UNIT 4

COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE.
ANALYSIS OF ITS COMPONENTS

0. INTRODUCTION
1. LANGUAGE AND COMMUNICATION
2. COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE: HISTORICAL OVERVIEW
3. ANALYSIS OF ITS COMPONENTS
4. COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE AND THE
SPANISH CURRICULUM
5. TEACHING IMPLICATIONS
6. BIBLIOGRAPHY

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0. INTRODUCTION
Throughout this unit we will analyze thoroughly the concept of communicative competence.
We will first look at communication and try to define it in connection with language. We will
also look into language as the unique way by which human beings communicate trying to
frame its characteristics by establishing similarities and differences with other means of
communication. Then we will consider communicative competence from a historical
perspective, trying to understand Chomsky's definition of competence and performance.
Departing from Chomsky's definition we will see how the concept of competence and
performance will be constantly revised by linguists adding and deleting subcompetences to
their proposals. Canale and Swain's proposal will be analyzed in depth and then compared
and analyzed in the light of the Spanish curriculum . Finally some pedagogical considerations
will be outlined,
This unit has been foregrounded on some of the most relevant and influential scholars,
namely, James Lee & Bill.VaPatten Making Communicative Language Teaching Happen
(1995); Dell Hymes, D. On Communicative competence.(1972) and M.A.K Halliday,
Explorations in the Functions of Language (1973) and Canale, M., and M. Swain,
Theoretical bases of communicative approaches to second language teaching and testing.
Applied Linguistics 1 (1) (1980)
1. LANGUAGE AND COMMUNICATION
From an anthropological perspective, the origins of communication are to be found in the
very early stages of life when there was a need for animals and humans to communicate
basic structures of the world and everyday life. It is relevant to establish, then, a distinction
between human and animal systems of communication as their features differ in the way
they produce and express their intentions.
Before language was developed, non-verbal codes were used by humans to convey
information by means of symbols, body gestures, and sounds, as it is represented in pictorial
art and burial sites. However, since prehistoric times the way of improving communication
preoccupied human beings as they had a need to express their thoughts with words. This
verbal code was to be developed into a highly elaborated signaling system, both spoken and
written, which became an essential tool of communication for human beings (Crystal 1985).
For several millennia many linguists and philosophers have approached the concept of
language from different domains of knowledge, such as philosophy, psychology,
anthropology, and sociology among others, in order to offer an account of the prominent
features of human language in opposition to other systems of communication.

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Hence, regarding types (Halliday 1985), the field of semiotics distinguishes verbal and non -
verbal communication as part of the analysis of both linguistic and non-linguistic signs as
communicative devices in all modes and contexts. Thus, when the act of communication is
verbal, the code is the language, which may result in oral or written form, as when we are
watching a film, having a conversation, or reading a magazine. When we refer to non-verbal
communication, visual and tactile modes are concerned, such as gestures, facial expressions,
body language, or touch, and even some uses of the vocal tract are possible by means of
paralanguage, such as whistling or musical effects.
Language can therefore be defined as the institution whereby humans communicate and
interact with others by means of habitually used oral-auditory arbitrary symbols. (R.A Hall :
1964) . According to Halliday (1975), language may be defined as an instrument of social
interaction with a clear communicative purpose.
Among the most prominent design features of human language, an auditory-vocal channel
is to be highlighted in opposition to tactile, visual or other means of communication. Human
beings are also able to reproduce and produce an infinite number of messages in any
context of space and time, thanks to the arbitrariness of language which allows humans to
combine sounds with no intrinsic meaning so as to form elements with meaning. And finally,
we may mention as the last feature, a traditional transmission, since language is
transmitted from one generation to the next by a process of teaching and learning.
Historically speaking, Plato was said to be the first to discuss an instrumentalist definition of
language, and according to this definition, language primarily serves the purpose of
communication, as it is a linguistic tool. Some centuries later, an anthropological
perspective, brought about by Bronislaw Malinowski in his book The problem of Meaning in
Primitive Languages (1923), states that language has only two main purposes: pragmatic
and ritual. For him, the pragmatic function refers to the practical use of language, either
active by means of speech or narrative by means of written texts. The ritual function is
concerned with the use of language associated to ceremonies, and also referred to as magic.
Further instances of linguistic and semantic purposes are broadly overviewed below within
other linguists' models.
Among all the proposals regarding the different functions assigned to language , coming
from linguists such as Malinowsky, Saussure, Buhler, Halliday and Jakobson, we highlight the
considerable impact of Jakobson's work and his communication model which he interrelated
with what he believed where the functions of language.

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Within a language teaching theory, many approaches and theories stem from a fundamental
question which addresses the way we, teachers, can help students who are learning a
second language in a classroom setting, become proficient in that language. Another
question arises, then, in relation to what it means to be _proficient in a language, Following
Ellis (1985), we may define proficiency as the learner's knowledge of the target language
viewed as linguistic competence or communicative competence. Common synonyms for the
term are expertise, ability, or competence within implications at a high level of skill, well-
developed knowledge, and polished performance. As we have seen, the term proficiency
brings about the notions of competence and performance which must be also reviewed.
These two notions of competence and performance are one of the main tenets in
Chomsky's theory of transformational grammar (Richards & Rodgers 2001). This distinction
addresses competence as the idealized native speaker's underlying competence, referring to
one's implicit or explicit knowledge of the system of the language whereas performance
addresses to an individual performance, referring to one's actual production and
comprehension of language in specific instances of language use. Chomsky believed that
actual performance did not properly reflect the underlying knowledge, that is, competence,
because of its many imperfections at the level of errors and hesitations.
This fundamental distinction has been at the center of discussions of many other
researchers, and in fact, it has been reviewed and evaluated since then from various
theoretical perspectives which will be examined in the section devoted to the development
of a communicative competence model (Canale & Swain 1980). However, we will highlight in
this section one of the main rejections to Chomsky's view of language, proposed by the
American anthropologist Dell Hymes in his work On communicative competence (1972).
Here he felt that there are rules of language use that are neglected in Chomsky's approach,
as native speakers know more than just grammatical competence. Hymes, with a tradition
on sociolinguistics, had a broader view of the term which included not only grammatical
competence, but also sociolinguistic and contextual competence. For Hymes, the notion of
communicative competence is the underlying knowledge a speaker has of the rules of
grammar including phonology, orthography, syntax, lexicon, and semantics, and the rules for
their use in socially appropriate circumstances. Therefore, we understand competence as
the knowledge of rules of grammar, and performance, the way the rules are used.
Today, communicative competence is the central aim of foreign and second language
teaching, providing a number of suggestions as to how teachers can give pupils optimum
frameworks for acquiring a good communicative competence. This notion no longer
describes just a particular proficiency or skill, but makes reference to more than listening
and speaking, reading and writing. It is the ability to use appropriately all aspects of verbal
and non-verbal language in a variety of contexts, as would a native speaker (Canale 1983).
2. COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE: HISTORICAL OVERVIEW
The notion of communicative competence and its development is linked to the dialectical
relationship between language and culture which has preoccupied linguists, philosophers
and researchers for many years. However, it was not until the early twentieth century that a
systematic introduction of cultural studies enters the second language teaching curriculum,
and for the first time, traditional views on language system are challenged.
Hobbes (1651)

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One of the first references to language, as a system of signs, and the necessity of an
appropriate context of communication was provided by the philosopher Thomas Hobbes in
1651. On revising the natural condition of mankind regarding counsel, Hobbes unconsciously
offered in his work The Leviathan (chapter XXV) an ethnographic approach to the nature of
language. Thus, he explains how fallacious is to judge of the nature of things, by the ordinary
and inconstant use of words, he makes reference to an emphasis on social action rather than
on texts in order to achieve the effectiveness of communication.
Shweiter and Simonet (1921)
Some centuries later, in 1921, they also challenged the view that language is only a system
of signs and that language awareness included only the knowledge of grammar, lexicon, and
phonetics (Bloomfield 1933). They argued about the necessity of including a system of basic
information into second language teaching, which involved a wide range of general topics,
among which we may find geography, history customs, traditions, holidays and rituals of a
foreign language country. Though the range of the topics may seem very limited nowadays,
the reader must bear in mind that this was the first challenged to the old traditional view of
language system.
Robert Lado (1957)
Another approach traces back to the middle of the twentieth century, when the American
linguist argued that knowledge of a foreign language culture is essential for foreign language
learners to create the same atmosphere of native speakers' interaction. Parallel to these
theoretical challenges, we find our next linguist under consideration, Noam Chomsky, who
also challenged, but this time successfully, behaviorist models of language learning.
Chomsky (1965): competence and performance.
As we have previously mentioned, there was a variety of theoretical challenges to the audio-
lingual method in the 1960s, among which we may mention, apart from Lado's, that of the
linguist Noam Chomsky which became a turning point in the development of subsequent
theories on language learning. Chomsky proposed in his work Aspects of the Theory of
Syntax (1965), a theory called Transformational Generative Grammar, according to which
learners do not acquire an endless list of rules, but limited set of transformations with which
language users can form an unlimited number of sentences. Chomsky's theory is concerned
primarily with an ideal speaker-listener, in a completely homogeneous speech community,
who knows its language perfectly and is unaffected by such grammatically irrelevant
conditions as memory limitations, distractions, shifts of attention and interest, and errors
(random or characteristic) in applying his knowledge of the language in actual performance
(1965 p.3). For him, then, there are two main concepts under revision, competence and
performance. To him, competence refers to the innate knowledge of language an ideal
speaker-listener has in an homogeneous speech community, and performance refers to the
actual production and rules of language use. According to Chomsky, then, within his theory
of linguistic competence and performance, being respectively, grammaticality and
acceptability, linguistic knowledge is separated from sociocultural features. His distinction
served as basis for work of many other researchers as it is stated in the following sections.
Campbell and Wales (1970), Halliday (1972) and Hymes (1972)

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There were reactions to Chomsky's notion of linguistic competence. Mainly three
approaches showed a disagreement that went on in the early 1970s, and centered on
whether communicative competence included grammatical competence or not.
Campbell and Wales felt that appropriateness of language is even more important than
grammaticality. For them, the idea of communicative competence was the ability to produce
utterances which are not so much grammatical but, more important, appropriate to the
context in which they are made (1970).
In relation to Halliday (1972), we shall mention that he rejected Chomsky's dichotomy of
competence and performance as he thought the potential of meaning was covered both by
knowing and doing.
Regarding Dell Hymes' approach, he also pointed out that Chomsky's competence-
performance model did not provide an explicit place for sociocultural features, adding that
Chomsky's notion of performance seemed confused between actual performance and
underlying rules of performance. Hymes recasts the scope of the competence concept
because there is a lack of empirical support in Chomsky's model, and he feels that there are
rules of use without which the rules of grammar would be useless. Hymes introduced the
concept of communicative competence, paying special attention to the sociolinguistic
component, which connected language and culture.
Hymes (1972) stated that native speakers know more than just grammatical competence. So
far, he expands the Chomskyan notions of grammaticality (competence) and acceptability
(performance) into four parameters subsumed under the heading of communicative
competence as something which has
• first, a systematic potential. e.g. a native speaker has a system for producing
grammatically correct language.
• secondly, feasible in virtue of the available means; e.g. no grammatical rule bans 20
adjective pre-head construction , however, we know that these constructions are not
possible in language
• thirdly, appropriate , in relation to a context in which it is used and evaluated; e.g. native
speakers know what is appropriate in a given situation
• fourth, something which is in fact occurrence, e.g. native speakers know how often
something is said in language.
Hymes's model is, then, primarily sociolinguistic, but includes Chomsky's psycholinguistic
parameter of linguistic competence. It is also primarily concerned with explaining language
use in social contexts, although it also addresses issues of language acquisition. As a result,
Hymes's model for communicative competence included grammatical, sociolinguistic and
contextual competences. Hymes's model inspired subsequent model developments on
communicative competence, such as those of Canale and Swain (1980)
Canale and Swain (1980)
Canale and Swain formulated a theoretical framework that, in the modified version of
Canale (1983), consisted of four major components of communicative competence, thus
grammatical, sociolinguistic, discourse, and strategic aspects.

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Under this perspective, knowing a language is not only knowing its grammar but also
knowing how to use it with whom and in what situations. Knowing a language implies a
combination of knowledge and skills. There are therefore rules of use and without these,
grammar is useless.
Knowledge would refer to what one knows (consciously or unconsciously) about the
language and about other aspects of communicative language use. Skills would refer to how
well one can perform this knowledge in actual communication situations, that is the
realization of that knowledge in actual situations. The idea here is that both knowledge and
skill underlie actual communication in a systematic and necessary way, and are thus
included in communicative competence. The realization of knowledge and skills under
limiting psychological and environmental conditions (memory and perceptual constraints,
distractions, fatigue, nervousness, interfering background) is ACTUAL COMMUNICATION.
"Actual communication" reflects nothing but the reality that communicative competence is
only INDIRECTLY REFLECTED in communication.

3. ANALYSIS OF ITS COMPONENTS

The grammatical competence, which deals with the mastery of the linguistic code itself. This
aspect is important for students to attain a higher level of proficiency where accuracy is
important. Thus included here are features and rules of the language such as vocabulary,
word formation, sentence formation, pronunciation, spelling and linguistic semantics. Such
competence focuses directly on the knowledge and skill required to understand and express
accurately the literal meaning of utterances.
The sociolinguistic competence is concerned with the appropriate use of language in
particular social situations to convey specific communicative functions such as describing,
narrating, or eliciting among others, including the participants and the rules for interaction.
This competence is particularly difficult to attain as the skilled use of appropriate registers
requires sensitivity to cross-cultural difference. Thus addresses the extent to which
utterances are produced and understood appropriately in different sociolinguistic contexts
depending on contextual factors such as the status of the participants, purposes of the
interaction, and norms and conventions of the interaction.
Appropriateness of utterances refers to both appropriateness of meaning and of form.
Appropriateness of meaning concerns the extent to which particular communicative
functions are judged to be proper in a given situation.
For example, it would generally be inappropriate for a waiter in a restaurant to command a
customer to order a certain menu item regardless of how the utterance was expressed
grammatically
Appropriateness of form concerns the extent to which a given meaning is represented in a
verbal or non-verbal form that is proper to the given situation.
For example, a waiter trying to take an order politely in a tasteful restaurant would be using
inappropriate language although grammatically correct if he said "Ok guys, so what are you
going to have?

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There is a tendency in many second language programmes to treat sociolinguistic
competence as less important than grammatical competence. This tendency seems odd for
two reasons. First, it gives the impression that grammatical correctness of utterances is
more important than appropriateness of utterances in actual communication. Second, this
tendency also ignores that sociolinguistic competence is also crucial in interpreting
sentences for their social meaning. So when an utterance is not clear from its literal
meaning it is important to know its social meaning.
The discourse competence concerns the mastery of how to use language in order to achieve
a unified spoken or written text in different genres, that is, cohesion and coherence of
utterances in a discourse. This cohesion of thought is attained by means of cohesive devices,
such as pronouns and grammatical connectors, together with a unity of thought and
continuity in a text.
This competence addresses directly to the mastery of how to combine grammatical forms
and meanings to achieve a unified spoken or written text in different genres (Canale and
Swain 1980). By genre is meant the type of text to be unified, thus, a scientific paper, an
argumentative essay, and oral and written narrative among others. For them, the unity of a
text is achieved through cohesion in form and coherence in meaning. Cohesion deals with
how utterances are linked structurally and facilitates interpretation of a text by means of
cohesion devices, such as pronouns, synonyms, ellipsis, conjunctions and parallel structures
to relate individual utterances and to indicate how a group of utterances is to be understood
as a text. Yet, coherence refers to the relationships among the different meanings in a text,
where these meanings may be literal meanings, communicative functions, and attitudes.

For example let's consider the following utterances:

Speaker A: That's the telephone
Speaker B: I'm in the bath
Speaker C: O.K.
Although there is no overt signal of cohesion among these utterances, Widdowson points
out that they do form coherent discourse to the extent that A's first utterance functions as a
request that B's reply functions as an excuse for not complying with A's request , and that
A's final remark is an acceptance of B's excuse.
It is reasonably clear that this notion of discourse knowledge and skill is totally different
from that of grammatical competence or sociolinguistic competence. Discourse competence
would therefore imply being able to encode and decode messages of the type above.
This competence can be better understood if we present an example were there is no
cohesion nor coherence.
A: What did the rain do?
B: The crops were destroyed by the rain.
B's reply is grammatical and sociolinguistically appropriate within our framework , but does
not tie in well with A's question. The violation in this example seems to be at the level of
discourse and to involve the normal organization of sentences and texts in English in which
topic (shared information) precedes comment (new information). This principle of discourse
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restricts the grammatical form of utterances that can co-occur with A's questions filtering
out compatible forms from incompatible ones regardless of their grammaticality and their
appropriateness. This interaction of grammatical, sociolinguistic and discourse rules is
suggestive for the complexity of communicative competence.
The strategic competence makes reference to the mastery of verbal and non-verbal
communication strategies by means of both the underlying knowledge about language and
communicative language use or skill. The main goal to attain with this competence is first, to
compensate for breakdowns in communication due to limiting conditions in actual
communication, and secondly, to enhance the effectiveness of communication This is quite
a complex area but in a simplified way we can describe it as the type of knowledge which we
need to sustain communication with someone. This may be achieved by paraphrase,
circumlocution, repetition, hesistation, avoidance, guessing as well as shifts in register and
style. According to Canale and Swain (1980), strategic competence is useful in various
circumstances as for instance, the early stages of second language learning where
communicative competence can be present with just strategic and socio-linguistic
competence.
Of course such strategies do not need to be limited to solving grammatical problems but
also sociolinguistic (e.g. how to address strangers when unsure of their social status) or
discursive problems(e.g. how to achieve coherence in a text when unsure of cohesive
devices) in actual communication.
Terrell (1977, p 334) argues strongly that communication strategies are crucial at the
beginning stages of second language learning.

4. COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE AND THE SPANISH CURRICULUM

According to the Ministry of Education, since Spain entered the European Community, there
is a need for learning a foreign language in order to communicate with other European
countries, and a need for emphasizing the role of a foreign language which gets relevance as
a multilingual and multicultural identity. Within this context, getting a proficiency level in a
foreign language implies educational and professional reasons which justify the presence of
foreign languages in the curricula at different educational levels. It means to have access to
other cultures and customs as well as to foster interpersonal relationships which help
individuals develop a due respect towards other countries, their native speakers and their
culture. This sociocultural framework allows learners to better understand their own
language, and therefore, their own culture.
The European Council , and in particular the Spanish Educational System within the
framework of the Educational Reform, establishes a common reference framework for the
teaching of foreign languages, and claims for a progressive development of communicative
competence in a specific language. Students, then, are intended to be able to carry out
several communication tasks with specific communicative goals within specific contexts. In
order to get these goals, several strategies as well as linguist ic and discursive skills come
into force in a given context. Thus, foreign language activities are provided within the
framework of social interaction, personal, professional or educational fields.

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Therefore, in order to develop the above mentioned communication tasks in our present
educational system, a communicative competence theory includes the following
subcompetences.
Firstly, the linguistic competence (semantic, morphosyntactic and phonological).
Secondly, the discourse competence (language functions , speech acts, and conversations).
Thirdly, the sociolinguistic competence (social conventions, communicative intentions, and
registers among others).
Fourthly, the strategic competence will be included as a subcompetence of communicative
competence within this educational framework. So far, students will make use of this
competence in a natural and systematic way in order to achieve the effectiveness of
communication through the different communication skills, thus, productive (oral and
written communication), receptive (oral and written comprehension within verbal and non-
verbal codes), and interactional.
The foreign language learning process will help students improve their educational and
professional life from a global perspective as it will help them develop their personality,
social integration, interest topics and, in particular, to promote their intellectual knowledge.
Furthermore, these aspects will allow learners to be in contact with the current scientific,
humanistic and technological advances within other areas of knowledge. To sum up, the
learning of a foreign language is intended to broaden the students' intellectual knowledge
as well as to broaden their knowledge on other ways of life and social organization different
to their own. Furthermore, the aim is to get information on international issues, to broaden
their professional interests and consolidate social values to promote the development of
international communication.

5. TEACHING IMPLICATIONS
Present-day approaches deal with a communicative competence model in which first, there
is an emphasis on meaning over form, and secondly, motivation and involvement are
enhanced. This requires to create classrooms conditions which match those in real life and
foster acquisition, encouraging learning. The success partly lies in the way the language
becomes real to the users, feeling themselves really in the language. Some of this
motivational force is brought about by intervening in authentic communicative events.
Otherwise, we have to recreate as much as possible the whole cultural environment in the
classroom. Recent technological multimedia tools, which utilize audio-visual formats can
provide many of the contextual cues that traditional textbook formats can not (Cummings,
1994). Second, the linear nature of textbooks affords students a rather restricted experience
of the content and does not allow for navigational freedom or interactivity that modern
technological tools such as CD ROM and hypertext provide learners. Contrary to multimedia
formats, traditional textbooks, linear and non-interactive, may not provide the appropriate
context for the acquisition of communicative competence.
This method relies on a notion of communicative competence which takes place first, in
foreign language classrooms where the effectiveness of communication is to be acquired,
and secondly, in multimedia and hypermedia environments which support the acquisition of
communicative competence. Recent developments in foreign language education have

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indicated a trend towards the field of intercultural communication, where the Ministry of
Education proposes several projects within the framework of the European Community.
These projects consist of real students exchanges, such as first, Erasmus projects, for
learners to acquire a foreign language in the target culture for three, six or twelve months;
Comenius projects, for learners to travel to the target culture up to two weeks; and Plumier
projects, for learners to use multimedia resources in a classroom setting where learners are
expected to learn to interpret and produce meaning with members of the target culture. In
essence, they all call for the contextualization of language (Cummings 1983).
In short, it can be stated, that knowing a language goes beyond the mere learning of
grammatical structures. Competence in a language under the communicative competence
perspective, involves a knowledge of the culture, the sociolinguistic conventions as well as
of the necessary strategies to overcome difficulties in communication. Unless opportunities
are given to language learners to explore and be exposed to the different aspects a language
involves, efficient and proficient communication will not be achieved.

6. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Canale, M. From Communicative Competence to Communicative Language Pedagogy, in J.
Richards and R. Schmidt (eds.). Language and Communication. London, Longman. 1983.
Canale, M., and M. Swain,. Theoretical bases of communicative approaches to second
language teaching and testing. Applied Linguistics 1 (1). 1980 Crystal , David. Linguistics.
Handsworth: Penguin ,1985
Halliday, M.A.K. Explorations in the Functions of Language. London: Edward Arnold , 1975
Rivers, W. Teaching Foreign-Language Skills. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. 1981
Howatt, A.P.R. A History of English Language Teaching. Oxfrod: Oxford University Press.
1984.
Larsen-Freeman, D. And M.H. Long. An Introduction to Second Language Acquisition
Research. London: Longman. 1991.
Lee, J & VaPatten B. Making Communicative Language Teaching Happen. New York:
McGraw-Hill, 1995

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