Metasystem approach to the structural-level analysis of language competence

The paper considers the structural-level organization of language competence as a psychologicalpedagogical phenomenon from the point of view of the metasystem approach. Five levels of the language competence system are not reducible to each other: metasystem, system-wide, subsystem, component and element levels. The content of the meta-system level of the language competence system is determined. It consists of an integral language ability, consisting of subsystems: communicative, lexical-semantic, grammatical and regulatory subsystems. From a psychological point of view the most important is the regulatory subsystem, which is an activity invariant of self-regulatory processes. The structure of the meta-system level gets its concrete implementation in the underlying levels of the system in the form of ways of operating with language knowledge: language reflection, sense of language (language intuition) and language skills. Empirical verification of the conceptual model was carried out on a sample of junior schoolchildren. The methodical tools were made up of tests of language development widely used in psychological and pedagogical practice, as well as the author’s method for studying the peculiarities of language knowledge when operating quasi-linguistic constructions. The methods of conversation, structured observation and expert assessment are also applied. The study confirmed the theoretical assumptions about the dynamic nature of the restructuring of the structural-level organization of the system of language competence, depending on the degree of its formation. The results are important for clarifying the purposes and methods of language teaching and psychological-pedagogical support of this process in modern conditions.

language competence, language ability, language, sense of language, language reflection, metasystem approach, native language teaching