Chapter 28 Assessing Students' Grammatical Ability

also includes 
the knowledge of 
vocabulary, phonology, 
and 
graphology 
under the general heading of 
grammatical knowledge. Both 
grammatical knowledge 
(grammar at the sentential and sub• 
sentential levels) and 
te.xtual knowledge 
(language at the discourse level) are subsumed 
under 
organizational knowledge 
(how language and structures are produced to form gram­
matically correct utterances and sentences). 
Bachman and Palmer's work also built on earlier notions of 
communicative competence 
(cf. Hymes, 1974; Canale and Swain, 1980), which refers to a language user's ability to 
use his 
I 
her 
grammatical knowledge 
(e.g., syntax, morphology) to communicate through 
spoken utterances and writing. In this way, grammar is not only a set of abstract rules, but is 
fundamental to the creation of meaning. Thus, for Purpura (2004 ), 
grammatical kllowledgc 
embodies two closely related components: 
grammatical form 
at the subsentential, sentence, 
and discourse levels, and 
grammatical meaning, 
which includes both the literal and intended 
meaning of utterances and sentences as a way of accounting for "meaning in both content­
impoverished (e.g., multiple-choice tasks) and context-rich (e.g., problem-solving tasks) 
test situations" (p. 63). 
Finally, for testing purposes, an important distinction needs to be made between 
knowledge 
and 
ability. 
As they relate to grammar, a person's