Both Saussure and Chomsky make the distinction between the abstract language system and the actual use of language. their purpose is to single out the language system for serious study.
Langue refers to the abstract linguistic system shared by all the members of a speech community, and parole refers to the realization of langue in actual use. Langue is the set of conventions and rules which language users all have to abide by, and parole is the concrete use of the conventions and the application of the rules. Langue is relatively stable, it does not change frequently; while parole varies from person to person, and from situation to situation. In Saussure`s opinion, parole is simply a mass of linguistic facts, too varied and confusing for systematic investigation, and what linguists should do is to abstract langue from parole, to discover the regularities governing the actual use of language and make them the subjects of study of linguistics.
Chomsky defines competence as the ideal user`s knowledge of the rules of his language , and performance the actual realization of this knowledge in linguistic communication. Similar to Saussure, Chomsky thinks what linguists should study is the ideal speaker`s competence, not his performance. Although a speaker possesses an internalized set of rules and applies them in actual use, he can not tell exactly what these rules are. So the task of the linguists is to discover and specify these rules.
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