Language Competence as a Factor of Shaping Human Identity

If we take a deep look at the analysis of the word “competence” in the term of language competence, we will see that this concept has certain foundations outside of linguistics. This word plays an important role in all fields related to professional life, such as sociology, pedagogy, psychology and even personnel management. A competency is a consciously controlled set of abilities or skills in a specific domain. Competence also requires knowledge as well as the ability to solve problems in the field. The relevant fields are often the professional fields that people master. It is an undeniable fact that competence is acquired through training and experience and is measured according to established standards. If we look at the science of psychology, we will see that there are “personal” and “professional” types of competence. Since our goal is to examine the term “competence” from the linguistic aspect, we can say that a person’s language competence is, first of all, a part of its personality. On the other hand, this is one of the most important factors that shape professional life. So what do we mean by language competence? Thus, the language knowledge and skills necessary for the language to realize itself in speech activity are called language competence. It is possible to call “language competence” the ability of a language user to both express himself/herself and understand the other party correctly while using the language. It is an accepted reality that language is universal, that is, it is related to the expressive ability of a person, related to thought, words and gestures, attitude and hidden beliefs, cultural creation. On the other hand, language is a cultural object that is related to specific or historical conditions, in other words, it is built in conditions of participation and cooperation with all individuals of society