Competence versus Performance

Competence refers to a person's underlying knowledge of a language—the rules, vocabulary, and grammar they have internalized. Performance, on the other hand, is how they actually use that knowledge in real-life situations, which can be affected by factors like memory, attention, or environment. In simpler terms, competence is what someone knows about a language; performance is how they apply that knowledge when speaking or writing. The distinction helps linguists understand the difference between stored language knowledge and the observable language use in everyday communication.