpreted, as in 7), which must be processed.

7. The teaching assistant who the algebra professor mentored _​_​helped

the student.
8. The teaching assistant helped the student who _​_​missed the algebra class.

In 7, the object RC modifies a main clause subject, “the teaching assistant.”

In 8, the subject RC modifies a main clause object, “the student.” First,
such sentences assume cultural knowledge of teaching assistant roles and
professors in university education in North America. (Recall Paulston’s
[1974] insistence on the relevance of culture.) Second, restrictive RCs pre-
suppose that the writer/​speaker wants to distinguish this assistant or student
from among a group of others in the discourse or shared contextual know-
ledge. Gibson et al. also note that a RC modifying a subject, as in e­ xample 7,
is usually already known from context. For this reason, given assumptions
about information flow, Gibson et al. (2005) hypothesized that subject-​
modifying RCs, as in 7, would be read faster than object-​modifying RCs,
as in 8, even though the subject-​modifying RCs interrupt the main clause
subject (i.e., the teaching assistant) and the main verb and potentially make
such sentences harder to understand.This prediction was supported by com-
paring restrictive RCs, such as that in ­example 9, and non-​restrictive RCs
from Gibson et al.’s (2005) materials, which provided a whole context in
parentheses.

9. (A soccer coach scolded a player for being late and another player for
poor defensive play.) The player who the coach scolded for being
late pushed an opponent from the other team because the two disliked
each other.

Results showed that in both reading comprehension and sentence processing

readers needed context, as evidenced by the fact that the restrictive subject-​
modifying RCs were read more quickly than restrictive object-​modifying
RCs, but no such difference existed for non-​restrictive RCs. The reason
that restrictive RCs modifying objects were more difficult is that these are
28

28 Alan Juffs
rarer in discourse and thus less expected (Gibson et al., 2005, p. 338). Thus,
not only grammatical properties (e.g., wh-​gaps, location in the clause) but
also context, discourse, and frequency play a role in the deployment of lin-
guistic competence, and in some instances context can even magnify pro-
cessing effects (Fedorenko et al., 2012). Wu and Juffs (2016) explored this
topic in the processing of L1 Chinese and showed that discourse context, a
part of communicative competence, is relevant for deciding some important
questions in the processing of RCs. Thus, discourse plays a role in grammat-
ical processing across languages and therefore must be taken into account
when assessing L2 comprehension and real-​time processing of grammatical
principles. An important point, however, is that such contexts much be nat-
ural and culturally accessible to the L2 learners.
Animacy and plausibility also affect processing as described by many
studies in Just et al. (1996). For instance, ­example 10 is easier to process
than 11 because “the evidence” is inanimate and not a plausible agent of
“questioned,” whereas “the lawyer” is a plausible agent, and therefore
reanalysis of this phrase as a reduced RC will be more challenging when the
corrected reduced RC structure is perceived.

10. The evidence questioned by the judge shocked the jury.

11. The lawyer questioned by the judge shocked the jury.

Animacy is also at play, for example, in understanding L2 grammatical

relations in Japanese-​English interlanguage (Harrington, 1987) and the devel-
opment of the interpretation of object pronouns in L2 Spanish (Olsen &
Juffs, 2022).

Grammatical competence in syntax of quantification and contextual factors

In L1 and L2 acquisition, study of the interpretation of quantification and
negation is among the most compelling research that supports the represen-
tation of abstract principles in language and language learning (e.g., Crain &
Thornton, 2006; Dekydtspotter, 2001). However, Musolino and Lidz (2006)
showed that context affected children’s knowledge of the interaction of neg-
ation and quantifiers, as in ­example 12.

12. Every horse didn’t jump the fence.

This sentence is ambiguous because of the different scopes of the quantifier

and negation. In one interpretation, this sentence can be paraphrased as “no
horse jumped the fence” (i.e., not even one). However, another interpret-
ation is “Not every horse jumped the fence,” implying that some did but
at least one did not.6 In fact, this second reading is the more natural one in
sentences such as “Every student doesn’t have the same background.”
In Musolino and Lidz’s first experiment, children rejected the second
interpretation of “Every horse didn’t jump the fence.” However, in a second
29

Generative considerations of communicative competence 29

version of the experiment where context was provided, the children accepted
the second interpretation. Such results showed an interaction between
syntax, semantics, and context. If children’s abstract knowledge of grammar
constraints can be affected by context, the possibility that L2 learners are
similarly affected needs to be investigated. Özçelik (2018) is an example of
an L2 study that investigated this topic in a bidirectional design with English
and Turkish L2s. The study found that the English-​speaking learners had
difficulty restricting ambiguity based on their L1 in their interpretation of
Turkish, which does not have the ambiguity available in English. In contrast,
the Turkish-​speaking English L2 learners faced no difficulties adding scope
ambiguity. Additional work is needed to explore these interfaces further.The
point here is that context is part of communicative competence and serves
as a facilitator of or limit on comprehension.

Sociolinguistic competence and the generative lexicon

With globalization and population movement, learners increasingly
encounter the L2 in different contexts and to different degrees across the
lifespan.Thus, while individual age difference and proficiency are important,
the degree of socialization by L2 learners in the L2 community also needs
to be carefully looked at if context affects the deployment of linguistic com-
petence in processing. While GenSLA has focused on formal properties of
meaning and processing in clauses, a detailed characterization of the role of
social context and the content of the lexicon is also important. Although
sociocultural researchers have done much in this regard (e.g., Pavlenko,
2008), formal theories also have a contribution to make (e.g., Pustejovsky,
1995 as noted in Juffs, 2009).
It is worth re-​emphasizing that the lexicon is part of grammatical com-
petence (Slabakova, 2008, 2016, Chapter 9;Tokowicz, 2014), although socio-
linguistic competence is often not considered part of GenSLA. However,
one can make the argument that the lexicon is a foundational component of
the input to structural processing, and therefore lexical-​conceptual meanings
are vital in the timing of lexical access during processing in addition to
formal properties of verbs (e.g., Hopp, 2017; Wu & Juffs, 2019). Although
this view may seem “transgressive” for some GenSLA researchers, it would
be a mistake to conceive of GenSLA as restricted to abstract principles and
parameters related to syntactic features and phonological representation; on
the contrary, the goal of formal approaches to SLA is a full understanding
of the linguistic system at a fine-​grained level of detail. Comprehension,
processing, and production of the grammar includes lexical access during
communicative and processing tasks (Hopp, 2017), but the source of poten-
tial problems has not been adequately addressed in terms of the cultural
content of the lexicon; rather, frequency counts have been treated as more
important. In this regard, it is important not to confuse concepts with lexical
items. Paradis (2004, pp. 192–​203) discusses evidence from bilingual aphasia
that suggests that a non-​linguistic conceptual store, which is conditioned by
30

30 Alan Juffs
culture, can be accessed by two separate lexicons that can be differentially
impaired. Importantly, Paradis (2004, p. 198) states that (Lx =​one language,
Lz =​another language):

a common conceptual system does not imply that a concept corres-

ponds to a lexical item in Lx and its lexical equivalent in Lz, but that
they share some of the same conceptual features, though each may (and
often does) contain features not included in the other.

Thus, for communication (i.e., production and comprehension), even cog-

nate, concrete words, such as ball in English vs. balon in French (i.e., either a
“ball” or a “balloon”) or false friends such as deceive and deçevoir “disappoint”
could cause processing and communication breakdown (Paradis, 2004, p. 218;
Tokowicz, 2014), thereby directly affecting communicative competence.
Importantly, this point also applies to cultural associations, not just form.
For example, beard in English may be associated with masculinity, whereas in
Muslim cultures it may be associated more with religious piety. In this con-
text, the sociolinguistic nature of the lexicon should be a focus of research in
its own right quite apart from the role it may play in processing (Juffs, 2009).
Qualia theory (Pustejovsky, 1995) and word association tasks (Fitzpatrick
& Thwaites, 2020) would be well-​suited as conceptual and methodological
frameworks to address these issues in order to achieve the level of research
depth that principles and parameters have achieved with morpho-​syntax.
Another challenge for learners is developing knowledge of collocational
usage in performance (see Pellicer-​Sánchez et al., 2022 for a recent study).
If one considers the lexicon to include stored knowledge of chunks as well
as bound morphemes, then formal accounts of the lexicon that acknow-
ledge this fact are directly relevant (Jackendoff, 2002). Hanks (2015) pointed
out that formal theories of lexical meaning have developed well beyond
a simple form-​meaning pairing, and so researchers need “to develop and
use new models of language that will take account of domain and context
of utterance as well as phraseological context” (p. 87). For example, Hanks
(2013) discusses the word “fire,” which it not as simple as it first appears.
An English speaker might know the difference between a “blazing fire”/​
“wood fire” and a “raging fire”/​“forest fire” and also the difference between
a “fire boat” and a “fire ship.” However, the sources of such knowledge may
vary. For metaphorical uses of (1) “blazing fire” (positive connotation) and
(2) “raging fire” (dangerous, out of control), multiple exposures in the con-
text of (perhaps) cold winter evenings for (1) and news bulletins about forest
fires for (2) may be necessary.
Finally, cultural gaps in the lexicon, especially for idioms, have been iden-
tified as the one area where adult speakers who are otherwise totally indis-
tinguishable from “native speakers” can be found to be different from such
L1 speakers (Abrahamsson & Hyltenstam, 2009). All of these considerations
need to be addressed if a full understanding of the generative lexicon is to
be achieved.
31

Generative considerations of communicative competence 31

Main research methods

Psycholinguistic research methods have long been used in SLA research
(Juffs, 2001; Roberts, 2019). Jegerski and Fernández Cuenca (Chapter 6,
this volume) discuss these methods in greater depth. Among the principal
methods for accessing grammatical competence are acceptability judgment
tasks. Other tasks include self-​paced reading, eyetracking in text reading
and in visual world tasks (Dussias, 2010; Grüter et al., 2012), and truth-​
value judgment tasks (e.g., White et al., 1997). In addition, advances in brain
imaging studies (Dekydtspotter et al., 2021) and pupillometry (Fernandez
et al., 2018; Schmidtke, 2018) have introduced newer techniques.

Recommendations for practice

Generative research into aspects of communicative competence discussed
in this chapter should follow some important guidelines (Ionin, 2013).
Obviously, testing instruments used in experiments should be normed off-
line and online by expert speakers of the language, but perhaps not neces-
sarily monolingual L1 speakers (see Ortega, 2013). Second, researchers need
to consider the cultural associations of lexical items, and show greater sen-
sitivity to discourse context, collocational frequency, and chunking, which
may obscure knowledge of deeper abstract principles.
Another consideration is that research is a labor-​intensive and collabora-
tive process. If possible, structures and items for a study might be combined
such that one experiment’s items can serve as distractors or fillers for another
study. To prevent specific test items from having an effect and alerting
learners to the purpose of an experiment, Latin Square designs (e.g., Fujita
& Cunnings, 2021) should be implemented in which learners do not see the
same lexical items in the same structures. Although beyond the scope of this
chapter, newer ways of mitigating item and individual participant effects is
to use statistical models that allow for such effects to be factored out so that
the main effects of structure and condition can be more reliably identified
(Barr et al., 2013).
It is rare for one researcher to have the formal linguistic, experimental,
and statistical expertise to complete a study at the highest level, so consult-
ation and collaboration in teams may be a good way to ensure work of the
best quality. A final recommendation is to follow open science principles by
sharing data and code for analysis either on dedicated repositories such as the
IRIS database (Marsden et al., 2016) or GitHub.

Conclusion
To sum up, GenSLA provides a fine-​grained theoretical framework that can
describe the representation of the L2 grammar. In addition, that same gram-
matical competence can explain processing performance, which is modulated
by discourse competence and pragmatic competence. Challenges remain in
32

32 Alan Juffs
refining experimental techniques that permit L2 researchers to identify those
elements of communicative competence that may obscure the operation of
grammatical principles. GenSLA also has the potential to expand into areas
of links among concepts and lexical representations that are part of a broader
conceptualization of a generative approach to the lexicon.While a great deal
of research has been carried out on real-​time knowledge of grammatical
constraints, the effects of pragmatics, discourse context, and sociolinguistic
knowledge of the lexicon have been researched less. The role of strategic
competence in L2 sentence processing and prediction based on syntactic
features is also less well-​understood (Christianson et al., 2006; Hopp, 2022).

Discussion questions
1. Generative linguistics makes a principled distinction between abstract
competence and performance. Competence is by definition not directly
observable but can only be inferred by performance on language tasks.
Given this fact, is the concept of “competence” viable? What arguments
can you adduce for and against the existence of grammatical com-
petence? Consult a textbook on GenSLA if you need help thinking
through this problem logically (e.g., Slabakova, 2016; White, 2003).
2. Researchers often suggest that both production data and judgment/​
processing data be collected in studies of linguistic competence and
performance. Why would two sources of information be useful? Can
you think of any cases from structures discussed in the chapter (or that
you have read about) that would not be amenable to any of these data
collection methods?
3. This chapter has suggested that the sociolinguistic aspects of the lexicon,
often treated as less important than principles of clause combination and
constraints in GenSLA, should be investigated more carefully by genera-
tive researchers. What are the pros and cons of taking such an approach?
Would researchers who claim that the language module is encapsulated
(i.e., separated completely) from other higher forms of cognition object
to this suggestion? How could you counter such objections?
4. Among the linguistic phenomena discussed in this chapter, which ones
are more susceptible to the influence of input and which ones might be
immune to its influence if other factors can be controlled?
5. The acquisition of third or additional languages (e.g., Alonso &
Rothman, 2017) and heritage languages (Montrul, 2015) has become a
current topic of debate.What issues that have been raised in this chapter
would be of concern in looking at third language acquisition and heri-
tage language acquisition?
6. This chapter has suggested a new role for culture in the lexicon in
GenSLA research. Develop a list of lexical items that (a) might not vary
by culture and (b) probably vary by culture. Then ask some speakers of
another language what associations they have with items on the lists, and
see if your prediction is borne out.What can you conclude? How might
3

Generative considerations of communicative competence 33

storage of lexical meanings of these items affect language processing in
production and comprehension?

Notes
1 Unfortunately, space does not permit a consideration of phonology in GenSLA
communicative competence. As Gurzynski-​Weiss et al. (2017) point out, L2 pro-
nunciation research lags behind that of morpho-​syntax. In addition, consideration
of heritage languages (e.g., Montrul, 2015) and third language acquisition (e.g.,
Alonso & Rothman, 2017) are not considered but are important newer areas of
research.
2 Generative formal theories are the focus in this chapter, although other formal
theories exist (e.g., Bresnan, 2001; Pollard & Sag, 1994;Van Valin & La Polla, 1997).
3 This chapter does not address the separate component for constraints in phon-
ology in generative linguistics. See, for example, Hansen Edwards and Zampini
(2008) and Wayland (2021) for edited volumes on L2 speech learning.
4 See Pritchett (1992, p. 158) for some discussion of intonation and punctuation
and Dahan and Ferreira (2019) for commentary on recent developments on the
relationship between clause structure and intonation.
5 Many scholars use the term “expert speaker,” which has been preferred for some
time (Rampton, 1990).
6 Musolino and Lidz (2006) point out that this ambiguity is less obvious in sentences
where the quantified noun phrase is the object rather than the subject of the sen-
tence, as in the following example:
The professor didn’t talk to every student.
a. The professor talked to some students but not all of them.
b. The professor didn’t talk to a single student (not even one).
The authors note that it would also be possible to interpret this sentence as if the
professor ignored every student and didn’t talk to any of them (b). This second
interpretation violates a pragmatic constraint, which relates to scalar implicatures
and cooperative principles of conversation (Grice, 1989). If a speaker wished to
say the professor spoke to no students at all, it is reasonable to assume that the
speaker would have said so to comply with these principles.

Suggestions for further reading

Dekydtspotter, L., Miller, K. A., Iverson, M., Xiong, Y., Swanson, K., & Gilbert, C.
(2021). Minimal brain adaptation for representational prioritization in non-​
native parsing: Evidence from a time-​frequency analysis of recursion in wh-​
dependencies in French. Journal of Neurolinguistics, 59. https://​doi.org/​10.1016/​
j.jne​urol​ing.2021.101​002
Jackendoff, R. S. (2019). Mental representations for language. In P. Hagoort (Ed.),
Human language: From genes and brains to behavior (pp. 7–​20). MIT Press.
Paradis, M. (2004). A neurolinguistic theory of bilingualism (vol. 18). John Benjamins.
Ryskin, R., Levy, R. P., & Fedorenko, E. (2020). Do domain-​general executive
resources play a role in linguistic prediction? Re-​evaluation of the evidence and
a path forward. Neuropsychologia, 136, 107258. https://​doi.org/​10.1016/​j.neuro​
psyc​holo​gia.2019.107​258
34

34 Alan Juffs
Slabakova, R. (2016). Second language acquisition. Oxford University Press.
White, L. (2020). Linguistic theory, Universal Grammar, and second language acqui-
sition. In B. VanPatten, G. Keating, & S. Wulff (Eds.), Theories in second language
acquisition: An introduction (pp. 19–​40). Routledge.

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40

3 Sociolinguistic approaches to
communicative competence
Kimberly L. Geeslin and Stacey Hanson

Canale and Swain (1980) noted that language classrooms must foster the
development of communicative competence if they are to produce effective
language users. They identified three central components of this construct
(i.e., grammatical, sociolinguistic, and strategic competence) and subsequent
research has expanded and refined these components (e.g., Sun, 2014). For
example, successors have added components such as organizational compe-
tence and pragmatic competence and explored the definition of strategic
competence in greater depth over time (e.g., Bachman & Palmer, 1996).
Canale and Swain’s intent was to look critically at language classrooms, lan-
guage instruction and, more globally, what second language (L2) learners
need to know in order to communicate effectively. This led them to
explore the areas of competence identified as components of a fully func-
tional interlanguage grammar. Grammatical knowledge was generally at the
core of discussions about communicative competence and, thus, the central
question might be framed as “what else does a language user need to know?”
Approaches may differ in how many competence categories are identified
(e.g., Hymes’s [1972] model has two categories while Bachman’s [1990] has
three), and whether these are viewed as discrete or hierarchically organized,
but all contribute to the sense that learners need grammar and other com-
municative abilities. Models of communicative competence recognize that
language use is situated and, thus, include a social component.
Canale and Swain (1980) referred to the use of context-​appropriate lan-
guage in the L2 as sociolinguistic competence. In so doing, their implication
is straightforward: the sociolinguistic elements of language are important
in L2 interactions as well. For example, language learners benefit from the
ability to address other speakers according to norms of status and polite-
ness, to demonstrate degrees of formality in certain contexts (e.g., formal
presentations) and informality in others (e.g., a bar). Limited sociolinguistic
competence is likely to affect learners in several ways, including difficulty
creating trust, as needed for medical care, legal representation, or a successful
business deal. Sociolinguistic competence also provides opportunities to
establish friendships and personal connections through the ability to project
one’s current mood, indicate facts of one’s identity (identities), and express
familiarity or connection with another, to name just a few examples. From
DOI: 10.4324/9781003160779-4
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Sociolinguistic approaches to communicative competence 41

a language learning viewpoint, L2 learners use their sociolinguistic com-
petence to participate in an interaction, and, over time, to participate as
members of a group (or groups).These interactions influence learners’ access
to future opportunities for communication and acquisition. The conversa-
tion that Canale and Swain began underpins our current understanding of
the specific benefits of developing sociolinguistic competence for language
learners and allows us to ask detailed questions about how this capacity
develops over time.
Sociolinguistic competence encompasses how speaker characteristics
influence patterns of language use, how identity is related to language choice,
and how one varies speech across settings (e.g., Chappell, 2016; Coulmas,
2013; Eckert, 1989; Mendoza-​Denton, 2008; Tagliamonte, 2012). We know
that native speakers (NSs) of a language interpret utterances according to
context and that they vary their own production based on features of the
linguistic, social, and interactional setting. These communicative abilities
allow us to make friends, demonstrate expertise, show empathy, and establish
boundaries. Put simply, competent language users are not just grammatically
accurate, they are situationally appropriate, too. The study of L2 sociolin-
guistic competence has demonstrated that language learners can acquire these
aspects of sociolinguistic knowledge (see Geeslin & Long, 2014; Gudmestad,
2014; Kanwit, 2018). Gaining attention in the 1980s (e.g., Adamson, 1988;
Bayley & Preston, 1996; Eisenstein, 1986; Gass et al., 1989; Preston, 1989),
research at the intersection of sociolinguistics and second language acqui-
sition (SLA) now encompasses a range of languages (e.g., Arabic, Chinese,
English, French, German, and Spanish), and many areas of grammar. Current
accounts of the influence of social and linguistic contexts on the variable
realizations of a L2 now employ sophisticated acoustic analyses (e.g., Dalola &
Bullock, 2017 used Praat to conduct a phonetic analysis of devoicing of the
French high vowels /​i y u/​among L2 French speakers),1 detailed analyses
of multiple variable structures from the same learner corpus allowing for
more complete pictures of development of L2 systems over time (e.g., Regan
et al., 2009 analyzed ne deletion and use of the pronouns nous/​on in the L2
French of Irish learners before and after a year abroad), and cross-​sectional
studies charting development from early stages of acquisition to highly pro-
ficient levels for multiple languages and structures (e.g., Geeslin & Long,
2015 analyzed acquisition of Spanish copulas ser and estar among L1 Korean
speakers; Geeslin et al., 2015 analyzed overt subject expression among L2
Spanish speakers). We open this chapter with a discussion of the construct of
sociolinguistic competence and what it entails prior to stepping back to look
at the historical theoretical underpinnings of the study of context-​based lan-
guage use in L2s and how this is manifested in today’s research.

Historical context
Canale and Swain (1980) identified a shift taking place in language
classrooms. Whereas, traditionally, L2 instruction prioritized formal
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42 Kimberly L. Geeslin and Stacey Hanson

knowledge of the language, placing a premium on translation, the advent of
communicative language instruction came with an emphasis on the devel-
opment of L2 communication (Savignon & Berns, 1984). Thus, Canale
and Swain, and others like them, led us to ask what it means to com-
municate effectively in a L2 and how we might help classroom learners
achieve this goal. This shift in focus did not occur in a vacuum, but rather
it paralleled important developments in linguistic theory. Behaviorist
approaches to language learning, which focused exclusively on observable
behavior and invoked imitation as a means to develop new L2 habits, gave
way to mentalist approaches as linguists amassed evidence attesting to the
creative nature of language produced by language learners (see Gass et al.,
2020, Chapter 3 for details). Mentalist approaches sought to understand
linguistic representation in developing grammars and allowed for cognitive
mechanisms, such as overgeneralization, to come to bear on the process of
SLA (e.g., Corder, 1967). In short, the 1960s brought a dramatic shift from
an “environment only” approach espoused by behaviorists to an account
based nearly entirely on innate (internal) grammars and mental processes.
In the late 1970s, however, a handful of SLA researchers began to produce
empirical research documenting the context-​dependent and variable nature
of L2s (e.g., Tarone, 1979), as had already been widely shown in native lan-
guage contexts in the field of sociolinguistics (e.g., Labov, 1972; Poplack,
1992). In sum, behaviorism focused nearly exclusively on the role of the
environment and the early mentalist approaches (e.g., Chomsky, 1959)
represented a full shift toward a model based on innate knowledge. At pre-
sent we see multiple approaches to language and language learning each
of which reflects the facts about speakers, hearers, and the places in which
they communicate to varying degrees (see Hummel, 2014 for a review). By
recognizing sociolinguistic competence as a component of overall commu-
nicative competence, Canale and Swain asserted that context does, in fact,
matter and, thus, current approaches tend not to rest on the extremes (i.e.,
exclusive role for context or no role at all for context), but instead recognize
the role of context in some way.
There are several approaches to language theory which recognize and
incorporate facts that extend beyond the formal properties of grammar (i.e.,
context). Apart from their consideration of the social elements of language,
however, these accounts do differ. For example, functional approaches explore
how meaning is expressed through language by examining how a linguistic
form is mapped to a particular function or how a function is expressed
through linguistic form(s) (e.g., Andersen, 1984; Solon & Kanwit, 2014).
Complex dynamic systems is another approach to language acquisition that
seeks to explain how the emergence of a new language feature functions
within a dynamic (i.e., constantly changing) system that is nonlinear, adaptive,
and open (Larsen-​Freeman, 1997), where an open system refers to interaction
with the environment (Larsen-​Freeman, 2006). Variationist approaches seek
to understand the role played by linguistic, social, and interactional facts, and
their relative degree of importance to one another. Usage-​based theories
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Sociolinguistic approaches to communicative competence 43

have specific tenets, such as the belief that frequency is a driving force
behind patterns of use, or that language structure is represented as strength
of relationship between elements that tend to occur together. Additionally,
the term “usage-​based” can be employed as an umbrella classification under
which all accounts that recognize the importance of situated language use
can be grouped. In this sense, “use” refers to real-​world interactions that
reflect the characteristics of speakers, their communities, and the moment in
which a particular interaction takes place, rather than an abstraction of our
understanding or representation of language. These many approaches give
us the tools to understand a variety of aspects of sociolinguistic competence
(see also Gries, Chapter 7, this volume).
As stated earlier, sociolinguistic competence refers to the capacity needed
to use language in real-​life interactions in situationally appropriate ways.This
ability might be described in terms of functional goals (e.g., the ability to
negotiate a fair auto price) or social ones (e.g., the ability to make friends).
In essence it refers to being able to use one’s linguistic knowledge to do
things in a particular situation and reap the benefits that participation in a
community can bring. Drawing from the field of sociolinguistics, we can also
see that sociolinguistic competence is related to identity. Sociolinguists have
documented that speakers reflect characteristics such as age, gender, socio-
economic class, and ethnicity in the language they produce (e.g., men tend
to use informal -​in (vs. -​ing) with greater frequency than women, Adamson
& Regan, 1991). Importantly, sociolinguists have shown that the degree to
which these identities and the linguistic elements that index them are
socially constructed can also be reflected in patterns of use (e.g., Trudgill,
1972 found men and women under 30 value non-​standard working-​class
forms such as the [n̩] variant in Norwich English). The field has further
documented the role of contextual factors such as the topic of conversation,
the place of interaction, and the characteristics of those who may overhear a
conversation (Bell, 1984). Although many of these insights come from vari-
ationist sociolinguistics (i.e., the study of the multiple factors that play a
predictive role in variable patterns of language use), studies of identity, com-
munity, and social networks, to name only a few, have further contributed to
our understanding of the social nature of language use. These studies dem-
onstrate that speakers may (or may not) express community alignment by
adopting the group patterns of use. We further know that one may opt into
a community and reflect this through patterns of use, and that this use may
be intermittent, depending on one’s surrounding interlocutors (e.g., Eckert,
1989). Perhaps the most well-​known example of this is Mendoza-​Denton’s
(2008) work on so-​called “homegirls” who used language features to indi-
cate group membership both within the group and outside it (see also Starr,
Chapter 5, this volume).
Research on L2 sociolinguistic variation began with studies that
documented differences in patterns of spoken language across tasks or task
settings (e.g., Dickerson, 1975; Tarone, 1979). These investigations offered
important insights, even showing that an account of variability in learner
4

44 Kimberly L. Geeslin and Stacey Hanson

speech could uncover paths of development that had previously been
missed (e.g., the reanalysis of Schumann, 1976 by Berdan, 1996). We now
understand that not only did tasks influence learner language, so too did
interlocutors, identity, and gender of the learner (e.g., Adamson & Regan,
1991; Eisenstein, 1986; Li, 2010). For example, Adamson and Regan (1991)
showed that L2 learners of English acquire gender differentiated patterns
of variable [ɪn] and [ɪŋ]. In their study, men produced [ɪn] at greater rates
than women even though both groups expressed similar sensitivity to other
predictive factors, such as monitoring (i.e., formality) and the following
consonant. In current practice, ample research accounts for the factors
that influence L2 variation, their relative importance to one another, and
whether these relationships hold over time or change as learners gain
experience with the language (i.e., become more proficient). For example,
Kanwit (2017) documented the degree to which linguistic and social factors
influence variation of future-​time expression in L2 Spanish. His findings
demonstrated that the linguistic factors (e.g., temporal distance, person/​
number) that predict future-​time expression expanded as learner profi-
ciency increased and over time patterned with NSs’ future-​time expression.
Additionally, social factors such as study abroad influenced how learners
expressed future-​time, reflecting patterns of the country where learners had
studied. This area of research now garners full chapters in introductory SLA
textbooks (e.g., Bayley & Tarone, 2012; Gass et al., 2020; Gudmestad, 2014)
and serves as the organizing theme in handbooks and other texts (e.g.,
Geeslin, 2022; Geeslin & Long, 2014).
As the field of sociolinguistics has developed, so has our ability to charac-
terize the various social elements of L2s and to measure these more effect-
ively. For example, whereas we once viewed formality on a sliding scale,
ranging from very formal to very informal on a single, linear axis, we now
see that multiple factors simultaneously influence language use.The view of
“formality” as monolithic and gradient (from more formal to less formal)
has given way to a model that allows for multiple dimensions of influence
(see Tarone, 2007, and Preston, 1999, for details). Additionally, speakers can
interpret forms they do not produce and, thus, that language production
does not give a complete picture of sociolinguistic competence. Tangible
examples of this phenomenon can be seen with regional variants, which
speakers may be able to categorize accurately or may associate with a par-
ticular region without necessarily producing in their own speech (Schmidt,
2018; Schoonmaker-​Gates, 2018). A further nuance is that speakers may
choose to use a given variant or not, and this may reflect identity and/​
or orientation toward a group (e.g., Willis et al., 2022). Connecting this
to the various models of communicative competence, it is generally the
case that while models may have more numerous, more detailed, or more
sophisticated categories within the various competencies identified as
important for full participation in an interaction, the general insight that
social aspects of those interactions also come to bear has not changed con-
siderably over time. Instead, from this review we see that our ability to
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Sociolinguistic approaches to communicative competence 45

provide an increasingly nuanced account of the role of social elements in
language has improved over time.

Critical issues in current research

Building on the historical overview in the previous section, we now turn
our attention to the most pressing (or exciting) areas of developing research
in this field. We show, in essence, where we have room to grow in providing
an even clearer, and at times more nuanced, account to the manner in which
sociolinguistic competence is studied under current approaches. It is no
longer necessary to argue that language differs from one linguistic or social
context to another. As noted previously, the recognition that context plays a
role in patterns of language use and language learning is well documented.
In fact, detailed and well-​constructed reviews and critical summaries of the
states of usage-​based accounts of SLA and L2 variationist research abound
(Bayley et al., 2022; Geeslin, 2022; Gudmestad, 2014, 2021; Kanwit, 2018).
Thus, current interests involve expanding our knowledge base in order to
better account for the nature and path of development toward L2 situated
language use.These expansions may involve new techniques (e.g., laboratory
approaches to perception), new languages or language pairs, new learning
contexts, or newly understood variable structures. For example, technology
allows new elicitation tasks, new tools of measurement (e.g., Praat as used
for acoustic analysis in Henriksen et al., 2010), and increasingly powerful
statistical analyses (e.g., Gudmestad et al., 2013 who employ a Bayesian ana-
lysis). Likewise, the early body of L2 variationist work, initially dominated by
English, French, and Spanish, now includes acquisition by Korean speakers of
Spanish (Long, 2022) and studies of the sociolinguistic properties of L2 Arabic
(Al Masaeed, 2020, 2021), to name only two examples of less commonly
studied languages. This expansion has addressed the criticism that findings
which were offered as universal may have in fact been limited to English-​
speaking learners. For example, Geeslin and Long (2015) showed that paths
of development of the copula contrast in L2 Spanish were comparable for
Korean-​speaking and English-​speaking learners (e.g., ser is overgeneralized
in early stages by both groups) and also that some stages may last longer for
some groups than others (e.g., omission lasted longer for Korean-​speaking
learners of Spanish, whose L1 allows greater omission).
We also see development in the application of theoretical advances to the
study of L2 sociolinguistics. By way of illustration, one important expansion
of the research on L2 sociolinguistic variation is in interpretation, which
is generally understudied relative to production. By examining the ability
to interpret a form’s social and contextual meaning, independently of that
learner’s own patterns of production, these studies address a gap in previous
literature. For example, written interpretation tasks have been used to inves-
tigate L2 learners’ interpretation of Spanish mood in adverbial clauses, as
well as their interpretation of Spanish copulas (e.g., Kanwit & Geeslin, 2014,
2020). Both studies found that L2 learners can acquire the variable patterns
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46 Kimberly L. Geeslin and Stacey Hanson

of interpretation of the forms under examination, and that as learners’ pro-
ficiency develops, their interpretations pattern more closely to NSs’. That is,
advanced L2 learners rely on the same constraints as NSs when interpreting
Spanish adverbial clauses (i.e., verbal mood) and when interpreting copulas
(i.e., adjective class). Additionally, the findings showed that advanced L2
speakers tend to follow prescriptivist rules to a greater degree whereas NSs
allow for more variation in interpretation.2 These interpretation studies
allow researchers to better understand L2 learners’ developing sociolinguistic
competence as reflected in their ability to interpret variable form use based
on social and contextual meaning even in cases where the same learners
might not produce those variable forms.
Interpretation tasks are also employed to investigate L2 learners’
evaluations of various dialects of a given language. These are also known
as perception tasks, especially when the variants under study are part of the
sound system, rather than morphosyntactic dialectal features. Dialect per-
ception studies have shown that with more exposure to specific dialects, L2
learners are more accurate at identifying those dialects (e.g., Schoonmaker-​
Gates, 2018), even though, like for NSs, levels of accuracy for sentence-​level
dialect identification on these tasks are generally low. Through matched-​
guise tasks, researchers can further observe L2 learners’ developmental path
of dialectal differentiation and evaluation as well as development of language
attitudes toward specific dialects (e.g., Ringer-​Hilfinger, 2012; Schmidt,
2018). For instance, Chappell and Kanwit (2022) found that high inter-
mediate and advanced L2 learners were able to connect Spanish coda /​s/​
reduction to the origin and social status of NSs. An important caveat to
consider is that although L2 learners develop linguistic attitudes and socio-
linguistic evaluations of dialects, this does not mean that these attitudes
mirror those of a particular NS community. Additionally, it does not indicate
that learners also use these socially and dialectally indexed phones in their
own speech. Take for example the use of the Spanish theta (i.e., interdental
fricative). This phone is specific to certain regions of the Spanish-​speaking
world. L2 speakers who visit one of these regions must be able to interpret
this phone and make meaning of the language around them, even though
they need not produce the phone to function fully in the Spanish language
(Knouse, 2013; Ringer-​Hilfinger, 2012). Studies investigating use of the
theta among L2 learners studying abroad in Spain have shown that even
learners who demonstrated positive attitudes toward speakers who employ
theta in their speech, exhibited low or no realization of this phone in their
own speech (e.g., George, 2014). Together this body of work allows us to
ask more specific questions about how learner identity is related to socio-
linguistic variation in separating, for example, interpretation from produc-
tion. By measuring perception and interpretation, we come to recognize the
range of phenomena that learners understand but, for a variety of reasons,
including their own experiences and identities, may not produce.
A second example of the extension of sociolinguistic theoretical
developments to the L2 context, is in the adaptation of research on social
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Sociolinguistic approaches to communicative competence 47

networks. In sociolinguistics, the concept of social networks and the use of
network characteristics to describe language change, became well-​known
through the work of the Milroys (e.g., Milroy & Milroy, 1985). Networks
might be diffuse or dense, depending on an individual’s patterns of inter-
action within a community, and these properties were said to operate differ-
ently in understanding patterns of language change. In the L2 context, these
concepts have been used to describe access to input and rates of adoption of
local phenomena during study abroad. The prediction is not that networks
work identically in language change and language acquisition, but rather
that the study of networks provides a tool with which to explore paths of
change (or acquisition) over time. For example, Kennedy Terry (2017), using
a social network strength scale, found that L2 French learners with denser
and more complex social networks generally instantiated more /​l/​elision.
By measuring the number of NSs with whom each learner interacted, the
topics of conversation with which learners engaged, and the types of activ-
ities completed with NSs, Kennedy Terry provided further insight into
how the creation of social networks between L2 learners and NSs is linked
to learners’ acquisition of target language variation. In general, it is likely
that learners who are more tightly connected have greater exposure to the
informal, familiar contexts where many of the variants are more likely to
occur. Research on L2 Spanish have found that L2 learners with greater
ties to NSs demonstrate an increase in L2 proficiency (Isabelli-​García, 2006)
and an increased use of Spanish theta (George, 2014). Studies employing
social network measurements in L2 contexts document how complexity and
density of interactions between L2 learners and NSs further contribute to the
development of learners’ use and interpretation of sociolinguistic variants.
The examples provided here are but two ways in which research on L2
sociolinguistic competence has expanded in recent years. They also hint
at the future directions the field may take and the pressing questions we
must address as we move forward. For example, if we know that individual
differences among learners are important (e.g., Gurzynski-​Weiss et al., 2018)
and that patterns of connection and interaction are related to the acquisition
of variable elements in language, these factors likely conspire in important
ways, and there is work to be done in understanding the details of this rela-
tionship. For example, Geeslin (2020) notes that interlocutor characteristics
interact with socially variable language, but there is a dearth of empirical
studies about the nature of this interaction. Speakers must manage complex
facts of language in order to project the image with which they identify in a
given context, and this may change from one interaction to another. Because
many L2 learners come to the task with fully formed identities in their first
language, and also because the input directed at L2 learners is often pan-​
dialectal (e.g., Gurzynski-​Weiss et al., 2018) and likely overrepresents certain
groups of speakers and interactional contexts (e.g., highly educated speakers
in relatively formal interactions), the process of acquiring the full range of
competences required to interact across settings is further complexified. The
degree to which learners are able to acquire this range of competences, the
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48 Kimberly L. Geeslin and Stacey Hanson

manner in which these competences develop over years of study or inten-
sively during a stay in a particular community, and how this knowledge
is stored and managed in real-​time interactions are under-​investigated (see
also Jegerski & Fernández Cuenca, Chapter 6, this volume). Second, recent
work has sought to delineate the role of influences such as salience (albeit
hard to define) on the processes related to patterns of language use, and to
apply these to the acquisition of sociolinguistic variation (e.g., Davydova,
2022). We might hypothesize that learners first perceive the features of a
community’s speech that are least variable, most frequent, carry the greatest
social weight and, perhaps, most easily detected, and that these are likely
to be acquired and (optionally) incorporated into learner speech at earlier
stages of development. This is a reasonable explanation for learner’s patterns
of use of the theta, but studies that examine real-​time perception and sub-
conscious evaluations of sociolinguistically variable forms are in nascent
stages and offer a profitable future path. As we turn our discussion to the
methods employed in this field of research, it will be important to keep these
research questions in mind.

Main research methods

L2 variationist studies tend to employ large datasets (corpora or interviews)
and to privilege production data, especially language produced in informal
contexts. Additionally, this field uses quantitative analyses to report the range
and frequency of forms produced in a particular functional context and
to identify the factors that predict their use. Such studies use sophisticated
statistical tools to weigh multiple influencing factors in a single predictive
model. These methods are rooted in the tradition of the sociolinguistic
interview and generally examine linguistic and social factors to determine
whether a given learner sample exhibits similar patterns of variability to
those attested for NS communities (Bayley & Escalante, 2022; Geeslin &
Hanson, forthcoming). Over time, researchers have attained an increasingly
sophisticated understanding of the relevant predictive factors, their relation-
ship to a given set of variants, and the degree to which these influences differ
by speaker and the interactional context of the speech community. Although
well established, these methods continue to yield new insights and are the
cornerstone of L2 sociolinguistics.
Within this well-​ established tradition, which favors production data,
an example of advances in the field can be seen in the incorporation of
additional tools, such as acoustic analysis, into our work. If we look, for
instance, at the wealth of research on /d/​reduction or deletion in L2s, we
find studies indicating that learners perceive and produce these variants in
L2 English (Bayley, 1996; Hansen Edwards, 2011). Likewise, research on L2
Spanish showed that while the process of reduction of the voiced obstruents
is generally described as a single phenomenon whereby /​bdɡ/​are reduced
except when following a pause or a nasal (or a lateral in the case of /d/​),
these phones are not acquired at identical rates (Zampini, 1994). Instead, we
49

Sociolinguistic approaches to communicative competence 49

find that /d/​reduction is complicated by its phonemic status in English as
well as its sociolinguistic status in Spanish. Regarding the latter, /d/ reduc-
tion is variable for NSs and may result in full elision depending on the
word, linguistic context, speaker, and interactional setting (Carrasco et al.,
2012). Whereas previous studies categorized realizations of sounds (e.g.,
productions of /d/​as [d]‌, [ð̞], or elided), more recent studies such as Solon
et al. (2018) characterized the gradient nature of this reduction, showing that
one acquisitional challenge, even for highly advanced speakers, was to acquire
the full range along the scale of reduction attested by NSs. Prior to the
application of detailed acoustic phonetic analyses, this was not feasible. Such
developments notwithstanding, research investigating acquisition of socio-
linguistic competence based on production data enjoys a well-​established
tradition and remains the most widely represented in the field (see Geeslin &
Long, 2014 and Gudmestad, 2014 for excellent overviews). Given this widely
covered topic, we turn our attention now to some of the additional methods
employed to study L2 sociolinguistic competence.
As a complement to analyses of production data, and in the context of
a tradition in the field of SLA that seeks to understand learner grammars
through the elicitation of intuitions, researchers have developed written tasks
that measure learners’ evaluation of particular forms.These tasks, often known
as written contextualized tasks (WCTs), differ from traditional judgment
tasks in that they do not ask about grammaticality or correctness, but instead
measure whether a speaker prefers one form over another. Additionally, they
provide a context for each item that extends beyond the typical sentence-​
length items found on grammaticality judgment tasks. Finally, these tasks
require the researcher to have a deep understanding of sociolinguistic vari-
ation in order to create contexts that represent all combinations of the cat-
egories of the factors known to influence patterns of use. For example, if we
know that the animacy of a referent influences the Spanish copula used with
adjectives, a task of this type would include an equal number of animate and
inanimate referents or would present only one type of referent throughout in
order to avoid introducing an unintended source of variation. WCTs cannot
be designed without first understanding the predictive analyses of produc-
tion data. What they offer is a clearer picture of how these factors operate in
conjunction through a controlled elicitation task. Moreover, they allow for
a comparison across and within groups because all participants are asked to
evaluate the same contexts. This can serve to corroborate or expand what is
gleaned from production data in which there is natural variation from one
speaker to another in the range of contexts that are produced.
Another area where research on L2 communicative competence reflects
advances in sociolinguistics and SLA is in the manner in which we rec-
ognize the characteristics of individuals and their patterns of language use.
Research on learner individual differences provides models for accounting
for learner motivation, attitude, and learning preferences (Gurzynski-​Weiss
et al., 2018). We have also increased the detail with which we measure and
account for learners’ opportunities to interact and gain additional linguistic
50

50 Kimberly L. Geeslin and Stacey Hanson

input. In research on study abroad in particular, we find measures such as the
language contact profile and other questionnaire-​based methods that elicit
information about how a learner uses the target language (how often and
with whom; Díaz-​Campos, 2004; Ringer-​Hilfinger, 2012). As mentioned
previously, social network research in the L2 context helps us better under-
stand the number of contacts learners have and how tightly connected they
are to a given speech community (Kennedy Terry, 2017; Milroy & Milroy,
1985; Shiri, 2015). In this case, theories of language change can be applied
to the study of patterns of language acquisition, particularly in reference to
community-​specific norms, such as the use of geographic variants.
Researchers interested in L2 sociolinguistics have also adopted tools such
as the matched-​guise task, or more commonly a verbal-​guise task, in which
participants respond to a series of auditory examples, rating each along
evaluative dimensions such as kindness, intelligence, and suitability for cer-
tain types of employment (e.g., Davydova et al., 2017 employed a verbal-​
guise task to evaluate acquisition of sociolinguistic awareness of English
quotative be like among German learners of English). Sociolinguists have
employed this technique to identify subconscious evaluations of speakers
by other NSs of a given language, showing that socially stigmatized variants
tend to indicate in-​group status to the hearer and may also be evaluated as
less prestigious (e.g., Chappell, 2016; Wright, 2021). These same types of
tasks can tell whether L2 hearers perceive differences among speakers from
different regions of the Spanish-​speaking world (e.g., Geeslin & Schmidt,
2018; Schmidt & Geeslin, 2022). It may not be the case that learners evaluate
each variety of Spanish as speakers from a particular community would,
but ratings of the type attested in Schmidt and Geeslin’s studies do indi-
cate that learners perceive dialects differentially. For example, L2 learners
rated Spanish speakers from Argentina as significantly kinder than those from
Mexico, Puerto Rico, and Spain (Schmidt & Geeslin, 2022). This method is
important because NSs are not very good at identifying the region of origin
of a speaker in their own language (e.g., Schoonmaker-​Gates, 2018) and,
thus, tasks where first or L2 speakers are asked to indicate the country of
origin of a particular speaker are not generally good indicators of whether
a listener perceives a dialectal difference between speakers. In other words,
they are not effective tools for determining whether L2 learners perceive
differences between speakers based on region of origin. Verbal-​guise tasks,
in contrast, can indicate whether L2 learners differentiate between speakers
based on region of origin and can reveal learners’ implicit attitudes toward
different dialects.
One additional development in research on sociolinguistic competence
and patterns of L2 acquisition is the use of artificial languages to determine
the degree to which learners acquire variable properties of language (see
Samara, 2022 for a critical overview). The use of artificial grammars to study
patterns of language development is not new. Researchers have used fic-
tional languages to understand how learners begin to recognize patterns in
language, and computers have been used to model paths of learning as well
51

Sociolinguistic approaches to communicative competence 51

(e.g., MacWhinney, 1995). Recently, the technique of asking participants to
engage with artificial languages as a window into patterns of development
has been applied to sociolinguistic competence. Specifically, socially indexed
features of language have been integrated into these artificial languages
to study how learners come to recognize patterns that may be linked, for
example, to gender (Lai et al., 2020; Rácz et al., 2017). Like the use of WCTs,
this method has the benefit of enabling researchers to control multiple influ-
encing factors and create comparable test cases across learners. What is more,
the use of artificial languages allows for a measure of online processing that
is not yet widely applied in the field (see Culbertson & Schuler, 2019 for
discussion).

Recommendations for practice: researching

L2 sociolinguistic competence
Thus far, we have seen that a cornerstone of good research in L2
sociolinguistics is to keep pace with developments in the field of
sociolinguistics more broadly. Additionally, however, some key considerations
apply more specifically to L2 learners. The first, which we alluded to in the
discussion of the matched-​guise technique, is that learners may not respond
in the same way to a task as NSs do. In that case, we saw that learners rate
speakers differentially, but perhaps based on different underlying judgments
than NSs would. Thus, one must consider whether there are additional
factors that influence learner responses that are unique to this population. In
this sense, the interpretation of results cannot be mapped directly onto the
field of sociolinguistics, but rather, must take into account factors related to
input, language development, and context of learning.
It is also the case that modifications may be in order when conducting
even the most widely attested tools of the trade, such as data elicitation using
the sociolinguistic interview (see also Starr, Chapter 5, this volume). Labov’s
sociolinguistic interview technique (1963) is well known for its ability to
draw speakers into the topic of conversation, to lose themselves in their own
narrative and, thus, to cease careful monitoring of their own speech, produ-
cing more casual, vernacular speech samples. Nevertheless, there are several
factors that come to bear on this technique when eliciting speech samples
from language learners. First, the level of proficiency a learner possesses
will necessarily limit the language production that is feasible. Learners may
not possess the narrative tools or vocabulary to recount complex events.
Additionally, classroom learners are unlikely to be comfortable talking about
a brush with death, a local superstition, or other topics that work well in
someone’s home. Instead, researchers must consider the speaker and the con-
text and elicit appropriate speech given those factors. Many studies have
effectively asked learners to use wordless picture books or silent films as
a stimulus for producing a narrative (e.g., Fafulas, 2015). SLA researchers,
particularly those interested in sociolinguistic competence, must create a
“context,” whether designed to elicit production or interpretation, which is
52

52 Kimberly L. Geeslin and Stacey Hanson

understood similarly across participants. This may, at times, require patience
and multiple pilot tests to ensure that learners can do a particular task and also
that learners understand the task in the same way as intended.
Another important consideration, and perhaps one of the most com-
plex, is the manner in which we compare the patterns of various groups of
speakers. Researchers must consider the nature of the input to which learners
are exposed, the communities in which learners practice their developing L2
communication, and learners’ ultimate goal(s) for becoming more effective
communicators in that language. For example, classroom language learners
often have exposure to several geographic varieties of a language, but perhaps
relatively homogenous speakers in terms of education level. Furthermore,
they may possess goals to work in the community outside the classroom
walls, to travel to other countries, or to interact with an individual or group
with whom they enjoy a personal relationship. What is clear is that there is
no single target for these learners (Gass et al., 2002; Gutiérrez & Fairclough,
2006; Gurzynski-​Weiss et al., 2018) and, thus, a comparison between their
patterns of use and that of a monolingual community that is geographic-
ally distant does not provide insight into the acquisition of sociolinguistic
competence for those learners. In this research context, we must suspend
assumptions about constructs such as “native speaker” or “speech com-
munity” that are not based on an understanding of the learning context
and, instead, provide an interpretation that is realistic and responsive to the
characteristics of the analyzed groups.
In light of the preceding section outlining the new and powerful tools
we now have at our disposal for investigating L2 sociolinguistic compe-
tence, a word of caution is in order. We must, as researchers, first identify the
question we wish to answer, and then identify the best tool to pursue that
area of inquiry.The converse is likely to leave us with better data but will also
hamper our ability to connect the findings to existing questions and guiding
themes throughout the field. Along the same lines, adding something “new”
to our database in and of itself does not automatically expand our know-
ledge. Instead, research on yet-​to-​be-​studied learner groups or grammatical
structures should be viewed as contributions to the field because of their
power to illustrate new connections and common trends or to iron out
details about influencing factors on patterns of language use. In short, in
order to genuinely move the field forward, expansion must be connected
to what we already know and to what remains to be understood. These
connections come through the process of asking the right questions and
designing our investigations to explore those issues.

Future directions
In the preceding discussion, we have seen that sociolinguistic aspects of
learner language have been well studied and scholars continue to make great
strides in adapting to new research methodologies and making connections
between developments in sociolinguistics and the processes of SLA. As we
53

Sociolinguistic approaches to communicative competence 53

think about where research must go in the next few years in order to con-
tinue its contributions to the study of communicative competence, it is
essential to remind ourselves of the original purpose of Canale and Swain’s
(1980) paper. That is, we must ask ourselves what it is that language learners
need to do in order to participate fully in a L2 and, relatedly, what lan-
guage classrooms must provide to support learners in achieving that goal.
Asking questions in this way will likely lead us to dive deeply into research
on the nature of input and how it differs from one learner to another.
These differences may stem from characteristics of the instructor, peda-
gogical materials, or learning context. Knowing what we do now about
sociolinguistics more broadly, we should further seek to understand how
input differs as a function of access to learning opportunities, characteristics
of the learner, and the goals of the learner for gaining proficiency. In one
sense, future research should continue to ask the same questions that Canale
and Swain did, but to do so using the knowledge we have about learners’
identities, equity in educational opportunities, cognitive mechanisms
of acquisition, and a host of social and psychological advances that pro-
vide new insights to these age-​old questions. In this sense, we continue to
examine the construct of sociolinguistic (and communicative) competence,
to redefine it, and to use such conversations to push ourselves to move this
work forward.
Canale and Swain (1980) also remind us of the importance of continually
making connections between research and practice. As we learn more about
the nature of sociolinguistic properties of language, the ways in which con-
text influences language acquisition and use, and the cognitive mechanisms
that allow us to associate social factors with linguistic elements, these findings
should be connected to the creation of pedagogical materials, to training the
teachers of the future, and to ensuring that we can use this information to
better support learners’ ability to move toward the goal of fuller participation
in L2 communities. In the future, as we pursue the study of communicative
competence, we should use that information to bring diverse voices into the
classroom and also to provide learners with the opportunity to express their
own voice (and identity) in a L2.

Discussion questions
1. How have different theories of SLA accounted for sociolinguistic
competence?
2. How do learner identities play a role in the development of sociolin-
guistic competence? Explain your answer using examples.
3. How can matched-​guise tasks be used to evaluate L2 learners’ acquisi-
tion of sociolinguistic competence? Provide an example.
4. Describe three methods that can be used to analyze L2 sociolinguistic
competence.
5. Using the language that you study, design a small-​scale pilot study that
attempts to measure L2 development of sociolinguistic competence.
54

54 Kimberly L. Geeslin and Stacey Hanson

Notes
1 We note that in this case, the technology is not new, but its application to the
study of L2 variation is relatively recent (e.g., Solon et al. [2018] represents a shift
toward using acoustic analysis for the study of /​d/​-​reduction allowing researchers
to account for gradience of reduction).
2 The degree to which L2 learners appear to be bound by prescriptive rules may
depend on the type of task (e.g., interpretation vs. production), the linguistic
structure, and the characteristics and proficiency of the learner. For example, in
a preference task, Geeslin and Guijarro-​Fuentes (2006) found that learners were
more likely to override semantic constraints in favor of pragmatic ones than NSs,
whereas Geeslin et al. (2015) found that learners moved toward NS patterns of
subject expression in L2 Spanish (frequency and constraints on use) over time.

Suggestions for further reading

Geeslin, K. (Ed.). (2022). The Routledge handbook of second language acquisition and
sociolinguistics. Routledge.
Geeslin, K. L., & Long, A. Y. (2014). Sociolinguistics and second language acquisi-
tion: Learning to use language in context. Routledge.
Mougeon, R., Nadasdi, T., & Rehner, K. (2010). The sociolinguistic competence of
immersion students. Multilingual Matters.
Regan, V., Howard, M., & Lemée, I. (2009). The acquisition of sociolinguistic competence
in a study abroad context. Multilingual Matters.

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4 Sociocultural considerations of
communicative competence
Matthew E. Poehner

The term “sociocultural” is sometimes employed to signal a general

recognition that understanding human beings requires attention to the social
and cultural worlds that they inhabit. Use of the term Sociocultural Theory
(SCT) denotes a much more specific meaning as it refers to the school
of psychology that originated in the writings of L. S. Vygotsky (2012) in
the early part of the 20th century. Like the more general usage, the term
“sociocultural” in SCT references the “social” and the “cultural,” but these
are theorized in a particular way: human consciousness is the result and
process of transformation of natural abilities through engagement in activ-
ities with others wherein our participation is mediated through social and
cultural means (Vygotsky, 1997). In this way, SCT refutes the age-​old debate
of nature versus nurture by proposing that both are central to human psy-
chological abilities. As with other animals, the human brain holds potential
for abilities such as memory, perception, and attention, and these can develop
through direct interaction (i.e., sensory experiences) with our environment.
Unlike other animals, however, humans over the course of our history have
also developed culture. Living in communities, engaging with one another,
and sharing meanings and behaviors with children serves to mediate humans’
experiences in the world. As Vygotsky (1997, p. 18) put it, “culture creates
special forms of behavior,” adding that “it modifies the activity of mental
functions, it constructs new superstructures in the developing system of
human behavior.”
Mediation thus calls children’s attention to particular aspects of phe-
nomena, recalls their previous experiences, assigns meanings to events,
recognizes intentions behind actions, and helps children to form connections
across experiences (Feuerstein et al., 2010). Taking a simple analogy, a phys-
ical activity such as hunting can be carried out with one’s bare hands but,
depending on one’s culture, it might also be mediated through the use of a
physical tool.The introduction of a heavy stick or rock, a bow and arrow, or a
rifle transforms our physical activity; we are still hunting, but our relation to
the world is mediated by the tool afforded to us. In the case of psychological
activity, language, as a system of signs, also serves as a tool, one that enables us
to perceive, remember, plan, and imagine in ways that would not otherwise
be possible. To return to the example of hunting, it is language that enables
DOI: 10.4324/9781003160779-5
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Sociocultural considerations of communicative competence 61

us to coordinate our actions with others, to make sense of the environment
in which we are hunting, and to understand if our hunt is necessary or if our
goals could be achieved through other activities.
As this example makes clear, SCT is not a theory of language or language
performance, and in that regard, it differs from most of the other theoretical
views in this book. SCT may be more accurately understood as a scientific
account of human consciousness that assigns a central role to language. In
brief, SCT posits that the mind is mediated and that our primary psycho-
logical tool is language (Kozulin, 1998). Moreover, because consciousness
develops through our relation to others, SCT research has devoted con-
siderable effort to understanding how particular environments, activities,
and interactions shape our psychology. Indeed, Vygotsky (2012) frequently
emphasized that all psychological abilities initially appear as social relations,
that is, relations with others, and that in this sense they are initially “external”
before being internalized by individuals.
Education has long been recognized by SCT researchers as an especially
important activity/​environment for the development of more abstract and
systematic forms of knowledge and the abilities that accompany them (see
Daniels, 2016; Karpov, 2014; Moll, 1992). Consequently, this chapter does
not offer a reformulation of the various competencies or forms of know-
ledge that might be modeled as part of communicative competence. Instead,
my aim is to overview how SCT offers a way of systematically interpreting
the development of second language (L2) communicative abilities. These
include knowledge of formal properties of language, such as morpho-​
syntax, phonology, and the lexicon as well as discourse and pragmatics, and
the use of this knowledge to construct and convey one’s own meanings as
well as to interpret those of others. Furthermore, in line with the growing
commitment among SCT researchers to employ the theory as a basis for
principled L2 educational activity (Lantolf et al., 2018), I identify important
strands of SCT work that shift the focus from explaining L2 development
to organizing curricula and engineering environments and activities for the
purpose of promoting learner L2 abilities.
This idea that theory and research need not exist apart from a practical
activity such as education is representative of an essential feature of SCT
that originates in Vygotsky’s own thinking. As I explain in greater detail in
the next section,Vygotsky’s (1997) efforts to establish psychology as a scien-
tific discipline were informed by his understanding of dialectical logic. Like
formal logic, dialectical thought can be traced to the Greek philosophers
of antiquity (Novack, 1978). However, while formal logic promotes a con-
ceptualization of the world as comprised of discrete entities (e.g., A or B),
dialectical logic offers a view of entities as related to one another, bound
together in processes of change (e.g., A with B forming a broader rational
unit). Running through Vygotsky’s writings is an effort to interrogate ideas
that are often assumed to be distinct and even in opposition to one another
and to consider how they may be understood in dialectical terms, that
is, how a synthesis may be possible that retains elements of both but in
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62 Matthew E. Poehner
new combinations. It is in this way that theory and research were not, for
Vygotsky, a domain separate from the concerns of practice. Rather, his view
of praxis held theory and research as the necessary starting point to guide
practical activity, which in turn serves as research in a process of refining and
developing theory in the face of new contexts, questions, and societal needs.
Indeed, he argued forcefully that “practice pervades the deepest foundations
of the scientific operation and reforms it from beginning to end. Practice
sets the tasks and serves as the supreme judge of theory, as its truth criterion”
(Vygotsky, 1997, p. 305). To the extent that communicative competence is
understood as knowledge of language put to use in activity and simultan-
eously developed through such activity, central questions arise concerning
how this undertaking may optimally be organized. SCT offers a powerful
vantage from which to explore these questions.

Historical context
While Vygotsky was active during the 1920s and produced a substantial body
of work before his untimely death in 1934, SCT only came to the attention
of L2 researchers half a century later (e.g., Frawley & Lantolf, 1985; Lantolf
& Frawley, 1985). Appreciating both the circuitous path SCT followed to
become eventual in the L2 field and the enduring appeal and relevance of
Vygotsky’s ideas requires an understanding of the context in which SCT
developed and the particular challenges its first generation of scholars faced.
As mentioned,Vygotsky’s goal was to formulate the foundational principles
for psychology as a scientific field. He recognized that psychology in his day
was characterized by a range of specialized areas, distinct populations, and
disparate approaches (e.g., child psychology, abnormal psychology, behavioral
psychology, introspective psychology, etc.). What was lacking was a general
orientation that could unite and guide work in each of those areas according
to a coherent set of theoretical principles and concepts. At the same time,
working in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the major
societal restructuring that it brought about, Vygotsky and his contempor-
aries recognized a need for psychology to respond to urgent needs (van der
Veer & Valsiner, 1991). One area where this was especially acute was edu-
cation, where the establishment of a centralized school system saw children
from a wide range of backgrounds struggling to have their learning needs
met. Consequently, Vygotsky was likely motivated from the outset to lay
the foundation for a scientific psychology that was engaged, that sought to
impact people’s lives.
Marxian thought provided precisely the meta-​ theoretical perspective
that Vygotsky needed for his new science. While a conventional, Positivistic
orientation to science follows a dichotomous view of human beings and the
world according to which the researcher’s responsibility is to uncover causal
explanations and general covering laws that exist independent of human
actions and intentions, a Marxian account situates people and the world in
relation to one another (Novack, 1978). Beginning from a Materialist view,
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Sociocultural considerations of communicative competence 63

which postulates that people are shaped by the conditions in which they
live, Marx proposed that the influence of the environment on humans was
not unidirectional and must be understood in dialectical terms. Specifically,
his interest in understanding the origins of material conditions led to the
formulation of Historical Materialism. As Novack (1978) explains, Historical
Materialism refers to the dialectical process through which the material
world shapes human beings but in turn is sustained and reshaped through
human activity. Marx employed these principles in tracing the histor-
ical origins of capitalism in previous political economies and in analyzing
the complex interrelations that characterize capitalism for the purpose of
identifying tensions that would ultimately give rise (dialectically) to a new
synthesis, that is, to a new political and economic organization.
Vygotsky’s efforts to work within the meta-​ theoretical tradition
elaborated by Marx led him to pose questions differently from many of
his contemporaries and to envision divergent possibilities. One example of
this was Vygotsky’s (1978) adoption of a genetic method to study conscious-
ness. He recognized the challenges inherent in studying psychological
functioning among adolescents or adults, as many abilities by that point are
well developed, with the result that psychological activity occurs primarily
on the internal, or intra-​mental, plan. As a result, empirical psychological
study is limited to observable behaviors while the processes underlying them
remain hidden. In response to this difficulty, and in line with Marx’s his-
torical approach to research, Vygotsky undertook to study psychological
abilities through the process of their genesis or development. Eschewing
the premise that psychological activity occurs only within the head/​brain
of individuals, he approached mind dialectically. If studied as it develops,
he maintained that mind entails the internalization of forms of mediation
that individuals first encounter during activities with others. This medi-
ation, which as we have seen entails the meanings available in a culture, is
shared with individuals during interaction in which psychological activity
is distributed among participants, a kind of joint functioning or cooper-
ation that Vygotsky termed inter-​mental. This leads to the SCT adage that
every new psychological function appears twice: first on the inter-​mental
plane among individuals, and then on the intra-​mental plane, when the
relevant meanings have been internalized. Importantly, while intra-​mental
activity remains largely inaccessible, the inter-​mental plane of individuals
interacting and making use of available resources can be directly studied. It is
for this reason that much of the empirical work pursued by Vygotsky and his
colleagues involved children and included dialogic interaction as well as the
introduction of various instruments or resources (i.e., tools).
Vygotsky (1998) understood this account of the development of human
consciousness to have immediate implications for both research and prac-
tice, which the reader will remember are not unrelated domains in SCT.
Vygotsky’s most well-​known discovery, the Zone of Proximal Development
(ZPD), captures this research-​and-​practice model. The ZPD offers a robust
framework for interpreting development of psychological abilities through
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64 Matthew E. Poehner
systematic tracing of both an individual’s independent performance and per-
formance in cooperation with others.The former is interpreted as indicative
of actual development, that is, the range of abilities that have fully developed
and that an individual is able to regulate according to what has previously
been internalized. When tasks become sufficiently challenging that inde-
pendent functioning begins to break down, inter-​mental activity is required.
In analyzing inter-​mental activity, attention is given to the particular forms of
mediation that are required for individuals to overcome difficulties and how
responsive they are to that mediation. Mediation and learner responsive-
ness together are interpreted as indicating abilities that have begun to ripen
or emerge but that are not yet fully developed. It is this range of functions
that Vygotsky termed the ZPD. With regard to research, the ZPD advances
Vygotsky’s genetic method of studying psychological functions as they are
formed through cooperation with others over time. With regard to practice,
Vygotsky argued that the ZPD allows for a diagnosis of the full range of
an individual’s abilities, including both actual abilities and emerging abilities.
Furthermore, he reasoned that this latter set of abilities provides the proper
focus for instruction. For the activity of teaching and learning to optimally
promote the development of new abilities, a concept Vygotsky referred to
as obuchenie, it should not be oriented to what learners can already do inde-
pendently (i.e., their actual abilities) nor should it be ahead of what they are
able to achieve even in cooperation (i.e., beyond their current ZPD). By
focusing on that range of ripening abilities, what the learner “can do with
assistance today she will be able to do by herself tomorrow” (Vygotsky, 1978,
p. 87).
In keeping with his commitment to praxis, Vygotsky’s understanding
of the ZPD was forged through his engagement in the practical activity
of schooling and, in particular, through his efforts to determine how
best to support learners with special needs. Convinced that conventional
assessments only revealed a part of learner abilities, and perhaps “only an
insignificant part” (Vygotsky, 1998, p. 200), he maintained that an assessment
taking account of the ZPD could reveal the precise causes underlying poor
academic performance and that the forms of mediation to which individuals
were most responsive could inform subsequent instructional interventions.
These ideas were later promoted by Vygotsky’s colleague, A. R. Luria (1961),
and influenced the development of an approach to assessment known as
Dynamic Assessment, a topic discussed in the next section. P. Gal’perin
(1992), a student of Vygotsky, also introduced an important line of praxis
through his work creating a concept-​based curriculum in the Moscow
schools. This effort drew upon Vygotsky’s analysis of concepts that, like
words, are an important semiotic resource that mediates how we perceive the
world and act in it. In studying the role of schooling on psychological devel-
opment, Vygotsky distinguished the quality of conceptual knowledge that
becomes available to us as we study academic disciplines from the conceptual
knowledge we can appropriate in the everyday world.Vygotsky termed the
latter spontaneous concepts, noting that they are dependent upon our direct,
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Sociocultural considerations of communicative competence 65

empirical experiences of phenomena. Schooling, in contrast, introduces
scientific concepts, which are presented as a coherent, systematic body of know-
ledge organized according to principles. Moreover, scientific concepts do not
depend upon our own experiences and in fact capture more abstract features
of reality that are difficult to apprehend directly. While Vygotsky recognized
the importance of both, he understood that scientific concepts require
intentional pedagogical planning and activity. Gal’perin (1992) elaborated a
framework for organizing school curricula in areas including mathematics,
history, science, and language as scientific concepts and outlined a sequence
of steps to support learner internalization and use of concepts as psycho-
logical tools. As explained in the next section, this work has been taken up in
the L2 field through Concept-​based Language Instruction.
Before moving on, it is worth recognizing that while Vygotsky made
great strides in establishing a scientific psychology devoted to praxis, his
work was left unfinished. This was due both to his untimely death and to
the political climate within the Soviet Union under Stalin. Indeed, much
of Vygotsky’s writing was censored by the government, and it was decades
before it was able to be openly discussed in Russia. Largely through the
efforts of Vygotsky’s students and colleagues, especially Luria, much of his
work was saved and slowly came to the attention of researchers outside
Russia beginning in the 1960s. The appearance of Mind in Society (1978), a
heavily edited synthesis of several texts from Vygotsky, provided an access-
ible and coherent—​if not always detailed and contextualized (see Barrs,
2021)—​introduction in English to key ideas in SCT. This led to consid-
erable interest from researchers from around the world working in a range
of disciplines. Books offering detailed explications of Vygotsky’s ideas soon
followed (Kozulin, 1999; Wertsch, 1985), as did texts extending those ideas
to contemporary questions and challenges in education (e.g., Newman et al.,
1989). During this time, the first studies employing SCT in the L2 field
also appeared (e.g., Frawley & Lantolf, 1985; Lantolf & Frawley, 1985). As
mentioned, SCT researchers devoted attention to a wide range of language
knowledge and abilities relevant to communicative competence. Indeed,
one of the earliest L2 SCT studies focused specifically on learner use of
communicative strategies (Lantolf & Frawley, 1985). Such work began to
flourish in the 1990s, with researchers targeting learner development and
use of various communicative resources in L2 instructional settings. Among
the studies that appeared during this period were ones that explored the
dynamics of mediator–​learner interaction and the ZPD in the context of
academic writing development (Aljaafreh & Lantolf, 1994), learner sharing
of resources to cooperatively achieve as groups levels of performance beyond
the abilities of individuals (Donato, 1994), and learner uses of both their first
language and the target language to regulate their L2 acquisition (McCafferty,
1992). By the early 2000s, terms such as ZPD, mediation, and internalization
were widely known in the L2 field. Additional research built upon these
concepts in examining learner use of a broader range of semiotic resources
to collectively stretch beyond current abilities and to communicate in more
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66 Matthew E. Poehner
nuanced and sophisticated ways. Particularly important in this regard was the
work of Swain and colleagues (e.g., Swain, 2000; Swain & Lapkin, 2002).
Drawing upon her earlier and influential formulation of an output hypoth-
esis as a driver of L2 development, Swain proposed collaborative dialogues
and, later, languaging as processes through which learner communicative abil-
ities are mediated by and formed through peer interaction. Concurrent with
these studies, the appearance in English of a much broader representation
of Vygotsky’s work turned researchers’ attention from exclusively using the
theory to explicate processes of L2 development to interventions aimed at
promoting such development (i.e., praxis).

Critical issues in current research

Lantolf and Thorne’s (2006) monograph represents a turning point in L2
SCT research as it comprises chapters devoted to explicating the theory
and illustrating its use to interpret processes of L2 development. It also
includes two chapters that introduce, respectively, Concept-​based Language
Instruction (CBLI) and Dynamic Assessment (DA), as exemplars of
Vygotskian praxis. As explained in the previous section, CBLI derives from
Vygotsky’s consideration of scientific concepts as the proper content of
schooling, while DA reflects his argument that identification of learner abil-
ities that are emerging (i.e., the ZPD) is essential to obuchenie, or teaching-​
learning activity that promotes development. In the L2 field, the former
line of praxis was initiated by Negueruela’s (2003) doctoral dissertation and
the latter by Poehner’s (2005), and both have since generated a substantial
body of work. Interested readers are referred to Lantolf et al. (2021) and to
Poehner and Wang (2021) for recent overviews of, respectively, CBLI and
DA research. The present discussion is limited to studies selected as repre-
sentative of this work and how they contribute to the promotion of learner
L2 communicative abilities.
Negueruela’s (2003) CBLI study identified a Vygotskian approach to
considering L2 curricula from a vantage that understood the importance
of language forms but that positioned these as secondary to and in support
of learner communication. According to Negueruela, SCT demands a focus
on meaning in language teaching, but this need not come at the expense of
attention to language forms. The problem of focusing on form in L2 peda-
gogy arises from how language forms are typically treated. In particular, he
argues for a shift away from a “rules-​of-​thumb” approach to grammar in
favor of introducing linguistic concepts that are common across languages
and vital for communication but that are realized by particular languages
in different ways (e.g., lexically versus through morphological inflection).
Negueruela (2003) focused on the preterit-​imperfect contrast in Spanish, a
feature of the language with which learners continue to struggle even when
they reach advanced levels. Negueruela shifted presentation of the preterit
and imperfect away from sets of prescriptive grammar rules—​the approach
that continues to dominate the topic’s treatment in many textbooks—​and
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Sociocultural considerations of communicative competence 67

instead introduced it as part of the verbal tense and aspect system of Spanish.
Approached conceptually, learners came to understand preterit and imper-
fect as offering different perspectives on past circumstances; rather than
having learners search for a correct answer to complete a grammar-​focused
exercise, the CBLI approach emphasized that selection of one over the other
should reflect the meaning learners wished to convey (i.e., how they wanted
to portray the past; for more on the sociolinguistically competent choice
of one form over another, see Geeslin & Hanson, Chapter 3, this volume).
Practice tasks were communicative in nature, with learners producing their
own narratives, reflecting on their selection of the preterit and imperfect in
specific instances, and considering the consequences for meaning if they had
employed different constructions.
Subsequent CBLI projects have continued to subscribe to the view that
learner communicative abilities in an L2 can be more effectively developed
when their attention shifts from selecting correct forms to understanding
that languages offer multiple resources for expressing their meanings. Van
Compernolle’s (2014) CBLI work in the area of socio-​pragmatics, beginning
with his initial project focused on the tu-​vous second person pronoun dis-
tinction in French, exemplifies this preoccupation with meaning and learner
communicative abilities.The French second person singular pronouns tu and
vous are traditionally described in textbooks as informal and formal, respect-
ively, a characterization that often leaves learners struggling to determine
the formality of any given communicative event. Van Compernolle took
as the central concept for his CBLI approach the idea of social indexicality
as discussed by Silverstein (2003). According to this account, variation in
language use serves to index a speaker’s identity and position in a given con-
text relative to others. Van Compernolle (2014) introduced the concept of
social indexicality to university learners in a basic French language program.
Again, rather than approaching the tu-​vous distinction as a set of rules for
learners to memorize and attempt to employ “correctly,” van Compernolle
related this contrast to self-​presentation, social distance, and power. Relying
on visual representations of the concepts, such as contrasting images of indi-
viduals in suits versus blue jeans to signal how such indexing may occur, the
CBLI program led learners through a series of consciousness-​raising and
communicative tasks. Eventually, students engaged in role-​play simulations
that required careful attention to use of language forms in order to pos-
ition themselves (in their assigned role) relative to their peers. It is also
worth noting that rather than waiting until learners had reached a relatively
advanced level of study before introducing socio-​pragmatic concepts, van
Compernolle undertook this work with beginning French learners in order
to establish a solid foundation for the development of their communicative
abilities. Indeed, according to van Compernolle (2014), the process helped
learners to understand, from the very beginning of their study of the L2,
the identities that they may assume under particular circumstances and how
language forms available to them reference ideologies and sets of values. In
this way, the influence of such work on learners’ emerging communicative
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68 Matthew E. Poehner
abilities extends far beyond tu and vous. To date, subsequent studies have
extended this model for teaching forms of address through social indexicality
to Spanish (van Compernolle et al., 2016) and German (Kuepper, 2018).
A commitment in this and all CBLI work is to develop both learner con-
ceptual understanding of language as well as learners’ ability to use that
understanding during communicative activities.
Turning to DA, Poehner’s (2005) initial project focused on advanced
learners of French completing oral narration tasks. In line with CBLI,
Poehner’s use of DA was not merely to identify what learners knew about
formal properties of the language but was concerned with diagnosing
and promoting their use of that knowledge for communicative purposes.
More specifically, the DA sessions sought to identify difficulties learners
encountered as they established events in their narratives by employing sub-
junctive, conditional, preterit and imperfect, and pluperfect forms. Language
features that proved challenging for learners but where they evidenced partial
understanding and control became the focus for subsequent individualized
enrichment sessions. In this way, DA served to identify the ZPD of indi-
vidual learners for particular language features, and the enrichment sessions
aimed to promote learner ability to intentionally use those features during
the communicative function of creating oral narratives.
In the years since Poehner’s (2005) dissertation study, L2 researchers have
increasingly employed DA as a framework for diagnosing a broader range of
learner L2 abilities. As Poehner and Wang (2021) summarize in their recent
overview of this research, studies have been undertaken with a wide range
of languages, including less commonly taught and indigenous languages,
with learners at beginning as well as advanced levels, and focused on various
language features and communicative modalities. As those authors fur-
ther comment, DA has proven valuable in both formal testing situations, in
which the focal abilities are defined according to a theory of proficiency
such as communicative competence, and in instructional contexts such as
classrooms, wherein abilities often reflect a language program curriculum.
In both scenarios, a recurring question has been how engagement in the
ZPD might be possible beyond one-​to-​one interactions, which may not be
feasible due to time and resource demands. One possibility exploring that
question was reported by Poehner et al. (2018) in their study of DA in a
university-​level advanced L2 Japanese writing course.
The project emerged from a partnership between the researchers and an
experienced instructor of L2 Japanese who had attended a workshop for
teachers that introduced DA principles and models. The teacher followed
a process approach to preparing and revising drafts in the writing course
according to which students participated in peer review sessions during class
and met with the teacher outside of class for individual writing conferences.
Following the DA workshop, the teacher collaboratively planned with the
researchers a three-​stage mediation cycle intended to identify the ZPD of
individual learners and to provide instructional support to promote their
development.The first stage in the cycle reformulated the individual writing
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Sociocultural considerations of communicative competence 69

conferences to be one-​to-​one DA sessions. Students independently prepared
a draft of their writing and then jointly reviewed it with the teacher, who
pointed out problems and offered mediating hints and feedback. Learner
responsiveness during these interactions was interpreted as indicating
whether their understanding of particular aspects of language was within
their ZPD. For the second stage in the mediation cycle, the teacher organized
students into groups according to common language problems as identified
during the one-​to-​one sessions. These ranged from features of discourse-​
level grammar to background cultural knowledge necessary for pragmatic-
ally appropriate expression of learner ideas. Each group of students was given
texts to revise that contained the kinds of problems they had experienced in
their own writing.This small group work occurred in class and replaced peer
review sessions. The third and final stage of the mediation cycle involved
whole-​class review and discussion of the sample texts that the groups had
worked to revise. This was intended to allow for connections across problem
types and discussion among all members of the class.
Poehner et al.’s (2018) study is of course only one approach to exploring
how DA might be implemented with an intact class of learners. While those
authors did find improvement over time in certain aspects of learners’ com-
municative abilities, such as “voice” in their Japanese writing, it is worth
noting that the study did not follow a CBLI approach. Rather, as this was
a collaboration with a teacher who was working within a set language
curriculum, explanations of language features and practice exercises were
taken from the available instructional materials. Some research has begun
to explore the potential to use CBLI and DA in tandem to structure the
content of L2 instruction and to ensure that tasks are aligned to learner
emerging understandings (e.g., Infante & Poehner, 2019). In this way, both
conceptual and dialogic mediation provide an environment to continually
promote learner communicative abilities.

Main research methods and recommendations for

practice
Vygotsky (1978, p. 61) described the approach to research that he found
most appropriate to understanding psychological phenomena as one that
“artificially provokes or creates a process of psychological development.”
This occurs as experimental tasks that are set before participants are too
challenging for them to complete on their own. Then, through a gradual
and stepwise process, forms of mediation are introduced, and participants’
use of these resources is observed. In this way, the process through which
a psychological function develops can be observed directly; that is, a devel-
opmental process in condensed form is revealed through the experimental
procedure. We might restate this in terms of the SCT concepts introduced
earlier in this chapter: meanings that are introduced to individuals on the
inter-​psychological plane through dialogue come to be internalized as
individuals employ those meanings intra-​psychologically to regulate their
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70 Matthew E. Poehner
activity. This process of introducing forms of mediation, whether through
interaction or through symbolic representations of ideas, and guiding indi-
viduals to employ them to regulate their psychological functioning is at once
an account of how our biologically endowed abilities are transformed into
cultural ones as well as a model for pedagogy that aims to promote the devel-
opment of particular abilities. Put another way,Vygotsky’s praxis orientation
did not draw the sharp distinction between how researchers might seek to
understand psychological abilities and how educators might intervene to
support their development. In both cases, this occurs through the intentional
introduction of social and cultural forms of mediation. Indeed, praxis runs
counter to the more common assumption that the application of findings
from research exists as a separate activity from science itself. Vygotsky (1997,
p. 305) rejected this idea that “practice was the conclusion, the application, an
excursion beyond the boundaries of science, an operation which lay outside
science and came after science.”
At the level of specific research practices, Vygotsky warned against the
uncritical adoption of techniques devised in the natural sciences as those,
he worried, only “created the appearance of science” (1997, p. 280). That
said, SCT has no ideological commitment or aversion to either quantitative
or qualitative approaches, as their selection is driven by the precise focus
of the research. It may be, for instance, that discourse analytic techniques
are employed to examine the formation of new abilities as these begin to
appear on the inter-​mental plane of dialogic interaction between a medi-
ator and learner, but it is also possible that a researcher seeking to identify
changes to learner independent performance over time may administer a
test or other set of standardized tasks that can be scored. This approach of
integrating research methods within a SCT study has become especially
common in projects exploring DA, where the so-​called “sandwich” format
of DA (Sternberg & Grigorenko, 2002) entails an interactive mediational
session that occurs between a standardized pre-​and post-​test. In this way, the
project generates qualitative data in the form of transcribed video recordings
of the interactive sessions as well as sets of test scores.
With regard to practice, the reader will appreciate that SCT researchers
have moved increasingly toward Vygotsky’s praxis orientation, which
positions practice not as something outside science itself but as a neces-
sary component of it. To that end, many L2 SCT researchers now either
engage in research in the instructional contexts in which they work or form
partnerships with language teachers. The preceding section reported an
example of this in the Poehner et al. (2018) study. That project originated
when a language teacher participated in a professional development work-
shop organized by the researchers and then entered into dialogue with them
to rethink her existing practices according to SCT principles. This approach
offers the advantage of collaborations that are at once motivated by the
theory itself and by addressing questions or problems faced by teachers in
their particular contexts. Materials prepared by Lantolf and Poehner (2011)
and Poehner (2015) were prepared specifically for the purpose of using them
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Sociocultural considerations of communicative competence 71

in professional development settings to support teacher access to the theory
and to initiatives such as CBLI and DA and to create opportunities for add-
itional researcher–​teacher partnerships. As with the previously mentioned
project reported by Infante and Poehner (2019), an especially powerful
approach to L2 educational practice aimed at promoting learner commu-
nicative abilities arises from the integration of conceptual mediation (as in
CBLI) with dialogic mediation (in DA). In this way, a Vygotskian L2 devel-
opmental education might be designed as follows: (1) determining specific
communicative functions that will be the focus of instruction; (2) identi-
fying linguistic concepts that can be introduced to help learners understand
language features relevant to the focal communicative functions; (3) diag-
nosing learners’ current conceptual understanding and control over language
features; and (4) designing communicative tasks for learners to engage in
while employing the concepts to regulate their language use. Essential to
this work is careful monitoring of learner struggles and emerging abilities
so that mediation may be adjusted to maintain engagement and support
development. While research to date has documented projects focusing on
implementation of a specific linguistic concept or set of concepts, an entire
curriculum based on CBLI principles has yet to be created. As more focused
studies are undertaken and the number of linguistic concepts important
for communication continues to grow, such a full CBLI curriculum may
become a reality.
Of course, the success of any curricular program depends largely upon
teacher implementation.This may be especially true in the case of a CBLI-​DA
approach to L2 education, as it requires an understanding of both Vygotskian
theoretical principles and conceptual linguistic knowledge as well as an
appreciation for how to draw upon all of this to mediate the development of
all learners in a manner responsive to their needs. These requirements hold
important implications for language teacher preparation programs. Johnson
and Golombek (2018) have made significant progress in this regard, building
an extensive program that follows SCT principles to guide novice teachers
through lesson planning, material design, instruction, and reflection activ-
ities. Extension of this work to other language teacher education programs,
particularly those preparing candidates to work in primary and secondary
schools, will be important for the continuation of Vygotskian L2 develop-
mental education practices.

Future directions
In the “historical context” section, it was explained that Vygotsky’s ideas
were forged through his uses of theory to address pressing social problems
and that attention to SCT internationally has grown as translations of
more of Vygotsky’s writings have become available and in response to the
demands facing research communities. This dynamic will no doubt con-
tinue, with new connections being made between Vygotsky’s work and
the ideas of other researchers to explore new questions and problems. At
72

72 Matthew E. Poehner
present, an emerging area of research concerns what Vygotsky referred to as
perezhivanie and the related concept of the Social Situation of Development
(SSD).Together, these concepts open new lines of research for understanding
how environments mediate development and how both the intellectual and
emotional dimensions of psychology must be accounted for in analyses of
development and efforts to guide it in classrooms.
Briefly, Vygotsky’s commitment to dialectical thought as well as his
practical experience as a psychologist led him to carefully consider the rela-
tion between individuals and their social environments. He understood,
for example, that what is ostensibly the same objective environment—​a
household, classroom, or workspace—​may have very different psychological
consequences for individuals. That is, an environment may be experienced
differently, and these different experiences of the environment open up or
close down developmental pathways. This is why Vygotsky (1994) argued
that the environment, while essential for development in that it is the source
of culture, does not fully determine development. If it did, then, for example,
all learners in a classroom would develop in precisely the same way and along
the same timeframe. Instead,Vygotsky proposed that the environment exerts
different influences on different individuals because we each enter a given
environment with our own unique history, our sets of personal experiences,
and the meanings that we have attributed to those experiences. In this way,
an objective environment comes to be not reflected in us but rather refracted
through our psychology, much in the way that light is refracted or bent
at a particular angle when passing through one medium versus another.
Perezhivanie, a Russian term that has been rendered in English as a lived
experience of something or as having lived through something, was invoked
by Vygotsky to conceptualize what each of us brings into a situation, our
full psychological history. Importantly, perezhivanie calls attention to both
the intellectual and emotional aspects of our psychology, as both are always
present and play a role, whether primary or secondary, in our experience
of an environment. What results from this refracting of the objective envir-
onment is the SSD. As Vygotsky put it, perezhivanie “determines what kind
of influence this situation or this environment will have” on an individual’s
development (1994, pp. 339–​340).
Recent discussions of this aspect of Vygotsky’s work (e.g., Mok, 2015;
Veresov, 2017) have begun to consider the implications of both perezhivanie
and SSD for contexts of teaching and learning. In the L2 field, Poehner and
Swain (2016) suggested that teachers or other experts engaging with learners
may find that even if their efforts are primarily focused on the development
of intellectual abilities (e.g., conceptual understanding of language), it is still
important to monitor learner emotional responses. They further propose
that effective mediation may require alternating attention to intellectual and
emotional dimensions of learner responsiveness and engagement. Lantolf
and Swain (2019) have discussed perezhivanie in relation to the challenges
learners may experience in classrooms and the need for teachers to become
aware of their own history as learners and to reconcile this with the demands
73

Sociocultural considerations of communicative competence 73

of their current and future practices.Viewed in this way, any communicative
language curriculum, including one based on SCT, needs to be implemented
in ways that are responsive to the backgrounds of individual learners. Among
other things, future research may investigate how flexibility may be built
into tasks given to learners in order to allow for choice and creativity in
learner engagement with the language and use of communicative resources
to express their desired meanings.

Discussion questions
1. Given that Vygotsky’s theory is not specific to language development,
what implications might there be for investigating the development of
communicative abilities that emerge alongside other abilities,as in contexts
of language immersion and content-​and-​language-​integrated-​learning?
2. Knowing that much of Vygotsky’s own empirical work was conducted
with individuals who had various special needs and learning difficulties,
what kinds of possibilities can Sociocultural Theory lead us to imagine
for better supporting communicative L2 abilities among such learners?
3. What kinds of concepts in linguistics can you identify that would seem
important for a Concept-​based Language Instruction curriculum aimed
at promoting L2 communicative competence?
4. Since Dynamic Assessment intends to diagnose abilities that are ripening
or emerging, how could language proficiency scales be revised to cap-
ture both learner independent performance and their performance with
mediation?
5. How might the concepts of perezhivanie and Social Situation of
Development be used to inform research into the preparation of future
language teachers, in particular as they shift beyond their histories as
language learners in order to orient in new ways to promoting language
development among their students?

Suggestions for further reading

Barrs, M. (2021). Vygotsky the teacher: A companion to his psychology for teachers and other
practitioners. Routledge.
Lantolf, J. P., Poehner, M. E., & Swain, M. (Eds.). (2018). The Routledge handbook of
Sociocultural Theory and second language acquisition. Routledge.
Lantolf, J. P., Xi, J., & Minakova, V. (2021). Sociocultural Theory and concept-​based
language instruction. Language Teaching, 54(3), 327–​342.
Poehner, M. E., & Wang, Z. (2021). Dynamic Assessment and second language devel-
opment. Language Teaching, 54(4), 472–​490.

References
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language learning in the Zone of Proximal Development. The Modern Language
Journal, 78(4), 465–​483.
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74 Matthew E. Poehner
Barrs, M. (2021). Vygotsky the teacher: A companion to his psychology for teachers and other
practitioners. Routledge.
Daniels, H. (2016). Vygotsky and pedagogy: Classic edition. Routledge.
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7

Part II

Methodological tools for

researching communicative
competence
78
79

5 Investigating communicative
competence in ethnographic
research
Rebecca Lurie Starr

Ethnography refers to a range of methods that are employed to holistic-

ally investigate a community or group in order to illuminate their practices,
beliefs, and social world (Allen, 2017a). First developed as a core meth-
odology within the field of anthropology, ethnographic methods are now
common tools of research within other disciplines in the humanities and
social sciences, including in scholarship on second language (L2) learning
within sociolinguistics and education (Hall & Davis, 2021). Ethnographic
methods typically involve the collection of evidence primarily through
the extended observation of everyday social practices, but may also include
the use of interviews, surveys, and the analysis of texts and other available
materials. In the linguistic anthropological tradition, these sources of evi-
dence are ultimately compiled into an ethnography, referring to a published
work that reports the findings of an ethnographic investigation.
While the bulk of ethnographic research is qualitative in nature, in the
variationist sociolinguistic tradition, ethnographic methods have been
integrated with quantitative analyses of language use patterns and, in certain
cases, experimental methodologies, such as matched-​guise studies that gauge
language attitudes (see Geeslin & Hanson, Chapter 3, this volume). This
mixed-​method approach aims to take into account multiple perspectives
on how language is used and understood within a particular community by
providing both an in-​depth view and broader quantitative evidence. More
traditional approaches in the variationist paradigm rely primarily on the
sociolinguistic interview method to gain insight into how speakers use language
in various contexts (Labov, 1966). Nonetheless, variationist studies of com-
munities typically integrate some level of ethnographic observation in order
to propose locally relevant social categories and contexts for analysis.
This chapter reviews how the subject of L2 communicative competence
has been approached within research that involves ethnographic method-
ologies, including participant observation, ethnographic interviews, and
digital ethnography. In addition to purely ethnographic research, the chapter
will consider the contributions of variationist sociolinguistic work that
has integrated quantitative analysis with ethnographic elements. Research
adopting ethnographic methods has investigated a wide variety of research
questions surrounding the communicative competence of second language
DOI: 10.4324/9781003160779-7
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80 Rebecca Lurie Starr

learners (SLLs), including the frequent use of variants associated with formal
registers in language immersion classrooms, SLLs’ acquisition of features
linked with non-​standard varieties, and communication between SLLs and
native (L1) speakers in online multiplayer games. Overall, ethnographic
studies support the view that the orientation of learners towards the L2 and
their identity construction play major roles in their language use, under-
scoring the importance of considering learners’ aims when evaluating com-
municative competence.
Particularly in the variationist sociolinguistic tradition, much of the
scholarship that investigates SLLs does not explicitly engage with the
term “communicative competence.” Nonetheless, a core assumption exists
within this approach that, consistent with Hymes’s (1972) view of com-
municative competence, the task of learning a language includes gaining
an understanding of how language is used in various situations by various
types of people in the community. At the same time, research in this area
has problematized the notion of communicative competence as a target for
SLLs by illuminating diversity within community norms and the ideological
construction of styles; other work has examined the category of “L2 learner”
and how discourses surrounding communicative competence may be used
to delegitimize certain language users.

Historical context

Ethnography
Ethnography as a research methodology has its early origins in Western
imperialism and European interest in interpreting colonists’ observations
of so-​called “primitive” cultures (Scott Jones, 2010). In the early 20th cen-
tury, anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski popularized the ethnographic
approach, which sought to achieve a more holistic view of such cultures that
reflected the perspectives of the members of those societies. In this method,
a fieldworker would personally travel to a community (a “field site”) and
immerse themselves in the local culture, observing and participating in the
community’s daily life and practices for an extended period (Roldán, 1995).
While ethnography was initially adopted as a core method of social anthro-
pology and was used primarily to investigate non-​urbanized cultures in what
is known today as the Global South, ethnographic approaches were also
integrated into some traditions within sociology and used in the investiga-
tion of Western, urban cultures; this approach was pioneered by sociologists
at the University of Chicago, and is therefore referred to as the “Chicago
School” of ethnography (Deegan, 2001; Scott Jones, 2010).
One of the central features of the ethnographic method established
early in its history was the approach to data collection known as “partici-
pant observation.” This method, in which the ethnographer is not only an
observer but also participates to some extent in local practices, is thought
by proponents to be the most effective means of understanding these
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Investigating communicative competence in ethnographic research 81

practices and illuminating the worldview of the members of the target cul-
ture (Spradley, 1980). Although the extent of the “participation” element of
this method varies by tradition and context, participant observation remains
central to ethnography today.
Another key element of the ethnographic tradition is the notion of “thick
description.” First applied to ethnography by Geertz (1973), thick descrip-
tion refers to an approach to qualitative analysis in which the author presents
rich detail and provides interpretations that elucidate the significance of
observed behaviors and practices, rather than simply reporting observations
(Ponterotto, 2006). The concept of thick description illustrates the imbri-
cation of writing and analysis within ethnographic research, contrasting
sharply with the quantitative research traditions of the social sciences, in
which analysis and reporting are two distinct phases of the research process.
While the original ethnographic tradition treated the ethnographer as a
neutral participant-​observer and gave little consideration to the impact of
ethnographic research on communities, the late 20th century saw a shift
towards greater consideration of the positionality of the researcher and the
broader ethical implications of ethnographic work within anthropology
(Scott Jones, 2010). Regarding the former issue, the notion of “reflexivity”
has become a crucial element of ethnographic research and writing, with
ethnographers expected to reflect upon their own positionality in relation
to their work (Salzman, 2002). Ethical considerations are similarly central to
contemporary ethnographic fieldwork; the rise in digital ethnography, for
example, has prompted discussions in the field of how such research should
be ethically conducted (Standlee, 2017).
Originally utilized primarily within anthropology and some sociological
traditions, ethnography experienced a surge in popularity across many of the
social sciences beginning in the late 20th century. The adoption of ethno-
graphic methods in other disciplines, in which it has often been combined
with other research traditions, has given rise to concerns that researchers are
merely making use of the participant observation method without upholding
the principles and epistemological assumptions of ethnographic method-
ology (Scott Jones, 2010). Researchers who combine ethnographic methods
with other approaches, however, argue that stronger and more innovative
conclusions may be drawn by bringing together the in-​depth data collected
via ethnography and broader data collected through other qualitative and/​or
quantitative methods (Colón, 2020).

Ethnography within variationist sociolinguistics

The variationist approach to sociolinguistic research, as founded by William
Labov in the 1960s, began with the aim of systematically documenting and
explaining quantitative patterns of variation in language use. Using evidence
from statistical analysis, these patterns are argued to be conditioned by a range
of linguistic and extra-​linguistic factors, including the social background of
the speaker and the context of language use (e.g., Labov, 1966, 1972). While
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82 Rebecca Lurie Starr

framed as pioneering a quantitative approach that contrasted with the non-​
quantitative methods of earlier dialectologists, Labov’s early work was, in
fact, also ethnographic in nature. His early studies of Martha’s Vineyard and
the Lower East Side of Manhattan (Labov, 1963, 1966) reflected his famil-
iarity with the concerns and lives of community members and related the
circumstances of individual speakers in a manner reminiscent of an eth-
nography. These ethnographic observations, however, were treated as tools
with which to develop accounts for quantitative data, rather than data in
themselves.
The earliest studies in variationist sociolinguistics conceived of intra-​
speaker stylistic variation as primarily a matter of “attention paid to speech”;
stylistic variation was therefore modelled as a one-​dimensional scale ranging
from most to least careful (Labov, 1972, p. 208). Labov (1966) introduced the
technique of eliciting a speaker’s range of stylistic variation via the socio-
linguistic interview, a method in which distinct speech registers would
be elicited through tasks such as reading aloud and answering engaging
questions. Studies in the Labovian tradition typically focus on conducting
systematic surveys of a community, most commonly an urban area, in
which speakers’ social identities are defined primarily through broad (i.e.,
macrosocial) demographic categories, such as socioeconomic status, ethni-
city, and gender. Using this general approach, researchers have assessed the
acquisition of communicative competence by investigating the alignment
of L2 speakers’ patterns of variation with those of L1 speakers. Contrary to
Hymes’s conception of communicative competence, the variationist meth-
odology focuses primarily on data from language production rather than
SLLs’ internal knowledge (see Hymes, 1992). Parallel research on language
attitudes in this tradition, however, has provided complementary data on
speakers’ evaluation of the social meanings linked to features and varieties
(see Geeslin & Hanson, Chapter 3, this volume).
In addition to suggesting a framework for assessing SLL communicative
competence via comparison to L1 patterns of variation, another major con-
tribution of this tradition to our understanding of communicative compe-
tence has been the demonstration of the systematicity of stigmatized dialects,
including African American English, which had previously been dismissed
by some education researchers as a deficient means of communication
(Labov, 1970). Work by early variationists established that L1 speakers of any
language variety, whether standard or non-​standard, are proficient users of
the communication norms of their speech community. This understanding
of communicative competence has been consequential in the approach of
sociolinguistics researchers investigating SLLs, as it has invited investigation
of learners’ acquisition of community patterns rather than their acquisi-
tion of prescriptive norms that are promoted in a classroom setting (e.g.,
Schleef, 2017).
Eckert (2012) refers to the early approach to variationist research
described above as the “first wave” tradition. While work in this trad-
ition continues today, two additional waves of research have introduced
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Investigating communicative competence in ethnographic research 83

alternative methods and new theoretical approaches to stylistic variation
that have been influential in framings of communicative competence. In
the second wave tradition, the researcher conducts more extensive ethno-
graphic work in the community to identify locally relevant social categories
(i.e., microsocial categories), rather than relying on broad classifications such
as socioeconomic status. Eckert’s (1989) study of jocks and burnouts in an
American high school, based on a two-​year period of ethnographic field-
work, illustrates this approach. This wave also saw a shift in the conception
of stylistic variation, with the use of vernacular features seen as an agentive
expression of identity, rather than being a matter of a lack of attention to
speech (Eckert, 2012).
Like the second wave, the third wave tradition continues the practice of
combining ethnographic methods and qualitative analysis with the quanti-
tative analytical techniques of first-​wave sociolinguistics. However, the third
wave is distinct in taking stylistic practice as its central focus of study. Rather
than patterns of language use simply reflecting a speaker’s social place, speakers
are viewed as recruiting sociolinguistic features and other semiotic resources
in the construction and performance of personae (Eckert, 2012). Studies
in this tradition often focus on an individual or a small group of speakers,
exploring how they juxtapose features that index distinct social meanings in
their stylistic practices. This “speaker-​focused” approach to style represents
a fundamental break from the attention paid to speech model; style is no
longer conceived of as a straightforward continuum from formal to collo-
quial. In Zhang’s (2005) work on Beijing young professionals, for example,
she demonstrated that professionals working for international businesses in
Beijing combined certain non-​local Mandarin features with local features to
construct a cosmopolitan persona.
Both the second-​and third-​wave traditions of variationist research prob-
lematize some common assumptions of research in communicative com-
petence. While L1 speakers who are native to a particular community are
expected to exhibit patterns of language use consistent with that identity, it
is not clear that we should expect SLLs who enter this community to do the
same in order to be “competent” communicators. When we view the use of
local features as not merely a matter of competence but as an index of local
identity, the question arises as to whether SLLs might use distinctive features
to perform their identity as non-​locals and non-​native speakers. Moreover,
we might view different learners’ adoption of distinct patterns of variation
as agentive constructions of different personae, rather than concluding that
some learners have superior, more “native-​like” outcomes.

Research methods and current issues

The following sub-​sections provide an overview of several key ethnographic
and sociolinguistic methods; particular attention will be paid to how these
methods have been applied in studies of communicative competence and the
issues raised by these studies.
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84 Rebecca Lurie Starr

Participant observation
As noted in the preceding historical discussion, extended participant obser-
vation has been a core method of ethnography since its inception. The aims
of participant observation carried out over a long period of time include
integrating the researcher into the everyday activities of the community
and thus reducing the impact of their presence, having the opportunity to
observe as many practices as possible, and gaining a better understanding of
community members’ perspectives on these practices through engaging in
them (O’Reilly, 2012).
In traditional participant observation, data are typically collected via the
writing of extensive field notes on the part of the ethnographer. In socio-
linguistic studies involving participant observation, in which the details of
language use are more crucial and in which the researcher may wish to
conduct quantitative analysis on language patterns observed, data are typic-
ally also collected for some or all of the participant observation period via
audio (or video) recordings for later transcription and analysis (see Starr,
2017). Other approaches to sociolinguistic ethnography confine recordings
to ethnographic interviews, as described in the next sub-​section, because the
recording situation is likely to be more controlled (see Pratt, 2018). However,
regardless of the use of recordings, field notes also remain a key tool in the
sociolinguistic tradition, as they provide crucial context that may not be evi-
dent in the recording itself.
In participant observation of language learning settings, the positionality
of the researcher is crucial in shaping the role the researcher may play as a
participant observer. In my own research on a language immersion primary
school, for example, as an adult researcher investigating classes of children
aged five to seven, I took on the informal role of a classroom aide, rather
than that of a student (Starr, 2017). In settings with older children, however,
it is common for ethnographers to avoid taking on classroom roles, so that
children do not identify them as affiliated with the authority of the school
and thus modify their behavior and language use accordingly. In Eckert’s
study of an American high school, for example, she avoided being present
in classrooms entirely to mitigate the risk of identification with institutional
authority (Eckert, 1989, p. 30). This approach is only possible, of course, if
the researcher’s interests lie outside of how language is used in the classroom.
Prior studies have employed participant observation to investigate an
array of issues connected to communicative competence. One theme that
has emerged in literature on two-​way language immersion education is the
tension between enforcing monolingual language use within each “side”
of a program and socializing students into the realities of translanguaging
and multilingual language use. In other words, although communica-
tive competence in multilingual communities includes practices involving
translanguaging, these practices are stigmatized or prohibited in most educa-
tional settings, presenting a barrier to students’ development of competence
in these key skills. Moreover, teachers are typically presented as monolingual
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Investigating communicative competence in ethnographic research 85

in such programs, meaning that students are not exposed to models of how
multiple languages are used by the same speaker. Lee et al. (2008), for example,
demonstrate how the strict separation of languages in a Spanish-​English
two-​way immersion program and the explicit identification of teachers in
the school with either Spanish or English leads to a “thickening” of identities
among students and a lessened willingness to speak their non-​dominant lan-
guage.To address this issue, the authors recommend the creation of dedicated
spaces for multilingual interaction in two-​way immersion programs.
More recent ethnographic work on language immersion has investigated
attempts to implement translanguaging practices in the classroom, as
awareness of translanguaging has increased within the immersion education
sector. Zheng (2018) documents the efforts of a teacher in a Mandarin par-
tial immersion primary school in the United States to enact translanguaging
practices in her classroom. Zheng argues that this approach “validates students’
communicative repertoires” and encourages English-​ dominant students
to participate in the Mandarin class (2018, p. 1330). At the same time, she
cautions that Mandarin-​dominant students may be disadvantaged in this
approach, as the minority language classroom easily becomes dominated by
the majority language. Zheng proposes that challenges with translanguaging
in immersion classrooms may be addressed by raising students’ explicit
awareness of translanguaging practices via class discussions and activities.
Scholars have also used participant observation to explore how mul-
tiple varieties of a language can come into conflict in educational settings.
Rubinstein-​Avila (2002) investigated a Portuguese-​English two-​way lan-
guage immersion program in the United States using multiple methods
including participant observation in classrooms and interviews with teachers,
students, and parents. Her focus in this work was on tensions and challenges
surrounding multiple varieties of Portuguese present in the school commu-
nity. Observations of classroom interactions revealed that, despite teachers’
reported intentions to be accepting of all Portuguese varieties, the reality in
the classroom was quite different, with certain regional variants being labelled
as incorrect.The school also experienced conflicts over what norms to target
in school assessments and in communications with parents. In my work on
a Mandarin-​English two-​way language immersion school in the United
States, I also found tensions between varieties of both English and Mandarin.
In a first-​grade English classroom with a British teacher, I observed how
students learned about differences between American and British English
norms based on the teacher’s cues; in the Mandarin classrooms, the ideology
of a single standard for Mandarin proved challenging for teachers to uphold,
as children pointed out variation in the Taiwan and Mainland standards that
some teachers were either unaware of or unwilling to explain (Starr, 2017).
The studies by Rubinstein-​Avila (2002) and Starr (2017) illustrate that
the standard for communicative competence in a language is highly con-
textual. In particular, the need for familiarity with non-​local varieties of
a language in a diverse, multidialectal setting, as typically arises in heritage
language-​learning or language immersion programs in diaspora communities,
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86 Rebecca Lurie Starr

is substantially greater than in a more homogenous community of speakers.
While a Portuguese language teacher in Portugal need only be familiar with
local varieties of Portuguese, for example, a teacher in the United States
who is unfamiliar with the multiple varieties of Portuguese used around the
world risks inadvertently stigmatizing or penalizing students’ valid patterns
of language use. Similarly, SLLs in these programs are likely to emerge with
an understanding of language variation and a sociolinguistic repertoire that
differs from the competence and knowledge of students in more homoge-
neous communities.

Ethnographic interviews
While participant observation provides a fruitful framework for observing
everyday language practices, the insights it provides into individual learners’
sociolinguistic competence, ideologies, and motivations may be limited.
Ethnographic interviews are a more direct and systematic means of accessing
learners’ viewpoints and beliefs. Indeed, the desire to gain additional
community-​based perspectives is a primary reason why ethnographers often
supplement participant observation with ethnographic interviews.
An ethnographic interview, as traditionally implemented within ethnog-
raphy, is a conversation between the researcher and one or more research
participants that takes place in the context of participant observation. In
this scenario, researchers are already familiar with the community and
interviewee(s) and are seeking to supplement their observations to more
effectively illuminate the community members’ perspectives (Allen, 2017b).
However, the ethnographic interview is also commonly implemented out-
side of participant observation as a stand-​alone method, particularly in fields
other than anthropology. Ethnographic interviews may be fully structured,
semi-​structured, or unstructured, referring to the extent to which the
researcher has prepared a set of questions and is able to deviate from that struc-
ture. Across these different configurations, what makes this interview style
“ethnographic” is the aim to better understand the interviewees’ perspectives
and experiences.Typically, in the social sciences, ethnographic interviews are
distinguished from conventional interviews by their “interviewee-​led” orien-
tation, meaning that the interviewer asks open-​ended questions and allows
interviewees to freely share what they feel is important (Westby et al., 2003).
Structured ethnographic interviews may also be modified and administered
as surveys in order to elicit views from a larger set of participants; combin-
ations of broader surveys with a wider population and in-​depth interviews
with a few participants are sometimes used in sociolinguistic studies of lan-
guage attitudes and ideologies to produce findings that are both generaliz-
able and rich in detail (see Lai, 2010).
Ethnographic interviews have provided key insights into the factors
mediating students’ development of communicative competence. In van
Compernolle and Williams (2012a), the outcomes of a course explicitly
teaching sociolinguistic variation in French to university-​ level French
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Investigating communicative competence in ethnographic research 87

learners was evaluated via a number of methods, including interviews with
learners. Through these interviews, the researchers found that learners’
adoption of colloquial French features was mediated by their orientation
towards learning French, with some learners maintaining an orientation of
“academic achievement” and using a relatively high level of formal variants,
and others emphasizing a desire to communicate and connect with French
speakers and using more colloquial variants in casual contexts. The authors
highlighted the case of a learner who wanted to know how “real” speakers
used the language; this learner was the student who ultimately used the
highest rate of informal variants in the class. In her interview, she noted,
“I guess I just try to familiarize myself when I’m learning a language with
the way they’d really be speaking it” (van Compernolle & Williams 2012a,
p. 245). This study illustrates how ethnographic interviews may yield data
regarding student motivations that are not captured through other means,
thereby allowing researchers to better account for individual differences in
learning outcomes.
Ethnographic interviews have also illuminated the experiences of
students from a range of linguistic and social backgrounds in study abroad
settings. Diao (2017) presented data from participant observation, partici-
pant self-​recordings, surveys, and interviews of American university students
studying in Mainland China and learning Mandarin. One of the focal
cases of Diao’s study is a student of Chinese ethnic heritage who grew up
with parents who spoke a Chinese variety from southern China. This stu-
dent had also attended a two-​way language immersion primary school in
which the Mandarin teachers had predominantly southern accents. Due to
these factors, the student spoke with a southern Mandarin accent, which is
considered non-​standard in Mainland China. The student reported in her
interview that she first encountered negative attitudes about her regional
accent from her Mandarin teacher in college. These attitudes were then
reinforced during her study abroad experience: “When I was doing my like
oral exam um presentations or whatever I’m doing, they’re like, ‘you have
to work on your pronunciation’” (Diao, 2017, p. 94). The experience of this
student is, in fact, a common one among heritage speakers of Mandarin and
other languages, who often first encounter negative attitudes towards their
home variety in the L2 classroom. Karatsareas (2018) reports a similar phe-
nomenon among the Cypriot Greek community in London, in which nega-
tive attitudes towards the Cypriot Greek variety are transmitted in heritage
language schools. The interview method employed by these studies provides
an effective means of capturing SLLs’ and heritage language learners’ shifting
attitudes and understandings of sociolinguistic norms. When paired with
language production data, researchers may then draw conclusions regarding
how the learner’s expanding sociolinguistic knowledge shapes their evolving
patterns of language use.
As the case in Diao (2017) illustrates, the development of communica-
tive competence in the form of sociolinguistic knowledge is not necessarily
a uniformly positive phenomenon for language learners; students who are
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88 Rebecca Lurie Starr

heritage speakers of a language, or who initially acquire a non-​standard var-
iety, may become increasingly aware that other speakers of the language hold
biases against the variety they use. While this knowledge may help SLLs
communicate in a manner that is received more positively by speakers in
certain regions, it also potentially undermines their identities as heritage lan-
guage speakers or proficient SLLs by delegitimizing their competence in the
language. In a similar vein, work by Flores and colleagues (e.g., Flores et al.,
2015) has critiqued how the discourse of communicative competence and
the associated expectation that L2 speakers must master dominant norms has
served to marginalize bilingual and racialized students and delegitimize their
linguistic competence. As this work illustrates, the distinctions between L1
speaker, heritage speaker, and SLL are ideologically constructed and shaped
by discourses within a community.
Finally, the ethnographic interview method has also been used as a peda-
gogical tool for SLLs. Robinson-​Stuart and Nocon (1996) and Bateman
(2002) both described the outcomes of an ethnographic interview task
assigned to university-​level beginner and intermediate Spanish learners, in
which students interviewed L1 Spanish speakers. Similar studies have sub-
sequently been conducted by Su (2008) among English learners in Taiwan
and Lee (2012) among US undergraduates studying abroad in Spain, among
others.The consensus in this body of work is that an ethnographic interview
task is an effective teaching tool that enhances students’ engagement with
the target culture and bolsters their communication skills. This method may
be particularly valuable in enhancing communicative competence in cases
such as those of Spanish learners in the United States, because, as observed
by Robinson-​Stuart and Nocon (1996), many learners begin their study of
Spanish to fulfill a requirement and exhibit a lack of interest or even nega-
tive attitudes towards engaging with Spanish-​speaking peoples and cultures.
The first step in improving the communicative competence of learners in
this context, then, is to provide a motivation to communicate with speakers
of the target language.

Sociolinguistic interviews
In contrast to the ethnographic interview, the aim of the sociolinguistic
interview is not to elicit any particular content from the participant, but
rather to collect a range of language use styles through a variety of spoken
tasks. These tasks traditionally include an interview intended to elicit the
most vernacular speech style, reading a passage aloud, and reading a word list,
through which the most careful speech patterns are elicited (Labov, 1966).
More recent variations on the sociolinguistic interview often simplify this
procedure, sometimes only contrasting a reading passage with spontaneous
speech (Starr, 2019); others attempt to elicit different styles by covering cer-
tain topics, such as Zhang’s (2005) interviews of Beijing professionals, which
discussed local culture and professional experiences. As suggested by Zhang’s
approach, variationist studies with an ethnographic element often combine
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Investigating communicative competence in ethnographic research 89

aspects of the ethnographic interview with the sociolinguistic interview,
eliciting views on topics such as local identity while also making use of the
interviewee’s spoken data for sociolinguistic analysis.
Because the purpose of a sociolinguistic interview is the collection of
language data for quantitative analysis, audio and/​or video recording is a
necessary element of this method. While recordings are sometimes made
in a laboratory setting, typical sociolinguistic fieldwork involves recording
participants at home or at a field site such as a school to elicit more natural-
istic patterns of language use. After the recordings are transcribed, depending
on the nature of the linguistic variables involved, the features of interest
in the recording are subject to acoustic or auditory analysis by a trained
researcher or research team. The data are then analyzed quantitatively using
statistical methods such as linear mixed-​effects regression, in which inde-
pendent variables such as the age of the speaker are tested as predictors of the
linguistic variable under examination.
While variationist sociolinguistics typically focuses on spoken language,
the methods of variationist analysis may be easily adapted to include writing
as an additional style (or styles). Due to the prominence of writing in a
formal classroom context, variationist research on the communicative com-
petence of SLLs often incorporates, or even focuses solely on written pro-
duction. Because the analytical approach employed and research questions
addressed are essentially the same in this tradition regardless of modality,
research involving written data will be considered together with analyses of
spoken data in this section.This discussion also includes research that focuses
on comparing SLLs’ use of language within a single stylistic context with the
language use patterns of L1 speakers, as the methods used are comparable to
cases in which multiple intra-​speaker styles are collected.
One of the major strands of research within variationist sociolinguistics
that addresses SLLs’ communicative competence is work investigating the
extent to which learners match L1 speakers’ patterns of variation. This form
of variation, referring to alternation between optional forms used by profi-
cient L1 speakers, is sometimes referred to as “Type 2” variation, in contrast
to “Type 1” variation, which refers to the alternate use of “correct” and
“incorrect” forms among SLLs (Mougeon et al., 2004). To give an example
from English, the alternation between “I am” and the contracted form “I’m”
would be a case of Type 2 variation, while variation between “I went” and
the use of a non-​native-​like form of the verb, as in “I goed,” would be
considered Type 1 variation.
A common finding in work on Type 2 variation is that SLLs who are
studying a L2 in a classroom setting tend to use higher rates of formal variants
than L1 speakers. Mougeon et al. (2004) found that French immersion students
in Canada used almost no vernacular features in their speech and used much
lower rates of “mildly informal” variants relative to L1 Canadian French
speakers. Moreover, these students exhibited differences from L1 speakers
with regard to the linguistic factors constraining their variation patterns. Li
(2010) noted a similar pattern among SLLs of Mandarin, in which a formal
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90 Rebecca Lurie Starr

variant was used at high rates, although learners of higher proficiency levels
did approximate L1 speakers’ patterns. Comparable findings were reported
by Park and Starr (2020) regarding third language (L3) learners of Korean in
Singapore, with prior formal study of a typologically similar L2 predicting
more nativelike patterns of variation.
While studies finding overuse of formal variants typically attribute this
phenomenon to the formal nature of classroom input, I have problematized
this account in my own work. In Starr (2017), I observed a similar orien-
tation to formal, standard features among SLLs of Mandarin in a two-​way
immersion primary school. However, in this particular setting, both the class-
room teachers and L1 speaker classmates used high rates of non-​standard
features; as a result, the SLLs were using more standard features than the
L1 Mandarin speakers in this school community. Based on these findings,
I suggested that the formal orientation of SLLs observed in prior work was,
in part, a product of the formal environment of the classroom, rather than
an outcome of mirroring the artificially standard language use patterns of
a teacher. SLLs’ reluctance to adopt vernacular features might also relate
to the function of sociolinguistic features as a resource in the construction
of identity. Despite being surrounded by regional features, learners might
be reluctant to adopt these features if they conclude that they are unable to
authentically take on a particular local identity. In Starr (2019), I made a
similar observation regarding expatriate children attending government
schools in Singapore; although these students had Singaporean teachers and
were surrounded by Singaporean classmates, they largely avoided acquiring
Singapore English features. This sort of phenomenon should not be viewed
as a “failure” to acquire communicative competence; to the contrary,
these learners are displaying their sociolinguistic savvy in avoiding using
features that they cannot authentically adopt according to the norms of the
community.
Variationist sociolinguists have similarly queried the notion of commu-
nicative competence and the relationship between learners and community
norms in the case of “new speakers,” a term commonly used to refer to
SLLs of endangered and minority languages such as Irish Gaelic, Galician,
and Francoprovençal (see O’Rourke et al., 2015). As discussed in Kasstan
(2017), variationist research on new speakers has found that these learners
do not adopt the sociolinguistic norms of the traditional “native speaker”
community. Unlike the situation of conventional SLLs, however, the sub-
stantial number of new speakers and their typical age, socioeconomic status,
and language attitudes relative to native speakers means that new speakers
may be positioned so that their alternative patterns of language use are
not delegitimated as errors, but rather are integrated into the language as
innovations. In such settings, features that distinguish new speakers from
native speakers become indexical of these identities.
The crucial role of identity in the acquisition of sociolinguistic variation
is also underscored in research on differing outcomes among study abroad
students with distinct social backgrounds. For instance, Regan et al. (2009)
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Investigating communicative competence in ethnographic research 91

found that the acquisition of vernacular features of French among univer-
sity students studying abroad is mediated by their gender and social class,
with women and middle-​class speakers preferring formal variants. Another
common factor identified as significant in studies of the acquisition of local
features in study abroad settings is the extent of interaction with members
of the community. Korean learners of English studying abroad in the
Philippines with greater social engagement with Filipinos, for example, have
been found to be more likely to adopt the short voice onset time typical of
Philippine English voiceless stops (Imperial, 2016). As in the previously cited
case of Singapore English, assessing the communicative competence of these
Philippines-​based learners is not at all straightforward; while an argument
might be made that learners who adopt Philippine English features are more
competent communicators in the sense that they have more closely adopted
the norms of the local community, it might also be said that those who avoid
adoption of local features are more successfully indexing their identity as
non-​locals.
In line with the finding that interaction with local community members
promotes the use of local features among study abroad students, research on
SLL immigrants typically finds higher rates of adoption of informal variants
than is observed among SLLs learning a L2 via classroom instruction. Studies
of immigrants in the UK find that the process of acquisition of variation in
migration settings is gradual; Schleef (2017) observed that SLL immigrants
in London took approximately two years to approach nativelike linguistic
constraints on t-​glottaling, and three years to exhibit expected patterns of
stylistic variation.The acquisition of regional features that differ saliently from
standard variants among SLL immigrants may also be conditioned by the
extent to which SLLs identify with their new region. Wolfram et al. (2004),
in a study of Hispanic newcomers to the mid-​Atlantic South, found that
participants who exhibited greater affiliation with local culture were more
likely to acquire the local feature of /​ay/​monophthongization. Similarly,
among Polish immigrants in Manchester, those with a more positive attitude
towards the region were more likely to acquire the STRUT-​FOOT merger
(Drummond, 2012).As suggested by the findings of Imperial (2016) and Starr
(2019) discussed previously, attitudinal effects may be even more pronounced
in postcolonial communities where so-​called Outer Circle English varieties
are spoken (Kachru, 1985), as some SLLs living in regions such as Singapore
are wary of acquiring local features that they perceive as illegitimate or non-​
native (see Park & Bae, 2009). Given the tensions between exonormative and
endonormative orientations in these speech communities, defining “com-
municative competence” in Outer Circle settings is a problematic issue that
requires further consideration in future work.

Digital ethnography
“Digital ethnography” refers to ethnographic research that involves
computer-​mediated communication or other online practices (Kaur-​Gill &
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92 Rebecca Lurie Starr

Dutta, 2017). As individuals increasingly conduct their social lives in the
online sphere, digital ethnography has become a crucial tool in understanding
the practices of communities, either as a supplement to traditional ethno-
graphic approaches or as a stand-​alone method used to study virtual commu-
nities. Sites of digital ethnography include online message boards, chatrooms,
social media platforms, blogs, online games, emails, texting, and messaging
applications. Depending upon the affordances of a particular platform,
ethnographers may function as participant observers or purely as observers
of users’ practices. Ethnographic interviews may also be conducted using
digital tools, either via text-​based chat, audio-​, or videoconferencing.
Within scholarship on communicative competence, one of the most
intriguing areas of work on the digital realm has been research on online
multiplayer games. Online games provide a valuable opportunity for SLLs
to engage in prolonged, task-​based interactions with L1 speakers and are a
potential means of increasing learner motivation to achieve communicative
competence. At the same time, the limited and unusual nature of the tasks
involved in most online games and the distinctive styles used in computer-​
mediated communication are factors that may limit the gains in communi-
cative competence that are achieved through online game communication.
Prior studies of the potential of online games to enhance communica-
tive competence include Palmer (2010), a study of World of Warcraft, one of
the first “massively multiplayer” online roleplaying games (MMORPGs) to
achieve widespread mainstream success. Palmer focused on English-​speaking
learners of Spanish and their competence in certain pragmatic tasks, including
greetings, requests for help, negotiation of resources, and refusals. The study
concluded that the learner participants were successfully socialized into a vir-
tual community of practice of gamers and made gains in their ability to carry
out complex pragmatic tasks in Spanish. In this work, Palmer argued that
multiplayer games have the potential to provide learners with “a variety of
social positionings … as well as a wealth of authentic language experiences”
(2010, p. 9). This view is echoed in Jabbari and Eslami (2019), a literature
review of research on L2 learning and MMORPGs. Among the advantages
of these games highlighted in the paper, aside from the opportunity to access
L1 speakers, is the ability of learners to remain anonymous, thus lowering
anxiety and increasing willingness to use the L2, and the high tolerance for
language use errors in this setting. Regarding communicative competence,
the authors cited several studies, including Rankin et al. (2009), Peterson
(2012), and Rama et al. (2012), supporting the conclusion that games facili-
tate SLLs’ acquisition of sociolinguistic competence and use of appropriate
communication strategies. While a traditional language class might treat the
sort of communication learned in these games as lacking “real world” applic-
ability, it is important to bear in mind that, for many learners today, playing
online games and related online social interactions represent a significant
portion of their social lives. It would therefore be a mistake to discount
the communicative tasks specific to online discourse as illegitimate or less
valuable than tasks associated with offline communication domains (see also
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Investigating communicative competence in ethnographic research 93

Stockwell & Ito, Chapter 10, this volume, on computer-​assisted language
learning).

Recommendations for practice and future directions

The methods and studies outlined above have illustrated how the methodo-
logical tools of ethnography and variationist sociolinguistics may be used to
provide a range of evidence types in the study of communicative compe-
tence, ranging from accessing learners’ perspectives to identifying quantita-
tive patterns in language use data.
This overview has raised several key points that must be considered when
undertaking studies in this area. First, the identification of a “nativelike”
target with which to define communicative competence is not a straightfor-
ward task. Regarding sociolinguistic knowledge, the level of familiarity with
sociolinguistic features and varieties required for competent communication
is highly contextual; as illustrated by Rubinstein-​Avila (2002), in dialect-
ally diverse settings, the need for familiarity with language varieties is much
greater than in more homogeneous communities. In terms of language
production, it is not always the case that patterns of language use among
L1-​speaker communities constitute the desired target among SLLs. Reasons
for this disconnect may include the low status of the regional variety,
avoidance of translanguaging practices, or the intention to avoid indexing
particular social meanings, such as local identity, that SLLs feel they cannot
authentically adopt. Moreover, as shown in van Compernolle and Williams
(2012a), Regan et al. (2009), and other work, the language learning object-
ives and identities of SLLs play a role in shaping the extent to which they
orient towards features indexing formality or informality in their language
use practices. Considering one of these outcomes to be more “compe-
tent” than another ignores the agentive role of the learner in recruiting
these features to construct a particular persona. It is perhaps due to these
concerns that the term “communicative competence” is often avoided in
sociolinguistic work, in favor of alternative framings, such as “L2 acquisi-
tion of variation.” Additional work combining the strengths of ethnography
with quantitative variationist analysis is needed to further elucidate how the
evolving perspectives of SLLs shape their language use patterns and attitudes.
Second, heritage language learners’ negative experiences with standard
language ideologies, as exemplified by the Mandarin learner described
in Diao (2017) and the Greek learners investigated in Karatsareas (2018),
prompt a reconsideration of the universal desirability of informing learners
about the sociolinguistic status quo in a speech community in the name of
enhancing communicative competence. Uncritically exposing heritage lan-
guage learners and SLLs to the language attitudes of L1 speakers can, in some
circumstances, reproduce prejudices and instill a sense of linguistic insecurity
among learners who have acquired a stigmatized variety through exposure in
the home or in their previous language classes. At the same time, SLLs should
arguably be prepared for the attitudes they will encounter from L1 speakers.
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94 Rebecca Lurie Starr

One approach to reconciling these concerns is the implementation of critical
sociolinguistic instruction and discussion in language learning classrooms,
in which students learn about different styles, varieties, and standard and
non-​standard language, but are also encouraged to critically examine the
ideologies underlying these sociolinguistic patterns. Future ethnographic
work in the tradition of van Compernolle and Williams (2012a, 2012b),
who investigated a French language class that incorporated explicit socio-
linguistic instruction, might yield insights into the benefits, drawbacks, and
ultimate outcomes of such an approach. Further research might also focus
on how discourses of communicative competence contribute to the delegit-
imization of the language competencies of bilingual students, as suggested
by Flores et al. (2015).
Finally, studies of communication in online settings demonstrate that
researchers must take into account novel domains and interaction types when
evaluating communicative competence. Crucially, such domains must also be
considered when developing L2 curricula. The need to familiarize learners
with new media communication tasks presents considerable challenges,
given the rapidly evolving nature of online discourse practices and the ever-​
changing affordances of social media platforms. More research is needed on
the extent to which competence gained in online interactions is applicable
to other online and offline domains, as well as the various approaches taken
by L2 instructors to incorporate forms of digital communicative compe-
tence into their pedagogy.

Discussion questions
1. What are some of the potential advantages and drawbacks of conducting
participant observation in a L2 classroom, as opposed to analyzing
video recordings or pursuing a purely observational method of data
collection?
2. Studies of stylistic variation among SLLs sometimes find that learners
use more colloquial variants in written communication and more formal
variants in spoken communication, contrary to the typical L1 speaker
pattern, even when the learners are aware of the social meanings of these
features. Why might this be the case?
3. What might the sociolinguistic and language learning outcomes be of
having a L2 instructor whose language variety does not match that of
the textbook and other classroom materials? What benefits might this
scenario provide for students? Would there be any drawbacks? Overall,
what effect might this have?

Suggestions for further reading

Eckert, P. (2012). Three waves of variation study: The emergence of meaning in
the study of sociolinguistic variation. Annual Review of Anthropology, 41, 87–​100.
https://​doi.org/​10.1146/​annu​rev-​ant​hro-​092​611-​145​828
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Investigating communicative competence in ethnographic research 95

Jabbari, N., & Eslami, Z. R. (2019). Second language learning in the context of mas-
sively multiplayer online games: A scoping review. Recall, 31(1), 92–​113. https://​
doi.org/​10.1017/​S09583​4401​8000​058
Mougeon, R., Rehner, K., & Nadasdi, T. (2004). The learning of spoken French
variation by immersion students from Toronto, Canada. Journal of Sociolinguistics,
8(3), 408–​432.
O’Reilly, K. (2012). Ethnographic methods: The practice of ethnography (2nd edn).
Routledge.
Regan, V., Howard, M., & Lemée, I. (2009). The acquisition of sociolinguistic competence
in a study abroad context. Multilingual Matters.

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6 Real-​time psycholinguistic
measures of communicative
competence
Jill Jegerski and Sara Fernández Cuenca

This chapter will present the main research methods that are commonly
known in second language acquisition (SLA) research as psycholinguistic as they
pertain to the study of communicative competence (Hymes, 1972), which
includes grammatical competence, sociolinguistic competence, and strategic
competence (Canale & Swain, 1980). Although research in psycholinguistics
actually employs a wide range of methods, including many of those used in
SLA research (e.g., written tests such as multiple choice or cloze, linguistic
judgments or decisions, listening tasks, and so on), scholars in SLA most
often use the term psycholinguistic to refer to methods that are technologic-
ally advanced and usually online, meaning that they measure language-​related
behavior and cognition in real time. The distinction between online and off-
line measures originates in the study of sentence processing in first language
(L1) psycholinguistics; an online measure is taken live, as sentence processing
occurs, without the participant stopping the primary task of comprehending
a sentence. Incrementality is at the heart of the distinction, as online data
usually allow for an analysis of the processing of successive parts of a stimulus.
An offline measure, on the other hand, is taken after processing is complete,
with the stimulus viewed as a whole, and typically involves a secondary task
like providing a response to a question.
One widely referenced advantage of online methods is that they better
reflect the demands of authentic language use in the real world, which requires
processing to occur very quickly, normally at a rate of only a few hundred
milliseconds per word. In this sense, the motivation for using such investiga-
tive techniques is very much in line with a fundamental tenet in the study of
communicative competence: that success in the traditional language classroom
does not necessarily entail similar success in real-​world communication. Much
of L2 psycholinguistics research has been motivated by the idea that explicit
grammar knowledge measured by untimed written tests is not enough.
The most commonly used online psycholinguistic methods in SLA are
currently eyetracking with text, visual world eyetracking, self-​paced reading,
and event-​related potentials (ERPs), and these will be the focus of this
chapter. For the most part, research with these real-​time measures examines
language comprehension, although they have occasionally been used to

DOI: 10.4324/9781003160779-8
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Real-time psycholinguistic measures of communicative competence 99

study language production (e.g., Misra et al., 2012). Again, we believe that
this fits well with work on communicative competence because language
comprehension is as critical to real-​world communication as is language
production, even if there is typically much greater emphasis on the latter in
language classrooms.

Historical context
The SLA research methods in question were adapted primarily from the
field of psychology, where they have most often been used to examine lan-
guage processing among monolingual L1 users. There is also research on
bilingual language processing, which sometimes includes late bilinguals that
could also be considered second language (L2) users. The main theoretical
questions driving such research pertain to the simultaneous activation of
both languages when either is being used and the effects of a constant need
to suppress the language not in use on domain-​general cognitive function
such as inhibitory control (see Kroll et al., 2015, for an overview). Thus far,
such research has focused primarily on lexical processing.
When the first handful of SLA research studies using online
psycholinguistic methods were published in the 1990s (e.g., Ardal et al.,
1990; Frenck-​Mestre & Pynte, 1997; Juffs & Harrington, 1995), a primary
stated advantage of these experimental measures was that they record data
in real time, as language comprehension unfolds on a moment-​by-​moment
basis.This implied a recognition that some other common research methods,
especially those that have no time constraints, might not correlate as well
with language use in the real world, a sentiment that is very much in line
with work on communicative competence, even if this connection was not
recognized explicitly and the approach is somewhat different.
Of the three proposed areas of communicative competence—​grammatical
competence, sociolinguistic competence, and strategic competence (Canale
& Swain, 1980)—​grammatical competence has been the primary focus of
SLA research using online methods thus far. Dozens of published studies
have examined L2 sentence processing and the ability of L2 users1 to process
grammatical information such as gender agreement in real time, often with
particular attention to the question of ultimate attainment (e.g., Jegerski,
2015; Pliatsikas & Marinis, 2013). Very little research using online methods
has investigated sociolinguistic competence or strategic competence directly
or explicitly. Yet, most of the primary theoretical accounts of L2 sentence
processing have proposed different shortcuts or strategies that learners might
employ during sentence comprehension in order to achieve communicative
goals even when language skill or processing efficiency might be lacking
(e.g., Christianson, 2016; Clahsen & Felser, 2006, 2018; VanPatten, 1996,
2020). This approach to L2 processing as potentially strategic and as priori-
tizing meaning over form seems to be very much in line with the notion of
strategic competence.
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100 Jill Jegerski and Sara Fernández Cuenca

Main research methods

Self-​paced reading
With this technique, participants read a sentence or short paragraph at their
own pace, one word or phrase at a time. They are initially instructed to
look at a cue symbol (often “*” or “+​”) that appears on the left side of the
computer screen and to press a button to see the first word of the stimulus.
The stimulus is masked with a row of hash signs (#), and each button press
reveals the next word or phrase, moving across the screen from left to right
(see Figure 6.1). The experimental computer software records the elapsed
time between button presses, which is typically a few hundred milliseconds
and represents the amount of time allocated to reading each word or phrase.
Self-​paced reading stimuli are designed to examine L2 learners’ sensitivity
to different linguistic phenomena via some type of linguistic manipulation
that elicits longer reading times in an experimental condition compared to a
control or baseline condition (e.g., on the critical word of an ungrammatical
sentence versus the same word in a grammatical version of the same sen-
tence). In addition to reading the stimulus sentences, participants are often
asked to respond to a comprehension question, which normally follows each
stimulus sentence and is used to measure comprehension accuracy and to
help ensure that participants were paying attention while reading the stimuli.
For a more detailed description of the self-​paced reading method in SLA
research, see Jegerski (2014) and Marsden et al. (2018).

Eyetracking with text

Eyetracking uses small cameras pointed at the participant’s eyes to record
their eye movements across a visual stimulus, in this case, a sentence or
short passage. The stimulus design and data are similar to that of self-​paced
reading in the sense that software also records how long and in what order
participants look at a word or phrase. See Figure 6.2. However, an added

Figure 6.1 
Example of successive displays for a fictitious self-​
paced reading
experiment
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Real-time psycholinguistic measures of communicative competence 101

Figure 6.2 Sample fixation sequence

benefit is that participants can go back and reread the stimulus in a regressive
eye movement, which is common in normal reading behavior (but is
not possible in self-​paced reading). Hence, eyetracking provides a richer data
set that includes the first fixation on a word, the second fixation on a word
(if applicable), the total amount of time spent on a word, the number of
regressive eye movements, and many other eye movement measures. Overall,
longer fixation times are understood as denoting added cognitive effort and
processing difficulty. See Clifton et al. (2007) for a more in-​depth discussion
of how these eye movement measures can reflect different aspects of sen-
tence processing (i.e., word recognition, reanalysis, etc.). For more detailed
information on eyetracking with text in SLA research, the reader is referred
to Godfroid (2020) and Keating (2014).

Visual world eyetracking

In addition to experiments with textual stimuli, eyetracking is also used with
the visual world paradigm. With this technique, participants listen to sentences
or short passages while they look at a visual display with two to four pictures
that are related to the auditory stimulus. For instance, the participant hears
the Spanish sentence Encuentra la pelota “Find theFEM ball”, while looking
at a display with two images: a ball (feminine noun) and a shoe (masculine
noun). The offline response is a mouse click on one of the two pictures,
but eyetracking often shows a faster and more nuanced response, in which
participants start to look more at the ball than the shoe before they click
on it, perhaps after hearing only the first part of the stimulus: Encuentra la…
“Find theFEM…”. The primary measure of interest with the visual world
paradigm is the proportion of looks at the different pictures at a given point
in time that corresponds to a specific word in the auditory stimulus. See
Dussias et al. (2014) for a more in-​depth description of eyetracking with the
visual world paradigm.

ERPs
Finally, ERPs are a neurolinguistic or brain-​based technique characterized
by the measurement of electrical activity of the brain, which occurs as a
means of communication among neurons in response to a stimulus.With this
method, an elastic cap with an array of electrodes is placed on the participant’s
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102 Jill Jegerski and Sara Fernández Cuenca

Figure 6.3 Schematic of a typical ERP setup

Source: Based on Morgan-​Short & Tanner (2014)

scalp, along with conductive gel, in order to record an electroencephalogram

(EEG). The recorded brain activity is timed and phase-​locked to the presen-
tation of a written2 or auditory stimulus and undergoes an arduous data
cleaning procedure to filter out noise due to blinking and other muscle
activity, which also registers on the EEG (see Figure 6.3). The goal is for a
specific linguistic manipulation (e.g., a gender mismatch) to yield a particular
type of brain response in comparison to a control condition, when averaged
across all trials.Two of the most studied ERP components in language-​related
research are the N400, a negative wave that peaks at 400 milliseconds post-​
stimulus, and the P600, which is a positive wave peaking at 600 milliseconds.
The former is generally associated with semantic processing and the latter
with syntactic processing, but these tendencies are not always absolute (e.g.,
Brouwer et al., 2012; Tanner & Van Hell, 2014). For more information about
the ERP method refer to Morgan-​Short and Tanner (2014) and Luk et al.
(2020).

Critical issues in current research

Language processing in real time

The study of communicative competence generally examines the role of
different types of knowledge needed to interact in an L2. One contribution
of psycholinguistics is to add the importance of efficiency in applying this
knowledge.Virtually all research in the area of L2 psycholinguistics assumes
that the ability to process language in real time, as words are spoken or typed
by the interlocutor, is critical to using a language for authentic communi-
cative purposes in the real world. Hence, this could be viewed as another
dimension of communicative competence.
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Real-time psycholinguistic measures of communicative competence 103

This approach to research has revealed a number of tendencies related
to learners’ ability to process language in real time. One common finding is
that L2 users are often generally slower to process language than L1 users.
For instance, Ardal et al. (1990) observed similar N400 effects for L1 and
high proficiency L2 users of English and French in response to semantic-
ally anomalous words (e.g., the last word in I generally like menthol bottles vs.
It’s raining and I forgot my umbrella), but the waveform appeared slightly later
(about 40 milliseconds) among the L2 participants. In another example, self-​
paced reading has shown that L2 readers are generally slower than L1 readers
(e.g., Sagarra & Herschensohn, 2010). Similarly, eyetracking has also shown
that L2 reading is generally slower, particularly with rereading measures like
second pass times (Frenck-​Mestre & Pynte, 1997). Nevertheless, it should
be noted that L2 learners are not always slower to process language than L1
users, and speed may be related to L2 proficiency (e.g., Jegerski, 2016).There
are even cases in which L2 users have been found to read faster than L1 users
(e.g., Kaan et al., 2015). In addition, one very recent line of research has
begun to investigate the role of chunking ability (i.e., the ability to recognize
multiword units) in L2 processing efficiency (López-​Beltrán et al., 2020).
This research has also found that faster reading times exhibited by some L2
users can actually indicate shallow processing rather than efficient processing
when the L2 readers in question have low chunking ability (Pulido, 2021).
A second observation pertaining to the processing of language in real
time is that L2 learners can sometimes show evidence of linguistic know-
ledge on a traditional, untimed measure (such as an acceptability judgment
or multiple-​choice response), and yet be apparently unable to apply that
same knowledge during real-​time processing. For instance, the L1 German-​
L2 English participants in Felser and Cunnings (2012) showed no difficulty
in selecting the appropriate antecedent for a reflexive pronoun in an off-
line task, but their eye movements while they were reading sentences with
reflexives suggested that they initially considered an inappropriate ante-
cedent for the reflexive pronoun. In another example, Marinis et al. (2005)
observed that L2 learners from different language backgrounds were highly
accurate in their offline interpretation of very complex sentences with wh-​
movement, but data from self-​paced reading of the same sentences reflected
less sensitivity to the abstract syntax of wh-​movement (specifically, to the
presence of an intermediate gap at a point between the wh-​phrase who and its
point of origin prior to syntactic movement) than what was observed among
an L1 comparison group. Hence, even when a learner appears to possess a
given type of linguistic knowledge, the demands of processing the language
in real time can still be a challenge.
A third observation that suggests that learners can struggle with efficiency
in language processing is that learners may not be able to use prediction to
the same degree as L1 users. To illustrate, the last word of the sentence She
has a nice voice and always wanted to be a singer can be predicted based on the
context, whereas the last word cannot be predicted when the sentence is
She has a nice voice and always wanted to be an artist. ERP research has found
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104 Jill Jegerski and Sara Fernández Cuenca

that L1 participants show an N400 waveform effect in response to the unex-
pected noun versus the expected one (Martin et al., 2013). Crucially, the
effect occurs on the article that precedes the noun before the noun itself is
seen or heard, so prediction is clearly involved. In other words, the reader or
listener has a specific noun in mind, and for this reason has difficulty pro-
cessing an article that cannot precede that noun, as with the article an when
the expected noun is singer, because this shows that the noun that follows
will not be the expected one. Interestingly, Martin et al. (2013) found that,
unlike L1 users, L2 learners did not have the N400 effect on the article.
Several other studies have also reported difficulty with prediction in L2 pro-
cessing (e.g., Grüter et al., 2012; Hopp, 2013), although there is also evidence
that prediction can occur among L2 participants of higher proficiency (e.g.,
Hopp, 2013) and when facilitative transfer is possible due to overlap in the
grammar of the L1 and L2 (e.g., Dussias et al., 2013; Foucart et al., 2014).
Finally, working memory effects in processing are another sign that effi-
ciency can be a challenge in an L2. For instance, two self-​paced reading
studies of the processing of agreement in L2 Spanish found that, at the
beginning level, only those participants with high working memory cap-
acity were sensitive to gender agreement while reading (Sagarra, 2007)
and, at the intermediate level, sensitivity to gender and number agreement
correlated with working memory capacity (Sagarra & Herschensohn, 2010).
Moreover, sensitivity to agreement did not correlate with working memory
capacity among L1 participants (Sagarra & Herschensohn, 2010). Two other
examples of self-​paced reading studies that have observed a role for working
memory in L2 processing are Dussias and Piñar (2010) and Havik et al.
(2009). Research has also shown that L2 users can have decreased working
memory capacity compared to L1 users, at least when tested in the L2 (e.g.,
McDonald, 2006; Sagarra & Herschensohn, 2010).
To summarize this section, the four observations outlined above suggest
that L2 learners often struggle to use language efficiently under the time
constraints typically imposed by real-​ world communication. Cognitive
resources are limited, and it appears that L2 processing can require more
resources than L1 processing. Hence, L2 users are more often pushed to their
limits, and this can impede their ability to use language in real time, even
when they appear to possess the relevant knowledge.

Compensatory strategies in L2 processing

Because of the challenge presented by the need to comprehend language in
real time outlined in the previous section, L2 users are thought to sometimes
take shortcuts in processing. Relevant theories propose that this happens
because they do not have enough time and cognitive resources to process
every linguistic detail in depth (Christianson, 2016; VanPatten, 1996, 2020)
or because they are lacking some of the grammatical knowledge required
to do so (Clahsen & Felser, 2006). Such shortcuts have been referred to
as heuristics (Christianson, 2016) and typically involve the prioritization of
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Real-time psycholinguistic measures of communicative competence 105

meaning over grammatical details like morphosyntax. These shortcuts stand
in contrast with algorithmic processing (Christianson, 2016), which entails
more complete processing of grammatical details. In other words, processing
shortcuts are strategic in the sense that they appear to facilitate successful
communication most of the time, despite the difficulties of real-​time pro-
cessing, a claim that is very much in line with the construct of communica-
tive competence.
One example of a strategy that learners often seem to follow in pro-
cessing is to assume that the first noun encountered in a sentence is the
subject regardless of what grammatical details like verbal agreement and
case marking indicate, probably because most of the time the first noun is
indeed the subject. In VanPatten’s (1996, 2020) theory of input processing,
this strategy is proposed as the First Noun Principle. Empirical evidence
of it can be found in Hopp’s (2015) visual world eyetracking study of the
processing of case marking in L2 German, in which L1 English participants
heard German sentences with either subject-​verb-​object (SVO) or object-​
verb-​subject (OVS) word order (e.g., SVO: Der Wolf tötet gleich den Hirsch,
theNOM wolf kills soon theACC deer, “The wolf will soon kill the deer” vs.
OVS: Den Wolf tötet gleich der Jäger, theACC wolf kills soon theNOM hunter,
“The hunter will soon kill the wolf ”). As they listened, their eye movements
were tracked across a display with four related pictures; in the given example,
the pictures were of a wolf, a deer, a hunter, and a mountain. Regardless of
the case marking on the first noun “The wolf ”, the eye movements of the
L2 group showed that they took it to be the subject of the sentence. Upon
hearing the first four words of either the SVO or OVS stimulus (i.e., “The
wolf kills soon …”), they looked more at the deer, even though in the OVS
sentence, “the hunter” is what comes next. An L1 comparison group, on the
other hand, used the case marker in processing rather than following the first
noun strategy: they looked more to the deer after the first few words of the
SVO stimulus and more to the hunter after the first few words of the OVS
stimulus. At least two other visual world eyetracking studies have similarly
found that L2 learners tend to follow the first noun strategy (Ito & Wong,
2019; Wong & Ito, 2018).
A second example of how learners appear to take shortcuts during lan-
guage processing comes from research using the ERP method. This can be
seen in Guo et al.’s (2009) ERP study of the processing of verb subcategor-
ization by L2 users of English. While reading sentences with subcategoriza-
tion violations (e.g., *Joe’s father didn’t show him drive the car vs. Joe’s father didn’t
let him drive the car), an L1 comparison group showed a P600 waveform effect,
whereas the L2 group showed an N400. The P600 is suggestive of syntactic
and morphosyntactic processing, but the N400 typically indexes lexical and
semantic processing, so it appears that the L2 group did not focus on gram-
matical details to the same degree as the L1 group. Rather, they prioritized
meaning in order to achieve efficient comprehension. Similarly, Tanner et al.
(2014) found that some L2 learners showed an N400 effect rather than the
expected P600 while processing subject-​verb agreement. The researchers
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106 Jill Jegerski and Sara Fernández Cuenca

took the N400 as evidence of shallower, heuristic-​based processing of mor-
phosyntax and the P600 as evidence of deeper, algorithmic processing.There
is also evidence that an initial N400 response can shift to a P600 as profi-
ciency increases (Osterhout et al., 2006).
A third example of a processing shortcut is that L2 users can sometimes
simply ignore a grammatical form all together. For instance, Hopp and León
Arriaga (2016) observed that the L2 participants in their eyetracking study
of the processing of differential object marking in L2 Spanish often skipped
over the word with the case marker a (known as the “personal a”) while
reading sentences, only fixating on it in 56% of trials (vs. 71% for an L1 com-
parison group). This suggests that learners prioritize some forms over others
in language processing, due to limited cognitive resources. It may be that
forms like the Spanish case marker a are more likely to be ignored because
they are perceptually non-​salient and because they are often redundant and
thus non-​critical to communication (VanPatten, 1996, 2020).
Thus, we see that the shortcuts that learners take during real-​time lan-
guage processing often involve the prioritization of meaning over gram-
matical details. In many cases, the same processing shortcuts that seem to be
common with L2 users—​the three examples described above and others—​
are also sometimes observed among L1 users (e.g., Hopp & León Arriaga,
2016; Tanner & Van Hell, 2014), although L1 users probably do not employ
them as often. This further supports the idea that heuristic-​based processing
can be advantageous in the sense that it improves efficiency and does not
necessarily have a detrimental effect on communication. It is for these reasons
that we have referred to processing shortcuts as compensatory strategies and see
them as potentially contributing to communicative competence.

Grammatical processing
One of the types of knowledge needed to effectively communicate in an
L2 is grammatical knowledge (Canale & Swain, 1980). As mentioned in the
previous sections, L2 learners can sometimes show linguistic knowledge in
untimed or offline measures (e.g., multiple choice response), but be unable
to apply such knowledge during real-​time processing. In addition, under
time pressure, L2 learners often prioritize meaning and miss grammatical
details when reading sentences or listening to utterances for comprehen-
sion in real time. We know this thanks to online psycholinguistic research
methods, which go beyond traditional offline grammar tests to examine the
application of such knowledge in real time. In this section, we focus on
three examples of linguistic forms (case marking, gender agreement, and
wh-​dependencies) to illustrate how psycholinguistic methods can be used to
measure L2 learners’ grammatical processing under time pressure.
As previously stated, L2 learners often apply a more global meaning-​
oriented approach to processing and fail to incorporate grammatical details
such as case marking (Hopp, 2015). However, this is not always the case.
Jackson et al. (2012) used an eyetracking sentence processing paradigm to
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Real-time psycholinguistic measures of communicative competence 107

examine if intermediate L2 German learners were able to pay attention
to case marking on a prenominal determiner while they read temporarily
ambiguous subject-​first and object-​first questions.The questions participants
read had a feminine or neuter initial wh-​phrase, followed by a disambiguating
masculine determiner phrase (subject-​first: Welche Ingenieurin traf den Chemiker
gestern Nachmittag im Café? “WhichNOM engineer met theACC chemist yes-
terday afternoon in the café?”, object-​first: Welche Ingenieurin traf der Chemiker
gestern Nachmittag im Café? “WhichACC engineer did theNOM chemist meet
yesterday afternoon in the café?”). Jackson and colleagues found that L2
learners fixated longer on the disambiguating accusative determiner den
than on its nominative counterpart der the first time they read the sentence,
suggesting that they tried to immediately incorporate grammatical informa-
tion into their processing to comprehend the questions. Other studies that
used self-​paced reading to examine case marking also suggest that, as profi-
ciency increases, L2 learners are more capable of using case marking infor-
mation to assign grammatical roles (e.g., subject vs. object) while reading
sentences for comprehension (Jackson & Bobb, 2009; Jegerski, 2015), even
when case marking is not encoded in the same manner in the learners’ L1
(Gerth et al., 2017).
Another grammatical phenomenon that has been extensively studied
with psycholinguistic methods is gender agreement. Several studies have
adopted a visual world eyetracking paradigm to determine if L2 learners
can use gender marking on a determiner to predict an upcoming noun as
they listen to auditory stimuli in the L2. For example, Dussias et al. (2013)
tracked advanced Spanish L2 learners’ eyes as they saw two-​picture virtual
scenes in which items did or did not match in gender. L2 learners listened
to utterances with a masculine or feminine noun that was preceded by an
article that agreed in gender with both or sometimes with just one of the
pictures displayed on the screen. This way, in the condition where the article
only matched in gender with one of the pictures displayed, they were able to
observe if L2 learners were more likely to look at that picture (vs. the com-
peting picture) as soon as they heard the article, using gender as a predictive
cue. In this study, the researchers found that highly proficient Spanish L2
learners were able to use gender information consistently during real-​time
aural comprehension, as shown by a significantly higher proportion of looks
towards the correct picture when the distractor pictures were of a different
gender. Surprisingly, this took place as soon as learners heard the article.
Similarly, Hopp (2013) and Hopp and Lemmerth (2016) also found that
advanced German L2 learners can use gender cues to establish agreement
relationships predictively, suggesting that L2 learners with high levels of pro-
ficiency can apply grammatical knowledge under time pressure and effect-
ively understand the message as it is spoken to them.
Finally, a third area of research that has received a great deal of attention is
wh-​dependencies, which arise when the canonical word order of the elem-
ents in a sentence is modified by displacing a wh-​expression to a new pos-
ition (Canales, 2012).When this happens, the displaced element is referred to
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108 Jill Jegerski and Sara Fernández Cuenca

as a filler and the empty space left behind is called a gap. For example, Johnson
et al. (2016) used the self-​paced reading method to examine how advanced
learners of L2 English processed wh-​dependencies in real time. Participants
read sentences with a displaced wh-​expression (The instructor wondered who
Chris will film Tom with _​_​_​_​at the reception) in addition to control sentences
(The instructor wondered if Chris will film Tom with Susan at the reception), and
both L1 and L2 groups slowed down significantly right after the verb (film in
the given example) in the wh-​condition versus the control condition. This
showed that the L2 learners tried to rapidly solve the filler-​gap dependency,
similar to L1 users. These findings have also been replicated by Jessen and
Felser (2019), who used the ERP method and obtained a N400 response
with L2 learners and L1 users, providing further evidence that L2 learners
actively try to integrate a filler with its structural gap. Additionally, other
studies that investigated wh-​dependencies also found that L2 learners with
higher working memory may be more capable of computing such depend-
encies more efficiently (Dussias & Piñar, 2010) and that L2 learners with
immersion experience may have an advantage in their ability to use this
grammatical knowledge under time pressure, compared to L2 learners who
only had L2 classroom experience (Pliatsikas & Marinis, 2013).
In sum, as proficiency in the L2 increases, L2 learners become more cap-
able of paying attention to abstract grammatical features despite the diffi-
culties associated with real-​time processing. L2 processing research in the
areas of case-​marking, gender agreement, and wh-​dependencies provide evi-
dence that highly proficient L2 learners are capable of using grammatical
knowledge when listening or reading sentences for meaning in real time, an
important component of communicative competence.

Recommendations for practice

As outlined so far in this chapter, online psycholinguistic methods have
the potential to inform our understanding of communicative competence
from a unique perspective because of the emphasis on using language in real
time. The four experimental paradigms described herein (self-​paced reading,
eyetracking with text, visual world eyetracking, and ERPs) all yield data that
reflect the precise timing of language processing in milliseconds. However,
there is a second methodological consideration that is critical in the study
of communicative competence and which cannot be taken for granted in
experimental research: that the experimental task must be focused on mean-
ingful communication. Some tasks may direct participants to focus on lin-
guistic form more than meaning or even to the extent that meaning is not
considered at all, which means that research outcomes are not likely inform-
ative with regard to the communicative competence of the participants.
To illustrate with an example, most sentence processing studies conducted
with self-​paced reading, eyetracking, and ERPs include a distractor task that
gives the participant a goal for reading or listening to linguistic stimuli and
that often provides additional data that are of interest to the researcher. Some
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Real-time psycholinguistic measures of communicative competence 109

studies use a distractor task that is more focused on the linguistic form of
the stimulus than on its meaning, such as a grammaticality or acceptability
judgment of the stimulus sentence (e.g., “Does this sentence sound okay to
you?” Response options:“Yes/​No”). Other studies use a distractor task that is
focused on the meaning of the sentence, typically a comprehension question
about the content of the stimulus sentence (e.g., “Where did this event likely
take place?” Response options: “In a school/​At the park”). The choice of
one type of distractor task over the other appears to affect reading behavior,
as observed in several empirical studies (Jegerski & Fernández Cuenca, 2019;
Leeser et al., 2011; Lim & Christianson, 2013, 2015;Wen & Schwartz, 2012).
For instance, Lim and Christianson’s (2015) eyetracking study revealed that
Korean learners of English were more sensitive to subject-​verb agreement
when the experimental task was translation versus when it was comprehen-
sion. In another example, Leeser et al. (2011) found that L2 Spanish learners
were more sensitive to gender agreement during self-​paced reading when
the distractor task was a grammaticality judgment than when it was a com-
prehension question.We therefore recommend a careful consideration of the
distractor task from the perspective of the participant and advocate for the
use of meaning-​focused experimental tasks in general and particularly when
the goals of the research are related to communicative competence.

Future directions
Research in SLA using online psycholinguistic methods has so far been rela-
tively scarce and, although much of the research is relevant to the study
of communicative competence, very little of the research that has been
conducted to date has been framed in these terms. One result of this is that
L2 processing has focused primarily on grammatical competence and has
paid relatively little attention to other aspects of communicative competence.
Nevertheless, we believe there is great potential for future research to expand
in this direction.
For example, one area that shows promise is the study of some of the
non-​verbal cues that can support verbal communication, especially with
eyetracking. For instance, eyetracking has been used to examine where L2
learners look while engaged in a video-​mediated listening test: Batty (2021)
observed that participants spent the most time looking at speakers’ faces
(82% of total dwell time) and that this was done to observe facial expressions
and determine the speakers’ emotional states. It seems that these can be
used to support comprehension during listening. In addition, Ijuin et al.
(2015) found that listeners look more at the speaker during L2 conversations
than in L1 conversations, which suggests that non-​verbal cues can be espe-
cially important for L2 users. Another line of research with eyetracking has
examined the role of eye gaze in one-​on-​one learning sessions between a
learner and an instructor. McDonough et al. (2017) examined the role of eye
gaze as a non-​verbal cue during an instructional activity in which novice
learners listened to Esperanto sentences with OVS word order spoken by
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110 Jill Jegerski and Sara Fernández Cuenca

the instructor and selected the picture that corresponded to the meaning
of the sentence from two picture options presented by the instructor. These
researchers found that learners did not seem to follow the instructor’s eye
gaze on a picture as a cue to the correct interpretation of the sentence,
but the amount of time that learners spent looking at the correct picture
did correlate with accuracy on a post-​test. In other words, the learner’s eye
gaze is a non-​verbal cue that might be used by instructors to gauge their
pupil’s comprehension. Thus, eyetracking shows potential in the study of
non-​verbal cues, which can inform our knowledge of strategic competence.

Discussion questions
1. a. The section in this chapter on compensatory strategies in L2 pro-
cessing suggests that learners may sometimes strategically ignore a
linguistic form because it is not critical to communication and cogni-
tive resources are limited. Explain how this might apply to the English
past tense morpheme -​ed in the following sentence: Yesterday, my aunt
and I talked on the phone for over an hour. Can you think of any other
examples of forms that could be overlooked under time pressure?
b. How might such compensatory strategies be examined empiric-
ally with one or more of the four research methods described in
this chapter (self-​paced reading, eyetracking with text, visual world
eyetracking, and ERPs)?
2. All of the four online methods described in this chapter (self-​paced
reading, eyetracking with text, visual world eyetracking, and ERPs) pro-
vide data that reflect the timing of language processing in milliseconds.
How do the methods compare to each other in terms of precision in
timing; are there any that appear to be more or less precise? Explain your
answer in terms of the data that come from each technique.
3. Of the three main areas of communicative competence—​grammatical
competence, pragmatic and sociolinguistic competence, and strategic
competence—​SLA research using online methods has primarily focused
on grammatical competence and has indirectly addressed one aspect
of strategic competence, but it has not really addressed pragmatic and
sociolinguistic competence. If you were to design an empirical study
to address this gap, what are some aspects of pragmatic and sociolin-
guistic competence that might be appropriate for research using online
methods? Which method would you employ for the study?

Notes
1 Following Dewaele et al. (2021), we avoid the terms native and non-​native in this
chapter and use L1 and L2 instead. We use various terms such as L2 user, L2
learner, L2 reader, and L2 participant to refer to the same population (i.e., later onset
multilinguals).
2 Written stimuli are presented word-​by-​word, with each word typically appearing
on the screen for a fixed duration of 400 to 700 milliseconds.
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Real-time psycholinguistic measures of communicative competence 111

Suggestions for further reading
Godfroid, A. (2020). Eye tracking in second language acquisition and bilingualism: A research
synthesis and methodological guide. Routledge.
Godfroid, A., Winke, P. M., & Gass, S. (Eds.). (2013). Eye-​movement recordings in
second language research (special issue). Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 35(2).
Jegerski, J., & VanPatten, B. (Eds.). (2014). Research methods in second language psycho-
linguistics. Routledge.
Keating, G. D., & Jegerski, J. (2015). Experimental designs in sentence processing
research: A methodological review and user’s guide. Studies in Second Language
Acquisition, 37(1), 1–​32.
Morgan-​Short, K., Faretta-​Stutenberg, M., & Bartlett-​Hsu, L. (2015). Contributions
of event-​related potential research to issues in explicit and implicit second lan-
guage acquisition. In P. Rebuschat (Ed.), Implicit and explicit learning of languages
(pp. 349–​383). John Benjamins.
Sekerina, I. A., Fernández, E. M., & Clahsen, H. (Eds.). (2008). Developmental psycho-
linguistics: Online methods in children’s language processing. John Benjamins.

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15

7 Corpus-​linguistic and
computational methods
for analyzing communicative
competence
Contributions from usage-​based
approaches
Stefan Th. Gries

The usage-​based theory of language (UBTL) is a currently relatively wide-

spread theory that began to emerge in the 1980s. In my view, it emerged first
as cognitive linguistics and/​or cognitive grammar (see esp. Langacker, 1987) but
as it matured, names such as exemplar-​based or usage-​based linguistics became
more common; scholars such as Joan Bybee, William Croft, Nick Ellis, and
Adele Goldberg are probably best known. The UBTL is based on a variety
of assumptions, which in turn have methodological and other implications.
Based on Beckner et al. (2009) and Bybee (2010), we can describe the
UBTL as follows. One central assumption is that “the structures of language
emerge from interrelated patterns of experience, social interaction, and cog-
nitive processes” (Beckner et al., 2009, p. 2), in particular cognitive processes
that are domain-​general, i.e., not at all unique to language, such as:

• chunking (which might give rise to constituent structure);

• analogy, similarity-,​and prototype-​based categorization processes;
• cross-​modal association (connections between different sensory modes);
• rich memory storage (of exemplars and aspects of the contexts in which
they were produced/​encountered).

These processes operate over the course of a human’s life, which means
anyone’s mental representation of the encyclopedic, but especially also uncon-
scious linguistic, knowledge changes all the time. As for linguistic structure,
there is no a priori distinction between different levels of linguistic struc-
ture: just about everything at any level of linguistic analysis—​morphemes,
words, multiword units, partially filled expressions (e.g., you drive me ADJ),
completely schematic syntactic patterns (e.g., NPAGENT V NPRECIPIENT
NPPATIENT)—​is a construction, i.e., a form-​function pairing (where function
includes “meaning”) that is “frequent enough” (Goldberg, 2006, p. 5) or that
involves something that is not predictable from its component parts.
DOI: 10.4324/9781003160779-9
16

116 Stefan Th. Gries

The methodological implications from these theoretical assumptions that
are relevant in the present context are that

the sources of data for usage-​based grammar are greatly expanded over
that of structuralist or generative grammar: corpus-​ based studies of
either synchrony or diachrony as well as experimental and modeling
studies are considered to produce valid data for our understanding of the
cognitive representation of language.
(Beckner et al., 2009, p. 7)

Given these UBTL tenets, corpus data are not just “valid”, but particularly
valuable to researchers, given that they, depending on the corpus of course,
can provide a great deal of information about a linguistic expression of
interest E that the UBTL considers important:

• Its frequency on its own (e.g., how frequent is the lemma give in a
corpus?).
• Its frequency of co-​occurrence with other expressions (e.g., how fre-
quently does give occur in the ditransitive, such as give the man the book? In
the prepositional dative, such as give the book to the man? With the meaning
of transfer? With other meanings?). And, if give occurs in the ditransitive,
what other contextual features are likely to be observed (e.g., a human
agent, an inanimate patient, an animate recipient, i.e., a transfer scenario)?
• The type and token frequencies of other elements where E can occur
(e.g., how many other verbs occur in the ditransitive (e.g., tell, send, show,
promise, …) and how frequent is each of them there?).
• The degree to which the use of an element changes over the course
of time in a longitudinal acquisition corpus (e.g., do children/​learners
hear give most often with the transfer meaning and in the ditransitive?
When/​how do they extend uses of give to other constructions and other
functions?).
• The degree to which the use of an element changes over time in his-
torical corpora.

Given (1) that corpus data can provide all this information and (2) that
the construct communicative competence involves the probabilistic knowledge of
which expression to use given a certain context and communicative inten-
tion, corpus data provide very useful information for communicative compe-
tence in both first and second languages. However, to understand the current
state-​of-​the-​art in corpus-​based UBTL approaches to learner language, we
need to first consider the historical context from, and partially against, which
current work has evolved, namely the field of learner corpus research.

Historical context
Learner Corpus Research (LCR) is an “offshoot” of general corpus lin-
guistics focusing largely on the production of non-​native speakers (NNSs)
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Corpus-linguistic and computational methods 117

of some target language; according to Le Bruyn and Paquot (2021, p. 1), its
origins are outside of the domain of theory-​driven (SLA/​UBTL) research,
and even until now really SLA-​driven learner corpus methodology is more
of an exception than the rule.Traditional LCR can be seen as having evolved
around two central and related methodological frameworks: Contrastive
Interlanguage Analysis (CIA) and the Integrated Contrastive Model (ICM);
these were largely formulated by Granger (1996) and Gilquin (2000).
The focus of the former is on the exploration of (individual) learner var-
ieties with a focus on English produced by learners (in practice, learners from
a variety of mostly European and Asian first language [L1] backgrounds).
Sticking with the example of English as the target language (TL), CIA would
be concerned with (1) comparing native English (possibly the target of the
learner) and the learners’ “variety/​version of English,” i.e., interlanguage (IL)
and (2) comparisons between different ILs (i.e., the Englishes produced by
learners from different L1 backgrounds). The focus of the latter is on cross-​
linguistic transfer (i.e., the relation between the learner’s IL and their L1).
In other words, much of LCR focused on L1 transfer errors and deviations
from a target-​like norm—​according to Le Bruyn and Paquot (2021), this is
one of the reasons why LCR has not been popular in SLA. Most recently,
the original CIA framework was revised (as CIA2) by introducing a larger
number of reference points against which learner data can be set/​compared
and broadening its scope to include not just English as a Foreign Language
varieties, but also English as a Second Language varieties and English as a
Lingua Franca (see Granger, 2015).
Methodologically, it is probably fair to say that LCR as shaped by the
above-​ mentioned analytical frameworks is mostly characterized by two
methodological choices: a linguistic element to target (most such studies
targeted lexical items or certain grammatical constructions) and a quantita-
tive resolution to apply to the targeted item and its occurrences in native and
learner corpora (most studies involved the notions of over-​and underuse
(i.e., comparisons of the frequencies often coupled with X2 and/​or log-​
likelihood/​G2-​tests or similar mono-​factorial or goodness-​of-​fit tests), see
Paquot and Plonsky, 2017).1 Examples of such studies include Altenberg and
Granger (2001), Altenberg (2002), Laufer and Waldman (2011), Gilquin and
Granger (2011), and Gilquin and Lefer (2017).
It is instructive to briefly make a short excursus here and paraphrase the
difference between the above kind of LCR work and the kind of UBTL
work to be discussed shortly, borrowing language from multilevel regression
modeling. In multilevel models, we have a response variable, such as
test scores of students each taking two tests; the variable with the scores is
measured at what is called level 1, the observation level. But we often also have
other variables that we suspect predict the response and that are measured at
that same level, and we have variables at higher levels (e.g., at the level of, here,
the student [level 2], like a student ID, but also variables that describe the stu-
dent [e.g., “BooksAtHome” and “HoursSelfStudy”]). But even higher levels
are conceivable, as when the students are nested into classrooms (such that
each classroom has a different teacher); the classroom then places all students
18

118 Stefan Th. Gries

Table 7.1 A fictitious multilevel modeling data set

Case TestScore (1) StudentID (2) BooksAt HoursSelf Classroom (3)

Home (2) Study (2)

1 11 student1 240 4 a
2 13 student1 240 4 a
3 11 student2 200 3 a
4 9 student2 200 3 a
5 9 student3 160 3.5 b
6 7 student4 160 3.5 b

Note: Parenthesized numbers in headings indicate levels

of one classroom into a group. Such data are exemplified in Table 7.1. In
such scenarios, the variability of “TestScore” will partly be due to whatever
other level 1 variables one might have, but also to the student-​ level/​
level 2 variables “BooksAtHome” and “HoursSelfStudy,” and due to level 3
variables (i.e., “Classroom”).
The point of this excursus is to make it very clear that traditional LCR
of the CIA/​ICM kind nearly always considered only level 3 predictors and,
therefore, was completely or nearly completely acontextual.What traditional
over-​/​underuse LCR studies would have done with Table 7.1 is the equiva-
lent of computing the means of “TestScore” (in an LCR study, the mean
frequencies of some linguistic element) for each classroom (in an LCR study,
for NSs and NNSs) and done a significance test comparing 11 and 8, while
ignoring any other (level 1 or level 2) predictors. Thus, such studies would,
here, miss the strong predictive power of “BooksAtHome” or, to come back
to linguistic/​ SLA contexts, any linguistic/​contextual predictor (or even
other important level 2 predictors, see Gries, 2018 for details). Altenberg and
Granger (2001, p. 176,Table 2), for example, compute significance tests com-
paring the frequencies of the lemma MAKE in the L2 English of L1 Swedish
and French-​speaking NNSs to its frequency in NS English.2
In other words, while traditional LCR argued in favor of “comparing/​
contrasting what NSs and NNSs of a language do in a comparable situ-
ation” (Péry-​Woodley, 1990, p. 143, cited by Granger, 1996, p. 43, emphasis
added), such studies did actually not do that, because they did not include
any level 1/​level 2 predictors that would allow them to state whether the
usage situations were comparable; see Gries and Deshors (2014, Sections
1.1 and 3) for detailed discussion/​exemplification. Much learner language-​
oriented research in the UBTL paradigm has evolved in response to these
shortcomings and, as will become clear, has shifted the focus onto lin-
guistic/​contextual level 1 predictors and how their effects differ across L1
backgrounds, using multifactorial statistical analysis.

Critical issues in current research

Likely the most important agenda item (apart from corpus compilation, see
“Future directions” section) for corpus-​based UBTL approaches to learner
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Corpus-linguistic and computational methods 119

language is determining how best to (1) operationalize the cognitive factors
that recent studies and overviews have proposed are influencing acquisi-
tion, processing, and use, and then (2) relate them to central notions of SLA
research relevant to communicative competence (e.g., complexity, accuracy,
fluency).
As for the former, the measure simplest to operationalize—​ token
frequency—​is also one whose importance, while long taken for granted, might
be less obvious than has long been assumed (see “On the theoretical side
of things” sub-​section of “Future directions”). No one denies that associ-
ation plays a role in learning, but how do we measure it best using corpus
data for each situation in which it is relevant (see “Main research methods”
section for some discussion)? What corpus data do we include in our corpus
measures to infer degrees of prototypicality? How do we operationalize
salience in discourse? What is the best way to tackle dispersion in a corpus?
For many of these notions we have reasonable proxies—​see Ellis et al. (2016)
for one of the most well-​rounded (book-​length) studies providing corpus-​
linguistic approximations for many of the above terms—​but these are issues
that every current UBTL study needs to address in one way or the other.
This is especially so because of the nature of the UBTL itself: a theory
that makes rich memory storage and domain-​general learning mechanisms
its default assumptions certainly seems appealingly “big-​picture” and uni-
fying, but with those starting assumptions also comes incredible complexity.
This is in contrast with, say, more modular theories, because if modularity
is the default assumption, one is not automatically under the pressure of the
Cognitive Commitment (Lakoff, 1990, p. 40) to provide “a characterization
of general principles for language that accords with what is known about the
mind and brain from other disciplines”—​one is freer to choose that a certain
postulated mechanism is specific to the language module.
As for the latter, while complexity and fluency can be addressed fairly well
using even automated measures, accuracy is different: typically, it requires
laborious hand-​coding and leads to varying degrees of reliability, but Polio
and Yoon (2021) introduce a number of automated measures of accuracy
drawn from usage-​based theories of SLA by measuring how likely bi-​and
trigrams occurring in learner texts are to also co-​occur in large NS refer-
ence corpora. Data from three learner corpora show that bi-​and trigrams
not occurring in reference corpora are in general considered erroneous by
human judges. They also find that their automated measures of accuracy
typically pattern with classical accuracy measures—​as desired—​and not with
complexity measures. Finally, their results show that up to half of the variance
of hand-​coded error counts is accounted for by their automated measures.
Taken together, the maybe most fundamental challenge for corpus-​based
UBTL will be to determine how the extremely high-​dimensional exemplar
space that the UBTL postulates can be “modeled” using usage data and how
cognitively realistic this “model” will or should be. I personally believe that
one reason for why over time the moniker usage-​based linguistics overtook
cognitive linguistics is that cognitive linguists realized that much of their work
was not cognitive in the cognitive-​science kind of sense, but usage-​based.
120

120 Stefan Th. Gries

However, even “just” being usage-​based requires juggling many dimensions
of information and being even just “somewhat” cognitively realistic requires
doing so while keeping these dimensions separate rather than conflating them
into easy-​to-​use but cognitively unrealistic indices. Gries (2019), for instance,
shows how even a simple method such as collostructional analysis, which
quantifies the association of a word to a construction with a single value
(see next section), would need to become much more precise by breaking
this one value up into at least four or five different dimensions, and similar
challenges abound for probably all corpus-​linguistic operationalizations of
cognitive mechanisms.

Main research methods

The main research methods within corpus-​based UBTL work do not really
differ much from the corpus-​linguistic methods one finds in any (sub-​)dis-
cipline, because, frankly, there are not many fundamentally different corpus-​
linguistic methods, and all of them are ultimately derivatives of frequencies
of (co-​)occurrence. It seems appropriate, in fact, to view corpus-​linguistic
methods performed on an existing corpus as a combination of (1) a very
small number of retrieval operations of some element E from a corpus (part,
such as a file or a register) followed by (2) one or more of a larger number of
statistical operations performed on/​with the retrieved element(s).

Level of resolution 1: a slot (in a construction in a corpus [part])

At one level of resolution, the retrieval operation involves extracting one or
more linguistic element(s) E1-​n from a corpus (part) and either providing its/​
their frequency/​ies in general (often normalized to per million words) or
providing its/​their frequency/​ies in/​with something else; as mentioned in
the introduction, examples include how often give is used in a corpus (part)
and/​or how often it is used with a certain meaning or in a certain gram-
matical construction, in which case the normalized frequency becomes a
conditional probability, as in p(give|ditransitive).
While conditional probabilities are often used as the simplest of associ-
ation measures (AMs), corpus linguists have now for decades preferred to
express the association between an element E (e.g., give) and some other
element X (e.g., the ditransitive) not just with conditional probabilities, but
with AMs. Consider Table 7.2 for a schematic 2×2 co-​occurrence frequency
table of the type that is widely used in corpus-​linguistic studies (cognitive
or otherwise); there, the element E of interest in the upper row might be a
word (e.g., give) and the co-​occurring element X might be a construction
(e.g., the ditransitive). Thus,

• the row total a +​b would be the frequency of give in a corpus;

• the column total a +​c would be the frequency of the ditransitive in a corpus;
• the cell a would be the frequency of give in the ditransitive.
12

Corpus-linguistic and computational methods 121

Table 7.2 A schematic 2×2 co-​occurrence frequency table

Co-​occurring Other elements Totals

element X (not X)

Element E a b a +​b
Other elements (not E) c d c +​d
Totals a +​c b +​d a +​b +​c +​d

However, quantifying the co-​occurrence of give in the ditransitive with

the conditional probability a/​a +​b or a/​a +​c neglects what happens in the other
row (with c/​c +​d) or the other column (b/​b +​d)—​most AMs therefore use
more of the information in Table 7.2, and the most frequent AMs—​the log-​
likelihood value G2, (log) odds ratio (OR), pointwise mutual information
(MI), t, z, conditional probability p(E|X), and ΔP)—​are all derivable from
one and the same statistical approach (logistic regression), yet still behave dif-
ferently. For more on these terms, see Gries (2021). Some

• reflect mostly association (like the odds ratio or ΔP) while some mostly
reflect the frequency of the element(s) in question (e.g., G2 or t);
• consider the row/​column of Table 7.2 containing cell a whereas others
also consider more information in the table (the other row/​column or
the column/​row totals);
• return a measure of mutual/​bidirectional association between E and X
(E↔X) whereas others are unidirectional and, thus, distinguish the direc-
tion of association E→X from X→E.

Studies that focused on learner collocations of lexical items and/​ or

phraseologisms have often used MI (an AM reflecting bidirectional associ-
ation and, thus, often returning very rare collocations/​phraseologisms) or t
(an AM reflecting bidirectional association and frequency and, thus, often
returning frequent items). For example, Paquot et al. (2021) assess phraseo-
logical complexity by checking to what extent words constituting word
combinations in a syntactic dependency relation in learner texts are attracted
to each other in a large reference corpus (i.e., ENCOW14 AX). They use
mean MI-​scores as a measure of phraseological complexity and correlate
those with time (in a longitudinal corpus) and external/​independent Oxford
Quick Placement Test scores. They show that time and institutional training
do not correlate with the development of phraseological complexity per
se—​language proficiency and external test score changes from one year to
the next matter more.
Studies that focused on the above kind of example—​ co-​occurrence
of words with constructions—​ usually adopted an AM that has been
widely used in collostructional analysis (a family of methods to explore the
co-​occurrence preferences of words and/​ in constructions), namely the
p-​value of a Fisher-​Yates exact test (see Gries & Stefanowitsch, 2004a, 2004b;
12

122 Stefan Th. Gries

Stefanowitsch & Gries, 2003). For example, Wulff and Gries (2011) reject a
binary notion of accuracy and argue, as I did here at the end of the intro-
duction, that

accurate mastery of a language entails the acquisition of constructions at

different levels of complexity and schematization, as well as knowledge of
the probabilistic tendencies underlying their target-​like combination.
(Wulff & Gries, 2011, p. 63, emphasis added)

They show that the verbs that NSs and NNSs prefer to use in the two
constructions of the dative alternation are highly similar, sometimes to the
point that the NNS uses are more in line with linguistic theory than what
NSs do (e.g., the learners’ strong preference to use send in the prepositional
dative); they also report results that are, on the whole, similar for the to vs.
-​ing-​complementation alternation (I prefer swimming vs. I prefer to swim). They
conclude that “learners have constructions” and that

accuracy will increase proportionally to the extent that learners succeed

in making the right generalizations regarding which form […] is mapped
onto which function […]. Note that “making the right generalizations”
amounts to nothing else than learners being able to extract prior prob-
abilities (e.g., the knowledge that give is more frequent than donate) as
well as posterior/​conditional probabilities (e.g., the knowledge that give
is used ditransitively more often than donate) from the multidimensional
input space.
(Wulff & Gries, 2011, p. 81f)

While these kinds of association-​based approaches are useful, they are still
limited because, if the association scores are not used for any subsequent
analysis, these approaches do not involve many UBTL predictors or features.
Thus, their predictive power for actual linguistic choices is by definition
moderate—​the approaches discussed next change this considerably.

Level of resolution 2: a specific linguistic choice in a concordance line

At this level of resolution, the retrieval operation typically involves retrieving
one or more linguistic element(s) E1(-​n) from a corpus (part) together with
their contexts; a less frequent yet still important alternative is to retrieve
contexts in which E could have been used but was not. An example of a
hybrid strategy involving both kinds of retrieval could be used to study
that-​complementizer realization/​omission (e.g., I know that/​Ø everyone loves
Babylon 5.): one might (1) retrieve all instances of that, (2) identify which
of them are examples of object complementation like the prior example,
(3) retrieve all forms of all main-​clause verbs ever used with that to, finally,
(4) identify which of them are examples that do not have a complementizer
but could have one.
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Corpus-linguistic and computational methods 123

All resulting hits could then be annotated for whatever predictors/​
features seem relevant to explain the response, E’s form or its presence/​
absence. Crucially and in contrast to much traditional LCR, such features
include level 1 features varying from case to case and higher-​level features
(e.g., speakers producing multiple examples or words that are observed with
choices, e.g., the main-​clause verb thought in the above example). This anno-
tation can then be used with statistical predictive-​modeling tools such as
regression or tree-​based approaches.
For example, Gries and Wulff (2013) model the genitive alternation
(of vs. s) from a UBTL perspective. They annotate approximately 3,000
matches from NSs of English as well as Chinese and German NNSs of English
for 12 predictors from various levels of linguistic analysis—​phonology, mor-
phosyntax, semantics, and psycholinguistics—​ and fit a regression model
with all predictors. Crucially, they permit each predictor to interact with L1
(Chinese vs. German vs. English/​native) to determine whether the factors
that govern NNS choices are significantly different from those that govern
NS choices. They obtain a significant (p < 10-​200) and excellent (C = 0.96)
model fit and find, among other things, that NSs and NNSs differ in terms
of the effects of the genitive construction’s semantics and the specificity of
the possessor and the possessum (i.e., the possessed entity).They then discuss
how their multifactorial approach involving 12 predictors differs from what
would be the traditional chi-​squared test LCR approach that would feature
one predictor at a time.
An extension of this regression approach is the recently-​ developed
MuPDAR(F) protocol (for Multifactorial Prediction and Deviation Analysis
using Regression/​[Random Forests], see Gries & Adelman, 2014; Gries &
Deshors, 2014, 2020):

• One applies a model/​classifier to the part of the data covering the refer-
ence speakers (RSs; in LCR contexts, the NS).
• If that first model/​classifier works well enough, it is used to impute for
each situation a target speaker (TS; in LCR contexts, the NNS) is in
what the RS would have said in the exact same linguistic context.
• Then, one determines how the actual TS choices relate to the imputed
ones: how much, if at all, does the TS choice deviate from the imputed
RS choice?
• Finally, one explores what explains those TS choices that are unlike the
imputed ones with second model/​classifier.

MuPDAR(F) has led to many interesting results in studies such

as: Deshors and Gries (2016) and Kolbe-​Hanna and Baldus (2018) on -​
ing vs. to-​complements; Wulff and Gries (2015, 2019, 2021) on prenominal
adjective order, particle placement, and genitives, respectively; Kruger and
De Sutter (2018) and Gries and Wulff (2021) on adverbial clause ordering;
Schweinberger (2020) on adjective amplification, and others. For illustra-
tion, I will discuss Lester (2019), who studies the realization/​omission of
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124 Stefan Th. Gries

that as a relativizer (e.g., Bester hated the way that/​Ø telepaths were treated).
Eight hundred relative clauses with/​without that (40% of those from NSs,
the remainder from German and Spanish learners) are retrieved from two
corpora and annotated for 13 variables (including what would normally
be the response variable, i.e., that-​realization) including task type, semantic
predictors, structural/​complexity predictors, priming and disfluencies.
He then fits a generalized additive mixed model (GAMM) on the NS data,
cross-​validates it with a bootstrap, applies it to the learner data, and computes
how much the learner choices deviate from the imputed NS choices, which
become the response variable in a second GAMM. That model results in
several significant linear and non-​linear predictors.To give a few examples of
the findings, the Spanish learners perform in a more nativelike fashion than
the German ones, all learners overuse that for subject, predicate-​nominal, and
direct-​object roles of the relative-​clause heads, and self-​priming effects differ
between the German and the Spanish learners. More generally, the data do
not support the study’s initial expectation that NNSs would follow the same
processing-​based strategy (of producing that in complex contexts)—​instead,
learners underproduce that in structurally complex contexts and under pro-
duction difficulty. This study is a great example of how applying advanced
statistical methods to offline observational data can still shed light even
on the kind of online processing-​related/​cognitive differences and strat-
egies between NSs and NNSs that give rise to differences in the degree of
attainment of communicative competence.

Recommendations for practice

There are actually few recommendations specific to corpus-​linguistic UBTL
research of communicative competence—​ the following pertains to just
about all corpus-​linguistic studies.
On the retrieval level, it is obviously important to use search expressions
that maximize recall of the target element E, but proper context retrieval and
sampling is nearly as important. As for the former, one often needs consider-
ably more context than suspected of each instance of E to annotate especially
semantic, discourse-​functional, or psycholinguistic predictors: annotating dis-
course givenness, inferrability, or priming requires at least several sentences
of context. Also, too many studies are still sampling on the level of the indi-
vidual data point—​retrieving all instances of E and then taking a random
sample of them—​when that is sub-​optimal. One should sample on the level
of the speaker/​conversation to:

• achieve better/​decent numbers of data points for random effects;

• allow for proper consideration of priming effects;
• be able to account for, say, within-​conversation learning/​habituation
effects.

On the statistical level, the importance of thorough (1) exploration of

the data and (2) diagnosis and validation of one’s model cannot possibly
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Corpus-linguistic and computational methods 125

be overstated. The variables in the data need to be checked for data entry
errors and consistency, outliers, the need for conflation, and general dis-
tributional characteristics (maybe requiring transformations); models need
to be checked for collinearity, cases with huge leverage, their residuals,
overdispersion, maybe validation, etc. In the online supplement to Gries
(2021), approximately 70% of the input/​output in this one modeling appli-
cation are concerned with exploration, diagnostics, etc.—​these kinds of
things are not nice-​to-​have add-​ons, they are obligatory! Finally, reporting
of methods and results usually needs to be more comprehensive, to ensure
replicability, but also to allow readers to evaluate results better. For instance,
there simply is no good reason not to report overall model statistics (signifi-
cance tests, but also R2s), but these are still often not provided. However, the
field has improved considerably in these regards.

Future directions

On the data side of things

If we were allowed to move the field forward with only a single thing, it
would have to be “more and better corpus compilation,” and I am saying this
as someone who has only been involved in two small corpus compilation
projects myself. Essentially, we need more of “everything”:

• more coverage of more L1s and L1-​L2 configurations, more diverse

registers/​genres, more proficiency levels, and, importantly, more input
corpora;
• more longitudinal and more multilingual corpora;
• more annotation on characteristics of the speakers such as proficiency
levels, learners’ L1s and other background characteristics (age, amount
of previous instruction in hours [not years], country of residence,
socioeconomic status/​ parental education, cognitive variables such as
motivation information, results from aptitude tests, working memory
capacity, etc.), and characteristics of the context of learning (naturalistic?
instructed?);
• more information about the speakers’ creation of written data (e.g., from
screen-​casting and key-​logging tools as used in translation research).

Le Bruyn and Paquot (2021) and Tracy-​Ventura et al. (2021) indicate that
many more diverse corpora are now being compiled, but we still have a long
way to go before we can do all kinds of analyses of communicative compe-
tence UBTL researchers are interested in.
In addition, in order for UBTL researchers to be able to “(more) easily”
identify the frequencies of co-​occurrence that so much in UBTL hinges on,
we need good assessments of how well recent high-​powered automatic NLP
tools (e.g., tagging/​parsing R packages such as NLP/​openNLP or udpipe or
Python-​based tools such as spacy [https://​spacy.io]) and many others work
on learner data (see Meurers & Dickinson, 2017 or Kyle, 2021 for overviews
126

126 Stefan Th. Gries

of the use of NLP technologies in SLA/​LCR). Relatedly, the field needs
better ways of dealing with formulaic/​prefabricated language, multiword
units, and phraseologisms. While there is a general recognition that these
are important concepts, their definition/​measurement, their acquisition, and
the implications they would have for both communicative competence (in
certain contexts) and theory development require much more and rigorous
empirical work.

On the theoretical side of things

While the notion of frequency has been at the forefront of the UBTL, it
is not the only important notion let alone the most important one—​many
other distributional characteristics are just as essential or even more so (even
if they, technically, of course, derive from frequency data).
One important notion that, even in the best scholars’ studies, is as widely
neglected as it is easy to measure is dispersion (i.e., the degree to which words/​
constructions are evenly distributed in a corpus). Most scholars do not use
it because they do not know about it or because they think that disper-
sion is so highly correlated with frequency that it is unnecessary. However,
this correlation breaks down in exactly the range of frequencies that are of
most interest to most linguistic studies (i.e., intermediately frequent content
words; Gries, 2020), which means that scholars who think they are control-
ling for frequency effects are likely not doing so (well). Second, there are also
studies showing that dispersion can have higher predictive power than fre-
quency (Baayen, 2010; Gries, 2022) and might therefore be a better measure
of “commonness.” Third, dispersion is straightforwardly integratable into
UBTL/​SLA research via the notions of recency and (associative) learning
theory, so future research trying to be cognitively realistic would do well to
include it.
Another set of dimensions of information UBTL needs to attend to more
involves several broader and often information-​theoretic ways of including co-​
occurrence information that speakers seem to unconsciously keep track of. For
example, McDonald and Shillcock (2001) show that the degree to which a
word influences the frequencies of its collocates is more predictive of reac-
tion times than frequency; for instance, Berger et al. (2017) study to what
extent measures pertaining to words’ contexts (including relative entropy
and measures based on association tasks) are correlated with human ratings
of lexical proficiency. Linzen and Jaeger (2015) find that the entropy reduc-
tion of potential parse completions is correlated with reading times of
sentences involving the direct object/​subordinate clause alternation; e.g.,
accept in Garibaldi accepted Sinclair was right has a lower entropy of possible
complementation patterns compared to forgot in Garibaldi forgot Sinclair
was right, which is reflected in reading speeds. Blumenthal-​Dramé (2016, p.
500) reports that the entropy of verbs’ subcategorization frames correlates
with activity in the anterior temporal lobe 200–​300 ms after the stimulus.
Additionally, Lester and Moscoso del Prado Martín (2017, p. 2589) find that
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Corpus-linguistic and computational methods 127

entropies of syntactic distributions affect response times of nouns in isola-
tion and their ordering in coordinate NPs and arrive at the construction-
grammar-par-excellence conclusion that

words are finely articulated syntactic entities whose history of use par-
tially determines how efficiently they are produced […] Perhaps words
and syntactic structures are much more tightly linked than is typically
acknowledged.

Thus, while frequency is often a good first explanatory step, and frequencies
underlie virtually all more refined measures, subsequent analysis will ultim-
ately have to face that the exemplar-​space kind of knowledge the UBTL
assumes will require a much broader perspective.

On the statistical side of things

One of the main developments has already begun: the move away from
over-​/​underuse of frequencies aggregated over many speakers, etc. and
without level 1 predictors of E. Gries (2018) reanalyzes an older study,
showing that such studies are uninformative at best (and misleading at
worst) because they ignore nearly everything but L1; therefore, when these
studies are replicated, their predictive power is close to zero as is their rele-
vance to theoretical work (see Tracy-​Ventura et al. 2021, p. 420f. for similar
views). The move towards modeling is therefore good news because it
allows researchers to paint a more comprehensive picture of E’s acquisition,
learning, and use.
With that greater comprehensiveness come greater challenges. Contrary
to widespread belief, proper (predictive) modeling is not a simple endeavor,
especially given the complexity of the questions being studied. We need to

• include (many) linguistic/​contextual level 1 predictors of E, and we

need to allow numeric predictors to be curved—​few cognitive processes
follow a straight line—​and predictors of interest to participate in rele-
vant interactions;
• include higher-​ level predictors/​random effects regarding L1,
circumstances of production (genre, topic, etc.), and speaker-​specific
effects plus proper follow-​up analyses of such effects that, currently, are
very rare.

Recent relevant examples for such studies are Verspoor et al. (2021), who
discuss individual differences and non-​linearity in their study of learner
performance or Gries’s (2021) (didactic) methods showcase of a corpus-​
based LCR/​ SLA study of that-​ complementation. In addition, modeling
techniques like structural equation modeling would be a useful next step
to better handle the interplay of many important and often intercorrelated
(and, thus, redundant) variables.
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128 Stefan Th. Gries

Finally, I would like to see a greater reliance also on exploratory
statistics—​either as a preparatory tool before modeling applications or to
really just explore data. Specifically, the following three techniques hold
promise:

• Variants of cluster analysis such as fuzzy clustering, which, unlike trad-

itional clustering tools permit elements to be a member of more than
one cluster and thus can do better justice to the overlapping nature of
natural-​language categories.
• Social network analysis, which is used to great effect by Ellis et al. (2016) to
identify groups of verbs in constructions on the basis of exactly the kind
of distributional behavior that UBTL considers essential to language
acquisition and learning.
• Association rules (i.e., an exhaustive algorithm to identify predictive if-​
then statements within large amounts of categorical data of the type that
result from annotating corpus data for qualitative/​categorical variables).

Once we have more and better data, such statistical advances will permit
LCR practitioners to leave behind their monofactorial past and be of much
more relevance to SLA and UBTL theorists.

Discussion questions
1. Why is it so crucial to include multiword units/​phraseologisms (more)
in studies of learners’ communicative competence?
2. How can one operationalize corpus-linguistic notions such as product-
ivity, prototypicality, salience, or surprisal?
3. How can we use mixed-​effects modeling approaches for research on
individual variation?

Notes
1 While the introduction of CIA2 led to the terminological replacement of over-​/​
underuse by over-​ and under-​representations, this terminological change had no sub-
stantive theoretical implications.
2 The reported statistics are non-​replicable becauseTable 1 in that paper misrepresents
the size of one of the learner corpora by approximately a factor of 10.

Suggestions for further reading

Ellis, N. C., Römer, U., & O’Donnell, M. B. (2016). Usage-​based approaches to language
acquisition and processing: Cognitive and corpus investigations of construction grammar.
Language Learning Monograph Series. Wiley-​Blackwell.
Gries, S.Th., & Deshors, S. C. (2014). Using regressions to explore deviations between
corpus data and a standard/​target: two suggestions. Corpora 9(1), 109–​136.
Le Bruyn, B., & Paquot, M. (Eds.). (2021). Learner corpora and second language acquisition
research. Cambridge University Press.
129

Corpus-linguistic and computational methods 129

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Wulff, S., & Gries, S. Th. (2021). Explaining individual variation in learner corpus
research: Some methodological suggestions. In B. Le Bruyn & M. Paquot (Eds.),
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University Press.
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Part III

Applications
How do learners show communicative
competence?
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8 Interlanguage pragmatics as
communicative competence
Minh Thi Thuy Nguyen

Introduction
As an interdisciplinary field of inquiry that brings together two broader dis-
ciplines, second language acquisition (SLA) and pragmatics, interlanguage
pragmatics (ILP), or second language (L2) pragmatics has grown rapidly over
recent decades. L2 pragmatics studies how L2 learners interpret and nego-
tiate meaning in interaction, and how they develop the ability to do so
(Taguchi, 2017). That is pragmatic competence.
In early models of communicative competence (CC), pragmatic com-
petence was understood as comprising both grammatical (pragmalinguistic)
and sociocultural (sociopragmatic) knowledge that enables learners to
accurately map target language (TL) forms onto their social functions and
contexts of use (Bachman, 1990; Canale & Swain, 1980). Bardovi-​Harlig
(2013, p. 68) described this ability as knowledge of “how-​to-​say-​what-​to-​
whom-​when.” The early CC models emphasized that L2 learners need to
develop not only knowledge of the grammar of the TL but also the ability
to use this knowledge to understand and express meaning appropriately for
social purposes in the TL setting.
In recent research, the notion of pragmatic competence has been
expanded beyond the traditional CC models to draw on other related
frameworks and models such as interactional competence and intercultural
pragmatics. Unlike the CC models that treat pragmatic competence as a
“trait within individual learners” (Taguchi, 2011, p. 304), interactional com-
petence is viewed not as the ability of an individual to employ linguistic
resources in interaction, but the process of joint meaning-​making by all
participants (Young, 2019). From this perspective, the knowledge of “how-​
to-​say-​what-​to-​whom-​when” (Bardovi-​Harlig, 2013, p. 68) is not treated as
stable or predetermined, but co-​constructed and negotiated by participants
in the course of interaction.
Intercultural pragmatics studies how speakers of different languages and
cultures interact with each other using a lingua franca (Kecskes, 2014). In this
setting, diverse communicative styles and norms of interaction are present
and may at times clash. Consequently, participants constantly need to draw
on a variety of linguistic and interactional resources to negotiate pragmatic

DOI: 10.4324/9781003160779-11
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136 Minh Thi Thuy Nguyen

variation and co-​create common ground (Kecskes, 2014). Pragmatic compe-
tence is hence extended beyond knowledge of L2 norms to include a much
broader set of skills and strategies that support learners in navigating multiple
pragmatic norms and discursive practices. The shift toward an intercultural
orientation in L2 pragmatics is timely, given L2 learners’ multiple communi-
cative needs in today’s globalized world.
This chapter traces the history of the field of L2 pragmatics from the early
days to more recent developments. The chapter addresses topics of current
interest in L2 pragmatics such as learner development related to tasks and
interactional competence, intercultural pragmatics, and individual variation
and development during study abroad (SA). In doing so, the chapter draws
on examples from different TLs, learner populations, and learning contexts.
Finally, recommendations for practice highlight research on pragmatic
instruction and its implication for CC.

Historical context
ILP entered the field of L2 studies in the 1970s with the advent of the com-
municative approach to language teaching that highlighted the importance
of acquiring not only language forms but also their functional and social
meanings (Hymes, 1972). The aim of ILP was to investigate the develop-
ment and use of pragmatics by L2 learners. Despite this dual focus, early ILP
research was dominated by the study of use (rather than the development of
the L2 pragmatic system).
The major linguistics theories that influenced ILP research during this
early period included speech act theory (Austin, 1962; Searle, 1968), polite-
ness theory (Brown & Levinson, 1978, 1987), and Grice’s Cooperative
Principle (Grice, 1975). Speech acts are utterances that carry communi-
cative functions such as requesting, inviting, complaining, and so on. The
ways individuals carry out speech acts may vary depending on their cul-
tural background, gender, age, occupation, social class, individual identity,
and the context in which they communicate. An important aspect of speech
act performance is politeness. In linguistics, politeness refers to choices we
make in language use to display respect toward or consideration for other
people (Brown & Levinson, 1978, 1987). When communicating, speakers
make these choices based on how they perceive their relationship with other
participants and the context of the situation, as well as their interpersonal
knowledge of the other participants. Another important aspect of pragmatic
language use is the ability to understand implied meaning, or implicature.
According to the Cooperative Principle, participants in conversations expect
each other to observe certain conversational maxims, for example, what they
say must be as truthful, informative, relevant, and clear as it can be. A par-
ticipant who does not follow these rules might have good reasons not to
(e.g., face-​saving), and other participants are invited to look for a meaning
that is different from, or in addition to, the expressed meaning. They do
so by drawing on shared understanding of conversational conventions (e.g.,
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Interlanguage pragmatics as communicative competence 137

giving an ambiguous response might signal rejection of the request) and
context of communication (e.g., the physical setting, participants, topic, and
broader socio-​cultural context). It is assumed that these pragmatic behaviors,
too, vary across languages and cultures. For L2 learners, the ability to infer
indirect meaning requires more than the understanding of what is considered
cooperative behavior so that learners can recognize when it is that they are
prompted to search for the unstated meaning. Learners must also understand
L2 cultural knowledge to accurately derive the non-​literal meaning intended
by the speaker.
The research agenda in ILP during the early years was mainly informed
by cross-​ cultural pragmatics that aimed to analyze the above pragmatic
behaviors across cultures (e.g., the Cross-​Cultural Speech Act Realization
Project [CCSARP] by Blum-​Kulka & Olshtain, 1984, the seminal works
of House & Kasper, 1981 and Blum-​Kulka et al., 1989). For example, a
bulk of ILP studies set out to compare nonnative and native speakers’ (NSs’)
use of linguistic expressions and politeness strategies to perform speech acts
in various social contexts (e.g., contexts involving equal status and familiar
speakers versus unequal status, unfamiliar speakers; see the edited volume by
Kasper & Blum-​Kulka, 1993). A less researched area was L2 learners’ com-
prehension of implicatures (e.g., the seminal work of Bouton, 1988). It was
found that learners might not always recognize their interlocutor’s commu-
nicative intent, particularly if indirectly conveyed, might be more direct or
indirect when performing a speech act, or might use fewer politeness forms
than NSs. Learners’ pragmatic use of language was explained in terms of the
influence of their first language and culture and associated with their profi-
ciency levels.
The question of how L2 pragmatic competence is developed has
gained greater attention since the 1990s, especially during the past two
decades. Longitudinal studies conducted in various learning contexts (e.g.,
classrooms, SA sojourns) are useful in revealing pace and patterns of changes
in L2 learners’ understanding and use of a variety of pragmatic features
(e.g., speech acts, implicatures, speech styles, humor, modal expressions,
and politeness; Bardovi-​Harlig & Hartford, 1993; Bouton, 1994; Salsbury
& Bardovi-​Harlig, 2001; Shively, 2013; Taguchi, 2015a). In the area of prag-
matic comprehension (understanding of implied meaning), features that
require extensive inferencing (e.g., non-​conventional implicatures such as
indirect opinions) have been found to be acquired more slowly than those
that are supported by conventional linguistic cues or discourse features
(e.g., indirect refusals; Taguchi, 2017). In the area of pragmatic production
(i.e., the production of meaning such as speech acts and humor in social
contexts), learners have been found to progress from an initial stage where
they learn to map one form on one function to the stage where they can
map multiple forms on one function or one form on multiple functions
(Taguchi, 2017). Lexicalized modals that are used to soften oppositional
talk such as maybe and I think have been found to be acquired earlier than
grammaticalized modals such as could and would (Salsbury & Bardovi-​Harlig,
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138 Minh Thi Thuy Nguyen

2001). Findings generally highlight the role of grammatical knowledge in
pragmatic development.
Since the 1990s, ILP research has also increasingly focused on the role of
instruction in facilitating L2 pragmatic development. This line of research
was motivated by earlier studies demonstrating that pragmatic compe-
tence is developed slowly without instruction, particularly in foreign lan-
guage learning contexts in which learners generally have few opportunities
to hear or use the TL. The earliest instructional studies were largely peda-
gogically driven, aiming to determine whether the teaching of pragmatics
appeared to lead to learning (Rose, 2005). Later studies were more theor-
etically oriented, situating themselves more explicitly within SLA theories
such as the Noticing Hypothesis (Schmidt, 1993), Skill Acquisition Theory
(DeKeyser, 2020), and more recently task-​based language teaching (e.g.,
Gomez-​Laich & Taguchi, 2019; Taguchi & Kim, 2019). From these theoret-
ical perspectives, pragmatic competence is most effectively facilitated when
instruction provides opportunities for learners to notice the target forms
and their functions and contexts of use, as well as to use this knowledge for
meaningful communication.
With the multilingual (Ortega, 2013) and (inter)cultural turn (Byram
et al., 2002) in the broader fields of language teaching and research, the
notion of pragmatic competence and goal of pragmatic instruction have
been reconsidered lately. In traditional ILP research, L2 learners’ pragmatic
competence was assessed based on NS models and the goal of instruction
was seen in terms of approximation to NS competence. However, recent
scholarship has suggested that while learners may elect to emulate certain
norms of the NS community into which they are socialized, they may less
readily embrace the norms that clash with their system of cultural beliefs and
values (Ishihara, 2019). In this regard, the learning of pragmatics is different
from that of grammar and vocabulary, as variability does not always reflect
a lack of TL knowledge but may be related to the language user’s culture
or expression of cultural identity (Taguchi, 2011). In intercultural settings,
it is also implausible to assume that L2 speakers will necessarily defer to
NS pragmatic norms to communicate with other L2 speakers; nor is there
evidence that successful communication requires NS pragmatic compe-
tence (see, e.g., Taguchi & Ishihara, 2018). Intercultural pragmatics suggests
that communication is a dynamic process where meaning is emergent and
jointly constructed, and speakers do not rely on a fixed, predetermined
set of norms of interaction, but draw on multiple resources in accordance
with their actual communicative situations (Kecskes, 2014). In this perspec-
tive, pragmatic competence is seen as highly fluid and not limited to one
single pragmatics system, but rather involves the ability to accommodate to
co-​participants and negotiate pragmatic variation (Taguchi & Roever, 2017).
This understanding of pragmatic competence has raised questions about
the suitability of the traditional approach to teaching pragmatics. Although
awareness of NS pragmatic norms is arguably important, suggestions have
been made that instead of imposing these norms at the expense of learners’
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Interlanguage pragmatics as communicative competence 139

agency and identity, pragmatics teaching could aim to offer learners a range
of TL pragmatic options to act on and enable learners to evaluate critic-
ally their pragmatic language use and its interactional consequentiality in
different situations. This entails that learning could be assessed in terms of
learners’ ability to express their intended meanings and nuances (and com-
prehend those expressed by others) rather than approximating NS norms
(Ishihara, 2009). Finally, rather than presenting TL norms as absolute and
homogeneous, it is important to raise learners’ awareness that there can be a
range of interactional norms and styles that are negotiated by participants in
communication and to support learners in developing skills and strategies for
managing such complexity and fluidity.

Critical issues in current research

Interactional competence
In response to Kasper’s (2006) call for a shift towards a discursive approach to
pragmatics, there has been an increasing interest in the field to move beyond
the study of speech act use and focus instead on interactional competence
(e.g., Al-​Gahtani & Roever, 2018; Taguchi, 2015a). Conversation-​analytic
(CA) studies have contributed insights into L2 learners’ use of interactional
resources in various aspects of discourse and the impact of general pro-
ficiency on learners’ ability to co-​construct pragmatic meaning in inter-
action. For example, Taguchi (2015a) observed that over time L2 Japanese
study-​abroad students became more contextually sensitive and capable
of adjusting their speech styles moment-​to-​moment in order to express
different social meanings in situ. Al-​Gahtani and Roever (2018) found that
when producing dispreferred acts (i.e., acts that may pose threats of face-​loss
such as refusals), higher-​proficiency learners of L2 English were more likely
to orient to their recipients’ face-​wants and had more methods to delay
their production than did their lower-​proficiency peers.
Another emerging body of studies has examined interactional compe-
tence in relation to task-​based interaction (e.g., Gomez-​Laich & Taguchi,
2019;Youn, 2019). Gomez-​Laich and Taguchi (2019) demonstrated how L2
English learners employed interactional resources to co-​construct learning
opportunities while performing pragmatics tasks of different complexity
levels and how interaction patterns emerging from the tasks impacted their
learning outcomes. It was shown that cognitively demanding tasks appeared
to lead to longer negotiation sequences and repair work, hence greater level
of learning of the target features.Youn’s (2019) study shows that interactional
competence can be successfully assessed using role play tasks. In particular, the
role play appeared to elicit authentic interactional features of pragmatic per-
formance (e.g., pre-​sequence, adjacency pair, preference organization).These
features also appeared to vary across levels. For example, compared to lower
proficiency counterparts, higher proficiency learners were more likely to
project a pre-​sequence before launching a request. They also projected their
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140 Minh Thi Thuy Nguyen

actions in a more appropriate sequential order, displaying a higher degree
of sensitivity to situational variation than did their lower proficiency peers.

Pragmatics in intercultural communication

With globalism and transnationalism, intercultural communication nowadays
increasingly involves participants from diverse lingua-​cultural backgrounds.
Such “transcultural flows” have entailed an increasing hybridity of languages,
communities, and cultures (Canagarajah, 2006). Communication in such
a context requires skills and strategies to navigate multiple norms and
practices and co-​create common ground (Kecskes, 2014). Within the con-
text of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF), a growing body of L2 pragmatics
research has currently addressed how global English speakers of various L1
backgrounds negotiate meaning and co-​construct mutual understanding.
Taguchi and Yamaguchi (2021), for example, demonstrated that participants
not only oriented to mutual intelligibility but also actively engaged in
rapport-​ building. In particular, they employed various communication
strategies (e.g., the “smiley voice,” repair work, L1 resources) to pre-​empt
or overcome communication difficulties. They also displayed alignment
with each other by adapting to their interlocutor’s communicative styles
and demonstrating abilities to relate to other cultures. In Mugford’s (2021)
study, ELF speakers were found to co-​create a new way of expressing polite-
ness that was unique to their communicative situations. For example, they
combined pragmatic resources with supportive and cooperative practices,
which appeared to reflect their identity, agency, and investment with the
goal of building common ground. These studies have suggested that, in con-
trast to the traditional understanding of pragmatic competence as stable and
monolithic, pragmatic competence in ELF seems to be an emergent phe-
nomenon that is jointly constructed. In the ELF context, what is considered
pragmatically appropriate does not seem to be predetermined by some fixed
rules but rather is locally negotiated as participants co-​construct and nego-
tiate shared norms.
The observation that there is no single norm or standard but there are
multiple norms, assumptions, and values that influence communicative
behavior is also reported in studies of other TLs, such as L2 Japanese. For
example, Barke and Shimazu (2021) show that, in contrast to the static
notion of politeness taught in textbooks, the selection of politeness forms in
Japanese is influenced by a range of interactional and individual factors such
as preferred speech styles, speaker goals, roles, and stance. The above findings
offer important implications for teaching pragmatics for intercultural com-
munication. Increasingly, pragmatics scholars have recognized the importance
of moving beyond prescriptivism in teaching pragmatics in order to focus
on the development of learners’ reflexive understanding of how language
functions to create meaning in a range of interactional situations. From an
intercultural perspective, teaching pragmatics is not about presenting “rules
of thumb” for mapping form onto meaning. Rather, it is about recognizing
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Interlanguage pragmatics as communicative competence 141

the multiple perspectives, identities, and experiences that participants bring
to communication, and working toward developing learners’ metapragmatic
awareness and ability to negotiate diverse discursive practices to achieve their
communicative and interpersonal goals (McConachy & Liddicoat, 2021).

Pragmatic development during study abroad

As L2 pragmatics research has increasingly addressed developmental issues,
another area of growing interest to the field is pragmatic development during
SA (e.g., Cohen & Shively, 2007; Hassall, 2015; Taguchi, 2008). This line of
research examines the impact of the sojourn in the TL environment on the
development of pragmatic competence. Two important questions have been
asked: (1) to what extent does SA facilitate pragmatic development? and
(2) what features of studying abroad (e.g., length of stay, types of experience,
living situations, and learners’ characteristics, agency, and investment) con-
tribute to gains, if any, in L2 pragmatics (Taguchi, 2015b)?
Two generalizations emerge from current SA research on L2 pragmatics.
First, although the SA context is generally seen as a promising venue for lan-
guage learning, not all pragmatic aspects benefit equally from exposure to
the TL environment. For instance,Taguchi (2008) shows that while exposure
to abundant L2 practice in everyday communication can lead to more effi-
cient processing of implicatures, practice alone does not facilitate accuracy
of implicature comprehension, which may require instructional interven-
tion. Second, although length of residence and intensity of interaction were
found to be influential factors in some studies (e.g., Bardovi-​Harlig & Bastos,
2011; Félix-​Brasdefer, 2004), other studies show that not all learners who
stay abroad for the same length of time improve to the same extent. There
is great individual variation in the pattern and pace of learners’ pragmatic
development, depending on an array of factors, such as living situations
(e.g., Shively, 2011), unique pragmatics-​related experiences (e.g., Nguyen
& Ho, 2018), and learners’ identity and stances towards learning and the TL
community, which affect their engagement in learning. Hassall (2015), for
example, has shown that learners who are open to cross-​cultural experience
and display strong interest in the TL culture are more likely to seek out more
interaction opportunities, which facilitates their pragmatic socialization. In
contrast, learners who hold a negative attitude towards the L2 environment
may be discouraged from establishing social contact with members of the TL
community, which hinders their pragmatic development.
Although most SA research on L2 pragmatics to date has focused on
naturalistic pragmatic development, there has also been a growing interest
in instructed pragmatics in SA lately. Amongst the few pioneering studies
in this area, Cohen and Shively (2007) examined the impact of a strategy-​
based training program that consisted of learners receiving pragmatics
instruction prior to departure and using self-​access materials on language and
culture learning strategies to guide their interactions and reflections during
the sojourn. Although the study found more effect for SA experience than
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142 Minh Thi Thuy Nguyen

instruction on learners’ pragmatic development, it provided a useful model
for integrating instruction with SA to assist learners in developing pragmatic
awareness and self-​directed learning. In another study, Alcón-​Soler (2015)
examined the development of email requests by instructed and uninstructed
SA learners over 36 weeks. The study found an advantage for the instructed
group, who used knowledge gained through both instruction and exposure
to inform their pragmatic choices. Similar findings are also reported in other
studies, demonstrating the effectiveness of integrating instruction with SA
to facilitate pragmatic development (e.g., see Vidal & Shively, 2019 for a
review).

Main research methods

Data collection methods

Depending on research questions and constructs of investigation, researchers
use a variety of methods to examine learners’ pragmatic competence. Data
used to examine pragmatic production (e.g., speech acts) may range from
naturally occurring discourse, which is collected via field notes, face-​to-​
face or telephone conversations, or computer-​mediated communication, to
those deliberately elicited for research purposes such as discourse comple-
tion tests (DCTs; paper-​based or computerized), role plays (traditional and
game-​based/​virtual), and elicited conversations.
Naturalistic data such as institutional discourse (e.g., service encounter
interactions, academic advising sessions, teleconferencing) in which speaker
relationships are clearly defined and specific pragmatic features are expected
to occur (e.g., advice giving in a teacher-​student interaction) are desirable
and particularly useful (e.g., Bardovi-​Harlig & Hartford, 1993; Shively, 2011).
When authentic data are not available, elicited conversations in which the
researcher arranges learners into pairs or groups to discuss a topic or solve
a problem (e.g., peer-​ feedback conversations) can be used instead (e.g.,
Nguyen et al., 2012).
Role plays are simulations of social encounters and are useful for eliciting
the types of interaction that are less accessible in real-​life situations because
of the sensitivity of the data (e.g., conflict discourse; Archer et al., 2012).
In role plays, learners act out a situational scenario with an interlocutor or
other learners. Role plays can elicit spontaneous discourse in conversational
sequences, but they are pretenses without real-​world consequences, making
them different from naturalistic conversations. Recent studies have employed
technology to enhance the naturalness of role play data. For example, Sykes
(2013) used a collaborative, multiplayer online game to simulate real-​world
experiences to assist L2 Spanish learners in choosing appropriate strategies
for making apologies in several scenarios (e.g., forgetting to clean the house
or breaking a vase).
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Interlanguage pragmatics as communicative competence 143

DCTs typically elicit written responses to imagined situations, but they
can also be designed to elicit oral responses (e.g., Ghavamnia et al., 2018;
Schauer, 2008). Oral DCTs can be used to study non-​ interactive dis-
course. For example, in Ghavamnia et al. (2018) learners responded to a
hypothetical situation by making phone calls to leave voicemail messages.
Written DCT responses are suitable for investigating written genres (e.g.,
emails, text messages). Recently, researchers have explored the potential of
computer-​delivered DCTs in examining a broad range of pragmatic abilities.
For instance, Li (2013) used computer-​delivered DCTs to record learners’
response times in order to analyze their processing fluency. Although DCTs
are unsuitable for studying speech acts in interaction, they are useful in
revealing L2 learners’ explicit knowledge of TL speech act use.
Pragmatic comprehension (i.e., understanding of implied meaning
such as indirect opinions, sarcasm, humor) and perception (i.e., judgment
of the appropriateness of language use in context) are often elicited via
multiple-​choice questions (MCQs) and judgment tasks, while pragmatic
decision-​making is assessed via verbal reports (e.g., think aloud, retrospective
interviews). Computer-​delivered MCQs using audio or video recordings
of dialogues allow learners to draw on prosodic cues to interpret meaning
and enhance task authenticity (e.g., Bardovi-​Harlig, 2014). Judgment tasks
and verbal reports are often used alongside production data to examine how
learners’ pragmatic perceptions affect their performance and how they plan
and execute such performance (e.g., Ren, 2014). When used in longitudinal
studies, this combination can reveal changes in learners’ cognitive processes
and pragmatic knowledge over time (e.g., Ren, 2014).

Data analysis methods

There are two approaches to analyzing pragmatic production data. The first
approach, commonly found in traditional speech act studies (e.g., Félix-​
Brasdefer, 2004; Schauer, 2008), involves categorizing isolated utterances into
strategy types (e.g., acceptance of responsibility and offer of compensation
in making apologies) and counting the frequency of occurrence of each
strategy. This method of analysis allows the researcher to compare strategy
use across learner groups. An alternative approach, which involves fine-​
grained, sequential analyses of extended discourse, is increasingly employed
in recent studies (e.g., Al-​Gahtani & Roever, 2018; Taguchi, 2015a). This
approach, inspired by CA, takes a discursive approach to examining commu-
nicative acts in interaction, and allows for an analysis of how linguistic and
social actions are interactionally accomplished.
In terms of non-​production data, MCQs and rating scales are typically
analyzed quantitatively, using descriptive or inferential statistics (e.g., Li,
2012). In comparison, verbal reports are often analyzed thematically, using
either a priori or inductive data coding methods (e.g., Ren, 2014).
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144 Minh Thi Thuy Nguyen

Recommendations for practice

Instructional studies on L2 pragmatics aim to determine to what extent
instruction works and what methods may be the most effective. Regarding
the effectiveness of instruction, findings from existing studies indicate that
although pragmatics is generally teachable, some pragmatic features seem
more amenable to instruction than others. Based on her review of 31 studies,
Taguchi (2015b) suggests that the teachability of a pragmatic feature may
depend on its linguistic properties and opaqueness. For example, in Bouton’s
(1994) study, instructed learners demonstrated considerable improvement
in understanding formulaic implicatures in English (i.e., those with clear
structural formulas, such as responding to the question “Did you finish your
homework?” with “Is the Pope Catholic?”) but no progress in understanding
idiosyncratic implicatures (i.e., those in which meaning is not attached
to a single linguistic expression). In Liddicoat and Crozet’s (2001) study,
instructed L2 French learners demonstrated greater gains in using content
features of small talk (e.g., strategies such as dramatizing what one has done)
than in using forms of small talk (e.g., features used to show engagement
such as overlap and feedback). It was explained that content features are
more noticeable and hence more learnable, whereas features such as overlap
are micro-​level conversation mechanisms that require high levels of profi-
ciency to notice and use. Taguchi (2015b) recommends that while concrete
pragmatic rules might benefit from classroom instruction, opaque rules may
require extensive exposure in natural settings to be internalized.
Concerning the question of what methods work best, several studies have
compared explicit and implicit teaching (Nguyen et al., 2012; Takimoto,
2006). Many of these studies draw directly on Schmidt’s (1993) Noticing
Hypothesis, which underscores the role of attention in L2 learning.
According to DeKeyser (2003), explicit instruction involves rule formulation
while implicit instruction does not. That is, while explicit instruction works
to develop learners’ awareness of rules, implicit instruction is directed at
enabling learners to infer rules without awareness. In L2 pragmatics, explicit
instruction may comprise a wide range of classroom techniques which serve
to direct learners’ attention to form-​function-​context relationships such as
teacher-​fronted explanation, awareness-​raising (involving learners working
on samples of pragmatic input to deduce rules), and overt feedback on prag-
matic use of language (e.g., metapragmatic comments, explicit indication
of pragmatic lapses). Implicit instruction may range from simple exposure
to input (e.g., input flooding, where the frequency of the target feature has
been artificially increased) to techniques in which input is manipulated in
a way that causes attention to form to take place incidentally (e.g., textual
input enhancement) to covert feedback (e.g., clarification requests, recasts).
Overall, findings of these studies have suggested that some techniques are
more effective than others in developing L2 pragmatic knowledge. For
example, Taguchi’s (2015b) review shows that provision of metapragmatic
information combined with production practice is generally helpful, while
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Interlanguage pragmatics as communicative competence 145

simple provision of input, even when the input is modified to enhance its
noticeability, may not be as effective. Also, pragmatic awareness is enhanced
when learners are pushed to process the received input in some way (e.g.,
by comparing and analyzing the target feature in various contexts to deduce
rules [i.e., awareness-​raising] or by responding to a task for which learners
must process and understand pragmatic form-​function connections [i.e.,
input processing]).
Recent L2 pragmatics research is also increasingly concerned with the
question of how much practice is needed to facilitate pragmatic performance
(e.g., Li, 2013; Takimoto, 2012). Within the framework of Skill Acquisition
Theory, pragmatic development can be viewed as involving a transition from
the stage of declarative knowledge (knowledge that) to procedural know-
ledge (knowledge how) with increasing automatization. In this process, prac-
tice is the driving force in fostering both accuracy (appropriate choice and
accurate use of linguistic resources for expressing pragmatic meanings) and
fluency (automaticity) of pragmatic performance (Li, 2012). A generaliza-
tion emerging from the above body of research is that fluency development
may require a much greater amount of practice than accuracy development.
For example, in Li’s (2012) study, L2 Chinese learners required twice as
much practice in order to develop fluency in pragmatic performance than
to develop knowledge of the target pragmatic feature. Another generaliza-
tion is that although accuracy can be transferred across skill domains, fluency
cannot. In Li and Taguchi’s (2014) study, while input-​based practice (i.e.,
practice involving the judgment of the appropriateness of the target form)
led learners to gain better accuracy scores in both judgment and produc-
tion tasks, it led to better fluency performance only in the judgment task.
Similarly, output-​based practice (i.e., practice involving production of the
target feature) improved the learners’ accuracy scores in both judgment and
production tasks but led to better fluency scores only in the production task.
These findings led Li and Taguchi to conclude that fluency development
may require skills-​specific practice (e.g., comprehension fluency requires
practice in this skill and not practice in production skill); however, accuracy
may benefit from practice across different skill domains (e.g., comprehension
practice can lead to more accurate comprehension as well as more accurate
production). Finally, existing studies also suggest that repeated practice of the
target feature using the same task type may contribute to enhancing prag-
matic performance. For example, Takimoto (2012) examined the effect of
task-​repetition on acquiring L2 English request downgraders and found that
learners who repeated the same task type demonstrated greater improve-
ment in their use of the target features than those who repeated similar task
types. From the perspective of Skill Acquisition Theory, repeated practice
using the same task helps increase learners’ familiarity with the content, thus
reducing attentional demands on meaning and allowing more efficient con-
trol over processing (Gass et al., 1999).
In sum, instructional research in L2 pragmatics seems to attest to the
effectiveness of instruction in enhancing L2 learners’ pragmatic knowledge
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146 Minh Thi Thuy Nguyen

and developing automaticity in pragmatic use of language. Although further
research is needed to better understand how instruction works for different
aspects of pragmatic development and learner populations, at this point it
seems plausible to recommend that effective instruction should not merely
provide pragmatic input, but rather offer opportunities for learners to notice
the input and engage in substantial practice in different skill domains.

Future directions
Over the past three decades, L2 pragmatics has rapidly developed into a
prolific, interdisciplinary domain of inquiry. As pragmatics is increasingly
recognized as an important component of language teaching and learning,
we can expect further development of the field in the future. For example,
because L2 pragmatics is increasingly concerned with how learners use prag-
matic knowledge in real-​life interaction, we can expect more studies focusing
on analysis of “pragmatic competence as interactional competence and as the
ability to perform social actions in their natural setting” (González-​Lloret,
2013, p. 3). Recent research has begun to examine L2 interactional compe-
tence and development (e.g., turn-​taking, sequential organization, listener
responses, stance-​taking, and alignment practices; see Félix-​Brasdefer, 2019
for a review).We can expect more such studies, especially those with longitu-
dinal designs to track changes in the methods that learners at different stages
of development employ to jointly construct meaning (Félix-​Brasdefer, 2019).
Conventionally, pragmatic instruction has been based on the teaching of
pragmatic acts in isolation.This approach has been underpinned by the trad-
itional view of pragmatic competence as a monolithic trait within individual
learners (Taguchi, 2017). However, in line with the shifting view towards an
interactional and intercultural understanding of pragmatic competence, we
can expect future studies to continue to address how this perspective can
be applied to teaching and assessing pragmatics. For example, how should
instruction be designed to effectively teach pragmatic acts in conversational
sequences (e.g., Huth & Taleghani-​Nikazm, 2006)? How should pragmatic
competence in interaction be assessed validly (e.g.,Youn, 2019)?
Further, one tendency found in the literature is that most instructional
pragmatics studies are interested in comparing explicit and implicit methods
of teaching L2 pragmatic knowledge while less is known about the effi-
cacy of other teaching approaches. In order to inform classroom practices,
other teaching options (e.g., task-​based teaching: see Taguchi & Kim, 2019;
technology-​enhanced instruction: see Taguchi & Sykes, 2013) should be
explored in a greater number of future studies. Pragmatics pedagogy may also
benefit from investigation into less researched questions such as how instruc-
tion works for different pragmatic features and learner populations (e.g.,
beginners versus advanced learners; young versus adult learners). Currently,
the scope of inquiry in L2 pragmatics is expanding to investigate not only
how instruction facilitates the acquisition of pragmatic knowledge but also
the automatic use of this knowledge in real time (e.g., Li, 2012; Li & Taguchi,
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Interlanguage pragmatics as communicative competence 147

2014). Given the importance of the topic and the limited research to date,
investigation into the role of instruction in fluency development is likely to
be continued in the future (Taguchi, 2015b).
In the area of SA, a topic that research is likely to continue to address
in the coming years is the relationship among learners’ characteristics
(e.g., motivation, attitude, identity, agency), individual language learning
experiences, and pragmatic development in the SA context. Such inves-
tigation would benefit from collecting ethnographic data and providing
rich analysis of context and individual-​level documentation of learning
(Kinginger, 2008). Also, research has explored the impact of pragmatic
instruction and strategy training on SA learners’ pragmatic development
(e.g., Cohen & Shively, 2007; Shively, 2011). Given the growing research
attention on this topic, we expect future studies to continue to validate the
benefits of such training in order to better inform pragmatics pedagogy.

Discussion questions
1. Discuss the role of pragmatics in language teaching. Does the language
teacher need to know about pragmatics? How about the learner? Give
reasons and examples to support your answer.
2. Discuss the goal of pragmatics instruction in the context of globalization
and multilingualism. What are the implications for teachers in terms of
the selection of instructional materials, designing of learning activities,
and assessment practices? Explain your answers with concrete examples.
3. What kinds of knowledge, skills, and strategies are necessary for L2
speakers to participate in intercultural communication? Create an
instructional activity to raise learners’ awareness of diverse forms and
functions of English in intercultural contexts.

Suggestions for further reading

Culpeper, J., Mackey, A., & Taguchi, N. (2018). Second language pragmatics: From theory
to research. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315692388
Taguchi, N. (Ed.). (2019). The Routledge handbook of second language pragmatics.
Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781351164085
Taguchi, N., & Roever, C. (2017). Second language pragmatics. Oxford University Press.

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152

9 Applying a communicative
competence framework to the
study and teaching of second
language writing
Charlene Polio and D. Philip Montgomery

Research on multilingual writers and writing in additional languages

(henceforth L2 writing) has surged in the past 20 years with emphases in a
range of areas from the production of specific genres to written corrective
feedback. Although L2 writing is discussed and researched from various
perspectives, communicative competence (CC) as a construct is rarely invoked
in L2 writing scholarship. As examples, in Tardy’s (2019) book on genre for
teachers, the term is never used, even though the author discusses various
components of CC. In Manchón and Polio’s (2022) Routledge Handbook of
Second Language Acquisition and Writing, CC is mentioned once in the con-
text of multimodal writing (Lim & Kessler, 2022) and once in the context of
assessment (Plakans & Ohta, 2022). If the field of L2 writing is progressing
well without considering CC as (1) a goal for learners; (2) an organizing
principle for teachers, curriculum developers, and assessors; or (3) a frame-
work for researchers, we need to first consider why the field of L2 writing
should include an explicit discussion of CC.
The fact that CC is not widely used as a framework in L2 writing
research and teacher education does not mean that its components are
ignored in the field. In fact, linguistic, strategic, discourse, and sociolin-
guistic competences correspond to established lines of L2 writing inquiry
and instruction. For example, linguistic competence is related to the study of
syntactic and lexical complexity, accuracy, and fluency—​or CALF—​measures
of written texts, as well as to research on corrective feedback. Discourse
competence is central in the domain of genre studies, which according to
Swales (1990), among others, seeks to account for the moves and steps that
characterize particular types of texts. Scholars including Swales (1990) and
Tardy (2019) have outlined concrete ways in which language learners and
their teachers can leverage their knowledge of a text’s rhetorical and formal
conventions to meet their readers’ expectations. Sociolinguistic competence
relates most closely to the concept of register, an area of L2 writing research
that interrogates the ways writers vary their language based on situational
characteristics external to them (e.g., Gray & Egbert, 2019). Finally, strategic
competence, understood as “higher-​order metacognitive strategies that pro-
vide a management function in language use, as well as in other cognitive
DOI: 10.4324/9781003160779-12
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Applying a communicative competence framework 153

activities” (Bachman & Palmer, 2010, p. 48), includes, for example, the
ability to plan and revise one’s written communication. A process approach
to writing generally includes making students aware of their writing pro-
cess and helping them understand, evaluate, and refine it (e.g., Susser, 1994).
In addition, strategy use and instruction in L2 writing has received some
attention in recent years (see Manchón, 2018 for an overview of strategy
research strands).
Our goal in this chapter is to discuss how the CC framework relates to
current issues in teaching writing. From a teacher education perspective,
we propose that including writing in discussions of CC will help prepare
teachers to teach writing. If preservice teachers understand that writing can
be viewed according to components of CC, which is likely covered in most
introductory methods courses, they may be more likely to balance the various
competencies necessary for successful writing. We begin by discussing the
lack of attention to CC as a goal in L2 writing instruction. This is followed
by a discussion of three critical issues in L2 writing that can be better under-
stood through the CC lens. We end with a discussion of research methods,
implications for teaching, and suggestions for future research.

Historical perspective
CC has a long history in the field of language teaching but, for various
reasons, oral communication has been the primary focus. Savignon (2017)
in her overview of CC said, “Communicative principles apply equally to
reading and writing activities that involve readers and writers in the interpret-
ation, expression, and negotiation of meaning; the goals of learning depend
on learner needs in a given context” (p. 5), but her examples, including those
from role play and classroom interactions, are exclusively oral. Canale and
Swain’s (1980) early treatise on CC makes very little reference to writing.
They discuss Chomsky’s (1965) views of competence (i.e., the basis for the
term CC), which referred exclusively to oral language. Canale and Swain’s
examples are framed as speech acts (e.g., apologizing) and speech events (e.g.,
interviews), which of course can be written, but no written examples are
given. The only time writing is mentioned is in their discussion of Hymes’s
(1967) characterization of a speech event: modality (oral or written) and
genre (poem or form letter) are noted as components. In addition, Savignon
(2017) and Canale and Swain (1980) draw heavily on Savignon’s (1972)
experimental classroom study, which, based on her description of the inter-
vention, focused only on oral instruction and included only oral and reading
assessments. The lack of attention to writing seems, however, to be an over-
sight or a sign of the times (i.e., as a reaction to the audiolingual approach)
and not a deliberate disregard for written communication.
Meanwhile, research focusing on L2 writing, as opposed to general L2
instruction, has a complex history. At one point, it was believed that English
as a second language (i.e., ESL) linguistic problems were separate from other
writing issues and would disappear after remedial language instruction
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154 Charlene Polio and D. Philip Montgomery

(Matsuda, 1999), thus suggesting a focus only on linguistic competence in
L2 writing and a focus on other issues, perhaps discourse competence, in first
language (L1) writing. Matsuda refers to this bifurcation as “a disciplinary
division of labor” (p. 699). Kaplan’s (1966) work on contrastive rhetoric,
however problematic, forced attention to discourse competence (i.e., how
a text is organized). The introduction of the process approach, in its various
forms, required a focus on strategic competence (i.e., how one goes about
composing and revising a text). We know of no early efforts, however, to
bring together these various components of writing (but see Tardy, 2009 for
a later effort).
Current research in L2 writing encompasses elements of both compos-
ition studies and second language acquisition; however, in the past ten years,
only 12 articles in the Journal of Second Language Writing mentioned the term
communicative competence, and five of those articles did so in the context of
multimodal CC without discussing or defining the term. Among the 12
articles, only Gentil (2011) discusses the concept in any detail. Referring to
Matsuda’s (1999) characterization of the field, Gentil says, “One unintended
consequence of the disciplinary division of labour is that the theorization of
genre and genre knowledge in composition studies has developed relatively
independently from the theorization of language, language proficiency, and
communicative competence in second language studies” (2011, p. 6, emphasis
added).
Gentil’s purpose was to reflect on the relationship between L1 and L2
genre knowledge, and he asked,“How does genre knowledge intersect with
writing expertise and language knowledge?” (2011, p. 7). In an attempt to
untangle the theoretical framings of genre, Gentil traced the connections
between Tardy’s (2009) model of genre knowledge—​ which considers
formal knowledge, rhetorical knowledge, process knowledge, and subject
matter knowledge—​and different models of CC including that of Douglas
(2000). Gentil’s discussion of the relationship between the components
of genre knowledge in a writer’s L1 and L2 is thought-​provoking and
important in understanding writers as multicompetent users of more than
one language (see discussion in Ortega & Carson, 2010) but beyond the
scope of this chapter. The more relevant issue is whether or not genre
knowledge fits into current models of CC. Gentil stated:

If genres are socially recognized patterned ways of making meaning by

means of a language system, then ultimately genre competence can be
viewed as the ability to recognize and draw on these regularities by stra-
tegically harnessing linguistic, cognitive, and cultural resources. Bakhtin
(1986) argues that speech communication would be almost impossible
if we did not cast our speech in generic forms and did not recognize the
genre of another’s speech from the very first words (p. 79). Genre com-
petence must therefore be as central to communicative competence as
lexicogrammatical competence.
(Gentil, 2011, p. 15)
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Applying a communicative competence framework 155

We acknowledge Gentil’s (2011) position here as he is one of the few L2
writing scholars who explicitly discusses CC, but for the purposes of this
chapter, we will discuss genre competence within the current CC frame-
work rather than as a separate component. As an example, if a student wants
to write an email (a textual genre) to a professor about making up a missed
quiz (a social action), the student would have to draw on linguistic com-
petence (grammar and punctuation), sociolinguistic competence (such as
politeness conventions), discourse competence (what information to include
in the email), and strategic competence (consulting the syllabus or university
policy first). Nevertheless, Gentil’s commentary highlights the difficulty in
neatly applying a CC framework to L2 writing.

Critical issues
Although most research and pedagogical issues in L2 writing are related to
some aspect of CC, we address three issues related to teaching and research
that might be better understood by applying a CC framework. The first,
using CC to help find a language and genre balance is, in our opinion, the
most pressing. Next, we discuss how strategic competence might be more
fully addressed in L2 writing pedagogy and research by discussing the ways it
overlaps with other concerns related to genre and assessment. We end with a
discussion of writing assessment and why thinking about assessment in terms
of CC is useful to the field of L2 writing.

Balancing language and genre

Balancing an instructional focus on language and other genre-​related aspects
of writing such as rhetorical organization has been raised in two recent
discussions in the Journal of Second Language Writing. Polio (2019) noted that
many studies conducted over a variety of instructional periods in a var-
iety of contexts showed no evidence of writers’ improvement on a variety
of linguistic measures including grammatical accuracy (e.g., Godfrey et al.,
2014; Knoch et al., 2014, 2015; Roquet & Pérez-​Vidal, 2017; Serrano, 2011;
Storch, 2009; Yoon & Polio, 2017) and collocational appropriacy (Yoon,
2016). Genre-​based approaches, including a Swalesian (e.g., Swales, 1990)
move/​step approach, have always included a focus on language, as noted by
Cheng (2019, p. 1): “Identifying the moves in a target genre is inseparable
from the analysis of the linguistic, or lexico-​grammatical, features that per-
form the move in question because any move, though defined functionally, is
realized linguistically.” Nevertheless, it is easy to see how an instructor could
focus on, for example, the need to include research limitations in a paper
without teaching the appropriate language to do so. As another example,
verb tense use in literature reviews is not straightforward and requires an
analysis of how published authors use and shift tenses. Other genre-​based
approaches, including the Sydney School, also necessarily include a language
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156 Charlene Polio and D. Philip Montgomery

focus by drawing on systemic functional linguistics (see Hyon, 1996, for a
summary of this approach).
In a related discussion of multimodal writing, Belcher (2017) cogently
argued that the field of L2 writing needs to include a focus on non-
linguistic resources available to writers such as those used in multimodal
tasks. She said:

[W]‌riting pedagogy should be viewed as facilitating composing, that

is, creating and communicating meaning, with the added benefit of a
large semiotic toolkit, taking advantage of the full panoply of color and
sound, still and moving images available. This opening up to a variety
of semiotic resources does not mean that the construct of writing is
disappearing, so much as it is being enlarged by the expressive potential
of additional communicative means.
(Belcher, 2017, p. 81)

In one response to Belcher, Manchón (2017) expressed caution that multi-

modal tasks might reduce the facilitative effects of writing on language
learning and thus that we need to first explore multimodal composition as
a venue for language learning. Qu’s (2017, p. 93) response was more direct,
saying, “Shifting the focus of L2 writing to skills other than the linguistic
one is not merely depriving students of opportunities to enlarge repertoires
of skills but enervating their fundamental ability to survive in the academic
contexts.” So again, concerns are raised about focusing on aspects of the
genre or tasks with less focus on language.
Recasting this discussion of balance within a CC framework might
strengthen or clarify the matter. If we consider the task of academic
writing, we have to bring in the components of CC. Teaching and learning
collocations, for example, requires attention to linguistic competence.
Yoon (2016) found that learners were able to approach native speaker use
of collocations in narratives but not in argumentative writing. Thus, these
learners may not have been able to distinguish appropriate language use
across registers or genres (i.e., sociolinguistic competence; see also Geeslin
& Hanson, Chapter 3, this volume). Furthermore, students cannot be taught
every collocation, but instructors can make students aware of overused verbs
and teach (more advanced) students how to check collocations using a corpus,
thus increasing their repertoire of strategies (i.e., strategic competence).
With regard to multimodal writing, it seems that a focus on the non-
linguistic semiotic resources (e.g., pictures, color, sound) could shift attention
away from linguistic competence. While these resources are important in
communicating in a multimodal context, understanding the role of lin-
guistic competence might help instructors maintain a focus on language
that Manchón (2017) and Qu (2017) are concerned about being minimized
or lost. Consider the example of a PowerPoint presentation. With regard
to linguistic competence, students need a level of lexical competence that
is appropriate to their field, much like they need in composing a written
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Applying a communicative competence framework 157

manuscript. At the same time, they need to distinguish between writing in
full sentences versus bullet points, highlighting awareness that the given con-
text determines what language is appropriate (i.e., sociolinguistic compe-
tence). Any multimodal task used in a language class will (or should) require
the use of language, and instruction with a goal of CC may facilitate a lan-
guage focus. If we use the CC framework to help maintain a language and
genre balance, we need to consider where nonlinguistic resources used in
multimodal genres fit into the framework. A discussion about whether or
not we need a new component called nonlinguistic semiotic resources competence
is not really productive, but considering how such resources are part of dis-
course competence is appropriate. For example, how can one best use visuals
to convey meaning in a PowerPoint presentation? What is an appropriate
ratio of pictures to words on a slide?
In contrast, some practitioners do not teach about genre and limit instruc-
tion to the five-​paragraph essay (5PE), in part because they feel that language
should be the primary focus at some levels. A variety of arguments exist for
abandoning the traditional essay format of an introduction with a thesis
statement, body paragraphs with topic sentences, and conclusion, not the
least of which is that the 5PE does not exist outside of the classroom (see
Caplan & Johns, 2019, for a comprehensive discussion). If we apply the CC
framework to the 5PE, we highlight some of the problems with the format
showing that genre and language in context are essential components of L2
writing instruction.
First, if we apply a CC framework to the 5PE, we need to consider its
communicative purpose, which is generally limited to classroom instruction
or writing test preparation.We can refer to linguistic competence in terms of
grammatical features like subject-​verb agreement and accurate punctuation.
Discourse competence could refer to the rigid structure of the 5PE with the
hopes that writers will learn to analyze the structure of real-​life genres.With
regard to strategic competence, there is no doubt that we can and should
teach students strategies for timed writing if they need to complete timed
writing gatekeeping tests. But strategies for writing outside the classroom
are completely different and involve, for example, collecting information,
consulting sources, and getting feedback. Teaching sociolinguistic com-
petence is difficult when the sociolinguistic context is limited to meeting
evaluators’ expectations. Instead, if teachers can include real-​life genres, they
might be able to balance the various components of writing. As an example,
in a lower-​level language course, students could write an online restaurant
review. As a first step, they could review previous posts as a strategy for
deciding what to include and what style or register to use.The teacher could
focus on common vocabulary and grammatical structures (such as sentence
fragments) to ensure that students had the linguistic resources to communi-
cate. By comparing amateur reviews to reviews written by restaurant critics,
the students would become aware of language differences across contexts. An
analysis of the organization and content of the reviews necessarily includes
a focus on discourse structure. This example of applying the CC framework
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158 Charlene Polio and D. Philip Montgomery

to a genre-​based assignment may help to highlight the advantages of such a
writing task over the 5PE.

Strategic competence
Historically, definitions of strategic competence referred to the use of either
communication strategies (e.g., circumlocution, stalling, self-​ monitoring,
appeals for help/​clarification; Celce-​Murcia et al., 1995) or metacognitive
strategies (e.g., goal setting, appraising, planning; Bachman & Palmer, 1996).
More recent definitions have broadened to refer to “an available inventory
of communicative, cognitive, and metacognitive strategies that allow a skilled
interlocutor to negotiate meanings, resolve ambiguities, and to compensate
for deficiencies in any of the other competencies” (Celce-​Murcia, 2008,
p. 44). In essence, strategic competence includes “higher-​order metacognitive
strategies that provide a management function in language use” (Bachman
& Palmer, 2010, p. 48) that can apply both to spoken and written commu-
nication. Although strategic competence is not always explicitly mentioned
in L2 writing research, there is a wide range of research that investigates
the processes and strategies related to writing, including planning, drafting,
revising, and dealing with instructor feedback (Michel et al., 2022), many of
which address these overlapping concerns.
Within L2 writing strategy research, there are two major strands of
research, one that investigates strategy use and the other strategy instruc-
tion (Manchón, 2018). Within the first strand, several prominent execu-
tive cognitive processes in L2 writing have been identified—​macro and
micro planning, organization, monitoring, translation, and revising—​each of
which contributes to successful writing (Shaw & Weir, 2007) and language
learning (Michel et al., 2022). For example, a number of studies investigating
these processes from a task-​based perspective have found that manipulating
variables like planning time can have a significant impact on writers’ attention
to language aspects of the task (Roca de Larios et al., 2016). Borrowing
from the field of educational psychology, a number of studies have used self-​
regulation theory to examine how (typically) college students learn to write
(e.g., MacArthur et al., 2015). For example, Sasaki et al. (2018) investigated
student use of global planning (i.e., big-​picture planning often done before
writing), local planning (i.e., on-​the-​spot planning of what to write next),
and L1-​to-​L2 translation. The authors conducted a mixed methods longi-
tudinal study spanning a 3.5-​year period involving 37 Japanese university
students in a British and American Studies program in an attempt to trace
the impact of self-​regulation strategies. In addition to revealing that L1-​
to-​L2 translation was associated with students with higher proficiency (not
lower, as earlier studies had shown, see Leki et al., 2008), this study found
that explicitly teaching global planning strategies was particularly effective
in boosting student motivation in the long term. In fact, it was second only
to the effect of study abroad experiences on improving students’ motivation
and proficiency in L2 writing.
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Applying a communicative competence framework 159

Studies like Sasaki et al. (2018) and others that discuss metacognitive
strategies for developing multilingual genre knowledge (e.g., Negretti &
McGrath, 2018, discussed below) form a bridge to the second strand of
research on the impact of strategy instruction. In the field of rhetoric and
composition, writing has long been understood as a process of discovery
in which teaching planning and revision strategies is more important than
form and accuracy (Zamel, 1982). More recently, interest in learner strategy
instruction has led to a growing literature on the effects of teaching writing
and revision strategies, much of which uses strategic competence as a theor-
etical justification for explicitly teaching learning strategies.Through a meta-​
analysis of 61 studies related to learning strategies, Plonsky (2011) found
that teaching writing strategies had a small to moderate effect on learning
outcomes (d =​0.42). Several studies have suggested that teaching learners
self-​
revision strategies can lead to students making more self-​ initiated
revisions that yield improved writing on subsequent drafts, even to the point
of matching or surpassing the improvements gained from teacher-​only feed-
back (e.g., Coomber, 2016).
In De Silva (2015), 72 Sri Lankan undergraduate students were randomly
split into experimental and control groups. The experimental group was
given strategy instruction (e.g., planning, self-​monitoring, using sample texts,
reflecting, and revising) throughout one semester of an English for Academic
Purposes course, while the control group received the typical course instruc-
tion with no mention of writing strategies. De Silva used think-​aloud protocols
and pre-​and post-​tests to determine that students in the experimental group
both used strategies more frequently than students in the control group and
showed greater improvement in their writing scores, particularly in the cat-
egories of cohesion and organization. Additionally, the greatest gains were
enjoyed by the higher proficiency students; De Silva found that lower pro-
ficiency students may need more scaffolding and support to make use of
strategy instruction. Despite the ongoing debate about the definition—​and, as
we discuss next, the measurement and assessment—​of strategic competence,
the studies reviewed in this section make a strong case that it is beneficial to
explicitly teach planning and revision strategies to L2 writers.

Assessment
The CC framework has strong ties to assessment, as Bachman and Palmer’s
(2010) model was developed in part to meet assessment concerns (Schauer,
2021), with an eye to improving construct validity (see Harding et al.,
Chapter 11, this volume). The widely implemented Common European
Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) proficiency scale also has
at its foundation a CC framework, a fact that highlights its utility in com-
prehensively describing and assessing the types of skills and knowledge
needed to communicate in an L2 (Harsch & Malone, 2021). In addition,
recent trends in the realm of L2 writing assessment include the acknow-
ledgement of (1) the various purposes assessment can serve, from formative
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160 Charlene Polio and D. Philip Montgomery

assessment for learning to summative assessment of learning (Leki et al.,
2008), and (2) the relative emphasis placed on the measurement of dis-
crete linguistic features—​including CALF measures—​and the acknow-
ledgment of the recursive, multifaceted sociolinguistic nature of writers
as context-​dependent meaning makers (Yoon & Burton, 2021). However,
one central challenge to the research and application of CC has been the
difficulty of measuring key parts of it, on the part of both teachers and
researchers (Yoon & Burton, 2021). In this section, we highlight how the
various components of CC feature in discussions of assessing L2 writing
responding to these trends.
Within this framework, linguistic competence, although often challen-
ging to measure, is nevertheless the most straightforward of the components
to measure consistently. For example, studies employing CALF measures
have confirmed correlations between L2 writing proficiency and users’ age,
L1 proficiency, and prior learning experiences (Leki et al., 2008; Pallotti,
2021). Research has also found that about a quarter (16–​26%) of lexical
proficiency scores on L2 writing samples can be explained by contextual
diversity or range measures (i.e., how many different contexts a word is used
in; Monteiro et al., 2020). One challenge with this line of inquiry is the call
to assess writing more holistically by accounting for the text’s and author’s
sociolinguistic context (Yoon & Burton, 2021).
Strategic competence has been particularly challenging to neatly docu-
ment in a meaningful way, in part due to the difficulty in defining the borders
of the construct. As Mendoza and Knoch (2018) found in attempting to
develop a rating scale based on CC for a Spanish test for academic purposes,
metacognitive processes in planning, writing, monitoring, and assessing a
piece of writing are difficult to collect, and careful planning did not neces-
sarily lead to well-​developed writing. As in the study by De Silva (2015),
discussed above, strategy use is challenging to measure and, therefore, claims
about its effectiveness remain tentative or problematic.
Sociolinguistic and discourse competence have become important levers
in broadening the aspects of language use contributing toward writing
assessments. The CEFR scale, for example, has undergone adjustments to
make it more suitable to various local contexts and heterogeneous raters
(Harsch & Martin, 2012). Qin and Uccelli’s (2020) textual analysis of 526
texts from 263 adult English as a foreign language (EFL) students illustrates
recent efforts to address the concern that linguistic complexity is not a suf-
ficiently robust construct to measure writing proficiency. Their study found
that measuring writers’ ability to navigate different communicative contexts,
which they refer to as register flexibility, gives a more accurate picture of
writers’ language proficiency. In a related vein, the construct of functional
adequacy (FA), essentially how well a text accomplishes the requirements of
the intended writing task, has been suggested as an additional criterion in
writing assessments (Kuiken & Vedder, 2017; Pallotti, 2021;Yoon & Burton,
2021). Returning to the example task of a student writing an email to a pro-
fessor about missing class, a focus on FA would include assessment criteria
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Applying a communicative competence framework 161

related to how well the email conveyed the message, given both the commu-
nicative purpose of the text and its sociolinguistic environment. In essence,
from the professor’s perspective, was the message adequate in terms of its
length, manner of delivery, and social relation between the professor and
her student? Proponents of FA argue that this is an important component
of high stakes assessments that has yet to be accounted for in most writing
assessment research.
These efforts highlight a central strength inherent in the CC framework—​
specifically, that the ability to communicate effectively involves linguistic and
sociolinguistic knowledge as well as cognitive and socio-​or meta-​cognitive
processes. The promise of a CC framework, despite the ongoing challenges
discussed here, is its goal of accounting for these different aspects of L2
writing competence.

Main research methods

Considering writing proficiency from a CC perspective will likely have
a positive effect on teaching and assessing writing. However, using the
framework to talk about research methods may not be as productive because
virtually every study of L2 writing focuses on some aspect of CC. In add-
ition, research on L2 writing is varied and broad and thus draws on a variety
of designs from within quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods research
(see Polio & Friedman, 2017 for an overview). In lieu of a comprehensive
discussion of these research methods, we present in Table 9.1 some empirical
studies that illustrate the multitude of designs, measures, and data elicitation
tools used within each category. These studies may be descriptive of
one or more groups’ performance (i.e., on one assessment) or development
(i.e., change over time). Alternatively, they may assess writing under
different conditions or different prompts, or they may assess the effects of an
intervention. Often, L2 writing researchers try to assess more than one
component of CC with some overlap of constructs. As one example, Abdi
Tabari (2021) studied how students’ use of planning time (strategic compe-
tence) affected CALF measures in their writing (linguistic competence).

Table 9.1 Exemplar studies by methodology and focus

Element of CC Quantitative Qualitative

Linguistic competence Hartshorn et. al (2010) Li & Schmitt (2009)

Kyle et al. (2021) Lim et al. (2022)
Sociolinguistic Biber et al. (2016) de Oliveira & Lan (2014)
competence Liardét & Black (2019) Morton & Storch (2019)
Discourse competence Chen & Li (2019) Friedman (2019)
Li & Zhang (2021) Kessler (2021)
Strategic competence Joaquin et al. (2016) Lee (2020)
Sun & Wang (2020) Lillis & Curry (2010)
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162 Charlene Polio and D. Philip Montgomery

Linguistic competence
There is a long history of examining L2 writers’ language development,
which was first summarized and critically examined by Wolfe-​Quintero
et al. (1998), who addressed the reliability and validity of the measures. This
research tends to be quantitative and may be correlational or experimental.
Kyle et al. (2021), using sophisticated measures of complexity that included
verb-​ argument constructions, examined correlations with time spent
studying English. Many experimental studies have investigated the effects
of corrective feedback, including Hartshorn et al. (2010), who assessed lin-
guistic competence in terms of the accuracy and complexity of the writing
after the intervention. Qualitative studies are less common and something
we need more of to understand the processes by which specific features
of language are learned. Li and Schmitt (2009) conducted a longitudinal
case study of how one learner acquired formulaic language in her academic
writing. Lim et al. (2022) examined six students’ goals with regard to lin-
guistic competence as well as how they focused or did not focus on gram-
matical and lexical revision as they wrote.

Sociolinguistic competence
Sociolinguistic competence has been studied in a variety of ways that have
to do with register variation or choices among various linguistic features.
There is overlap here with linguistic competence and discourse competence
to some extent, but the studies in Table 9.1 all focus on lexicogrammatical
features as opposed to the structure of texts. Biber et al. (2016) examined
two task types from the TOEFL iBT (independent and integrated) in two
modalities (oral and written). Among the findings was that test takers’ lan-
guage varied according to groups of features related to dimensions identified
in previous research such as literate versus oral or source of information
(i.e., outside text use versus personal information). A narrower approach was
taken by Liardét and Black (2019), who focused on the use of reporting
verbs. Their comparison of corpora from L1 novices, L2 novices, and expert
writers is one way to better understand how these groups of writers choose
appropriate reporting verbs to convey various nuances in the context of aca-
demic writing. Qualitative research has examined language used by school-​
aged children in science writing, such as de Oliveira and Lan’s (2014) case
study and how it relates to classroom interaction. Morton and Storch (2019)
focused on how graduate L2 students conveyed voice through interviews
with faculty about student writing. While their scope of inquiry was broad,
they included a discussion of specific linguistic features that were or could
be used in relation to faculty perceptions of voice.

Discourse competence
One quantitative study of discourse competence, Chen and Li (2019),
explored the English theses of 40 Chinese writers to examine a particular
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Applying a communicative competence framework 163

rhetorical move, namely, how writers establish a niche. In a methodologic-
ally similar study, Li and Zhang (2021) collected 30 MA and 30 PhD theses
from Chinese students writing in English. They studied how the rhetorical
functions of citations varied across these texts.These studies are typical of L2
writing research that focuses on the discourse level. Qualitative research on
discourse competence tends to be broader in scope. Friedman (2019), like Li
and Zhang, studied MA TESOL students’ use of citations but using different
data. She observed classes, interviewed students and faculty, and examined
student writing. Kessler (2021) conducted a case study of six international
students in a law program as they learned to write one particular legal
genre. His data, like Friedman’s, included observations, student and teacher
interviews, and modified stimulated recalls collected over the course of a
semester. With these data, he was able to understand how students make
sense of rhetorical organization, content, and audience over time. His holistic
study also included elements of strategic competence as students described
their processes while completing the assignments.

Strategic competence
Writing strategies can be studied experimentally, as in De Silva (2015),
discussed earlier. Other quantitative studies rely on correlational analyses of
questionnaire responses to tap into strategies. Sun and Wang’s (2020) study of
319 Chinese students found that self-​reported self-​regulated learning strat-
egies were a significant predictor of writing proficiency. Joaquin et al. (2016)
examined the extent to which prewriting strategies were associated with
higher test scores. Qualitative research on strategies often seeks to describe
what learners do as they write through task-​specific introspective methods
such as think-​aloud protocols or retrospective methods such as stimulated
recall. In a case study, Lee (2020) used both think-​alouds and stimulated
recalls to investigate students’ strategies interpreting and responding to
automated feedback. In a rare longitudinal ethnographic study of L2 writing,
Curry and Lillis (2004) and Lillis and Curry (2010) documented how L2
scholars negotiated the world of academic publishing and writing in English.
They used interviews, documents, and what they call talk-​around-​text. While
Lillis and Curry would not frame their work as a strategy study, it is clear
that many of the scholars in their study developed strategies to help them
reach their goals.

Recommendations for practice

Thinking about a writing curriculum and tasks or assignments in terms of
the components of CC should have a positive impact on the teaching of
writing, both in terms of balancing language with higher level rhetorical
features and providing students with strategies that can help them through
the writing process. In this section, we build upon the few example tasks
given throughout this chapter to include others from different instructional
contexts.
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164 Charlene Polio and D. Philip Montgomery

In the case of beginners, some instructors might find it challenging to
move beyond sentence-​level writing or to bring in sociolinguistic compe-
tence. Take for example a writing assignment involving a paragraph about
one’s family or a summer vacation. By tweaking the write-​about-​your-​
family task at the assignment level, teachers can address all elements of CC.
For example, students could first fill out a form about their family that might
be needed for school. Questions could include Who do you live with? Do
you have any siblings? and so on. This could be followed by an assignment to
write an email to a fictitious exchange student who would be visiting the
student’s home. These two tasks could tap into different components of CC
in numerous ways. A form would likely not require full sentences whereas an
email might.The vocabulary used in a form versus email would differ (sibling
vs. brother or sister; mother vs. mom). At the discourse level, the teacher could
address what might be appropriate information to include in an email. For
a short assignment, teachers can build in feedback and revision with a goal
toward making strategy use a regular part of the writing process.
At the curricular level, we do not have the space to outline a full course,
but we refer to two studies of very different contexts to illustrate how a
curriculum can address all aspects of CC. Yasuda (2011) implemented a
genre-​based curriculum for Japanese EFL students that involved different
types of emails as assignments over the semester. Negretti and McGrath
(2018) described a writing class at the doctoral level that was genre based
and included a genre visualization activity as part of the assignments. Both
of these studies provide holistic views of writing instruction to show how
language, audience, topic, and rhetorical structure interact within genres.
Through instruction, writers learn strategies for dealing with new genres.
While both of these studies are fairly comprehensive and serve as good
models of how to approach the teaching of writing, analyzing instruction
in terms of CC sheds light on some of the imbalances that teachers might
want to address. For example, Yasuda does not talk explicitly about helping
learners develop strategic competence, but a CC framework provides a lens
through which to critically examine a curriculum.

Recommendations for further research

There have been several research agendas for L2 writing laid out recently
(see chapters in Manchón, 2020 and in Manchón & Polio, 2022), so we pro-
vide here suggestions only of studies that might examine CC as a holistic
construct and not those that examine only its components. In other words,
we began this chapter by noting that justification was needed to frame the
teaching of writing within the CC framework, so we explain here how to
conduct research within such a framework.This research includes qualitative
approaches that afford such a holistic perspective.
We know of no research that has used a CC framework to investigate
curricular innovations. It might be useful to conduct a classroom-​based case
study, perhaps taking Yasuda (2011) as a model, in which researchers create
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Applying a communicative competence framework 165

and implement a semester-​long syllabus using a CC framework. Yasuda
examined a genre-​based curriculum, but any curricular innovation could be
studied, particularly one that is new to a specific context (e.g., a task-​based
approach to teaching academic writing in a US Chinese language course for
heritage learners). The course could then be evaluated for student learning
using qualitative data such as observations, student reflections, teacher
reflections, and student writing. In some beginning language classes, writing
is used simply to facilitate grammar and vocabulary acquisition. Using a CC
framework would necessarily increase attention to other aspects of writing.
We noted earlier that a strength of the CC framework is its utility in
teacher education. To pursue this line of investigation, it would first be
helpful to learn about how, if at all, the CC framework is currently being
used in language methods classes, both in general and with regard to the
teaching of writing. This research could easily be completed by collecting
syllabi, interviewing teacher educators, and examining methods textbooks.
Qualitative and mixed methods case studies using preservice teachers’
reflections regarding lesson plans and teaching could be collected after intro-
ducing the framework.

Conclusion
By using the construct of CC to present a picture of what good writing
instruction should encompass, we hope to emphasize that writing is a com-
plex task that varies greatly with context. Real-​world writing includes filling
out forms, text messaging, and writing emails, formal letters, doctoral theses,
journal articles, lab reports, and so on, each of which requires writers to use
a variety of skills and knowledge that comprise CC. Making both teachers
and students aware of these components will facilitate writing proficiency.

Discussion questions
1. Think about your own learning and/​ or teaching of writing. How
balanced were/​are the focuses on language and other genre-​related
aspects of writing?
2. Now, try describing your teaching or learning experiences in terms of
the four components of CC (i.e., linguistic, sociolinguistic, discourse, and
strategic competences). How does this reframing change your thinking
about what was successful or what could be improved?
3. How prevalent are discussions about learning strategies in your writing
experiences in the classroom, either as a student, teacher, or researcher?
How might you use a CC framework to design a research question to
examine learning strategies?
4. Think about the way you assess student writing (or perhaps how your
teacher assessed your writing). Which components of CC feature most
prominently in your experience? How might assessment of writing
become more holistic?
16

166 Charlene Polio and D. Philip Montgomery

Suggestions for further reading
Bachman, L. F., & Palmer, A. S. (2010). Language assessment in practice: Developing lan-
guage assessments and justifying their use in the real world. Oxford University Press.
Manchón, R. M. (2020). Writing and language learning: Advancing research agendas. John
Benjamins.
Negretti, R., & McGrath, L. (2018). Scaffolding genre knowledge and metacog-
nition: Insights from an L2 doctoral research writing course. Journal of Second
Language Writing, 40, 12–​31. https://​doi.org/​10.1016/​j.jslw.2017.12.002
Tardy, C. M. (2019). Genre-​ based writing: What every ESL teacher needs to know.
University of Michigan Press.

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17

10 Computer-​assisted language
learning and communicative
competence
Glenn Stockwell and Yurika Ito

Advancements in technology such as the rise of the Internet and the

spread of affordable devices have changed the face of language teaching
and learning in virtually every respect. The ways in which learners interact
with one another and the teacher, the learning activities they engage in,
and the access that learners have to opportunities to use the target lan-
guage both inside and outside of the classroom have all undergone signifi-
cant transformation as a result of emerging tools, resources, and networks
(Stockwell, 2012; Ziegler, 2016). The changes that have taken place as a
result of these technologies have been gradual in some ways, and, in others,
technology has been like a raging river that has unrecognizably changed the
landscape of human activity in an incredibly short period of time. Humans
now communicate in different ways than we did a century ago, and even
the past decade or two has seen a phenomenal shift in the ways in which
we seek out information, how we process it, and how we transmit public
and private messages to people near and far. The evolution of the landline
telephone made it possible for us to hear the voices of people who were
geographically distant in real time, enabling synchronous communication to
take place. While there were sporadic cases of regular telephones being used
in language learning contexts (see Chinnery, 2006), they failed to become
a part of the mainstream, with audio models of the target language typ-
ically coming from the teacher or from recorded dialogues. As commu-
nication tools became more sophisticated, synchronous and asynchronous
exchange through textual and audiovisual modes expanded into regular use
(see Thorne & Payne, 2005, for a discussion), access to communication with
a wide variety of interlocutors in formal and informal contexts increased,
bringing with it increased opportunities for developing varying aspects of
communicative competence.
As has been pointed out repeatedly in this volume, communicative com-
petence is not an easy concept to define. An inclusive definition by Light
(1989) helps us to understand the fundamental idea behind communica-
tive competence, describing it as the “quality of being functionally adequate
in daily communication or of having sufficient knowledge, judgment, and
skills to communicate” (p. 138). Specifically what elements are required to
achieve communicative competence is open to a certain degree of debate,
DOI: 10.4324/9781003160779-13
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172 Glenn Stockwell and Yurika Ito

but, in the context of this chapter, we refer to Gilmore (2011), who includes
five related competencies: linguistic, pragmalinguistic, sociolinguistic, stra-
tegic, and discourse competence. With the changes in communication
that the technological developments of the past few decades have brought
about, it is not surprising that the notion of communicative competence
has also been affected, influenced by the expansion of modalities of com-
munication, the communities in which communication takes place, and
the different resources that learners employ in conveying meaning (Ortega,
2017; Vandergriff, 2016). This chapter will draw upon recent research that
shows how technology-​mediated communication differs from face-​to-​face
communication, and how the development of communicative competence
has evolved as these technologies become more mainstream in formal and
informal learning situations. The chapter will conclude with an overview of
future directions for research on communicative competence in light of the
changing face of language education as a result of technology.

Historical context
The impact that technology has had on the development of research and
practice in communicative competence is better understood when viewed
from a historical perspective. Technology has had a profound impact on
language teaching and learning, with the technical affordances of new
technologies bringing communication with peers, teachers, and the out-
side world into reach for learners across almost all socioeconomic classes
(Stockwell, 2022). The Internet made its debut to the public in the 1980s,
first with ARPANET, which was mostly restricted to government and
educational institutions, and nearly a decade later, in the early 1990s, as
the World Wide Web. During these early days of the Internet, text-​based
chat (Moran, 1991) and email (St John & Cash, 1995) appeared in research
on language teaching and learning, and, with this, the potential for tech-
nology to contribute to collaboration also began to be explored (Eldred,
1991). While the landline telephone did not directly affect the vast majority
of language learning contexts, this was certainly not the case with cell
phones, with the Short Message Service (SMS) function being explored
as a way of sending brief reminders to learners outside of class (Kennedy
& Levy, 2008) or as a tool for information exchange during class to facili-
tate speaking activities (Kiernan & Aizawa, 2004). At the same time, other
computer-​ based forms of computer-​ mediated communication (CMC)
such as Internet Relay Chat (IRC), text-​based MOOs (MUD [multi-​user
domain], object-​oriented), email, newsgroups, and chat rooms also became
more prevalent, and people had a wider range of options to communi-
cate with one another either synchronously or asynchronously through
these technologies. During this predominantly text-​based era of computer-​
assisted language learning (CALL), the main focus of research into com-
municative competence was on the linguistic elements. The field of CMC
was very much in its infancy, and researchers were largely concerned with
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Computer-assisted language learning and communicative competence 173

seeking to identify the nature of electronic language (Herring, 1996), often
comparing it with oral communication (Chapman, 1997; Sauro, 2012). The
discourse features of synchronous tools like text chat (Blake, 2000; Kitade,
2000; Sauro, 2009) and MOOs (Shield, 2003), asynchronous tools such as
email (Stockwell, 2003), and comparisons of the two (Sotillo, 2000) also
attracted the attention of researchers as they attempted to make sense of the
ways that learners communicated using these emerging technologies. What
can be said about much of the early CMC research is that these studies pre-
dominantly focused on examining the potential benefits of technologies for
improving linguistic competence and to a lesser degree on other aspects of
communicative competence.
The 2010s saw even more changes taking place in the communication
options available to the general public, and many of these quickly found
their way into formal and informal learning environments. On top of the
text-​based communication tools, audiovisual options became more readily
available, with audio-​and videoconferencing tools such as Skype (Cardoso
& Matos, 2012; Tian & Wang, 2010) and the more business-​ oriented
NetMeeting (Wang, 2004) as well as virtual environments such as Second Life
(Wehner et al., 2011) and massively multiplayer online role-​playing games
(MMORPGs; Peterson, 2010, 2016) appearing in the second language (L2)
teaching literature. With the rapidly increasing repertoire of tools available,
the focus gradually shifted from the linguistic and discourse competences
of the learners engaged in these interactions to their pragmalinguistic and
sociolinguistic competences as interactions with learners from different cul-
tural backgrounds increased (e.g., Blattner & Fiori, 2011; Elola & Oskoz,
2008; Eslami et al., 2015; Lam, 2004). As social media tools such as Facebook
and Twitter gained rapid popularity, their application to language learning
environments also began to be explored (e.g., Lomicka & Lord, 2016;
Reinhardt & Zandler, 2011), blurring the distinctions between the lan-
guage classroom and the personal lives of many learners. By this stage, such
studies often focused on examining the pedagogical affordances of these
tools, considering the complexities of the different elements involved in
developing learners’ communicative competence. Even within these com-
munication tools, technologies continued to evolve, providing faster and
more stable Internet connections capable of sending large amounts of data
from devices equipped with sophisticated operating systems and hardware
and allowing learners to interact with others using textual, audio, video, and
even multiple modes. Learners came to make conscious strategic decisions
about which modes to use for what purposes in order to convey their ideas
to interlocutors, sometimes balancing these multiple modes within a single
communication event (Savignon & Roithmeier, 2004; Wang, 2007). Of note
from these developments is that pedagogical practices have to a large degree
been shaped by technology, and with them, many of the norms of commu-
nication that learners need to acquire have also undergone changes, such as
using chat or messenger apps on mobile devices compared with communi-
cating through email.
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174 Glenn Stockwell and Yurika Ito

Finally, COVID-​19 has clearly had an impact on the ways in which tech-
nology has come to be used in education. Where once the use of tools such
as videoconferencing were seen as being in the domain of more experienced
users of technology in their teaching and learning environments, the pan-
demic meant that technologies such as Zoom became indispensable to many
teachers in conducting classes remotely when they could not be held in a
traditional face-​to-​face manner, resulting in a plethora of papers explaining
how these technologies were used (e.g., Alfadda & Mahdi, 2021; Kohnke &
Moorhouse, 2022). Many teachers embraced these technologies and used
them in creative and innovative ways, yet others failed to capitalize upon
the affordances of the technology and predominantly emulated face-​to-​face
class procedures, using only the most basic functions (e.g., González-​Lloret,
2020; Moser et al., 2021). It is for this reason that we would not like to
overplay the impact of the COVID-​19 pandemic. Although there is certain
to be some impact, this is likely to be relatively limited in that much of the
recent research using Zoom largely resembles research using similar tools
from more than a decade earlier (see Wang, 2004). Nonetheless, at this point,
it is still rather difficult to predict if this change will result in any long-​term
effects on implementation of technology on a broader scale.

Current research
Although the past several decades have seen a boom in new communica-
tion technologies appearing in the L2 teaching and learning literature, much
of the research being carried out is additive; that is, rather than completely
replacing research on more established technologies, research continues to
exist in a more mature form as various pedagogies using these older tech-
nologies are explored (Levy & Stockwell, 2006). At the same time, there
have been more exploratory studies that look at how emerging technologies
might be applied to language education, generally focusing on their techno-
logical affordances. The discussion that follows, then, is not limited to just
the most recent technologies, but rather it explores how both newer and
older technologies are currently being explored in the literature. We have
opted to look at the different types of communication modes, starting with
the distinction between synchronous and asynchronous modes, as this has an
impact on cognitive processing time and the resulting quantity and quality
of output. Synchronous computer-​ mediated communication (SCMC)
refers to communication that takes place between humans in real time via
some form of technology such as text chat or audio-​conferencing, whereas
asynchronous computer-​mediated communication (ACMC) encompasses
interactions where a response is not expected to be instantaneous, such as
email or a bulletin board.
Sauro (2011) provided an excellent overview of research into SCMC and
various aspects of communicative competence, looking at studies carried
out over a 20-​year period to explore how linguistic, sociolinguistic, strategic,
and discourse competence were covered in the literature. She found that
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Computer-assisted language learning and communicative competence 175

grammatical competence was by far the most widely covered aspect, such
as the acquisition of new vocabulary (e.g., Smith, 2004) or the development
of morphosyntax (e.g., Salaberry, 2000). The next most-​researched aspect
was strategic competence, with studies exploring negotiation of meaning
during small-​group or dyadic interaction (e.g., Blake, 2000) and learners’ use
of modality (e.g., Sauro, 2009) or linguistic code (e.g., Lam, 2004). This was
followed by what she termed sociolinguistic competence, which included
studies looking at language socialization in environments like chat (Lam,
2004) as well as aspects that may also be viewed as pragmalinguistic, such as
Collentine’s (2009) investigation into CMC pragmatics. Discourse compe-
tence was the least covered aspect according to Sauro’s study, and included
learners’ cohesion strategies (e.g., use of referential terms, direct repetition)
to unify non-​sequential turns in small-​group text-​chat interaction (e.g.,
Negretti, 1999) and learners’ segmenting or chunking of full sentences and
ideas across multiple sequential transmission units to successfully convey
meaning in the nonlinear and overlapping environment of text-​chat (Baron,
2008). Sauro’s study was significant in that it brought together 20 years of
research that separately explored various aspects of communicative compe-
tence into a consolidated piece of work that showed where the strengths and
weaknesses in the field lie.
Needless to say, technologies have developed significantly since Sauro’s
study, and this is perhaps most obvious in the use of synchronous videocon-
ferencing software such as Zoom that allows multimodal interaction between
participants, including video and chat, a whiteboard function, and screen
sharing.While these technologies have been in existence for some time, they
have become far more widely used as a result of the COVID-​19 pandemic,
and, as such, they have started to be explored for their ability to contribute
to communicative competence. Junn (2021), for example, investigated how
students engaged in synchronous “live” interactions as a whole class as well
as pair and group work using the “Breakout Room” function on Zoom
(Zoom, n.d.) for development of linguistic and strategic competence, and
found that there was evidence of both in the interactions, thus suggesting
that videoconferencing tools provide a potentially viable alternative to face-​
to-​face learning contexts. Tools such as MMORPGs are not CMC per se
but do have a synchronous communication function where players can com-
municate with one another during the games using text or audio chat, and
this is another area that has caught the attention of researchers in its ability
to contribute to communicative competence. In two separate instances,
Peterson (2010, 2016) summarizes the findings of existing studies to indi-
cate that online gaming platforms do provide opportunities for learners to
develop their linguistic, strategic, and discourse competences.
Research has also been carried out that explores communicative com-
petence in ACMC, although there has not been to date the kind of com-
prehensive research synthesis as for SCMC. As with SCMC, linguistic
competence has had a relatively central position in ACMC research,
with studies exploring syntactic development through email exchanges
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176 Glenn Stockwell and Yurika Ito

(St John & Cash, 1995; Stockwell & Harrington, 2003), but there have also
been examples of investigations of strategic competence through electronic
bulletin boards (Savignon & Roithmeier, 2004; Zha et al., 2006) and prag-
matic competence through various CMC tools including email (Eslami
et al., 2015). The primary factor that distinguishes ACMC from SCMC is
that messages tend to have sufficient time between them to allow learners
to think about and draw on reference materials as they draft their responses
(Levy & Stockwell, 2006). Tools that are still finding their place in regards to
synchronicity are social networking tools that fit largely into ACMC but do
allow for synchronous discussion if participants are online or using messa-
ging tools. For example, studies have investigated Facebook to see if it could
contribute to elements of communicative competence, and not surprisingly
given the social nature of these networking tools, it has been explored for
pragmatic competence (Blattner & Fiori, 2011) and for sociolinguistic com-
petence from a language socialization perspective (Reinhardt & Zander,
2011), finding that the platform does indeed appear to contribute to the
development of these competences.
Finally, there has also been growing interest in intercultural commu-
nicative competence (see also Nguyen, Chapter 8, this volume), which
has been described as a complement to communicative competence that
“has further refined the notion of what it is to be competent for commu-
nication with speakers of different languages” (Byram et al., 2013, p. 251).
Given that intercultural communicative competence entails the underlying
skills needed to successfully engage with people from other cultures (Byram
& Fleming, 1998; Gilmore, 2011), it is quite possible to see the overlap with
several of the competences associated with communicative competence.The
range of tools and the ways in which they are used for developing intercultural
competence have varied considerably and have also been impacted by the
developments in the technology, starting with email exchanges (O’Dowd,
2003), text messaging (Scheutze, 2008), and blogging (Elola & Oskoz, 2008),
through to games and simulations (Wiggins, 2017) and social networking
(Ngai et al., 2020; Ruan & Medwell, 2020; Valencia & Benavides, 2019).
Researchers have also explored the impact of telecollaboration on
intercultural communicative competence, where learners work together
with collaborators in the target language on a given project (see Chun, 2015;
O’Dowd, 2011; O’Dowd & Dooly, 2020) with audiovisual tools such as
Zoom (Freiermuth & Huang, 2021). Avgousti (2018) revealed, however, that
telecollaboration projects are not limited to SCMC tools, with over three-​
quarters of the studies in her meta-​analysis having used ACMC by itself or
combined with SCMC. Thus, studies that explore communicative compe-
tence are not limited to interactions that emulate face-​to-​face encounters
with speakers of the target language, but rather, with the progression of tech-
nology, they can now consider different modes that include written as well
as spoken language in an intricate network of communication threads. For
example, Wang (2007) found that students engaged in online class video-
conferencing discussions through NetMeeting used the private text chat
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Computer-assisted language learning and communicative competence 177

function to communicate directly with the teacher so as to not interrupt the
flow of the class. Similar types of behavior are also being observed in more
recent studies using Zoom (e.g., Guillén et al., 2020), and it is expected that
there will be further exploration of this function in the future.

Main research methods

From the preceding discussion, it is evident that there has been extensive
research on the development of communicative competence through tech-
nology, exploring its different aspects in varied contexts. As Chun (2017)
points out, the early days of CALL saw numerous comparative studies,
where it was “common to conduct controlled studies of whether using
technology resulted in similar (or better) learning outcomes as compared
to not using technology” (p. 394). When a specific technology is relatively
new–​–​at least to language education environments–​–​it is not surprising that
researchers are curious about how this technology compares with more
familiar methods (see Stockwell, 2012, for a discussion). Thus, much of the
early research into the development of communicative competence through
technology focused on quantitative analyses of email, forum discussions, and
text, exploring through these tools the linguistic elements of communica-
tion such as grammar, vocabulary, or specific language skills. There has been,
however, a gradual shift towards more qualitative, contextualized discourse-​
based analyses of the processes of exchanges that take place between learners
and other participants through various technologies, and the ways in which
cultural understandings are expressed by participants (Chun, 2017; Poehner,
Chapter 4, this volume). This move towards investigating how language is
used by learners and their interlocutors in digital communication has led to
an exploration of digital literacies and how they develop through interactions
facilitated by technology (Chen, 2020; Dudeney & Hockly, 2016) as well as
how social networking tools might assist learners in expressing themselves
and establishing their identity (Thorne et al., 2015).
The actual methods used for collecting data have tended to remain a
balance of quantitative, qualitative, or a combination of the two depending
on the theoretical foundations of the study (Chun, 2017). Quantitative
methods have included textual analysis of lexical and syntactic features of
the interactions (e.g., Stockwell & Harrington, 2003); some studies have also
included qualitative analysis of the discourse functions in addition to quanti-
tative analysis (e.g., Sotillo, 2000). Analysis of multimodal communication has
proven more difficult in many respects, and researchers are now exploring
methods through which they can collect and analyze interactions that take
place simultaneously through multiple modes (Dooly, 2017). Electronic tools
have in one sense made it far easier to collect data when compared to more
traditional contexts. Textual data such as email and chat are typically still
available after an interaction has been completed, and these data are in a
form where they can be analyzed without the need for transcription, which
is often the problem with audio data. Screen recordings of video interactions
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178 Glenn Stockwell and Yurika Ito

tend to be less intrusive than the setting up of video cameras in classrooms,
and in many modern tools such as Zoom or Google Meet, these recordings
may be saved automatically. Specifically, capitalizing upon these tools has
made it easier for researchers to gain insight into L2 output, including the
mechanisms of self-​repair (e.g., Smith, 2008), post-​production monitoring
(e.g., Sauro & Smith, 2010), and composition (e.g., Ziegler, 2018), which
have all been difficult to capture in traditional contexts. There are even ser-
vices that can render the recorded data into textual form using automatic
speech recognition that can be downloaded for analysis, and this could
potentially help reduce the costs and burden for researchers.
Data collection and analysis in technology-​ mediated interactions are
not without problems, however. Not the least of these is that, as researchers
become more interested in the spontaneous, authentic interactions that
learners are involved in, issues of privacy become increasingly relevant
(Blyth, 2015). Obtaining permission from participants to collect and analyze
data is problematic even through so-​called “public” forums such as social
networking services like Facebook and YouTube, and doing so may in fact
breach their terms of service (Chen, 2020). Furthermore, data collection
tends to be limited to only what can actually be observed, and researchers will
often only have access to the finished product without being able to explore
the processes (e.g., revisions) that led to this product (Smith, 2008). Modern
videoconferencing tools that include “breakout sessions” where participants
move into smaller rooms are typically not visible to the researcher, resulting
in “blind spots” where researchers are only able to see snippets of interactions
if they happen to enter the smaller sessions (Saltz & Heckman, 2020). Thus,
while electronic tools can make it easier to collect data from participants in
various learning and authentic environments, there are also new concerns
that must be given consideration as research into communicative compe-
tence through these tools is carried out.

Recommendations for practice

Applying the concept of communicative competence to actual teaching
practice is not an easy undertaking (Canale & Swain, 1980), and with the
constantly evolving communication tools that make up the vast range of
options available to language teachers today, making recommendations for
practice becomes even more complex. These tools mean that learners have
more opportunities than ever to interact with speakers of the target lan-
guage and/​or members of the target culture, and it is relatively easy to set
up projects that link these participants together. It is important to realize,
however, that just simply encouraging interaction between participants
from different cultural backgrounds is unlikely to result in any meaningful
development of (intercultural) communicative competence, and there is a
danger that this could even reinforce cultural stereotypes (Downey & Gray,
2012). Rather, effectively facilitating learners’ communicative competence is
dependent upon the design of the tasks in which learners engage.
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Computer-assisted language learning and communicative competence 179

With this in mind, one of the key points to consider when deciding what
tools to use and how to use them is to be aware of the affordances of the
tools, that is, how they impact the communication between the participants.
Asynchronous tools will allow more time for participants to process the
content and prepare their responses than synchronous ones (see Levy &
Stockwell, 2006), but, at the same time, they have the potential to reduce
the feeling of social presence of the interlocutors and, as such, may be better
suited to learners of lower proficiency. In contrast, synchronous tools allow
for more spontaneous communication that resembles face-​to-​face commu-
nication in terms of the limited time for processing, which may benefit
higher-​proficiency learners but can lead to a more lexicalized focus (see
Stockwell, 2010). Of course, it should be stressed that these are only some of
the many examples in which these tools could be potentially utilized in lan-
guage learning contexts. Access to communication through multiple modes,
such as providing learners with opportunities to interact through ACMC in
conjunction with SCMC or written channels with oral/​aural channels, can
make it possible for learners to see similar content in different contexts that
may support enhanced exposure to various forms of discourse, which can
in turn afford opportunities for development of linguistic, pragmatic, and
sociolinguistic competencies.

Future directions
The discussion of future directions in most fields is likely to be subjective in
some regards, and when technology is included in the equation, it becomes
even more difficult to make accurate predictions that reflect where research
and practice are headed. Based on the movements from the past several
decades, however, it is possible to make some assumptions that may hold
true of research into communicative competence that relates to CALL. First,
research from the past has told us that language teaching and learning–​–​and
indeed education in general–​–​are shaped by development in technology,
so understanding what the near future holds with regard to technological
developments can give us some insights. Of the range of advances that are
occurring, two that may be of particular relevance to communicative com-
petence are mobile technologies and artificial intelligence (AI). These are
not completely new to the field, and variations of these have been in exist-
ence for some years, but it is expected that they will take on different forms
that can have an impact on when, where, how, and why we communicate,
and even who we communicate with.
As previously described, mobile learning has taken on a central role
in language education in many respects, with communication channels
opening up between learners, with the teacher, and with the wider com-
munity through apps installed on learners’ mobile phones. It is this last part
that researchers are starting to direct their attention to: In recent years, several
scholars have placed an emphasis on interactions with speakers of the target
language in informal learning contexts that are facilitated by the ready access
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180 Glenn Stockwell and Yurika Ito

to these communities through mobile devices (Benson et al., 2018; Godwin-​
Jones, 2020; Stockwell, 2021). The boundaries between formal and informal
learning have started to blur as learners have access to portable technologies
that can be used as the media of communication as well as to support com-
munication by providing access to dictionaries, suggested phrases, and even
automated translation. These tools are finding their way into the real-​life
situations that learners experience, and, as such, there is an increasing need
to explore the impact that these tools can have on developing the various
aspects of communicative competence.
Second, AI has developed to a point that, in our daily lives, at least
some percentage of the communications that we have will be with non-​
human interlocutors. Search engines, telephone services, and even shopping
websites use AI technologies to simulate human interaction. This has been
seen already in MMORPGs (Copier, 2007), where assistance is provided to
participants through automated bots, often without the participants (ini-
tially) being aware that they are not communicating with other humans.The
potential for bots in language teaching and learning has also become an area
that is starting to be explored (e.g., Bibauw et al., 2022; Fryer et al., 2020) as
AI has made nonhuman interactions a more viable option. It has long been
predicted that bots, also known as conversational agents, would play some
role in language education (e.g., Higgins & Johns, 1984; Schwienhorst,
2002), but the technology has lagged behind the hype. The spread of Big
Data (Godwin-​Jones, 2021) is playing an active role in bringing bots as
interlocutors closer to reality. As there are advantages to communicating
with speakers of the target language from the early stages of learning a lan-
guage in terms of access to authentic input, using a bot as a non-​threatening
interlocutor would make it possible for learners to experiment with lin-
guistic expressions as a rehearsal for real-​life communication. Combined
with other emerging technologies such as virtual reality (Lan, 2020), these
emerging technologies can provide learners with contexts within which to
explore language usage that can prepare them for actual communication in
real-​life situations (see Sykes, 2018).
In conclusion, developments in technology have had a profound effect on
human communication, and these developments have had a ripple effect on
L2 teaching and learning as well. It is clear that concepts of discourse and
the ensuing pragmalinguistic and sociolinguistic competences–​–​and even
the strategies used for engaging in communication–​–​are evolving as a result
of these tools. Adapting teaching practices for the rapidly shifting landscape
will be dependent upon understanding the impact that these technologies
are having on the language learning ecology of our learners in both formal
and informal learning contexts.

Discussion questions
1. How do you think technologies can be used to better foster the different
elements of communicative competence for language learners?
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Computer-assisted language learning and communicative competence 181

2. Do you think that with further developments in technology, language
learning will mostly take place outside of formal classroom settings in
the future? Why or why not?
3. What skills and knowledge do you think language teachers need to
acquire in order to effectively teach with technology?
4. Some people believe that language teachers will be replaced by artificial
intelligence in the future. What do you think of this view? Why?

Suggestions for further reading

Chun, D. M. (2017). Research methods for investigating technology for language and
culture learning. In C. A. Chapelle & S. Shauro (Eds.), The handbook of technology
and second language teaching and learning (pp. 393–​408). John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Sauro, S. (2011). SCMC for SLA: A research synthesis. CALICO Journal, 28(2), 369–​
391. https://​doi.org/​10.11139/​cj.28.2.369-​391
Ziegler, N. (2016). Synchronous computer-​mediated communication and inter-
action: A meta-​analysis. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 38(3), 553–​586.
https://​doi.org/​10.1017/​S02722​6311​5000​25X

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11 Assessing communicative
competence
Luke Harding, Susy Macqueen, and John Pill

The foundational premise of communicative competence in Hymes’s

(1972) paper “On communicative competence”—​that the human capacity
for communication comprises both language knowledge and the ability
to activate it in alignment with usage patterns of relevant sociocultural
contexts—​has been an evolving concern for the field of language assessment
since the communicative turn of the 1970s. The desire to understand the
nature of communicative competence in assessment was driven by the
need to describe the construct—​the ability being assessed—​as a precursor
to operationalizing that construct through assessment tasks. Thus, language
assessment researchers have not only drawn heavily on conceptualizations
of communicative competence developed by Hymes (1972), Canale and
Swain (1980), and Canale (1983), but have also themselves contributed to a
wider understanding of communicative competence in the field of applied
linguistics, most prominently in Bachman’s (1990) and Bachman and
Palmer’s (1996, 2010) model of communicative language ability. However,
understandings of communicative competence within the field of language
assessment are hardly uniform, and the practical constraints of assessment,
together with ideological orthodoxies embedded within many language
assessment practices, have shaped the way in which communicative compe-
tence has been defined and understood over time and across contexts.
In the following sections, we set out the ways in which the field of lan-
guage assessment has responded to the challenge of translating the the-
oretical notion of communicative competence into practice. Following a
discussion of key conceptual developments and various translational models,
we examine critical issues, discuss language assessment research methods,
make recommendations for practice, and predict some future directions.
An extensive literature providing critical perspectives on communica-
tive competence in language assessment already exists (see, for example,
Fulcher, 2000; Kramsch, 2006; Leung, 2005; McNamara, 1996; Spolsky,
1989). Within this chapter we connect with that tradition by using a crit-
ical lens to evaluate communicative competence within the assessment
arena. Specifically, throughout the chapter, we argue, first, that the act of
assessing language forces practitioners to prioritize certain communicative
knowledges, behaviors, and patterns in a relatively constrained sample of
DOI: 10.4324/9781003160779-14
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188 Luke Harding, Susy Macqueen, and John Pill

language use. This act poses ongoing challenges not just for the practitioners
themselves, but also for anyone using assessments in classrooms, institutions,
and policies. Second, we propose that assessment practices themselves inhere
a special kind of communicative competence and are worthy of investigation
as anthropological and sociological phenomena.

Historical context
Communicative competence was primarily a theoretical concept arising
within linguistic anthropology and not a practical framework for language
learning, pedagogy, or assessment. We do not intend to outline foundational
papers in depth (e.g., Hymes, 1972; Saville-​Troike, 1982), as they have been
comprehensively discussed in other chapters in this volume (see Kanwit &
Solon, Chapter 1). However, it is important to establish that in these early
discussions, critiques of testing and assessment played a prominent role.
Hymes’s problematizing of Chomsky’s “ideal speaker-​listener” in the “com-
pletely homogenous speech community” (Chomsky, 1965, p. 3), for example,
arose out of his concern for what such a definition of linguistic competence
meant for “real children” (Hymes, 1972, p. 270) whose competence would
be considered, unjustly, at odds with the competence valued by institutions.
Hymes observed that, “given subcultural differences in the patterns and
purposes of language use, children of the lower status may actually excel in
aspects of communicative competence not observed or measured in the tests
summarized” (1972, p. 274). The limitations of the tests, the paucity in scope
of the ability measured, formed a central plank in Hymes’s critique. Similar
concerns about the misrepresentation of communicative competence in tests
have also been discussed by Saville-​Troike (1982) and Milroy and Milroy
(2012).
It is therefore worth noting, from the outset, that language assessment has
always had an uneasy relationship with communicative competence. Despite
the strong influence of communicative competence on current models and
theories in the field, language assessment remains a crucial site at which more
expansive theories often collide with the reductive and restrictive concerns
of standardization and consistency of measurement. In this section, we chart
how communicative competence was translated into the field of language
assessment and how recent research has challenged existing orthodoxies.

Translating communicative competence into assessment practice

Over the past 50 years, applied linguists, including language testing specialists,
have developed translational tools for the purpose of converting theories
of communicative competence into assessment practice. These translational
tools fall into two broad, interrelated categories: (1) theoretical constructs in
the form of models and frameworks, and (2) fields of practice that comprise
approaches to assessment and their associated methods. Theoretical constructs
have become increasingly elaborate as understandings about various aspects
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Assessing communicative competence 189

of communication and language ability have developed (Macqueen, 2022).
Key among these are the models of “communicative competence” developed
by Widdowson (1978), Canale and Swain (1980), Canale (1983) and Celce-​
Murcia (2008), and a model of “(communicative) language ability” developed
by Bachman (1990) and Bachman and Palmer (1996, 2010). Fields of prac-
tice, which either arose from the theoretical modeling or became strongly
associated with it, include “communicative language testing” (Morrow,
1979, 2012), “performance testing” (McNamara, 1996), “specific purposes
testing” (Douglas, 2000), and “task-​based language assessment” (Brindley,
1994; Mislevy et al., 2002). These approaches have tended to value tasks and
scoring methods (criteria, rating scales) designed to be relevant to the target
domain of language use.
One of the most developed theoretical models is the “theoretical frame-
work of communicative language ability” proposed by Bachman and Palmer
(1996, p. 84). In its most recent form, set out in Bachman and Palmer (2010),
the construct “language ability” is defined as “a capacity that enables lan-
guage users to create and interpret discourse” (p. 34). Language ability is
broken into two central attributes or sub-​ constructs: language knowledge
(stored “pragmatic” and “organizational” language information) and strategic
competence (a set of metacognitive strategies used when mobilizing language
in situ). These two central components can be traced to Canale and Swain’s
(1980) original framework, which separated language-​related aspects from
the ability to, for example, strategically manage a communication break-
down. Celce-​Murcia (2008), by contrast, made strategic competence an
all-​encompassing set of behaviors that facilitates both communication (e.g.,
negotiating meaning) and learning (e.g., memory strategies). Canale and
Swain also differentiated the structural aspects of language, such as mor-
phosyntax, lexis, and phonology, from their sociolinguistic conventions, a
distinction Bachman and Palmer maintain by dividing language knowledge
into organizational knowledge and pragmatic knowledge.
In addition to these key ingredients, Bachman and Palmer (2010) pro-
pose that individuals draw upon personal attributes (e.g., age, personality,
educational experience) and topical knowledge (i.e., information base).
Actual performance is executed through the use of cognitive strategies (e.g.,
making associations, applying rules), and it is filtered through affective sche-
mata (feelings associated with topics). When individuals use language, the
attributes interact with one another, intra-​individually (e.g., topic know-
ledge and language knowledge), inter-​ individually (e.g., test taker and
examiner), and/​or with “characteristics of the situation” (e.g., texts, tasks,
technology; Bachman & Palmer, 2010, p. 34). Context is therefore a crucial
element.
Despite translational efforts such as Bachman and Palmer’s communica-
tive language ability model and well-​developed traditions of scholarship to
guide fields of practice, test developers have tended to mobilize communica-
tive competence in test infrastructures (tasks, items, rating scales, scoring, etc.)
through relying on even more straightforward and practical instruments. One
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190 Luke Harding, Susy Macqueen, and John Pill

widely used framework is the Common European Framework of Reference
for Languages (CEFR; Council of Europe, 2001, 2020), which comprises
lists of scales describing what language learners “can do” across different
levels, contexts, and modalities. Although more useable, such instruments
tend to simplify and essentialize theoretical tenets, potentially sacrificing the
richness and complexity of the construct (Harding, 2014). Yet instruments
like the CEFR—​and comparable frameworks such as the American Council
on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) scales and China’s Standards
of English Language Ability (CSE)—​appeal because they make the pro-
cess of test development more manageable and test scores interpretable for
various stakeholders. As such frameworks gain recognition among educators
and policy makers, they become de facto constructs themselves, thus cre-
ating conditions where language test providers have to demonstrate their
tests’ alignment with the framework to gain recognition. Such frameworks
are intended to be malleable (see Deygers et al., 2018), and updates to the
CEFR in particular have embraced wider concerns such as plurilingualism
and mediation (Council of Europe, 2020). However, there is a limit to the
extent to which any framework of this kind can be adapted for specific
contexts of use (see Brunfaut & Harding, 2020). In this way, the process of
translating a theoretical model can (and often does) become a process of sim-
plification and standardization (McNamara, 2011).

The problems of performance and context

Even within more simplified construct definitions and operationalizations
of communicative competence, there has been a clear shift in the field of
language assessment towards explicitly acknowledging context in test tasks,
towards more authentic tasks, and towards valuing communicative effective-
ness in addition to—​or as a superordinate criterion for—​linguistic compe-
tence (i.e., knowledge of phonology, lexis, syntax, etc.). This “mainstream”
approach (Harding, 2014) to communicative language assessment is broadly
in alignment with the various theoretical models which, to different degrees,
include (1) a store of language knowledge and (2) an ability to mobilize it
in performance (see McNamara, 1996, for further analysis of key models).
Developments in theorizing interactional competence have helped to form
a clearer view of the dynamics of interaction in the test construct (e.g.,
Galaczi & Taylor, 2018; Ross, 2018), and language assessment researchers
have become increasingly interested in more sophisticated, meaning-​based
approaches (e.g., Purpura, 2017).Yet there remain complex, perhaps intract-
able, problems in the mainstream communicative approach with respect
to how we view “performance.” Indeed, performance has been a topic of
sustained discussion in the field for more than 25 years.
An individual’s performance, or, to use Hymes’s term, the actual language
use, that emerges in the moment of testing and in the experience of the test
taker is the operationalized construct (Knoch & Macqueen, 2020; Macqueen,
2022). In language test design, the test taker’s performance is intended to
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Assessing communicative competence 191

reflect the types of communicative abilities deemed important and relevant
to a target domain of language use.Yet, the test taker’s performance has been
manufactured through societal processes, test methods, and understandings
and expectations about what to do when being assessed, among other things
(Chalhoub-​Deville, 2003; McNamara, 2007). This interrelationship with the
context of the test itself makes the performance a particular sort of arti-
fact that is distinct from the test taker’s communication in non-​assessment
circumstances. Thus, we encounter the perennial problem for language
assessment of generalization from particular, manufactured samples to future
actual language use. We return to this problem in the “Critical issues” section.
Communicative performance is also known to be affected by the specific
dynamics of the test taker and the assessment context. Among the many
potential interacting factors are the test instruments (e.g., rating scales, task
types); the particular test task, topic, and version (e.g., informal conversa-
tion about holidays, formal essay on government surveillance, pair discussion
on food preferences); the human interlocutor/​rater (e.g., personality, gender,
interpretation of and experience with the rating scale, language ideologies);
the machine interlocutor/​rater (e.g., degree of interactivity, scoring algo-
rithm and its input data, training mechanisms, extent of human oversight);
the test taker’s current state (e.g., tired, stressed, confident); and multiple
other factors (e.g., the position of the computer, the size of the room, the
audibility or clarity of the instructions, the actions of the test administrators;
for overviews see Fulcher, 2003; Knoch, 2022; Nakatsuhara et al., 2022).
A significant challenge in performance assessment is the paradox of viewing
communicative language ability as an individual ability but one that we can
only observe in a social context.This has led to a deep theoretical question—​
“whose performance?” (McNamara, 1997)—​the answer to which has prac-
tical implications for assessment design and scoring procedures.

Critical issues
Throughout the historical trajectory described in the previous section,
the field of language assessment has grappled with a range of fundamental
challenges related to conceptualizing and operationalizing communicative
competence. Many of these challenges remain unresolved. In this section,
we outline three critical issues: (1) understanding test-​taking competence
as a type of communicative competence; (2) negotiating the scope of
communicative competence; and (3) dismantling boundaries and resisting
reified norms.

Test-​taking competence as a type of communicative competence

One of the main purported benefits of the shift towards communicative
approaches in language assessment is the central role of authenticity. For
example, in communicative tasks for receptive skills assessment, test takers
may be asked to read or listen to “authentic” texts drawn from real-​world
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192 Luke Harding, Susy Macqueen, and John Pill

materials or to respond to texts in ways that simulate language activities in
the target domain. In task prompts for productive skills, the intended reader/​
listener and the purpose for the performance will be specified—​as these
elements would be known in real-​world settings—​and a time limit set to
approximate real-​life demands of task completion. Criteria used to assess test
performances will commonly cover features in addition to phonological,
lexical, morphological, and syntactic knowledge, including, for example,
task achievement, appropriateness, turn-​taking, and promptness of response
(in oral interaction) or discourse management (in writing). The underlying
motive is that, in striving for authenticity in the test setting, a more accurate
simulation of real-​world communicative competence can be observed (see
Norris, 2016). However, as we have noted in the previous section, taking
part in a language exam is a kind of “staged” performance (Rydell, 2015,
p. 535) which requires its own form of communicative competence. Tacit
expectations about “good” test performance might be more or less well
understood by different test-​taking populations (for example, test takers with
low print literacy in their first language might start from a position of rela-
tive disadvantage, see Deygers et al., 2021). Indeed, “appropriate” test-​taking
behavior may require overt or covert socialization, and this creates a number
of problems for interpreting test performance.
Viewed from this multidimensional perspective, the connection between
communicative competence and authenticity becomes more complex.
A richly contextualized speaking role-​play between a human interlocutor and
a test taker is considered more “communicative” in the theoretical sense than
a multiple-​choice item on a reading text, even though in practice both tasks
require a sophisticated knowledge of the context of use for successful per-
formance. The multiple-​choice item, for all its decontextualized appearance,
requires familiarity with the nature of tests and their peculiar conditions
and an understanding of the text type, the nature of the writer, the intended
audience of the text, the topic content, the format of questions, the interplay
between possible answer options, the likely knowledge/​skill being elicited,
and the valued language variety, among other task features. From the point
of view of anthropological linguistics, these are all relevant to communicative
competence, but they may be taken for granted in interpreting perform-
ance on a multiple-​choice test, as many individuals are socialized into these
natural-​seeming practices at a young age through schooling.
Relatedly, although the term “performance testing” is applied specific-
ally to test designs that prioritize more direct and authentic sampling (e.g., a
simulation of a pilot speaking to an air traffic controller in a test of Aviation
English), any test (other than covert observation) is actually a performance,
because the test taker understands that they are producing a sample of lan-
guage for a particular purpose (i.e., to perform in the role of test taker and
do test-​taker activities). In tasks that also specify or imply an audience (e.g., a
role-​play where test takers might be required to display authority or empathy,
or a letter writing task where their language is for a particular recipient), the
test taker has a dual audience to consider: the task audience and the judge,
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Assessing communicative competence 193

which may be a computer algorithm or a human. In assessment contexts,
understanding the nature of the simulation context and, in some simulation
contexts, performing for two audiences, form part of the communicative
competence peculiar to successful test taking.
The issue of tacit expectations is perhaps most complex for tests
administered internationally. Developers creating tests for a particular domain
(e.g., readiness for university study in English in the UK) may include
features in their test tasks that they assume are universal while, in fact, these
features operate differently in other contexts. For example, the value given
to sharing personal experience in seminar discussion may not be the same
in all academic cultures; expectations of who can initiate a conversation,
change its topic, or disagree with a proposition may vary (Toomaneejinda,
2018). It is reasonable that test takers should demonstrate the knowledge
and skills (that is, the communicative competence) to perform appropri-
ately in the new context. However, test takers’ possibly substantial efforts to
make the required cultural shift risk going unrecognized and unrewarded
because this aspect of competence has been taken for granted in the test
design. The particular socialization required for communicative competence
in language test settings remains a sorely under-​researched topic, although
the study of washback and test impact—​specifically, the effect of a test on
the preparation of intending test takers and their teachers—​offers a glimpse
of this (e.g., Macqueen et al., 2019). More than simply the mobilization of
test-​taking strategies, test preparation socializes test takers into ways of being
with test-​induced values, for example, projecting an ideologically favorable
stance on being a “good immigrant” (Rydell, 2015, p. 543). At a societal level,
individuals are socialized into evaluating themselves through internalizing
assessment criteria, propelled by the understanding that tests are a gateway
for opportunity and self-​improvement (Broadfoot, 1996).

Negotiating the scope of communicative competence

A second critical issue for language assessment concerns the need to reconcile
different perspectives on the scope of communicative competence—​where
to draw boundaries and whose views should take precedence. Examples
from the field of testing language for specific purposes (LSP) illustrate how
different views of the scope of communicative competence may come into
conflict. In 2017, a news article reported the complaint of a nurse trained in
the Philippines that the writing task in the test of academic English required
as part of her professional registration in the UK did not appear to match
the communicative demands of the healthcare workplace. In “Do I have to
understand jam-​making to be a nurse?” (Pym, 2017), the headline refers to
the nurse’s dismay at being asked to analyze a diagram about the process of
jam-​making and describe this in an International English Language Testing
System (IELTS) writing task.While English language teachers will recognize
the skill of describing a process in writing as being useful to nurses (as well as
to students and professionals in other disciplines), the task had little relevance
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194 Luke Harding, Susy Macqueen, and John Pill

for the test taker. For her, the necessary communicative competence was
more specific. Given this reaction, researchers may argue for the suitability
of a language test explicitly designed for healthcare professionals, such as the
Occupational English Test (OET; www.occu​pati​onal​engl​isht​est.org), origin-
ally developed for use in Australia (see McNamara, 1996).
Limits on the scope of the construct recognized in a LSP test such as
the OET, however, are also apparent in a second example. Under Australian
federal law, English language proficiency and professional competence must
be assessed separately for the professional registration of health professionals
trained outside the country (McNamara, 1996, p. 40). As such, the OET is
designed to include features relevant to healthcare settings (e.g., topics, texts,
interactional modes, criteria; thus targeting communicative competence in
clinical situations), but not to test clinical competence itself. Drawing the
boundary is difficult, however, as domain-​specific communicative compe-
tence can become challenging to separate from a wider definition of clinical
competence. Stakeholders may view aspects of communicative competence
as belonging to their domain to teach and assess. To illustrate, a represen-
tative of the registration board for medical practitioners in Australia, when
explaining how the board viewed its use of the OET, stated, “We don’t think
it’s testing clinical communication skills …. If testing is congruent with prac-
tice[,]‌that’s terrific, but we shouldn’t be relying on that as the method for
saying … these people will be good clinical communicators and cultur-
ally competent” (Macqueen et al., 2021, p. 58). In the representative’s view,
assessing communicative competence for a clinical setting (e.g., the doctor–​
patient consultation) is more than can be expected of a language test.
This example indicates how attempts by test developers and researchers
to broaden the scope of the construct of a language test could be resisted by
subject-​matter experts and other stakeholders wanting to limit it to more
traditional “language” features and unwilling to cede control of aspects of
communicative competence that they view as professional (rather than lan-
guage) skills. Other research studies attempting to expand the construct of
LSP tests to encompass professional skills performed through language have
shown that seeking a border between language and content can be con-
tentious (e.g., for trainee teachers using a foreign language to teach math-
ematics and science, see Elder, 2001; for medical practitioners working in
a language different from that of their training, see O’Hagan et al., 2016).
Communicative competence makes greatest sense in terms of specific tasks
and contexts, but, from a language assessment perspective, it is here that
it becomes most difficult to establish boundaries for the construct and to
generalize performance to other settings—​that is, to predict the quality of
performance in the domain from restricted information in test perform-
ance (see Chalhoub-​Deville, 2003). A further challenge for assessment
concerns the personnel to apply the test criteria specified (Elder et al., 2017).
Language-​oriented examiners may make inadequate proxies for participants
in the domain, ignoring features that are valued and rating unfamiliar aspects
of performance inconsistently, whereas subject-​matter experts may give less
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Assessing communicative competence 195

attention to conventional linguistic criteria. Then, when test performances
are rated by a subject-​matter expert and a language expert together, further
questions arise about whether the experts should use separate rating schemes
and about whether a single overall score should be determined or compo-
nent scores reported presenting the two perspectives. Exploring the scope
and profile of communicative competence from different viewpoints—​
including those of language experts, subject-​matter experts, and test takers—​
is essential to establish which aspects matter to such groups and to consider
whose values should be reflected in test design.

Dismantling boundaries; resisting reified norms

While communicative competence by default challenges the notion of
idealized codes, models for teaching, learning, and assessment have tended to
keep single-​language boundedness as a fundamental property (e.g., commu-
nicative competence in English, where “English” is a single, standardized var-
iety). Recent shifts in the wider field of (applied) linguistics have challenged
this view in two ways. First, the phenomenon of “a language” is no longer
seen as a bounded and inevitable arrangement of rules and patterns but
rather a sociopolitical construct that does not match the everyday reality of
multilingual speakers (e.g., Makoni & Pennycook, 2007). Second, and dir-
ectly related to this, beyond the field of language testing, developments in the
nature of communicative competence have drawn attention to the primacy
of context in the mobilization of linguistic repertoires (e.g., Blommaert et al.,
2005; Kramsch & Whiteside, 2008) and to the problem of using monolin-
gual, native-​speaker competence as a yardstick for users of multiple languages
whose knowledge comprises “dynamic constellations of resources” that
emerge in interaction from internal and social processes (Hall et al., 2006,
p. 229; see also Geeslin & Hanson, Chapter 3, this volume).
The challenges to communicative language assessment raised by these
critiques are stark. The field has only begun to address the inherent
instability and dynamic nature of lingua franca communicative environments
(Canagarajah, 2006; Harding & McNamara, 2018) and to explore constructs
of multilingualism in language assessment (Schissel, Leung, & Chalhoub-
Deville, 2019; Shohamy, 2011). There has been some progress with respect
to removing the native speaker as a benchmark in performance descriptors
(e.g., Council of Europe, 2020), specific innovations in local testing contexts
(e.g., Motteram, 2020), and research agendas seeking to provide an empirical
basis for change (e.g., Ockey & Wagner, 2018).Yet large-​scale communicative
language assessment often remains mired, operationally, in standard language
ideology; linguistic patterns that are valued in tests tend to reflect high-​status,
official or standard varieties that may not represent the dynamic reality of the
target language use domain. As a case in point, tests of English language profi-
ciency, for instance, are now used widely for admissions purposes for English
as a Medium of Instruction (EMI) institutions in non-​English-​­dominant
contexts. Such tests will often be built on the norms of standardized varieties
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196 Luke Harding, Susy Macqueen, and John Pill

(e.g., featuring speakers of North American, British, or Australian English),
but the test results may be generalized to situations where varieties of English
are more heterogeneous or where translanguaging is a frequent and natural
feature of communication (see Iliovits et al., 2022, for examples of language
use at the American University of Beirut). Not only do such tests not elicit
performance samples that match the target language use domain, they impli-
citly reinforce inappropriate monolingual standards in heteroglossic situ-
ations (Schissel, Leung, & Chalhoub-Deville, 2019).
Newer conceptualizations of communicative competence might address
these dilemmas. For example, Leung (2005) argues that the theoretical
notion of communicative competence should be recast as an “ethnographic
orientation that is capable of making connections with emergent sensibilities
in diverse contexts of English language learning, teaching and use” (p. 121).
Concepts such as translingualism (Canagarajah, 2018) have broadened the
scope of communicative competence to include “more expansive spatial
repertoires that transcend text/​ context distinctions and transgress social
boundaries … to also treat meaning making ability as distributed, accom-
modating the role of social networks, things, and bodies, beyond mind and
grammar, requiring strategic emplacement” (p. 52). Such ideas create sub-
stantial challenges for operationalizing the assessment of communicative
competence in ways that are both practical and fair to test takers from diverse
backgrounds. And yet, getting the construct of assessments right is not only
a matter of theoretical coherence, it is also a matter of social justice. Taking a
decolonial perspective, García and colleagues (2021) focus on the “vast lin-
guistic complexity and heterogeneity of people and language” (p. 205) and
argue that a consequence of assessing a racialized bilingual child’s ability via
the norms of single, named languages is that the child is frequently deemed
linguistically deficient (see also Shohamy, 2001b).The concept of communi-
cative competence originated in observations, in classrooms and elsewhere,
that an idealized linguistic competence was simply not adequate to provide
a full understanding of the human capacity for language or, with real-​world
consequences, to acknowledge the equal status of children in institutions
with which their divergent linguistic repertoires did not align. Achieving
social justice while balancing other fairness considerations (Kunnan, 2018)
within the practical constraints on any assessment process is likely to remain
one of the most complex challenges for language assessment into the future.

Research methods in assessment

As stated earlier, language assessment specialists have frequently drawn on
theoretical models of communicative competence to guide their thinking in
defining constructs of interest.These theoretical accounts have typically been
supplemented, or in some cases enhanced, by empirical approaches that have
sought to determine the nature and scope of communicative competence in
specific contexts and to identify authentic tasks that interactants frequently
engage with in the target language use domain. This empirical approach is
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Assessing communicative competence 197

known as the domain analysis. Domain analysis refers to the “forms, meanings,
and use, assemblies of knowledge, skills, and competencies that language
learners typically engage with in target language use situations, and features
of tasks that invoke them” (Yin & Mislevy, 2022, p. 291).The domain analysis
provides an important starting point for constructing an assessment that taps
into elements of communicative competence valued in real-​world settings.
The domain also provides an important point of comparison in carrying
out validation research. Ideally, just as test tasks should represent key aspects
of the domain, test performance on those tasks should indicate future per-
formance in that domain (Chapelle et al., 2008; McNamara, 2000). Thus,
comparing the nature of the domain with characteristics of performance
elicited from test tasks is essential if claims are to be made that a test measures
communicative competence as defined in a given setting.
Various research methods have been used to analyze language use
domains, characteristics of test performance, and the relationship between
these. Methodological variety is warranted because the focus of analysis
may be on the nature of language use (ranging from lexicogrammatical
features to broader discourse categories such as register and genre), inter-
actional patterns, tasks, texts, modalities, and other key features of commu-
nication within a given domain. In Table 11.1 we provide an overview of
four common research methods currently used in assessment research with a
focus on exploring aspects of communicative competence, providing a brief
explanation of each method and what it might be most useful for, and pro-
viding examples of prototypical studies for follow-​up reading.

Recommendations for practice

At this point in the chapter, a practitioner might wonder how the more
intractable issues can be addressed. Here we make two recommendations for
practice emerging from the foregoing discussion: (1) refocusing assessment
design on repertoires of communicative competence, and (2) shifting research
priorities towards understanding the nature of communicative competence
within test situations themselves.
On the first point, language assessment—​whether for large-​scale, inter-
national purposes or at the classroom level—​can only proceed with a clear
purpose and construct definition. The fact that theories of communicative
competence have become more complex makes the task of operational-
izing them more challenging, but it remains possible to address this challenge
with the tools and concepts that are currently available. As Harding and
McNamara (2018) have argued with respect to designing assessments of
lingua franca competence, “language testing research has a history of iden-
tifying and solving problems in communicative language assessment on
which it can draw” (p. 575). The primary task is to articulate a revised con-
struct of communicative competence that can function as a foundation. The
second task is to translate that construct into a set of assessment methods and
procedures that captures the construct effectively. Given the increasing focus
 198
newgenrtpdf
Table 11.1 Four common research methods for exploring communicative competence in language assessment

198 Luke Harding, Susy Macqueen, and John Pill

Method Description Prototypical studiesa
Discourse analysis/​ Analyzing discourse—​whether the discourse characteristics of real-​world Brown (2003), Roever & Kasper
Conversation communicative settings or of test-​taker performance—​is a widely used method (2018),Youn (2020)
analysis in assessment research. This is particularly the case in research focusing on See also Nguyen, Chapter 8, this
pragmatics or interactional competence, where tools from conversation analysis volume
have been applied to understand a range of phenomena in test-​taker talk.
Corpus linguistics Corpus-​based approaches are becoming increasingly common in language Gablasova et al. (2017), He & Dai
assessment research. For more communicatively oriented assessment research, (2006), Staples et al. (2017)
corpora provide opportunities for insight into real-​world communication See also Gries, Chapter 7, this
(through existing or specially collected corpora) and into test-​taker discourse volume
(through corpora constructed with speaking or writing performances drawn
from tests).
Ethnographic Ethnographic approaches may involve participant or non-​participant observation Elder et al. (2017), Iliovits
approaches of language use in a given domain or may attempt to understand the domain et al. (2022), Leung &
through close consultation with domain experts. As Douglas (2000, p. 93) has Lewkowicz (2013)
suggested, ethnographic approaches constitute “an approach to describing and See also Starr, Chapter 5, this
understanding a target language use situation from the perspective of language volume
users in that situation.” Ethnographic approaches may also be useful for
exploring the test event itself (see next section).
Verbal report methods The verbal report method includes a range of approaches such as concurrent and May (2011), Plakans (2009), Schissel,
retrospective think-​aloud protocols, as well as stimulated recall. These methods López-Gopar, et al. (2019)
are useful for understanding the response processes of test takers on particular
tasks, enabling comparison with processes required in real-​world communicative
settings. The same methods are also commonly employed to explore what
aspects of communicative competence raters notice and value in performance
assessment.

a In several cases, multiple methods are used in the same study
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Assessing communicative competence 199

on repertoires of multi/​translingual performance, it is likely that meeting this
challenge will result in very different kinds of assessment tasks, for example,
highly interactive tasks focused on accommodation and negotiation of
meaning where there are porous boundaries between named languages
and dialects and where communicative appropriateness or effectiveness is
determined in context by the participants themselves. It is clear that a shift
towards capturing these new conceptualizations of communicative com-
petence would necessarily destabilize the current monolithic approach to
large-​scale, international testing, and would require instead a shift towards
locally developed assessments, designed in consultation with learners and
other stakeholders, and with democratic principles of test-​taker agency at the
fore (Shohamy, 2001a). In this regard, meeting the challenges of newer the-
ories of communicative competence requires both technical, design-​based
change and systemic change in the sociopolitical and economic orthodoxies
of language testing.
With respect to test taking as a kind of communicative competence, the
field would benefit from recognizing this fundamental problem more openly,
acknowledging that the test situation is a communicative event in its own
right with its own properties. We must therefore recognize the additional
layer of communicative competence that is required to take part in the test
itself. In some cases, this “test-​taking communicative competence” will need
to be made more transparent, because what is taken for granted is often the
source of inequalities (such as the child who has never had experience of
transferring answers to an answer sheet, or who does not feel it is appro-
priate to question an adult in an oral proficiency exam). Minoritized learners
whose existing communicative competence is currently not valued in test
constructs and who have not been socialized into the particular communi-
cative competence of “taking the test” are doubly penalized.
Addressing this issue would require a greater shift towards research on
the test as a specific site of communication. There has already been a long
tradition of such research with a focus on oral proficiency interviews (OPIs),
with early work identifying such exams as a type of “institutional discourse”
that is distinct from regular conversation (e.g., Young & He, 1998; see
McNamara & Roever, 2006, for an overview of this research). One recent
study has broadened these concerns to consider the dimensions of ideology
and power that influence discourse in speaking test environments (Rydell,
2015). However, there has been less research on other aspects of test taking as
having distinct communicative identities and relatedly little attention on the
communicative competence required to engage with a wider range of test
tasks. Beyond language assessment, work has been conducted in this vein by
Maddox et al. (2015) from an anthropological perspective on the UNESCO
Literacy Assessment and Monitoring Programme (LAMP) tests, with a focus
on understanding the taking of a test “ethnographically as a distinctive social
occasion” (p. 296). An ethnographic approach is valuable, as the authors state,
because it
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200 Luke Harding, Susy Macqueen, and John Pill

provides qualitative insights into how the test and test items are
received and understood by the tested population. This is particularly
important because “realistic” test items carry tacit cultural knowledge
and assumptions that may not be shared or understood by the tested
population (e.g., scope for “cultural misfit”).
(Maddox et al., 2015, pp. 296–​297)

We look forward to more research focusing on different aspects of language

assessment to identify components of the layer of communicative com-
petence that is required to engage successfully with a range of test-​taking
situations.

Future directions
The most urgent challenge on the horizon for language assessment, argu-
ably, is dealing with the disruptive influence of digital technology on all
aspects of language assessment practice and on the communicative practices
that language assessments seek to measure (see Stockwell & Ito, Chapter 10,
this volume). New language constructs require a reconceptualization of
communicative competence to capture hitherto under-​researched forms of
engagement with digital tools. Such communication often blurs distinctions
traditionally made between spoken and written modes to create its own
discourses and genres. For example, text messages are typically informal
and may include abbreviations, images, and emojis (without meaning for
outsiders). Chains of messages are co-​constructed by multiple participants,
as if in spoken conversation. Readers post responses and discuss online art-
icles creating nets of interacting opinions. Participants in a videoconfer-
ence contribute to spoken discussion while commenting in parallel using
the written chat function (and perhaps concurrently sending messages in
private conversations using other software). Fleeting comments become
permanent and retrievable unless designed to expire after receipt. Writers
contribute to and edit the same text simultaneously online. In addition to
reconceptualizing current constructs, the promise of technology for language
assessment opens up new vistas for narrowing the gap between test settings
and real-​world communication.Virtual reality, for example, would allow for
a fully immersive experience such that the communication required in a
simulated assessment situation would match more closely the communica-
tive competence of real-​world domains of language use. However, it remains
to be seen just how such settings—​and, once again, the knowledge that one
is being assessed—​would influence the kind of performance elicited.
The more immediate challenge, however, is the threat that technology
in test design and administration may narrow or dilute the more expan-
sive definitions of communicative language ability that have been developed
over the past 40 years. As we previously noted, theoretical models of com-
municative competence have advanced to a point where learning, teaching,
and assessment are compelled to focus on linguistic repertoires in contexts
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Assessing communicative competence 201

of heteroglossia. Yet many online language assessment systems, while pro-
viding cheaper, more flexible, and more accessible experiences for test
takers, are nevertheless less capable of tapping into these more sophisticated
competences (see also Harding & Fulcher, 2022), particularly due to the
absence of a human interlocutor (Roever & Ikeda, 2022) and the current
limitations of automated scoring systems to process unpredictable spoken
and written performances (Isaacs, 2018). The present situation represents an
interesting tension for language assessment, and it is in this space that future
innovations in communicative competence for assessment are likely to be
located.

Sample test materials and discussion questions

The following role-​play task might be used in an English-​language profi-
ciency test taken as part of the requirements for professional registration of
nurses in an English-​dominant context. Read through the task and con-
sider the discussion questions below in light of the themes covered in this
chapter.

Example task A

Test taker (nurse)

You are working on a hospital ward. The 65-​year-​old patient, who
is very overweight, had a serious fall and broke their leg. The patient
is due to go home today. Your task is to help them consider eating a
healthier diet as they continue to recover at home.

• Find out about the patient’s eating habits.

• Encourage the patient to make healthy food choices.
• Offer suggestions that achieve your goals and suit the patient’s
situation.

Interlocutor (patient)
You are a 65-​year-​old retired teacher, in the hospital after having a fall
in which you broke your leg.You are overweight but feel fine for your
age. You are going home today. The nurse is to give you advice about
eating a healthier diet.
You have never liked vegetables or salad. You live alone and don’t
enjoy cooking. Shopping and preparing food are a waste of time. Fast-​
food delivery is convenient, and you like the taste—​sometimes you
order food twice a day. However, you realize you can’t really afford this
in the long term.
20

202 Luke Harding, Susy Macqueen, and John Pill

• Tell the nurse about your eating habits.You are set in your ways.
• Initially resist suggestions to make changes in your diet. When
appropriate, acknowledge your financial worries.
• Ask for ideas about how to make gradual changes, perhaps even
about easy dishes to make for yourself.

Discussion questions
1. What aspects of communicative competence (e.g., language knowledge
and strategic competence) would be elicited by this task? What aspects
of communicative competence would this task not be able to elicit?
2. How would you determine an acceptable boundary between language
and content in evaluating the test taker’s communicative competence on
the basis of performance on this task?
3. Do you think a subject-​matter expert (i.e., a practicing nurse) would
judge performance differently from a professional English-​ language
examiner? What differences would you predict in their perspectives?
Whose perspective would be “correct”?
4. What elements of “test-​taking communicative competence” would be
required to successfully take part in the test situation itself? How would
you explain the nature of this test-​taking communicative competence to
a student who is preparing to take this exam?
5. How could you design a rubric to capture aspects of communicative com-
petence that rewards/​does not penalize features such as accommodation,
negotiation of meaning, and translanguaging as contextually appropriate?
6. What would change if this role-​ play was conducted online (e.g.,
through videoconferencing)? What else would differ if the role-​play was
conducted through an instant messaging/​chat app?

Now consider the following discourse completion task (DCT), which

could be used in an English-​language proficiency test for nurses. Read
through the task, and then discuss questions 1 to 4 from the prior task with
reference to this task. Consider also how you might score this task fairly in
operational assessment conditions.

Example task B

Discourse completion task

You are a nurse working at a general practice surgery (clinic).You are
in a consultation with a 65-​year-​old patient who you have not met
before. The patient recently broke his leg, and you need to persuade
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Assessing communicative competence 203

him to change his eating habits to achieve a healthy weight.The patient

has already told you that he doesn’t like salad or vegetables and that
he prefers not to cook for himself. What would you say? (Write your
response below.)

Suggestions for further reading

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Press.
Elder, C. (Ed.). (2016). Authenticity in LSP testing (special issue). Language
Testing, 33(2).
McNamara, T. F. (1996). Measuring second language performance. Longman.
Shohamy, E. (2011). Assessing multilingual competencies: Adopting construct valid
assessment policies. The Modern Language Journal, 95(3), 418–​429.

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12 Looking forward
Future directions in the study of
communicative competence
Megan Solon and Matthew Kanwit

Since the introduction of the construct in the 1960s and 70s within
anthropological and ethnographic traditions (e.g., Hymes, 1972; see Kanwit
& Solon, Chapter 1, this volume), communicative competence has been
considered, analyzed, and explored in language teaching, language assessment,
and language acquisition research (e.g., Bachman, 1990; Canale & Swain,
1980; Paulston, 1974; Savignon, 1972). The construct spurred an emphasis
on communication in language teaching (e.g., Canale, 1983; Johnson &
Morrow, 1981; see also Savignon, 2005, for a review) as well as research
on the second language (L2) acquisition of its components (e.g., L2 vari-
ation and sociolinguistic competence: Adamson & Regan, 1991; Young,
1991; communication strategies and strategic competence: Faerch & Kasper,
1983; Varadi, 1980). Now, half a century after its introduction, scholars are
revisiting this foundational concept in order to clarify and, in many cases,
critique or problematize the types of knowledge it comprises and how it is
defined, determined, and assessed (e.g., Canagarajah, 2018a; Kramsch, 2006;
Leung, 2005). This volume set out to extend this conversation by bringing
together current empirical, theoretical, and methodological considerations
of communicative competence. Our aim was to, collectively, reflect on the
history, current treatment, and future of this foundational concept across
different perspectives, approaches, and applications in second language acqui-
sition (SLA) research. In this chapter, we synthesize the various and varied
contributions of the volume, delve into four overarching themes observed
across multiple chapters, and highlight important considerations (including
omissions from this volume) as well as next steps for research and practice
related to communicative competence.

Theory, methods, and applications

Theory
As effective research is grounded in theory, the volume began with a section
dedicated to some of the major theoretical perspectives in SLA and their rela-
tionship to and degree of being informed by communicative competence.
We learned that a critical (re)consideration of communicative competence
DOI: 10.4324/9781003160779-15
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Looking forward 209

by practitioners can inform research on foundational considerations within
a particular approach or field, even when it is not traditionally associated
with the construct. For instance, Juffs’s chapter highlighted how a thoughtful
consideration of communicative competence (or its components) within a
generative perspective—​a theoretical tradition not typically associated with
the construct—​could refocus and expand certain foundational empirical
efforts that contribute to generative SLA’s (GenSLA’s) overarching goal
of elucidating linguistic competence. Geeslin and Hanson, alternatively,
described the more typical centrality of communicative competence and
its components to usage-​based and, specifically, variationist sociolinguistic
approaches to L2 acquisition. Nevertheless, the authors highlighted a need
to more carefully consider and incorporate learner/​user identity in defining
sociolinguistic competence. Poehner, likewise, argued for the need to con-
sider learner agency, experience, and communicative goals as he connected
research to practice in his appraisal of communicative competence within
the sociocultural theoretical tradition. He discussed Vygotsky’s notion of
perezhivanie (a Russian term meaning “having lived through something”)
and called for communicative language curricula to be responsive to learners’
lived experiences, choices, and own desired meanings. He also described
implications for language teacher preparation programs, classrooms, and the
research that examines and informs them.

Methods
Given that theory directly informs practice, the volume then shifted to
examining methodological approaches to the study of communicative
competence. Starr connected to and expanded upon Geeslin and Hanson’s
chapter to elucidate how ethnographic and sociolinguistic methods can pro-
vide information regarding the features learners employ in performance and
how these relate to socially competent identity work. Ethnographic research
has also importantly problematized the construct of communicative compe-
tence by providing detailed observations about translanguaging and multilin-
gual language use—​realities that are not often considered within traditional
notions of communicative competence (i.e., in a language) and among
learners and language users (e.g., heritage speakers) whose competent com-
munication within their linguistic communities may not be recognized as
such under traditional definitions of “competence.” Jegerski and Fernández
Cuenca emphasized the potential for psycholinguistic methods to provide
information about communicative competence in real time. They expanded
on Juffs’s argument that processing is central to considerations of communi-
cative competence and described how psycholinguistic techniques may be
able to provide unique insight into the ways in which linguistic knowledge
is or is not competently accessed in real time. They also noted, importantly,
that if psycholinguistic research aims to illuminate communicative compe-
tence, its tasks must require meaningful communication, a current limitation
of many psycholinguistic research designs. Finally, Gries provided practical
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210 Megan Solon and Matthew Kanwit

insight into how methodological and analytic tools, such as multifactorial
statistical analysis and greater annotation of speaker characteristics, can help
researchers carry out more detailed and rigorous analyses of context in
corpus-​based and computational studies.

Applications
Finally, informed by theory and methods, the third section of the volume
turned to facets of communicative competence that have been elucidated
across different modes, abilities, and types of assessments. In her chapter on
interlanguage pragmatics and communicative competence, Nguyen aptly
argued for greater consideration of interactional competence and for rec-
ognizing it as a joint undertaking of meaning making. Thus, rather than
an individual competence possessed or developed by one person, inter-
actional competence is a dynamic skill enacted and negotiated with and
among interlocutors and interactants. Polio and Montgomery illustrated
that many aspects of communicative competence are already quite regularly
investigated within the field of L2 writing, but rarely is the term commu-
nicative competence invoked. They argued that adopting a communicative
competence framework may help to push the field of L2 writing to consider
various aspects of L2 writing competence in a cohesive manner (e.g., lan-
guage competence and genre competence) and, as a result, could enhance
writing instruction and curricular development. Stockwell and Ito skillfully
laid out how technology has expanded learners’ access to and opportunities
for communication in a L2. Likewise, technological advances have led to
changes in language, in sociolinguistic and pragmalinguistic norms, and in
strategies for successful and appropriate communication, thus altering the
notion of communicative competence and the definition(s) of competent
communication. Adoption of more qualitative, discourse-​based approaches
to studying computer-​assisted or -​mediated communication has brought
about insight regarding how learners use these new tools and modalities to
accomplish their communicative goals. Finally, Harding, Macqueen, and Pill
discussed the complex relationship between communicative competence
and language assessment—​highlighting the fact that, while communicative
competence strongly influences many current models and theories in the
field, the need for standardization and the importance of accuracy of meas-
urement often “collide” with this holistic and not always clearly defined
construct. They recognized very important and real challenges to assessing
competent speech and to delineating the competencies to be evaluated (e.g.,
specific vs. generalizable, linguistic knowledge vs. field-​specific skills) and
emphasized the need to consider test-​taking as a societal and communica-
tive process such that “appropriate” test-​taking behavior may comprise its
own socialized competency that differs from communicative language use in
non-​assessment circumstances.
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Overarching takeaways
In amassing different theoretical perspectives on, methodological approaches
to, and empirical applications of communicative competence, a central aim of
this volume was to highlight common ground among diverging viewpoints
on the topic. In this section, we focus on four collective takeaways from the
contributions to the volume.

Helpful (new) framing for longstanding questions

One recurrent theme observed across several chapters of the volume was
that the construct of communicative competence can provide a helpful,
and in some cases new, lens to investigate longstanding and often founda-
tional questions within various disciplines. In some traditions, communica-
tive competence is already investigated, but framing it as such can provide
new insights. For example, even though communicative competence is a
construct not often invoked in GenSLA, there are central questions within
the generative tradition that can be more fully answered by keeping com-
municative competence and its components in mind. In this volume, Juffs
highlighted the importance and impact of discourse context(s) on language
processing (connecting to discourse competence) and the relevance of cul-
tural associations of lexical items (and, thus, the importance of considering
socialization and sociolinguistic competence) in lexical processing. As Juffs’s
chapter makes clear, even though linguistic competence (and not usually
communication) is the object of study in this tradition, by explicitly rec-
ognizing that linguistic competence cannot be fully separated from aspects
or contexts of its implementation, GenSLA researchers will be able to
more fully answer questions central to their subfield. Similarly, Polio and
Montgomery rightly observe that much empirical work on L2 writing
already considers communicative competence, even though it rarely uses
the term. Nevertheless, learning to adhere to the norms of various genres of
writing in a L2 lies squarely within the bounds of learning to communicate
competently. Polio and Montgomery also argue that there is something to
be gained in L2 writing acquisition, teaching, teacher training, and research
by more explicitly adopting a communicative competence framework. The
construct of communicative competence may push L2 writing scholars and
educators to consider more closely the balance between linguistic know-
ledge and genre competence that is required for appropriate and function-
ally adequate writing. Overt consideration of communicative competence
thus encourages a more holistic perspective and recognizes the complex and
interconnected nature of the knowledge required to write in a L2. While
the questions being asked may not be new, the framing of the questions in
terms of their relationship with communicative competence can invite novel
insight and approaches that may expand implications of empirical work.
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212 Megan Solon and Matthew Kanwit

Strategic competence in many forms

Related to our first takeaway, several chapters similarly stressed that, despite
its often being considered the least-​researched component of communica-
tive competence, we may, in fact, be documenting learners’ strategic com-
petence in various ways. Recognizing and reframing certain constructs and
phenomena as learner strategies may help us better understand their role
in communication. For example, Jegerski and Fernández Cuenca describe
compensatory strategies in L2 processing (e.g., the First Noun Principle;
VanPatten, 1996, 2020) whereby learners adopt processing shortcuts to
improve efficiency in communication despite sometimes lacking the gram-
matical knowledge or cognitive resources to process all relevant linguistic
details. Although such shortcuts may lead to misinterpretation in some cases
(e.g., erroneously interpreting the first noun of an object-​verb-​subject sen-
tence as the subject in sentences like Lo ve María, him sees María, “María
sees him”), they generally facilitate successful, real-​time communication and,
thus, can be viewed and studied as potential contributors to communica-
tive competence. Better understanding how, when, and why learners employ
such strategies during real-​time communication (e.g., through some of the
psycholinguistic methods Jegerski and Fernández Cuenca describe) will help
us gain a better picture of L2 strategic competence in language processing.
Similarly, Gries describes how, by utilizing corpora and advanced statistical
methods, offline observational data (such as in research on the realization/​
omission of that as a relativizer by Lester, 2019) can provide insight into
online processing-​related strategies of various language users. In L2 writing,
Polio and Montgomery emphasize that a process approach to writing (e.g.,
exploring how learners plan and revise their writing and/​or teaching them
to do so) requires a focus on strategic competence. They aptly note that, his-
torically, definitions of strategic competence have varied (e.g., from refer-
ring to the use of communication strategies to metacognitive strategies to
a combination of communicative, cognitive, and metacognitive strategies;
Celce-​Murcia, 2008) but, like other contributors, they encourage an expan-
sive and inclusive view of strategic competence that can help us understand
(and potentially aid through instruction) the ways in which learners com-
municative effectively.

Centering identity and agency

Another theme observed across numerous chapters was that considerations
of communicative competence often do not adequately reflect learner/​user
identity and agency in defining, accounting for, and assessing “competence.”
For example, as Starr noted, first language (L1) user norms are not always
the goal or target of L2 users, who may agentively employ certain features
and avoid others as they “construct a particular persona” (p. 93). Likewise,
Nguyen highlighted that learners’ variation in pragmatic aspects of language
use does not necessarily reflect insensitivity to target language norms or lack
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Looking forward 213

of knowledge but may be related to the “language user’s culture or expres-
sion of cultural identity” (p. 138). Moreover, numerous aspects of learner
identity affect the forms that learners use and the extent to which these
are privileged or stigmatized socially. For example, the integration of SLA,
gender identity, and sexuality remains an area ripe for further study as we
consider the extent to which learners adopt or choose not to adopt standard
or innovative forms. Among the growing body of studies on these topics are
recent investigations by Knisely (2020) on the use and comprehension of
pronominal and agreement strategies by non-​binary and binary L1 and L2
users of French (i.e., a language that encodes grammatical gender morpho-
syntactically), and the interpersonal factors that affect how queer learners
manage identities in Japanese as a foreign or second language classes and what
instructors can do to create safe and comfortable classrooms for learners to
communicate (Moore, 2019).Thus, considering certain patterns as indicating
more or less competence may, in fact, ignore purposeful and meaningful lin-
guistic choices by learners to communicate information about their social
identities that may differ from patterns or choices used by L1 communities.
Relatedly, and following arguments laid out by, for example, the Douglas Fir
Group (2016) and Ortega (2019), Geeslin and Hanson call for researchers
to “suspend assumptions about constructs such as ‘native speaker’ or ‘speech
community’” (p. 52) and, instead, to engage in research that reflects and is
responsive to learners’ experiences, communities, and goals. Sociocultural
approaches (see Poehner, this volume) are especially suited to address such
issues and may provide helpful insight for other theoretical approaches (e.g.,
see Nance et al., 2016, for an example of the influence of Sociocultural
Theory on variationist approaches to L2 acquisition).

Communicative competence (and how we define it) as a matter

of social justice
Finally, and very much related to considering learner/​user identity and
agency, is the call to consider communicative competence carefully under
a social justice lens—​something that, arguably, was a component of the
construct’s original intent (see Kramsch, 2006). As Harding et al. write in
their chapter,

The concept of communicative competence originated in observations,

in classrooms and elsewhere, that an idealized linguistic competence was
simply not adequate to provide a full understanding of the human cap-
acity for language or, with real-​world consequences, to acknowledge
the equal status of children in institutions with which their divergent
linguistic repertoires did not align.
(p. 196)

Nevertheless, though it was first proposed by Hymes as a counter to the

ideal speaker-​hearer, communicative competence has, as argued by Kramsch
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214 Megan Solon and Matthew Kanwit

(2006), often been streamlined and simplified in the service of “instrumental
goals” related to efficiency and accountability in foreign language educa-
tion (p. 250). Likewise, determinations of what “counts” as communicatively
competent are often still guided by reductive language ideologies that revert
back to constructs/​norms such as the ideal/​monolingual “native speaker,”
linguistic prescriptivism, and outdated (and often racialized) notions of
appropriateness (see Flores & Rosa, 2015; Rosa & Flores, 2021). Grappling
with how we conceptualize, define, and assess communicative competence
is “not only a matter of theoretical coherence” (Harding et al., this volume,
p. 196) or of methodological rigor, but one of social justice, and we must be
willing to critically reexamine this construct in light of current linguistic and
social realities and previous blind spots.

Future directions for communicative competence

So where do we go from here? Most central is the need to continue to
expand definitions and notions of communicative competence to recog-
nize, incorporate, and valorize the multilingual and translingual reality of
our world and of many communicative situations (for more on equitable
multilingualism see Ortega, 2019). Whereas applications of the construct of
communicative competence in SLA have often focused on the development
of communicative competence in a language, a translingual approach would
push the field to view “communicative practices as transcending autonomous
languages” (Canagarajah, 2018b, p. 31). A notable omission in the present
volume is a chapter about communicative competence and communicative
practices from a translingual perspective. Nevertheless, recent contributions
by Canagarajah (e.g., 2014, 2018b), García and colleagues (García & Wei,
2014; García et al., 2021), Pennycook (2017, 2019), Shohamy (2011), and
others offer critical perspectives on dismantling the ideological boundaries
between languages to recognize that communication transcends individual
languages and that language(s) might be better viewed as dynamic, multi-
modal resources that are mobilized in time and space (i.e., contexts of usage).
In addition to more fully considering the nature of language and lin-
guistic resources, contemporary notions of communicative competence also
need to consider the co-​constructed nature of communication and the fact
that competence may best be viewed as shared within a particular communi-
cative context or event.This recognition is already mainstream in the field of
intercultural pragmatics, as Nguyen deftly lays out, but it should bear consid-
eration more broadly. Recent theoretical work by Canagarajah (2018a) also
pushes applied linguists to move away from considerations of competence
as indicating individual cognitive mastery, and instead view communicative
practices as networked and material events that occur in time and space.
Likewise, as addressed in the current volume by Stockwell and Ito as well as
Harding et al., technological advances are constantly and rapidly changing
the ways in which we communicate, and such changes must be reflected in
how we understand and define “competent” communication. Nevertheless,
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Looking forward 215

more attention must be dedicated to the tension between the affordances
to communication that technology provides and the limitations it imposes
on, for example, capturing and assessing varied and often unpredictable real-​
world communication.
Finally, scholars and educators interested in communicative compe-
tence may also wish to engage with related constructs, such as communi-
cative or functional adequacy (mentioned in the present volume by Polio &
Montgomery as well as Stockwell & Ito), which may provide useful
mechanisms through which to operationalize communicative competence
for specific fields, skills, genres, and contexts. This concept (see, e.g., Kuiken
et al., 2010; Pallotti, 2009; Révész et al., 2016) focuses attention more locally
(i.e., to the particular task being performed) and asks to what extent com-
munication was adequate, considering dimensions such as task requirements,
content, comprehensibility, and coherence and cohesion (Kuiken & Vedder,
2017, 2018). Although the construct of functional adequacy may well
require some of the same critical reflection described previously as needed
for definitions of communicative competence (i.e., who determines what
“counts” as adequate?), consideration of this and other related constructs
may help to broaden traditional views of communicative competence or
prove useful in adapting such definitions for particular speakers, contexts,
and tasks.

Conclusion
As language and communicative practices (and our understandings of them)
change—​reflecting increasing globalization, technological innovation, and
translingual realities—​so too must we reflect upon, update, and adapt the
foundational constructs that guide research and teaching practice on L2
communication and our approaches to them. This volume has contributed
to the recent and growing conversation surrounding the construct of com-
municative competence, aiming to (re)examine our theoretical and meth-
odological approaches to its study and to explore various ways in which it
is applied across subfields of SLA. We hope that the contributions to this
volume have, collectively, provided a diverse and unique look at the con-
struct and will spur further critical reflection and conversation on commu-
nicative competence and its place in SLA.

Discussion questions
1. How might a new model of communicative competence prioritize
language users’ identities and agency? What are some ways in which
research on communicative competence can also do so?
2. Can you think of examples of other forms of strategic competence—​
whether recognized as such or not—​beyond those mentioned in this
chapter? List those that you find most important and explain why they
are critical for a language learner.
216

216 Megan Solon and Matthew Kanwit

3. How does a translingual perspective alter traditional notions of commu-
nicative competence?
4. Which of the future directions noted in the chapter do you find most
important for the further study of communicative competence? What
other future directions can you think of that this chapter does not
address? Why might these play a critical role?

Suggestions for further reading

Byram, M. (2020). Teaching and assessing intercultural communicative competence.
Multilingual Matters.
Canagarajah, S. (2018). Materializing “competence”: Perspectives from international
STEM scholars. The Modern Language Journal, 102(2), 268–​291.
Rosa, J., & Flores, N. (2021). Decolonization, language, and race in applied linguistics
and social justice. Applied Linguistics, 42(6), 1162–​1167.
Solon, M., & Kanwit, M. (2022). New methods for tracking development of
sociophonetic competence: Exploring a preference task for Spanish /​d/​deletion.
Applied Linguistics, 43(4), 805–​825. https://​doi.org/​10.1093/​app​lin/​amac​009.

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219

Index

Note: Page numbers in bold denote tables. Page numbers with an “n” denote Notes.

acceptability judgment see judgment CAF (complexity, accuracy, fluency)

accommodation 138, 199, 202 119–​22; CALF (lexical complexity,
actional competence 8 accuracy, and fluency) 152, 160–​2
Adamson, H. D. 41, 43–​4, 54, 208, 216 Canagarajah, S. 140, 148, 195–​6, 203, 208,
alternation 37, 89, 122–​3, 126, 130 214, 216
aphasia 29 Canale, M. 1, 2, 6–​10, 14, 15, 21, 23, 34,
appropriateness (of language use, 40–​2, 53, 55, 98, 99, 106, 107, 111, 135,
communication, strategies) 6, 21, 23, 148, 153, 166, 178, 182, 187, 189, 204,
40–​1, 43, 51, 64, 69, 92, 103, 135, 140, 208, 216
142–​3, 145, 155–​7, 162, 164, 192–​3, Celce-​Murcia, M. 1, 7–​9, 14, 15, 158, 166,
196, 199, 202n5, 210–​1 189, 204, 212, 216
Arabic 41, 45, 54 Chappell, W. 41, 46, 50, 55
Army method see audiolingual: method Chinese 28, 41, 54, 58, 87, 96–​7, 111, 123,
artificial intelligence (AI) 179, 181 130–​1, 145, 149–​50, 162–​3, 165–​6, 168;
artificial languages 50–​1, 55, 58 see also Mandarin
assessment 8, 13, 64, 66, 85, 125, 147, 152–​3, Chomsky, N. 3, 21–​3, 153, 188
155, 159–​61, 165–​6, 187–​208, 210 classroom instruction see instruction
association 119; as cognitive strategy 189; cognitive-​functional: approaches 2–​7;
cross-​modal 115; cultural 30–​2, 211; theories 12
measures (AMs) 120–​2; rules 128; tasks cognitive mechanisms 42, 53, 119–​20
30, 126 collocations 30–​1, 37, 57, 121, 126, 130,
attitudes: language 46, 50, 79, 82, 86–​8, 155–​6; see also frequency: collocational
90–​3; as learner individual difference Common European Framework of
49, 141, 147 Reference for Languages (CEFR)
audiolingual: approach 153; method 2 159–​60, 190
authenticity 191–​2: task 143 community of practice 92
compensatory: strategies 104–​6, 110, 212
Bachman, L. E. 1, 7–​9, 14, 15, 40, 54, 153, complex dynamic systems 12, 42
158, 159, 166, 187, 189, 203 comprehensibility 215; see also
Bardovi-​Harlig, K. 56, 135, 137, 141–​3, intelligibility, comprehension
148–​50 comprehension 7, 21, 24, 26–​30, 33,
Bayley, R. 1, 15–​6, 41, 44–​5, 48, 54–​5 98–​100, 105–​107, 109–​110, 145, 213,
behaviorism 2–​5, 42 215; question 109; of implicatures 137,
bilingualism 10–​1, 23, 26, 29, 33–​7, 39, 88, 141; pragmatic 137, 143
94, 96–​7, 99, 111–​4, 131, 196, 217 computational linguistics 115, 131, 210;
Bybee, J. 4, 15, 115, 129 see also computational methods
computational methods 115–​31
CA (conversation analysis) see computer-​mediated communication
conversation analysis (CMC) 91–​2, 142, 172–​3, 175:
20

220 Index
asynchronous (ACMC) 174–​6, 179; Duff, P. A. 10–​1, 213
synchronous (SCMS) 174–​6, 179 Dussias, P. E. 31, 35, 101, 104, 107–​8,
concept: as distinct from lexical item 111–​3
29–​30, 32; -​based language instruction Dynamic Assessment 64–​6, 68–​9, 71, 73
(CBLI) 64–​9, 71, 73
construct: definition in assessment 160, Eckert, P. 41, 43, 55, 82–​4, 94–​5
189–​90, 194–​7; operationalized 190; ELF (English as a Lingua Franca) see
validity 159 lingua franca
constructions 16, 67, 112, 114–​7, 120–​3, English 5, 15, 17, 22, 25–​6, 28–​30, 34–​7,
126–​9, 131, 162 39, 41, 43–​5, 48, 50, 54–​9, 65–​6, 72, 82,
contextualized language use 2, 8, 177, 192; 85, 88–​92, 95–​7, 103, 105, 108–​12, 114,
see also discourse: context 117–​8, 123, 129–​31, 139–​40, 144–​5,
contrastive analysis 2, 5 147–​51, 153, 159–​60, 162–​3, 166–​70,
conversation analysis 139, 143, 149; see also 181, 184–​5, 190, 192–​6, 201–​6, 216–​7
discourse analysis error(s) 2–​5, 90, 92, 117, 119; data-​entry
Cook,V. J. 3, 10, 15 125
Corder, S. P. 2, 4–​5, 15, 42, 55 ethnicity 43, 82, 87; see also race,
corpus linguistics 12, 41, 48, 56, 115–​31, raciolinguistics
156, 162, 168, 198, 205, 210, 212, 217 ethnomethodology 10
cross-​cultural: encounters 6; experience, event-​related potentials (ERPs) 98, 101–​5,
141; pragmatics 137; Speech Act 108, 110
Realization Project (CCSARP) 137 everyday language practices 10, 64, 79, 84,
cross-​sectional design 41 86, 141, 195; see also noninstructional
culture 27, 30, 32, 60, 80, 213 settings
cultural competence 6; see also Paulston, exemplars 66, 115, 119, 127
C. B. expert speakers 11, 26, 31, 33, 162; see also
curriculum 68–​9, 71, 73; writing native speaker
163–​5; see also concept-​based language explicit: instruction/​teaching 94, 144, 146,
instruction 158–​9; knowledge 26, 98, 143
eyetracking 31, 98, 100–​1, 103, 105–​10;
data collection 32, 80, 94, 142–​3, 178 visual world 31, 98, 101, 105, 107–​8,
DeWaele, J.-​M. 16, 110n1, 111 110
diachrony 116, 166
dialectal features 46–​7, 50, 82, 85, 93; Félix-​Brasdefer, J. C. 141, 143, 146, 149
see also variation: dialectal Fernández Cuenca, S. 12, 25, 31, 48, 98,
dialectics 61–​63, 72 109, 113, 209, 212
Díaz-​Campos, M. 50, 55 First Noun Principle 105, 212
digital: communicative competence 94; first wave sociolinguistics 82
ethnography 81, 91–​2; literacy 177; Firth, A. 1, 10, 16
tools in language assessment 200 fixation 101; see also eyetracking
discourse 6–​8, 61, 119, 124, 139, 143, Flores, N. 88, 94, 196, 204, 214, 216–​7
179–​80, 189, 200; analysis 70, 198; formality 11, 40–​2, 44, 47, 68, 80, 83, 87,
categories 197; of communicative 89–​91, 93–​4, 152, 154, 165, 171–​3,
competence 87–​8, 94; competence 180–​1, 191; see also informality
8, 26–​8, 31, 152, 154–​5, 157, 160–​5, formulaic: competence 8; implicatures
173–​5, 211; completion tests (DCTs) 144; language 8, 126, 162
142–​3, 202–​3; context 21, 26, 31–​2, Foucart, A. 104, 112, ​113
211; features 137, 173; functions 177; French 7, 18, 30, 33–​5, 41, 45, 47, 55,
institutional 142, 199; -​level grammar 57–​8, 67–​8, 75, 86–​7, 89, 91, 94–​7, 103,
69; management 192; online 92, 94; 112, 114, 118, 144, 148, 150, 167, 213
structure 157 frequency 3, 27–​9, 43, 116, 119–​21,
dispersion 119, 126 126–​7; collocational 31; of
domain analysis 197 co-​occurrence 116
Dörnyei, Z. 1, 7–​8, 15, 158, 166 functional adequacy 160–​1, 171, 211,
Douglas Fir Group 10–​1, 213 215–​16
21

Index 221
García, O. 196, 204, 214, 216–​7 ideologies 67, 70, 80, 85–​6, 88, 93–​4, 187,
Gass, S. 15, 34, 36, 38, 41–​2, 44, 52, 56, 191, 193, 195, 199, 214
111, 145, 148–​9 immersion see language immersion
Geeslin, K. L. 1, 8, 12, 15–​6, 40–​1, 44–​5, indexicality 43, 46, 51, 59, 67–​8, 75, 83,
47–​50, 54–​9, 67, 79, 82, 156, 195, 209, 90–​1, 93, 105
213 implicit: attitudes 50; instruction/​teaching
gender 43–​4, 51, 59, 82, 91, 136, 191, 213; 144–​5
agreement 99, 102, 104, 106–​9 indigenous languages 68, 205
generative linguistics 3–​4, 12, 14, 21–​39, individual differences (IDs) 26, 47, 49, 87,
116, 209, 211; see also GenSLA, UG 127; see also attitudes, working memory
genre 8, 125, 143, 152–​3, 165, 197, 200, inflection 23, 26, 37, 43, 66, 112; see also
211, 215; balancing language and morphology
155–​8; -​based curriculum 164–​5; informality 7, 40, 43–​4, 47, 67, 84, 89,
competence 155, 210–​1; knowledge 91, 93, 171–​3, 179–​80, 191, 200;
154, 159 see also formality, vernacular,
GenSLA (generative SLA) 21–​39, 209, spontaneous speech
211; see also generative linguistics, UG input 3–​5, 29, 32, 47, 50–​3, 90, 122,
geography see variation: regional/​ 144–​6, 180; see also input processing
geographic input processing see processing
German 26, 36, 41, 50, 55, 68, 74, 103, instruction 3, 10, 13, 23, 40–​2, 64–​6,
105, 107, 112, 123–​4, 130–​1, 149, 185 68–​71, 73, 91, 94, 109, 125, 136, 138,
globalization 29, 136, 140, 147, 215 141–​2, 144–​7, 152–​3, 155, 157–​9,
Goldberg, A. E. 4, 16, 18, 115, 129 163–​5, 195, 210, 212; see also pedagogy
Gómez Laich, M. P. 75, 138–​9, 149 intelligibility 140; see also
grammatical competence 1, 6–​7, 14n1, comprehensibility, comprehension
21–​6, 28–​9, 31–​2, 99, 109–​10, 174–​5 interaction: classroom 153, 162; online
grammaticality judgment see judgment and/​or computer-​mediated 93–​4,
grammaticalization 137 175–​80; in a second language 41–​4,
Gries, S. Th. 4, 10, 12, 43, 115, 118, 121–​3, 47–​9, 85, 91, 135, 141–​3, 146; see
125–​131, 198, 209, 212 also interactional competence; in
Gudmestad, A. 16, 41–​2, 44–​5, 49, 56 sociocultural theory 61, 63, 65–​6, 68–​9;
Gurzynski-​Weiss, L. 33n1, 35, 47, 49, 52, task-​based 92
56 interactional competence 8, 10, 135–​6,
139, 146, 190, 198, 210
Hall, J. K. 1, 10–​1, 14, 16, 79, 95, 195, 205 intercultural: communication 140, 147;
Hanson, S. 1, 12, 40, 48, 56, 59, 67, 79, 82, competence 8, 176, 178; pragmatics
156, 195, 209, 213 135–​6, 138, 214
Harding, L. 1, 10, 13, 16, 159, 187, 190, interlanguage 4–​6, 40, 117; Contrastive
195, 197, 201, 203, 205–​7, 210, 213–​4 Interlanguage Analysis 117; pragmatics
heritage: language acquisition 32–​33n1, 135–​8, 210
85; speakers or language learners 87–​8, interlocutor 7, 43–​4, 47, 137, 140, 158,
93, 165, 209 171, 179, 191–​2, 201, 210; absence of
heuristics 104, 106; see also compensatory 201; non-​human 180
strategies interpretation 3, 6, 28, 45–​7, 51, 103, 153
Howard, M. 1, 16, 41, 54, 58, 90, 93, 95, interview: ethnographic 79, 84, 86–​8;
97 sociolinguistic 48, 51, 79, 82, 88–​92
Hymes, D. 5, 8, 21, 23, 40, 80, 82, 153, Ionin, T. 31, 36
187–​8, 190, 213 Italian 183
Ito,Y. 10, 93, 171, 200, 210, 214–​5
identity 40–​1, 43–​4, 46, 53, 67, 90,
138–​41, 147, 209, 212–​13; agentive Japanese 22, 28, 41, 68–​9, 130, 139–​40,
expression of 83; construction (of) 151, 158, 164, 182–​4, 213
80, 90, 177; cultural 138; individual Jegerski, J. 12, 25, 31, 48, 98–​100, 103,
136; local (versus non-​local) 83, 107, 109, 111, 113–​4, 209, 212
89–​91, 93 Jessen, A. 108, 113
2

222 Index
judgment 51, 98, 171; acceptability 31, minority languages 85, 90, 96
103, 109; of appropriateness 143, 145; minoritized learners 199
data 32; grammaticality 3–​4, 49, 109; MMORPGs 92, 173, 175, 180
tasks 143, 145; truth-​value 31 Montgomery, D. P. 13, 152, 210–​12, 215
Juffs, A. 3, 12, 14, 21, 23–​5, 28–​31, 36–​9, Montrul, S. 32–​3, 37
99, 113, 209, 211 Morgan-​Short, K. 102, 111, 114
morphology 1, 6–​7, 24–​6, 43, 59, 66, 192,
Kanwit, M. 1, 7–​8, 11, 15–​7, 21, 41–​2, 218; see also inflection
44–​6, 55, 57, 59, 188, 208, 216 Mougeon, R. 54, 89, 95–​6
Korean 41, 45, 56, 58, 90–​1, 95–​6, 109 multicompetence 10, 14–​6, 154, 169, 205
Kyle, K. 125, 129–​30, 160–​2, 167–​8 multifactorial prediction and deviation
analysis using regression/​random forests
Labov, W. 42, 51, 57, 79, 81–​2, 88, 96 see MuPDAR(F)
Lafford, B. 5, 17, 57 multilevel regression modeling see regression
Langacker, R. W. 115, 130 multilingual: -​ism 11, 147, 195, 214;
language attitudes see attitudes: language communities 84; corpora 125;
language for specific purposes (LSP) interaction 85; language use 84, 209;
193–​4, 203 speakers 11, 195; turn 138; writers 152
language ideology see ideologies MuPDAR(F) 123
language immersion 73, 80, 84–​5, 87, 90
language instruction see instruction, N400 102–​6, 108; see also event-​related
pedagogy potentials
language policy see policy Nadasdi, T. 54, 89, 95–​6
Lantolf, J. P. 1, 11, 17, 61–​2, 65–​6, 70, 72–​5 native speaker: as benchmark 195;
Larsen-​Freeman, D. 11, 42, 57, 129 construct of 25, 213–​14; norms 90;
learner corpus research 116–​18, 123, see also expert speakers
126–​8 Negueruela, E. 11, 66, 74
lexical information 8, 15, 17, 25, 29–​32, neurolinguistics 101; see also event-​related
34–​6, 38, 66, 99, 105, 112, 117, 121, potentials
126, 129, 131, 137, 152, 156, 160, 162, Nguyen, T. T. M. 10, 12, 135, 141–​2, 144,
168, 177, 179, 185, 192, 211; see also 150, 176, 198, 210, 212, 214
lexicon noninstructional settings 10, 142; see also
lexical proficiency 126, 129, 160 everyday language practices
lexicon 6–​7, 21–​2, 24–​6, 29–​30, 32 non-​standard features 43, 80, 82, 87–​8, 90,
LGBT see sexuality, gender 95–​6; see also standard
Li, X. 44–​5, 55, 58, 89, 96 non-​verbal cues 109–​100
lingua franca 135, 140, 195, 197 norms (of language use) 13, 40, 50, 80, 82,
linguistic variable see variable 85, 87–​8, 90–​1, 135–​6, 138–​40, 173,
longitudinal design 116, 121, 125, 137, 191, 195–​6, 210–​2, 214; see also targets,
143, 158, 162–​3 standard language
Noticing Hypothesis 138, 144
Mackey, A. 15, 36–​7, 56, 147, 149
Macqueen, S. 13, 187, 189–​90, 193–​4, Occupational English Test (OET) 194
205–​6, 210 offline: meaning not real-​time 24, 31, 98,
Manchón, R. 152–​3, 156, 158, 164, 166, 101, 103, 106, 124, 212; meaning not
168–​9 via the Internet 92, 94
Mandarin 83, 85, 87, 89–​90, 93, 95, 184; online: meaning real-​time 25–​6, 31, 51,
see also Chinese 98–​9, 106, 108–​10, 124, 212; meaning
massively multiplayer online role-​playing via the Internet 91–​2, 94, 176, 200–​1;
games see MMORPGs see also MMORPGs
matched-​guise 46, 50–​1, 53, 79 Ortega, L. 10–​1, 17, 31, 37, 56, 111, 138,
mediation 60, 63–​5, 68–​73 150, 154, 169, 172, 184, 213–​4, 217
meta-​analysis 169, 176, 181, 186
metacognitive strategies 8, 152, 158–​60, P600 102, 105–​6; see also event-​related
189, 212 potentials
23

Index 223
Palmer, A. S. 1, 7–​9, 14, 15, 40, 54, 153, 87, 89, 93, 99, 112, 114–​7, 123–​4, 127,
158, 159, 166, 187, 189, 203 130–​1, 137, 139, 142–​5, 149, 151–​2,
parsing 25–​6 166, 169, 178, 192
participant observation 80–​1, 84–​7, 94, proficiency 7, 17, 29, 41, 44, 46–​7, 51,
198 53–​4, 68, 73–​5, 82, 88–​90, 103–​4,
Paulston, C. B. 6, 23, 27 106–​8, 114, 121, 125–​6, 129, 137, 139,
pedagogy 2, 4, 7, 22, 53, 65–​6, 70, 88, 94, 144, 147–​8, 151, 154, 158–​61, 163,
138, 146–​7, 155–​6, 173–​4, 188; see also 165–​7, 169, 179, 185, 194–​5, 199,
instruction 201–​5, 207, 217; see also lexical
perception 45–​6, 48, 55, 58, 60, 95, 106, proficiency
143, 162; see also salience pronunciation 33n1, 87
perezhivanie 72–​3, 209 pupillometry 31, 35, 38
performance 61, 64–​5, 70, 127, 209; as
compared to competence 3, 7, 21–​4, 32; qualitative research/​methods 70, 79, 81,
in language assessment/​testing 83, 161–​5, 177, 210
190–​2, 194–​202; of personae 83; quantitative research/​methods 48, 70, 79,
pragmatic 136, 139, 143, 145; 81–​4, 89, 93, 117, 143, 161, ​162–3, 177
processing 26–​7, 30–​1; “testing” 189,
192 race 216–​7; see also raciolinguistics,
phonetics 17, 41, 49, 55, 59, 95, 149, ethnicity
216–​7 raciolinguistics 11, 213–​4; see also
phonology 1, 6–​7, 21–​2, 29, 33, 35, 55–​6, minoritized learners
61, 97, 123, 189–​90, 192 random effects 124, 127
phraseologisms 30, 121, 126, 128, 131 reading 27, 31, 82, 88, 98, 105–​10,
Pill, J. 13, 16, 38, 187, 194, 196, 198, 126, 153, 192; see also self-​paced
204–​6, 210 reading
Plonsky, L. 37, 56, 113, 117, 131, 159, 169 real-​time: comprehension 26, 107;
Poehner, M. E. 1, 12, 17, 60, 66, 68–​75, interaction/​communication 48, 212;
177, 209, 213 knowledge 32; measures 98; perception
policy 155, 188, 190, 203–​4, 207, 218 48; performance 21, 25; processing 28,
Polio, C. 13, 119, 131, 152, 155, 161, 164, 103, 105–​6, 108; see also online
168–​70, 210–​12, 215 Regan,V. 1, 17, 41, 43, 44, 54, 58, 90, 93,
Portuguese 56, 85–​6, 183 95, 97, 208, 216
poverty-​of-​the-​stimulus 3 regional variation see variation
pragmatic: competence 26, 31, 40, register 10–​11, 80, 82, 125, 152, 156–​7,
135–​138, 140–​2, 146, 176; instruction 197; flexibility 160; variation 162
136, 138, 146–​7 regression 89, 117, 121, 123; multilevel
Pratt, T. 84, 96 modeling 117
praxis 62, 64–​6, 70 Rehner, K. 54, 89, 95–​6
predictive modeling 123, 127 repair 139–​40, 178, 185
prescriptive rules see prescriptivism role play 42, 67, 139, 142, 153, 173, 192,
prescriptivism 46, 54, 66, 82, 140, 214 201–​2; see also MMORPGs
Preston, D. 41, 44, 54–​6, 58 Römer, U. 119, 128–​9
priming 124 Rosa, J. 196, 204, 214, 216–​7
process approach 68, 153–​4, 212 Russian 62, 72, 74, 86, 209
processing 23–​33, 98, 101–​6, 108–​10, Rydell, M. 192–​3, 199, 207
119, 145, 209, 211–​12; -​based strategy
124, 212; bilingual language 99; effects Sagarra, N. 103–​4, 114
28; fluency 143; “good enough” 26; salience 48, 55, 58, 91, 106, 119, 128, 206
grammatical 106–​8; input 105, 145; Sauro, S. 173–​5, 178, 181, 184–​5
lexical 99, 211; online 51; semantic Savignon, S. J. 1, 2, 6, 7, 15, 17, 42, 58, 153,
102; sentence 21, 25, 27, 32, 98, 108; 169, 173, 176, 185, 208, 218
syntactic 102; time 174, 179 second wave sociolinguistics 83
production (of language) 3–​7, 21, 23, self-​paced reading 31, 98, 100, 103–​4,
29–​30, 32–​3, 41–​6, 48–​9, 51, 54, 67, 82, 107–​10
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224 Index
self-​repair see repair syntax 1, 3, 6–​7, 15, 17, 21–​4, 28–​30,
Selinker, L. 2, 5–​6, 17, 56; see also 32–​8, 46, 61, 102–​3, 105–​6, 112–​5, 121,
interlanguage 123, 127, 130–​1, 149, 152, 166–​7, 175,
semantics 3–​7, 22, 29, 34–​7, 54n2, 102–​3, 177, 185, 189–​90, 192, 204, 213
105, 111–​2, 123–​4, 149
service encounters 142, 150 Taguchi, N. 135, 137–​41, 143–​7, 149–​51,
sex see gender, sexuality 217
sexuality 95, 213; see also gender targets 2–​6, 11, 47, 50, 52, 65, 80–​1, 85,
Shively, R. L. 137, 141–​2, 147–​8, 150–​1 88, 93, 117, 122–​4, 128, 130, 135,
Skill Acquisition Theory (SAT) 138, 138–​9, 144–​5, 149, 155, 171, 176,
145 178–​80, 189, 194–​8, 207, 212, 218;
Skinner, B. F. 2; see also behaviorism see also norms, standard language
SMS (Short Message Service) 172, 183 Tarone, E. 1, 2, 11, 15, 18, 42–​4, 55, 58–​9,
social justice 11, 196, 213–​14 167
social networks 43, 47, 50, 57–​9, 128, 171, task-​based: (language) assessment 189;
176–​8, 181–​2, 184, 186, 196, 214 interaction 92, 139; perspective 158;
sociolinguistic competence 1, 6–​8, 23, (language) teaching 138, 146, 165
40–​7, 49–​53, 86, 92, 173, 175–​6, 180, task type 8, 12, 124, 145, 151, 162, 166,
208–​9, 211; and the generative lexicon 191
29–​30; and online (psycholinguistic) teacher education 71, 152–​3, 165
methods 99, 110; and L2 writing 152, Teaching English to Speakers of Other
155–​7, 161, ​162, 164 Languages see TESOL
Solon, M. 1, 11, 16–​7, 21, 33n1, 35, 42, 49, technology-​mediated communication
52, 54, 56, 59, 188, 208, 216 172, 178
Spanish 5, 15, 17, 28, 36–​7, 41, 44–​50, TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of
54–​9, 66, 68, 75, 85, 88, 92, 95, 101, Other Languages) 6, 15, 17, 37, 43, 55,
104, 106–​7, 109, 111–​4, 124, 142, 148, 149, 163, 166–​7, 169–​70, 216–​7
150–​1, 160, 168, 181, 184, 216 test authenticity see authenticity
speech act 8, 136–​7, 139, 142–​3, 153 test-​taking: behavior 2010; competence
speech perception see perception 13, 191–​2, 199, 202, 210; situations 200;
spontaneous speech 4, 88, 130, 142, strategies 193
178–​9, 217 texting see SMS
standard language/​varieties/​variants 11, third wave sociolinguistics 83
82, 85, 95, 97, 128, 130, 140, 188, 190, token frequency 116, 119
195–​6, 203, 206, 213; see also language Tomasello, M. 4, 16, 18
ideologies, norms, targets, non-​standard transitional competence 4–​5; see also
varieties Corder, S. P.
Starr, R. L. 10, 12, 43, 51, 79, 84–​5, 88, translanguaging 84–​5, 93, 196, 202, 209
90–​1, 96–​7, 198, 209, 212 translingual(ism) 196, 199, 214–​5; see also
Stockwell, G. 13, 93, 171–​4, 176–​7, translanguaging
179–​80, 183, 185, 200, 210, 214–​5 type frequency 116, 120
strategic competence 1, 6–​8, 14, 26, 40,
99, 110, 152, 175–​6, 189, 208, 212, 215; uninstructed learners see noninstructional
in L2 sentence processing 32, 99; in L2 settings
writing 154–​61, 163–​5 Universal Grammar (UG) 2–​3, 14n1,
structural priming see priming 24, 26; see also generative linguistics,
study abroad (SA) 47, 50, 87, 90–​1, 136–​7, GenSLA
141–​2, 150, 158 usage-​based 43, 120: accounts 45;
style 80, 82–​3, 86, 88–​9, 91–​2, 94, 135, approaches 4, 10; theory 42–​3, 115–​20,
137, 139–​40, 157; see also variation: 122–​8
stylistic, register
Swain, M. 1, 2, 6–​11, 14, 15, 21, 23, 34, Valdés Kroff, J. 101, 104, 107, 111–​2
40–​2, 53, 55, 66, 72–​5, 98, 99, 106, 111, Valdman, A. 1–​2, 18, 56
135, 148, 153, 166, 178, 182, 187, 189, van Compernolle, R. A. 1, 8, 18, 67, 75,
204, 208, 216 86–​7, 93–​4, 97
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Index 225
VanPatten, B. 1–​3, 5, 17, 18, 34, 38, 99, vernacular 51, 83, 88–​91; see also
104, 105, 106, 111, 113–​4, 148, 212, spontaneous speech, informality
218 visual world paradigm see eyetracking
variable (linguistic) 16, 41–​50, 55–​7, 89, Vygotsky, L. S. 60–​6, 69–​75, 209
117, 124–​5
variation 67; individual 11, 128, 136, Wagner, J. 1, 10, 16
141; -​ism 12; pragmatic 135–​6, 138, wh-​: dependencies 106–​8; movement
212; regional/​geographic/​dialectal 44, 22–​6, 103
50, 52, 59, 85, 90–​1, 93; register 162; working memory (WM) 104, 108, 125
situational 7, 140; sociolinguistic 43–​9, written contextualized task (WCT)
86; stylistic 82–​3, 91; Type 1 versus Type 49, 51
2, 89 Wulff, S. 17–​8, 34, 38, 114–​5, 122–​3,
variationist: approaches 42, 81, 213; 129–​31, 133, 148, 218
research 45, 48, 79, 82–​3, 88–​90;
sociolinguistics 43, 79–​80, 82, 89–​90, Ziegler, N. 171, 178, 181, 186
93, 209 Zone of Proximal Development 63
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