Theory of Translation 1 Introduction

Imperative Sentence 
Command 
Shut up. 
Wish 
Have a nice day. 
Invitation 
Come and see me next week. 
Warning 
Mind your language. 
Similarly, different forms may convey the same function or meaning. Secondly, 
competence is dependent upon both knowledge and ability for use and relates to all 
the four features listed below: 
(a)
Whether and to what degree something is really possible; 
(b)
Whether and to what degree something is feasible in virtue of means of 
implementation available. 
(c)
Whether and to what degree something is appropriate in relation to a 
context in which it is used. 
(d)
Whether and to what degree something is actually performed, and what its 
doing entails. 
If viewed in terms of the notion of competence, we can say that (a) and (b) partly have 
to do with linguistic competence and (c) and (d) are partly concerned with 
communicative competence. In other words, one’s communicative competence is 
reflected in his/her grammatical (i.e. formally possible), psycholinguistic (i.e. 
practically feasible), socio-cultural (i.e. contextually appropriate) and de-facto (i.e. 
actually occurring) knowledge and ability to use a language. 
Again, Chomsky’s notion of the difference between competence and performance is 
often compared with the earlier Saussurean concept of the difference between ‘la 

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langue’ and ‘la parole’. The difference in these two concepts can be characterized as 
psychological rather than sociological. La langue, according to Saussure, is a definite 
element abstracted from heterogeneous facts of language in general. It is the 
conventional aspect of language established by a kind of social contract among the 
members of the linguistic community. La parole, on the contrary, is individual 
utterance, an act of will, serving individual ends. La langue is a code language in 
dictionaries and grammars and la parole is the way the code is used in actual situation.