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ons among semantic intentions, rules, and conditions specified by rules. Searle’s view of semantic competence is grounded in his quarrel with Chomsky’s notion of linguistic competence. He argues that Chomsky’s theory of language is that sentences are abstract objects produced independently of their role in communication. His position is that any attempt to account for the meaning of sentences independently of their role in communication is inadequate. Searle ( 1982, pp. 171 - 172 ) says Chomsky regards man as essentially a syntactical animal. He never asks what the syntactical forms are used for, and conceptualises syntactical theory in purely “syntactical primitives.” There is no allowance for what the syntactical forms mean or how persons are supposed to use them. He adds that the most interesting questions about syntax are inquiries about how form and function interact. For him, the study of syntax will always be incomplete “unless we get a study of linguistic use.” He states, pointedly, that Chomsky has denied what he regards as obviously true, that the purpose of language is communication. My arguments against use of communicative competence as a central basis to communicative language teaching are complete. I must concentrate now on the relevance of Frierian proposals to this approach. I propose, instead, that the ideas of Paulo Friere be used as the main thrust of communicative language teaching. Once I have explored the Frierian relevance, I shall bring closure to my work by outlining what communicative language teaching should look like. FRIERIAN LIBERATION PEDAGOGY Paulo Friere was a Brazilian educator who dedicated himself to abolishing cultural invasion, manipulation, rule by division, conquest, and domination among oppressed people. The core of his commitment is expressed as a strong preference for using conscientizacao to abolish illiteracy. Let me say, from the outset, what conscientizacao. “The term conscientizacao refers to learning to perceive social, political, and economic contradictions, and to take action against the oppressive elements of reality.” (Friere 1970, p. 19 ). Conscientizacao means identifying the learning of content with the process of learning. It will not emerge as a derivative of great economic change. It has to emanate from critical educational efforts that have a foundation in favourable historical circumstances. It is the development of an awakening of critical awareness ( Friere 1998,p. 19, p. 49 ). The interactive route to conscientizacao is a dialogical one which is traversed horizontally by reflective co-subjects who are, simultaneously, teachers and learners. In the words of Goulet ( 1998, p. vi ), the unifying theme in Frierian practice is critical consciousness, the engine of cultural emancipation. Why was the Frierian concern a concern with eradicating illiteracy? I shall address myself to this query, after which attention will be given to operations of the engine. Paulo Friere was an unapologetic anti-imperialist who observed, quite correctly, that a basic condition of colonial domination is linguistic imposition by colonisers on the colonised. It is, thus, not accidental that colonisers designate their own languages as languages and languages of the colonised as dialects. This is categorisation akin to inferiorisation and impoverishment, on the one hand, and richness and superiority, on the other. ( Friere, 1978: p. 126 ). He, therefore, insists that language is