We express our thoughts and ideas using English alphabets and universally agreed codes and rules — the British standard, of course — to communicate unambiguously with one another. This is known as interpersonal communication. What determines attainment in the use of the language is one’s ability to garner enough wordpower, combined with grammatical skills, to convey a message flawlessly to the receiver. The message becomes unclear or even obscured when the encoder — in this case, the originator of the missive — fails to employ the right words and use simple grammar to be understood.
Wordpower, as one English purist puts it, is an invaluable guide to success with words, whether you are expressing yourself in writing, making a speech or filling a job application form. Similarly, according to a pundit, grammar is the science of the mechanics of language, and is therefore about the precise way in which we put our thoughts into words. To make life easier, the fusion of wordpower and grammar is worth observing and should be carefully formulated or merged together to reduce, to a minimum, the chance of confusion and ambiguity which the language presents at every turn.
How do we build, to a reasonable extent, our wordpower and improve our vocabulary in written or spoken form? We can achieve beyond the eight to ten thousand words which, on the average, the learner or average user of the language should know to express his or her opinion unmistakably to listening or viewing audiences in order to get the desired feedback or result.
Developing our communication skills is the key and secret of the successful writer or speaker, who seizes every opportunity to learn more and dig deep to acquire the knowledge that separates him or her from the crowd. Such an individual stands out where others are struggling. We can enhance our communication skills through what English purists and masters refer to as linguistic competence. Linguistic competence is a set of internalised rules for making and understanding sentences — the effective use of grammar in its simple application.
Grammar is not about pomposity, the use of flowery vocabulary and jargon, but about the simple, clear and precise assembling of words and phrases. In all, there are four basic language skills we often ignore and pay little attention to. If we can develop these skills deliberately, then we would have solved our linguistic incompetence to a reasonable degree.
The four basic linguistic skills are listening, speaking, reading and writing. Listening and speaking have to do with the oral form of language — oral skills. One has to be a good listener to understand what others are saying. The majority of us are lacking in this, and so we misquote and misunderstand others because we fail to listen. Listening, language experts insist, is the primary source of language. It is the foundation on which all other language skills develop, the purists emphasise.
