Swain 1985

Swain, Merrill. 1985. "Communicative competence: Some roles of comprehensible input and comprehensible output in its development." In Gass and Madden 1985. (Cummins and Swain 1986.) Interest level: academic.

Presents the view language proficiency is developed through language use embedded in meaningful contexts and not through input alone. Discusses grammatical, sociolinguistic, discourse, and strategic competence. Discourse competence includes cohesion (connecting text with appropriate conjunctions and adverbs) and coherence (arranging ideas in logical sequence and organizing meanings effectively).

"Strategic competence involves the use of coping strategies to avoid breakdown in communication or to enhance the effectiveness of spoken discourse or written text" (pages 113--114). Chapter 7 discusses communicative competence: some roles of comprehensible input and comprehensible output in its development (page 132).

• Bibliography module: Swain 1985
• In overview module: Bibliography (Literacy): S
• In modular book: Bibliography (Literacy), by Doris Gallemore, Trudi C. Hunt, Jeanne Swanson, and Stephen L. Walter
• In document collection: Reference materials
• In bookshelf: Literacy

This page is an extract from the LinguaLinks Library, Version 4.0, published on CD-ROM by SIL International, 1999. [Ordering information.]

Page content last modified: 28 June 1999

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