lantolf & frawley 1988 proficiency - understanding the construct

7/30/2019 Lantolf & Frawley 1988 Proficiency - Understanding the Construct

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SSLA, 10, 181 -19 5. Printed in the United States of America.

PROFICIENCYUnderstanding the Construct

James P. LantolfWilliam FrawleyUniversity of Delaware

In this article we argue against a definitional approach to oral pro-ficiency and in favor of a principled approach based on sound the-oretical considerations. We first identify four problematic trends inthe oral proficiency movement as it is currently conceived: the tailwagging the dog, false authenticity, premature institutionalization,and the psychometric posture. Thereafter, we offer the rudiments ofa principled theory of oral proficiency, based on the theory of higherforms of human cognitive activity developed by the Vygotskyanschool of psycholinguistics. The theory comp els us to bring into focussuch factors as open systems, the individ ual speake r, functiona l sys-tems, and intersubjectivity. From this p erspec tive, we argu e tha t if theconstruct of oral proficiency is to have any significance at all forlangu age teaching a nd testing, researchers must com e to unde rstandwhat it means for real speakers (natives as well as nonnatives) tointeract with other real speakers in the everyday world of humanactivity rather than in the world circumscribed by language tests.

In an earlier article (Lanto lf & Fra w ley, 19 85 a), w e examined what at that time weperceived as serious problems with the nature and implementation of the A C T F L /ETS/Interagency (AEI) Guidelines (1986). Unfortunately, the issues raised in thatstudy have largely gone unadd ressed by supporters of the O ra l Proficiency ( O P )movement. Unless those issues are resolved, the proficiency test cannot be seen asanything more than what w e claimed in 19 85 : a criterion-redu ctive, analytically deriv ed,norm-referenced test of how well an mdividual can deal with an imposition.' Our intentin the present article is to examine briefly some of wha t we see as disturb ing developme nts

1988 Cambridge University Press 0272 -263 1/88 $5.00 + .00 1 8 1


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182 James P. Lantolf and William Frawleyin the O P movement in only the last year and to begin to move beyond the Guidelinesthemselves in ord er to develop a theo retical unde rstand ing of the construct of proficiency.PROBLEMATIC TRENDS IN RECENT RESEARCH O N O PThe Tail Wag ging the DogOne of the more interesting, though potentially damaging, developments to appear inthe recent literature on O P is that the Guidelines, a creation of human researchers,have come to dictate the perspective of the creators and adherents of O P as to thereality of language use in the everyday world. In this regard, several recent publicationsraise the fundamental question: "What is proficiency?" (see Byrnes, 1986; Galloway,1987; O ma ggio , 19 86 ). In all of the cases that we have been able to examine, theresponse to the question is consistently couched within the framework of the Guidelinesthemselves. Gallo wa y's (1 98 7) article unabash edly tries to define O P a priori. O magg io(1986) dedicates a section of her manual to "Defining Language Proficiency." In herdiscussion, she considers various models of communicative competence, including thoseof Hymes, Munby, Widdowson, and Canale and Swain, all of which are reductionistapproaches to communicative competence, because they define communicative com-petence by reference to a set of constitutional criteria. She then proceeds to a subsectionentitled "From Communicative Competence to Proficiency." However, nowhere in heranalysis is there any in-depth consideration of proficiency that is independent of theproficiency test itself. Although this is a case of almost perfect circularity (see theremark by Vollmer below), it is also an illustration of our claim that the construct ofproficiency, reified in the form of the Guidelines, has begun to determine how thelinguistic performance of real people must be perceived.

A more explicit example of the tail wagging the dog occurs in Byrnes (1987). Inher discussion of the role of the interview in O P testing, B yrnes rem arks: "conversely,information questions, which form the backbone of a natural conversation and of solidproficiency testing, rep resent a minute share of teachers' question inventories" (p . 122 ).Alth oug h it is the case that information questions represent the backbo ne of O P testing,because they are obviously critical to obtaining a ratable sample of interviewee speech,there is no evidence that we know of to support the contention that such questions arethe "backbone of a natural conversation" in the nontest everyday world of humaninteraction. On the contrary, as Yakubinski (cited in Scinto, 1986) remarks, linguisticdialogue is not at all pred icated on the exchange of questions and an swers (p . 102 ).Clearly, the construct itself has come to determine the world, the reverse of properscientific methodology.False AuthenticityO P testing adheren ts claim that the interaction that takes place during the interview issomehow authentic, because there is a listener and because focus is on the message.According to Galloway (1987), "authentic tasks are those which invite the learner to


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Proficiency: Understanding the Construct 183do what would be done, in much the way it would be done, by native users of thelanguage" (p. 50). The problem here, however, is that very little is known about howspeakers, native or otherwise, relate linguistic structure to language function in theeveryday world (see Genesee, 1984).

In this regard, a recent study by Blum-Kulka and Olshtain (1986) has uncovereddata that appear to be quite problematic for the above interpretation of authentic.Blum-Kulka and Olshtain have found that in making requests, native speakers of bothHebrew and English use significantly fewer words than do advanced nonnative speakersof either language. No nna tive sp eakers in their study include more extern al modificationsin making requests than do native speakers. Such verbosity, for reasons that are notdirectly relevant to the present discussion, "carries the potential for pragmatic failurein gener al" (p . 17 1). Interestingly, how ever, the level of verbosity increases as thelinguistic ability of the learners increases: Advanced learners use many more words intheir request protocols than do either the native or beginning speakers of the language.

T h e implications of the above findings are curious. In terms of O P testing, theadvanced speakers may be said to provide a good ratable sample because they areable to say more than the beginning speakers; yet the beginning speakers are muchcloser to the native norm ( i .e . , more a uthentic) than are the advanced speakers, at leastin terms of utterance length. On the other hand, it may be said that native speakerssimply prov ide a bad m odel for language learners studied by O P because the empiricalevidence shows the two to be contrary. In either case, authenticity remains a dubiousprospect at best.

Just as the Guidelines cannot be said to mirror reality by definition, so tasks cannotbe authentic by definition. What matters in authenticity is the perspective of the in-dividual speaker. This important aspect of human behavior has received a fair amountof treatment in the psycholinguistic paradigm that we think is most relevant to seriouslanguage testingnamely, Vygotskyan psycholinguistic theory, where situation defi-nition is critical: "Expe rimen ters can not autom atically assume that subjects hav e defineda situation in the way they [the experimenters] intended" (Wertsch, Minick, & Arns,1984, p. 160). This is because, as Vygotsky cautions (1979), researchers frequentlyforget that human beings are always thinking about themselves and that "this processis never without some influence on behavior; a sudden shift in thought during anexperiment always has some impact on the subject's overall behavior" (p. 7).

Thus, we are in agreement with Edelsky and Draper (in press) when they arguethat claims to authenticity do not mean that tests and instructional activities are authentic,no matter ho w much realia is used or how extensively the activity is camouflaged. Infact, the task of the test overpowers and detracts from the other tasks we may assumethe speakers are engaged in. In essence, there is only one task in O P testing the test.Supp ort for this argument may be found in Lantolf and Fraw ley (1 98 5a ), w ith evidencetaken from Jo nes's study of how native-speaker role plays fail in an O P test situation.Premature Institutionalization of OPPerhaps the most disturbing aspect of the proficiency movement is the current vogueof institutionalizing the Guidelines not only as curriculum guides but as entrance and


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184 James P. Lantolf and William Frawleyexit requirements for university and secondary-school language programs. For example,California Community College, the State University System, and the University ofCalifornia have developed a Statement of Competencies in Languages Other ThanEnglish Expected of Entering Freshman, which, although not based exclusively on theA E I Guidelines, at least recognizes the kind of claims made in the A E I .

Institutionalization of O P has also taken place at the level of teacher certification.Magnan (1986) reports that several states are quickly moving toward the establishmentof proficiency standards for teacher certification, and several others have already in-stituted such standards for bilingual certification (p. 435). She further states that theUniversity of Minnesota is moving to establish "intermediate-mid" as the minimumscore for exiting its two-year language program (p. 434). The University of Penn-sylvania also requires an intermediate-mid on the A E I among its battery of exit ex-aminations for language classes.

To be sure, we have no quibble with the principle of establishing programmaticentrance and exit requirements, but we strenuously object to the institutionalization ofsuch requirements when they are predicated on something which, in our opinion, is astheoretically and empirically unsound as the A E I Guidelines. Frankly, if the guidelinesfalsely determine fact and do not square with empirical findings, we have every reasonto believe that their institutionalization may not only be premature but also harmful.

If the current trend of adop tion of O P continues, and it appea rs that it will, thereis the very real danger that people who are unable to meet the specified requirementsmay be prevented from pursuing the study of language, even if the pursuit is only forpersonal benefit; they may even be forced to surrender their pursuit of their broadereduc ational goals altogethe r. A t the very least, the real possibility exists that a significantnumber of individuals who fail to measure up to the standards may well interpret theirfailure to mean that they have little or no aptitude for learning languages. Consequently,even if the opportunity for additional study is in fact provided, they may well opt notto take advantage of it.

Byrnes (1986) observes that although the Guidelines are "far from perfect," theynevertheless "allow us to do some thinking and some practicing that would otherwisenot be possible, with the realization that misguided steps may be take n" (p . 10) . It isdifficult to understand how anything acknowledged as imperfect and experimental canbe elevated to the status of require me nt. W e canno t help but cite the forceful remarkof Ochsner (1979): "If chemists juggled their basic units like we [language researchers]do, their laboratories would blow up" (p. 58). Not only are we in agreement withSchulz (1986), who rejects the establishment of proficiency standards "as a sole ordominant base for individual course grades for the generalist or requirement student"(p . 191), but we urge that the Guidelines should be prevented from penetrating anyfurther into the foreign language curriculum than they already have until a sound theoryof proficiency has been established and adequately evaluated.The Psychometric PostureDuran (1984), observes that developers of proficiency tests:


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Proficiency: Understanding the Construct 185who wish to develop scales of communicative competence skills are unlikely to leavetheir psychometric perspectivenor should one expect them to. Accordingly, theinstrument development strategies for communicative competence skills shouldadhere to the highest standards of psychometric test design principles, (p. 54)

From our position, we are no closer to understanding the concept today than we were20 years ago, precisely because the quest to describe proficiency has been dominateddirectly and indirectly by psychometric principles. This may well be the result of thetendency on the part of researchers to lose sight of the object of scientific inquiry inorder to preserve the integrity of the tools they use to measure the object (Bissert,1979, p . I 19) . N onetheless, because of the primacy g ranted to the principles ofpsychometry, "the fact that it is possible to devise tests on which individuals scorearbitrary points does not mean that the quality being measured by the test is reallymetric. The illusion is provided by the scale" (Lew ontin, Ro se, & Kam in, 198 4, p .9 1 ) . 3

The lack of agreement among psychometncians on the number of levels to includein a proficiency hierarchy is further indication of the primacy granted to psychometricprinciples to the detriment of a clear understanding of the concept under investigation.For instance, the Foreign Service Institute (FSI) scale has five levels. Ingram (1985),in his Australian Second Langu age Proficiency Rating s (A S L P R ) , propo ses ninelevels with provision for three additional levels in the event they are needed for finetuning. Bachman and Savignon (1986) propose a three-level scale. What is missingfrom all of the scales, as far as we can determine, is sound justification that proficiencyis indeed scalable in the manner assum ed. A s Edelsky (1 98 6) argues in her criticismof Cumm ins's well-known claims on proficiency, "lad de r metapho rs for human learningmay be appealing but they misrepresent the phenomena and are often used to legitimizecertain groups ' lower statu s" (p. 12 4). Furth erm ore, even if it turned out that proficiencywere indeed scalable as such, test developers owe the prospective consumer of theirtests a principled justification for the number of levels included in the scale. Why 5 or12 or 3? Why not 6 or 95? Moreover, adoption of the psychometric posture has led,not too surprisingly, to the previously mentioned circularity in the definitions of profi-ciency. Vollmer (1981) points out that after years of investigation the only thing weare able to say about proficiency is that proficiency is what proficiency tests measure(P- 152).

What must be done is to set aside the test-based approach to proficiency and tobegin to develop a theory of proficiency that is independent of the psychometrics.4 Onlyafter such a theory has been developed and is proven to be consistent and exhaustiveby empirical research should we remtroduce the psychometric factor into the picture,with the full realization that such a reintroduction may not be possible, given our earlierremarks on the scalability of human behavior. A similar proposal has already gainedwidespread support among those pursuing research in mathematics education (seeSchoenfeld, in press).


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186 James P. Lantolf and William FrawleyTO W AR D A PR INCIPLED THEO RY O F PROFIC IENCYOpen SystemThe previous section is an enumeration of some of the major problems associated withO P testing. M or e detailed criticisms may be found in our other work (Lantolf &Fraw ley, 19 85 a). H er e, w e want to outline a picture of what a serious theory of O Pshould address.

A review of the recent literature on proficiency and comm unicative competencedemonstrates quite clearly that there is nothing even approaching a reasonable andunified the ory of proficiency. Ingram (1 985 ) points out that proficiency has been definedin more than one way by more than one researcher. Some have defined it as knowledgeof rules; others have defined it as tasks learners can perform and the means for carryingout the tasks linguistically, sociolinguistically, and pragmatically. Some researchers,like Ingram, have argued for distinguishing between a general or underlying proficiencyand a specific proficiency. J arvis (1 9 86 ), on the other han d, contends that " a meaningfulconcept of generic proficiency cannot exist" because "there are many proficiencies"(p .2 0 ) . Cummins et al. (1984) claim that proficiency is linked to personality factorsof the individual. In short, proficiency runs the entire gamut of definitions.

In Lantolf and Frawley (1985b) we have argued that the definitions of proficiencybriefly outlined above represent a self-contained closed system. Current proponents oft h e A C T F L Guidelines admit as much in saying that the proficiency "guidelines arepro/icienc(/-based" [italics added] (ACTFL, 198 6, p . 15). W e b ase our claim on thefact that such approaches prescribe a set of behaviors, whether they be syntactic,semantic, or p ragm atic. In all of the appr oac hes , proficiency is seen as behavior derivedfrom an underlying menu, or, to use the term more in vogue, repertoire, which speakersaccess when circumstances require such access, much in the way an artificial intelligenceprogram operates.

According to this point of view, proficiency in some way involves behavioral rulesof the following typ e: If in situation X , take a turn through choice Y 9 0 % of the time.If proficiency is a taxonomy of pragmatic behavior, a closed system, proficiency makersthereby propogate only ideal opportunities for talk, not real opportunities, because theypropose to "equip [L2 learners] with a perfectly deterministic subroutine" (Dennett,1984, p . I19) . 5

More important, however, as Dreyfus and Dreyfus (1986) caution, is that eventhough scientists write rules of behavior and real people occasionally verbalize them inorder to describe their own behavior, this does not mean that actual behavior isdetermined by a rule system. Experience, memory, and intuition may be what reallyunderly much of higher level human psychological activity, and we have no guaranteetha t these are constituted by rules in the same way that m enus of behavior a re. A sSearle (1984) says: "the formal properties of behavior are not sufficient to show thata rule is being followed. In orde r that the rule be followed, the meaning of the rulehas to play some causal role in the behavior" (p. 47). Given Searle's observation, wefind it hard to believe that leaps from intermediate-low to intermediate-mid evidence a


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Proficiency: Understanding the Construct 187speaker's adherence to the rules of discussing such things as topics beyond immediateneeds, to cite the Guidelines.

Individual SpeakersA basic reason for the problems in the O P movement is tha t, as with computer m odelsof human cognition, real individuals have been either overlooked completely or relegatedto a tangential position. Evidence for our claim may be seen in the following remarksby Lowe (198 6) and Higgs (19 86 ). Low e writes, "Bu t one document [the Guidelines]cannot be all things to all peopleto test designers, to raters, to course developers,to materials writers, to classroom teachers, to administrators" (p. 392). Curiously, theindividual speaker being tested and rated is not mentioned in Lo we 's list of "all p eo pl e."Higgs states that "a proficiency-oriented approach to language teaching improves thequality of the product we purport to deliver" (p. 8). Although Higgs indirectly, atleast, acknowledges individual learners, he unfortunately converts them into a commodityto be displayed in the educational marketplace and delivered like a package of humaneducational capital. Clearly, the individual, w ho should be the starting point of researchon what proficiency is to begin with, is just output, a result.

W e realize that it is claimed that, if nothing else, the Guidelines provide for a learner-centered classroom, and there, at least, the individual speaker is consulted to someextent. Bragger (1986), for example, encourages teachers to surrender "some of theirauthority and to make students more responsible for their own language development"(p . 13). But even on this point there is far from unanimous agreement among research ers,as illustrated by Kramsch (1986), who maintains that the Guidelines are "teacher- andtextbook-centered rather than le arner -orien ted," because "teaching for proficiency seemsto require only a slight albeit imaginativeadjustment of current teaching p racticesand existing textbooks" (p. 23).

Be that as it may, if the Guidelines are truly concerned with the individual learner,then they clearly cannot define proficiency in the format that they do . A n investigationof what proficiency really means, if indeed it means anything of theoretical interest,requires that real individuals active in their world be ma de the prim ary focus of attention.Nearly two decades ago, Labov (1970) cautioned that ignoring the viewpoint of thespeaker may result in a research report on process X whereas the speaker had actuallybeen engaged in process Y.

Once human individuals are given priority over the constraints imposed by psy-chometry, the entire perspective changes. For one thing, there is a difference betweenindividuals who simply react to their world and those who actively create that world.The former, the preferred output or result of all idealized, algorithmically based modelsof communicative competence, respond deterministically to others who respond deter-ministically to them. The latter do not operate within a closed deterministic system butwithin an open system, the developmental outcome of which is impossible to predicton the basis of the initial state of the system. More importantly, the final state of anopen system "can be reached from different initial conditions and via different pathways"


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188 James P. Lantolf and William Frawley(V alsin er, 19 84 , p . 6 6 ). In a closed system there is one best answer; in an opensystem there is not. In an open system, the external world (which is not simply theenvironment in which the individual interacts) is reorganized and redefined in its relevantaspects by the individual; it is not defined/or the individual. Unfortunately for guidelinedevelopers, open systems are those which predominate in everyday life (see Rogoff &L av e, 19 84 , for an excellent collection of studies on human behavior in everyday life).

Functional SystemsThe theory of higher forms of human psychological activity that takes optimal accountof the individual, active in the open system of the everyday world, is that developedby Vy go tsky , Lu ria, and their disciples. W e are comfortable with this theory not onlybecause of the priority it assigns to real individuals, but also because it is, withoutquestion, the most consistent, exhaustive, parsimonious, and heuristically valuable theoryof human cognitive activity (see V oc ate , 198 7, pp. 1 5 4 -1 5 8 ). 6 Although we cannotdo justice to this theory in the present article, we focus on one aspect of it that isparticularly germane to the present discussion. This is what Luria refers to as "thefunctional systems perspective."

A functional system is characterized by the "presence of a constant (invariant) task,performed by variable (variative) mechanisms, bringing the process to a constant(invariant) result" (L uria , 19 73 , p. 2 9) . W hen we speak of function in this regard,we are not speaking of a standard linguistic function, such as a speech act, which,according to Lu ria (1 97 3 ), is more analogous to the function of a specific bodily tissue,like the pancreasthe function of which is the secretion of insulin. A functional system,rather, is more like the respiratory system, the object or goal of which is to supplyoxygen to the alveoli of the lungs and to diffuse it through their cell walls to the bloodstream. Respiration is carried out via a complex muscular apparatus, involving thediaphragm, intercostal muscles, and nervous structures in the brain. The final result ofthe system is always the samedelivery of oxygenbut the way this is achieved mayvary. The diaphragm is normally responsible for the expansion and contraction of thethoracic cavity, but if it is damaged, the identical procedure can be accomplished bymeans of the intercostal muscles (L ur ia, 19 73 , p. 2 9 ). In essence, breathing via thediaphragm or via the intercostal muscles does not change the nature of the activity ofrespiration because the goal has not changed. The only way the structure of a processcan in fact change is by a change in the goal of the activity. Thus, the nature of anyactivity is content-free, because its outcome is never tied to a well-defined deterministicset of procedures (i.e., if X then Y).

In terms of language proficiency, this analogy points to the fact that the proficiencyof a given speaker can never be characterized in any absolute sense, with everyonehaving the same fit between form and function. To use another analogy, not only dodifferent people have different driving styles in different circumstances, but differentpeople may have different driving styles under the same circumstances. This is whatit means to function within an open system.


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Proficiency: Understanding the Construct 189In Lantolf and Frawley (1985b), we illustrate in detail the implications of functional

systems theory for languag e proficiency by means of an example dr aw n from the cognitivescience literature. In what follows, we briefly summarize the example (from a study byCole & Trau pm an n, 198 1) to provide a basis for explicit discussion of proficiency andfunctional systems.

Cole and Traupmann (1981), in their case study of inner-city elementary schoolchildren, discuss a student named Archie, labeled by his teachers as learning disabled,because, among other things, he manifested a reading problem. Cole and Traupmann,however, were unable to detect Arch ie's difficulty in the contextualized e veryda y worldrepresented by an after-school cooking club they set up to observe how children solveeveryday problems. Interestingly, on the basis of their observations of the club's ac-tivities, Cole and Traupmann concluded that Archie is one of the more competentmembers of the group. Cole and Traupmann were puzzled by the paradox of a childsuffering a general deficit in a scholastic setting, while at the same time appearing tobe completely normal in a natural setting like the cooking club. A closer look at Archie'sbehavior in the club setting, however, showed that the same deficits reported in theschool environment were present in the natural context. The difference in the twocontexts revealed a qualitatively different kind of environment-person interaction.

In the cooking club, Archie was paired with another student, Ricky. In order tocarry out one of the activities of the cooking club, the baking of a cake, it was necessaryto follow the proper sequence of activities, the first of which was to read the recipe.This , of course, caused difficulties for Archie. Through a clever strategy of pretendingto read the recipe, he managed to get Ricky, an excellent reader, to read the recipe.Ricky, on the other hand, was completely incapable of planning and adhering to thesequence of steps called for in the recipe. This turned out to be Archie's strong suit,and, as Cole and Traupmann remark, "Together, in strikingly complementary fashion,they get the job done" (Cole & Tr aup m ann , 19 81 , p . 141). T h e researchers concludedthat the children were active initiators and constructors of, rather than accommodatorsto , their environments. In other words, the children joined together to form a functionalsystem, the goal of which was to bake a cake, which was achieved. Needless to say,Archie was less successful in controlling and shaping his scholastic environmentanenvironment designed to prevent overtly cooperative endeavors on the part of partic-ipants (see Bourdieu & Passeron, 197 7).

Cole and Traupmann, because they understand the sorts of claims we have beenmaking, conclude that Archie's behavior is all but impossible to describe in terms ofa closed system comprised of fixed attributes. This is because Archie, like all of us,operates not from fixed attributes, but from active shaping of his world to realize hisgoals. Above all, Archie is able to do this by working together with another individual.Thus, any claim that Archie suffers a deficit "turns out to be a statement about thestructure of certain interactions he has with only some of the multiple environments heencounters" [italics add ed] (Cole & Trau pm ann, 19 81 , p. 147). Th is is a far moresignificant and revealing way of analyzing human behavior than assigning a person anumber, which supposedly describes that individual's level of behavior.

What all this means is that proficiency, linguistic or otherwise, is not a construct


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190 James P. Lantolf and W illia m Frawleythat can be formalized in terms of a taxonomy of items, no matter how long or genuine(see the Guidelines) that taxonom y may be . A very long or even exhaustive list of fixedattributes is still a list of fixed attributes. From the functional systems perspective,individuals do not select a set of forms from some internalized menu as a means tocarry out an activity, because we are never sure how a particular may unfold, andbecause the organizational constraints on the participa nts in the tasks are , theoretically,infinitely variable. From the viewpoint of functional systems, so defined, coincidenceor congruence of representational systems (i.e., linguistic menus) is, if not meaningless,seriously overrated.7 What matters in a functional linguistic system are the speakers aspersons and the goals these persons establish for themselves in their activities.

W e cannot assum e, therefore, that if stude nts are successful in a decontextualizedsetting they will also be successful in a different setting. More importantly, we cannotassume that if they are unsuccessful in a setting such as the classroom testing situation,they will also fail in everyday settings. In fact, Higgs and Clifford (1982) warn thatin interpreting ratings,

we are obligated to reveal to our students the limitations of such judgments, lestwe deceive them and ourselves. We must tell them not that they are competent tospeak German, but that they are competent to meet routine physical and socialobligations in an environment where German is spoken, (pp. 60-61)But this is only half the picture. In point of fact, on the basis of a rating, there is littlejustification for telling students that they are no t competent to meet such obligations.The only environment we can be certain of is that established by the testing situationitself and nothing more. Otherwise, we are hard pressed to explain how entire sets ofnovice-lows do in fact manage to order meals and ask directions, something which theirmenu rating disallows.DIRECTION FOR FUTURE RESEARCHIt is clear that the concept of proficiency, as construed by the Guidelines and asopera tionalized in the proficiency curriculum , is based on a homogenizing view of learningand human activity. In truth, it is not puzzling that it should be so, because proficiencyitself is derived from policy and not from science or empirical inquiry: Policy never hasmuch taste for persons, because its goal is homogenization (see Ega n, 19 83 ). T hisdesire to achieve a degree of unity among second language learners has even led oneprominent researcher to speak recently of the possibility of "creating a nation of 3s."

The problem, however, is that unity is not created by policy, which attempts tomake people the same. It arises normally when one person has an attribute that anotherdoes not. In such a state of affairs, there exists a real need for people to join togetherin order to realize their goals (as in the case of Archie and Ricky). In this regard,Ilyenkov (1977) cogently remarks,

two absolutely equal individuals, each of which has the very same set of knowledge,habits, inclinations, etc., would be absolutely uninteresting to one another, and


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Proficiency: Understanding the Construct 191the one would not need the other. They would simply bore each other to death.It is nothing but a simple doubling of solitariness, (p. 3 50 )

Our claim here is that to recognize equal access to education is also to recognize thatpeople are simply different. Th is is wh at it means to be an individual in the realworld, at least. It is this difference that stimulates people to interact with each otherin order to get things done. The basis of unity and equality is diversity, not exactlywhat either measures of proficiency or of proficiency-based curricula strive for.

Given the preceding discussion, we conclude that the one place where we cannotproperly study what people do with or through language is the oral interview. Thetesting situation do es not have privileged status. T his is because in the laborato ry settingor, in this case, the testing situation, there exists a hierarchical division of labor inwhich the establishment of goals and the means for attaining the goals (i.e., functionalsystem) are not under the control of the individual, as they are in the real world, butare determined an d manipulated by the researcher or tester (see N ew m an n, Griff en,&Cole , 1984, p . 91) . 8

W e hope that the position we have outlined in the prece ding discussion will serveas a stimulus for serious, clinically ba sed research into the nature of language proficiency,as called for by Duran (1984), for example. But to be of any value, this researchmust be guided by a kind of coherent theory of complex human behavior, such as thatdeveloped by Vygotsky and Luria. Without a sound theoretical perspective, anyresearch program that seeks to investigate real speaking activity is doomed to result inlittle more than what Conant (1964) refers to as "stamp collecting," a kind of ac-countancy (p. 89).

W e should rema rk, in closing, that we are aw are that some reade rs may respondto this paper with the typical "conversive dare": "Well, if you don't like proficiency,what do you propose we do? W ha t does your system consist of?" W e have twoanswers. First, simply to propose another system is not only counterproductive butquestion-begging: W e think that because the proficiency testing and teaching en terpriseis poorly conceived, further institutionalization of the Guidelines should be suspendedfor the time being. Second, we think that it is vitally important to find out true factsbefore deriving policy. W e propo se only to look for some true facts of proficiency. W ebelieve that the search must begin with the dyadic relationship established betweenindividuals via linguistic activity.

The starting point is dyadically based proficiency, similar to Rommetveit's (1985,1987) concept of dialogic intersubjectivity. Traditional approaches to dialogic interactionassume that "when interlocutors come together in a speech situation, they share a fundof 'background knowledge' that provides an agreed-upon foundation for communication"(W ertsch, 198 5, p . 160 ). This assumption derives from the conduit metaphor ofhuman communication in which a speaker is seen packaging information in boxes (called"words") and subsequently sending these packages across to some interlocutor whounw raps the boxes and extracts the messages (for further discussion, see R ed dy , 19 79 ).Rommetveit argues that the conduit metaphor forces researchers to focus on how eachutterance in a dialogue simply adds to already established information and overlooks


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Proficiency: Understanding Hie Construct 193But this does not exclude the closed system, because each stage in proficiency should theoretically beexhaustively definite; if this is not possible, then the stages do not mean anything.

6. Velichkovskii (1 98 7, pp. 29 30) goes so far as to say that Vygotsk yan theory is the only unifiedtheory of cognitive processes. In this regard, he cites several American and European researchers, such asJohnson-Laird, Fodor, Neisser, Tulving, and Newell, among others, who present a pessimistic view ofdevelopments within cognitive science over the past hundred years.

7. Th e question of the importance of representational systems and their relation to functional systemsrequires some clarification here. By representational system we mean something along the lines of UniversalGrammar, the mental representation of the grammar of a particular language, universal pragmaticsinshort, competence, whether grammatical or communicative, both of which are idealized linguistic menus. Thelinguistic representational system, which has been studied for some years now, is actually a very small andwell-circumscribed part of the entire human language system; it is also deterministic and automatic (seeFod or, 19 83 ). Furthermore, if current theory is correct, the representational system is unlearned or "cog-nitively impenetrable," which means that it is also unteachable (Pyly shy n, 19 85 ). Th us , any linguistic menu,such as the Guidelines, is irrelevant to teaching practice with regard to the acquisition of competence.

The functional systemwhat Fodor (1983) calls "central processes"is another matter altogether. It isthe nondeterministic, nonautomatic part of (linguistic) cognition; the extent of its effect on cognition is notknown, though it is clear that it is less circumscribed than (linguistic) menus. In our view, it is the functionalsystem that ought to be the concern of proficiency adherents, for many reasonsnot the least of which isthat it can actually be taught.

8 . For a full discussion of the importance of the role of the individual in determining the nature of thetask m expenmentation, see Lantolf and Ahm ed ( 19 87 ).

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