ABSTRACT
Language and language incompetence do not exist as independent phenomena in the heads of speakers; they present themselves in contexts of interaction. From an interaction vantage point, internal language capacities do not predict communicative proficiency:
In order for two or more people to communicate, at whatever level of effectiveness, it is neither sufficient nor necessary that they “share” the same grammar. What they must share, to a variable degree, is the ability to orient themselves verbally, perceptually, and physically to each other and to their social world.
(Hanks, 1996, p. 229)