COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE

1. Introduction

Communication competence is a key element in our curriculum: LOE 2/2006 and

LOMCE 8/2013, and serves as a guideline for designing classroom syllabuses and
teaching practice. The Spanish and Andalusian curricula should comply with the
European regulations and the Common European Framework of Reference for
Languages (CEFR 2001), which is exactly what its title says: a framework of reference. It
was envisaged primarily as a planning tool whose aim was to promote ‘transparency and
coherence’ in language education.

Teaching a Foreign Language to young and teen learners is not

only a matter of teaching linguistic contents (grammar) but also a matter of developing
in our students the ability to communicate.

2. The notion of communicative competence. Background

Communicative competence, a concept developed by Dell Hymes (1972), refers to the

ability to use speech appropriately in varying social contexts. Competent speakers of a
language should know what to say, to whom, and how to say it.

Savignon, who introduced the idea of communicative competence (CC) to foreign

language teaching, originally defined communicative competence as the “ability to
function in a truly communicative setting- that is, in a dynamic exchange in which
linguistic competence must adapt itself to the total informational input, both
linguistic and paralinguistic, of one or more interlocutors" (1972, p. 8). She
included the use of gestures and facial expression in her interpretation. Later, she refined
her definition in the following terms (1983):
1. Communicative competence is a dynamic interpersonal trait that depends on the
negotiation of meaning between two or more persons who share some knowledge of a
language.

2. Communicative competence applies to both written and spoken language.

3. Communicative competence is context-specific. The communicatively competent

language user knows how to make appropriate choices in register and style to fit the
situation in which communication occurs.

4. Competence is what one knows. Performance is what one does. Only performance is
observable; however, it is only through performance that competence can be developed,
maintained, and evaluated.

5. Communicative competence is relative and depends on the cooperation of those

involved.

In language pedagogy, the model proposed by Canale and Swain (l980) and the elaborations
proposed by Canale (1983) remain a key source. According to these scholars,
communicative competence includes:

- Grammatical/linguistic competence (mastery of language code)

- Sociolinguistic competence (appropriateness of utterances with respect to meaning and
form)
- Discourse competence (combining/relating sentences to achieve texts; the ability to
produce and interpret language beyond the sentence level)
- Strategic competence (procedures used for effective communication; the ability to
compensate for problems or deficits in communication and do various types of planning).

3. Communicative competence and the CEFR (Common European Framework of

Reference for Languages)

Communicative language competence comprises the following components:

Linguistic competences include lexical, phonological, syntactical knowledge and skills and
other dimensions of language as system.
Sociolinguistic competences refer to the sociocultural conditions of language use (the
knowledge and skills required to deal with the social dimension of language, i.e. social
conventions such us rule of politeness, norms governing relations between generations…).

Pragmatic competences are concerned with the functional use of linguistic resources
(production of language functions, speech acts), drawing on scenarios or scripts of
interactional exchanges. It also concerns the mastery of discourse, cohesion and coherence,
the identification of text types and forms, irony and parody.

Linguistic competences

The linguistic component of communicative competence, as seen above, includes the

lexical, grammatical, semantic, phonological, orthographic and orthoepic competences.

Lexical competence: the knowledge and the ability to use a sufficient range of
vocabulary to communicate. The knowledge\acquisition of lexical items implies
the use of fixed expressions (greetings, proverbs, phrasal idioms, fixed frames,
phrasal verbs) and single word forms. Grammatical elements are also included.

Grammatical competence: a learner\user is grammatically competent when s/he

understands and uses correctly the grammatical resources of a language.
Grammatical competence is always under progress, as the user learns to control
morphology and syntax (main components) from a basic range of simple grammar
structures to a more complex one.

Semantic competence: the learner is also supposed to develop a semantic

competence, defined as the ability to understand and control the conventional
meaning conveyed by the use of words and sentences. For this
purpose, the learner becomes aware of the relations of the word to the general
context.

Phonological competence: It refers to the ability to deal with phonetic features

and with the phonetic composition of words, as well as with stress, rhythm,
intonation, elision, and assimilation.

Orthographic competence: It refers to the ability to use correctly the logographic

signs and punctuation marks.
 Orthoepic competence: finally, the learner should be able to pronounce
correctly a written form. The knowledge of spelling conventions and the ability to
resolve ambiguity in regards to homonyms, to syntactic ambiguities define the
orthoepic competence.

Sociolinguistic competences

Language is distinguished for its social dimension.

The learner's ability to deal with this dimension is defined as sociolinguistic
competence, which presupposes the use of linguistic markers of social relations, of
politeness conventions, of expressions of folk wisdom and of dialect and accent.
Obviously all these elements differ from language to language and from culture to
culture. We are talking here about linguistic markers of social relations, such as greetings
and ways to address different groups. A successful learner should also grasp the politeness
conventions of a language. The user should learn to express feelings, complaints and
concerns in a polite manner. In addition, s/he should know expressions of folk wisdom such
as proverbs and familiar quotations.

Likewise, dialect and accent may differ from region to region or even within a
community. Sociolinguistic competence includes the skills to understand the markers of
this difference. The gradual development of the sociolinguistic skills helps the learner to
cope with basic communicative needs that arise in his\her immediate social environment.

In sum, we may say that sociolinguistic competence refers to the ability to use language
that is appropriate to social contexts. It refers to culture-specific contexts that include the
norms, values, beliefs, and behavioural patterns of a culture. For example, thanking
someone in a formal speech is different from how it is done over a meal with friends.

Pragmatic competences (the union of discourse and strategic competences in Canale’s

model) provide the learners with the necessary skills to realize and comprehend linguistic
action in a contextually appropriate way, including appropriate thematic development,
cohesion and coherence.

This competence can be defined as the ability to produce and comprehend (discourse) that is
adequate to the FL socio-cultural context in which interactions take place. It involves a) the
correct production ad understanding of discourse, and b) the ability to use language
appropriately in a social context.

First, students should be able to produce and understand instances of language larger than
sentences (discourse). But also, they should be able to do so in an appropriate way, as
illustrated in the following examples:
“Open the window!” - A speaker of Spanish or Slavic languages might say this. However, it
would be inappropriate in English, for the right way to express it would be “Could you open
the window, please?”

It is the ability to use language effectively in each particular context. It implies knowledge of
the norms and conventions of the particular society, or context, in which conversation takes
place. Having a good command of these conventions enables speakers to maintain
appropriate communication.

Example of pragmatic competence:

Being able to explain whether the speaker who says ‘Why are you making such a noise?’ is
a) requesting someone to stop making noise
b) asking a genuine question out of curiosity
c) making a comment

REFERENCES

https://corkenglishcollege.wordpress.com/2015/06/15/the-importance-of-developing-prag
matic-competence-in-the-efl-classroom/

https://www.thoughtco.com/pragmatic-competence-1691653

Canale, M. & Swain (1980), Communicative Approaches to Language Teaching and

Testing. Toronto: Ontario Ministry of Education.

Canale, M. (1983), From communicative competence to communicative language

pedagogy, eds. Richards & Smith, Language and Communication, New York: Longman.

Celce-Murcia, Marianne (2007), Rethinking the Role of Communicative Competence in

Language Teaching, eds. Alcón Soler y Safont, Intercultural Language Use and Language
Learning, Springer.

Hymes, D.H. (1972), On Communicative competence, eds. Pride, J.B. & J. Holmes.
Sociolinguistics, Penguin.

Savignon, S.J. (1972), Communicative competence: An experiment in foreign language

teaching. Philadelphia, PA: The Center for Curriculum Development.
(https://scholar.google.com/scholar_lookup?hl=en&publication_year=1972&author=S.+J.+Savign
on&title=Communicative+competence%3A+An+experiment+in+foreign+language+teaching)
Savignon, S.J. (1983), Communicative competence: Theory and classroom practice.
Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.

(https://scholar.google.com/scholar_lookup?hl=en&publication_year=1983&author=S.+J.+Savign
on&title=Communicative+competence%3A+Theory+and+classroom+practice)