ISFD 30 – Inglés y su Enseñanza II Lic. Adriana M.

Fernández

Communicative Competence
(Compiled and Summarized from Teaching by Principles, Brown for academic purposes only)

The emergence of Sociolinguistics in the 60’s as an urge to study language as a

social phenomenon has given rise to a number of studies that have contributed to our
understanding of how languages can be shaped by human intervention, i.e., how linguistic
and social factors can determine patterns of language use.

A new wave of interest has characterized the last three decades of the twentieth
century, a focus on Communicative Language Teaching – teaching second languages for
the ultimate goal of communication with other speakers of the second language. Such a
focus has centered on speaking and listening skills, on writing for specific communicative
purposes, and on "authentic" reading texts. Underlying the communicative language
teaching movement there are a number of important theoretical principles of language
behaviour. We turn now to a study of those principles, the first and foremost of which is a
definition of what is now a "household word" in second language research and teaching,
communicative competence.

The term "communicative competence" was coined by Dell Hymes (1967, 1972), a
sociolinguist who was convinced that Chomsky’s notion of competence was too limited.
Chomsky’s "rule-governed creativity” that so aptly describes a child’s mushrooming
grammar at the age of 3 or 4 did not, according to Hymes, account sufficiently for the
social and functional rules of language. Communicative competence, then, is that aspect of
our competence that enables us to convey and interpret messages and to negotiate meanings
interpersonally within specific contexts. Savignon (1983:9) notes that "communicative
competence is relative, not absolute, and depends on the cooperation of all the participants
involved." It is not so much an intrapersonal construct as we saw in Chomsky’s early
writings but rather a dynamic, interpersonal construct that can only be examined by means
of the overt performance of two or more individuals in the process of negotiating meaning.
In the 1970s, research on communicative competence distinguished between linguistic and
communicative competence (Hymes 1967, Paulston 1974) to highlight the difference
between knowledge "about" language forms and knowledge that enables a person to
communicate functionally and interactively.

Four different components or subcategories make up the construct of

communicative competence. The first two subcategories reflect the use of the linguistic
system itself. (1) Grammatical Competence is that aspect of CC that encompasses
"knowledge of lexical items and of rules of morphology, syntax, sentence-grammar
semantics, and phonology" (Canale and Swain 1980:29). It is the competence that we
associate with mastering the linguistic code of a language, the "linguistic" competence of
Hymes and Paulston, referred to above. (2) The second subcategory is Discourse
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ISFD 30 – Inglés y su Enseñanza II Lic. Adriana M. Fernández

Competence, the complement of grammatical competence in many ways. It is the ability we

have to connect sentences in stretches of discourse and to form a meaningful whole out of a
series of utterances. Discourse means everything, from simple spoken conversation to
lengthy written texts (articles, books, and the like). While grammatical competence focuses
on sentence-level grammar, discourse competence is concerned with intersentential
relationships.

The last two subcategories define the more functional aspects of communication. (3)
Sociolinguistic competence is the knowledge of the sociocultural rules of language and of
discourse. This type of competence requires an understanding of the social context in which
language, is used; the roles of the participants, the information they share, and the function
of the interaction. Only in a full context of this kind can judgements be made on the
appropriateness of a particular utterance (Savignon 1983:37). (4) The fourth subcategory is
strategic competence, a construct that is exceedingly complex. Canale and Swain (1980:30)
described strategic competence as "the verbal and nonverbal communication strategies that
may be called into action to compensate for breakdowns in communication due to
performance variables or due to insufficient competence." Savignon (1983:40) paraphrases
this as "the strategies that one uses to compensate for imperfect knowledge of rules—or
limiting factors in their application such as fatigue, distraction, and inattention." In short, it
is the competence underlying our ability to make repairs, to cope with imperfect
knowledge, and to sustain communication through paraphrase, circumlocution, hesitation,
avoidance and guessing, as well as shifts in register and style (Savignon 1983:40-41).

Strategic competence occupies a special place in an understanding of

communication. Actually, definitions of strategic competence that are limited to the notion
of "compensatory strategies" fall short of encompassing the full spectrum of the construct.
In a follow-up to the previous (Canale and Swain 1980) article, Swain (1984:189) amended
the earlier notion of strategic competence to include "communication strategies that may be
called into action either to enhance the effectiveness of communication or to compensate
for breakdowns”. Similarly, Yule and Tarone (1990:181) refer to strategic competence as
"an ability to select an effective means of performing a communicative act that enables the
listener/reader to identify the intended referent". So, all communication strategies rnay be
thought of as arising out of a person’s strategic competence. In fact, strategic competence is
the way we manipulate language in order to meet communicative goals. An eloquent
speaker possesses and uses a sophisticated strategic competence. A salesman utilizes
certain strategies of communication to make a product seem irresistible. A friend persuades
you to do something extraordinary because he or she has mustered communicative
strategies for the occasion.

In an EFL classroom, the non-native speaker’s ability to use language is influenced

by their opportunities for access to the target language. To use language appropriately in
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ISFD 30 – Inglés y su Enseñanza II Lic. Adriana M. Fernández

specific circumstances, they will need the four basic competences described before. If they
can manage the four and function in society, they are said to have Communicative
Competence. As speakers of a language we have expectations as to what should be said, to
whom, when and where. Individuals adapt their speech to the demands of the social field or
market that is their audience. Therefore, a great deal of lexical items is conditioned by the
age and gender of the speaker. Some utterances not only convey meaning through their
semantic reference but also make reference to who the speaker is, to whom it might have
been uttered, and where and when. A native speaker knows which form is appropriate in
one situational context and inappropriate in another. This concept of appropriacy is very
difficult to deal with by non-native speakers. This is something that should be known to
achieve effective communication. By effective communication we understand not just the
meaning we want to get across, but also the effect we want to cause in our interlocutor. As
language users we also have expectations about what can or cannot be said by different
speakers in different situational contexts. These expectations are social as well as linguistic.
Sex and gender differentiation is the result of different social attitudes towards the
behaviour of men and women in society. The acquisition of these sociolinguistic rules may
be facilitated by teachers who have the necessary information to guide students and help
them interpret patterns as well as help them to avoid being misunderstood by native
speakers.

It is clear, then, that, in order to be competent users of language, speakers need to

have competence in matters of syntax, phonology, morphology and semantics, and also
socio-pragmatic competence, i.e., the knowledge necessary to use language appropriately in
specific socio-cultural settings. Only through all this is Communicative Competence
acquired. Unfortunately, EFL speakers rely too much on their knowledge of language rules
to achieve successful communication, putting a greater emphasis on linguistic correctness
than on functional appropriacy. It is therefore of paramount importance to address social
dimensions of language in EFL training programmes with a view to raising learners’
cultural awareness as a way of developing their communicative competence in the foreign
language.

For the sake of closure and simplicity, consider the following six classroom
teaching “rules” that might emerge:

1- Remember that grammatical explanations or drills or exercises are only part of a

lesson or curriculum; give grammar some attention, but do not neglect the other important
components (functional, sociolinguistic, psychomotor and strategic) of CC.

2- Some of the pragmatic (functional and sociolinguistic) aspects of language are

very subtle and therefore very difficult. Make sure your lessons aim to teach such subtlety.

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ISFD 30 – Inglés y su Enseñanza II Lic. Adriana M. Fernández

3- In your enthusiasm for teaching functional and sociolinguistic aspects of

language, don’t forget that the psychomotor skills (pronunciation) are an important
component of both. Intonation alone conveys great deal of pragmatic information.

4- Make sure that your students have opportunities to gain some fluency in English
without having to be constantly wary of little mistakes. They can work on errors some other
time.

5- Try to keep every technique that you use as authentic as possible: use language
that students will actually encounter in the real world and provide genuine, not rote,
techniques for the actual conveyance of information of interest.

6- Some day your students will no longer be in your classroom. Make sure you are
preparing them to be independent learners and manipulators of language “out there”.