5.1.1.1　Knowledge of the world（世界についての知識、わたしたちが生きている/暮らしている世界について知っていること）

Mature human beings have a highly developed and finely articulated model of the world and its workings, closely correlated with the vocabulary and grammar of their mother tongue. Indeed, both develop in relation to each other. The question, ‘What is that?’ may ask for the name of a newly observed phenomenon or for the meaning (referent) of a new word. The basic features of this model are fully developed during early childhood, but it is further developed through education and experience during adolescence and indeed throughout adult life. Communication depends on the congruence of the models of the world and of language which have been internalised by the persons taking part. One aim of scientific endeavour is to discover the structure and workings of the universe and to provide a standardised terminology to describe and refer to them. Ordinary language has developed in a more organic way and the relation between the categories of form and meaning varies somewhat from one language to another, though within fairly narrow limits imposed by the actual nature of reality. Divergence is wider in the social sphere than in relation to the physical environment, though there, too, languages differentiate natural phenomena very much in relation to their significance for the life of the community. Second and foreign language teaching is often able to assume that learners have already acquired a knowledge of the world sufficient for the purpose. This is, however, not by any means always the case (see 2.1.1).
Knowledge of the world (whether it derives from experience, education or from information sources, etc.) embraces:
• The locations, institutions and organisations, persons, objects, events, processes and operations in different domains as exemplified in Table 5 (section 4.1.2). Of considerable importance to the learner of a particular language is factual knowledge concerning the country or countries in which the language is spoken, such as its major geographical, environmental, demographic, economic and political features.
• Classes of entities (concrete/abstract, animate/inanimate, etc.) and their properties and relations (temporo-spatial, associative, analytic, logical, cause/effect, etc.) as set out, for instance, in Threshold Level 1990, Chapter 6.

Users of the Framework may wish to consider and where appropriate state:
• what knowledge of the world the language learner will be assumed/required to possess;
• what new knowledge of the world, particularly in respect of the country in which the　language is spoken the learner will need/be equipped to acquire in the course of language　learning.

CEFR（2001）pp.101-102