I don't think this is correct.

Herb Stahlke wrote:

> We're taking the competence-performance distinction out of context and
> changing its meaning, rather like what so many educators, psychologists
> and popular writers did with Chomsky's 1965 notion Deep Structure.  C-P is
> simply a rationale, after the fact, for partitioning linguistic data into
> those sentences that a generative grammar can handle and those that it
> can't.

Herb has mixed an objection to competence-performance with why it has any
usefulness
for understanding what it means to know a language.  I don't know of any theory of
language which attempts it has to account for false starts, lapses in memory, typos
in writing posts to
listserv discussions.  In this sense, Herb is right that the competence-performance
distinction does limit what data a theory of language has to account for.

However, in any number of domains, we make the distinction between what people know
(declarative knowledge) and what people actually do with that knowledge (procedural
knowledge).  Thus, one can talk about knowing the rules of chess (declarative
knowledge) and knowing how to use those rules for winning (procedural knowledge).

When it comes to knowledge about language, this is a very useful distinction which,
as I observed, some of the ATEG grammar teaching tips exploits.


> As theories have developed, the membership of the sets of
> competence and performance have changed.

Of course, this is right, but all domains of inquiry change what kinds of data can
or can not be accounted for.  This is not unique to the study of language.

Bob Yates, Central Missouri State University

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