PROBLEMS OF COMPETENCE IN EDO LANGUAGE LEARNERS

ABSTRACT

Competence in linguistic theory has been taken to mean an individual’s knowledge underlying the production and interpretation of well-formed sentences in a language or the system of linguistic knowledge possessed by native speakers of a language. Competence is a universal phenomenon that has been given wide attention even in second language learning. Problems of competence have also received attention but however this attention has not been given to students of linguistics and Edo language in the University of Benin. This research aims at examining the problems of incompetence in students of linguistics and Edo language. Linguistics and Edo language is a combined honour program in the department of linguistics Studies, in the University of Benin, offered to indigenes of Edo state. The method adopted for the data collection in this research is that of ‘interview’ which was conducted on the 400level students of linguistics and Edo language and the lecturers of the department. The theoretical framework adopted in this research is that of common European Framework (2001) on ‘lexical competence’. The research found out amongst others that there is a high level of incompetence in Edo language among the students and this is mainly because students who come into the program do not have background knowledge of Edo language which is supposed to be a prerequisite before getting into the programme.