Dr. Debaleena Dutta discusses communicative competence, which is the ability to communicate effectively and appropriately according to the social context. Communicative competence has four components: linguistic competence involving grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation; discourse competence involving organizing sentences coherently; socio-linguistic competence involving adapting language style to different audiences; and strategic competence involving resolving communication breakdowns. Successful communication requires both theoretical linguistic knowledge and practical application of language according to the social situation.

1. Communicative Competence
Dr. Debaleena Dutta
PSIT Kanpur

2. Communicative Competence
It means “Ability to do things with language”.
We call a person good in communication, when:
He has good hold over the language, like,
grammar, vocabulary, flow, etc.
He can talk according to the situation.
He can talk freely with different kinds of
people in the society.

3. Competence in Communication
Competence
Arrangement
level
Practical level
Grammatical
competence Discourse
competence
Socio-
Linguistic
Strategic

4. Arrangement Level
[Also known as Linguistic Competence]

5. Arrangement Level
[Also known as Linguistic Competence]
Grammatical
Competence
Discourse
Competence

6. Grammatical competence
1. Knowledge of grammar
Sentence structure, subject verb agreement, tenses.
2. Good hold over idioms and vocabulary
Eg.: synonyms, antonyms, root words and abbreviations
3. Pronunciation of the words.
Eg.: Boss said, “Wind up the project in a week”.
Secretary wrote: “Wined up the project in a week.”
[no meaning of the sentence].

7. Discourse Competence
This means arranging our phrases and sentences
in the logical order. It requires:
Cohesion Coherence

8. Cohesion
Cohesion is the use of comma, semi colon, full stop,
and, but, etc. to express meaning in a sentence.
US Germany France voted in favor,
China against.
US, Germany and France voted in favor,
but China, against.
X

9. Coherence
It means maintaining logical order among
sentences. Using first, second, then, next, finally,
etc.

10. Practical Competence

11. Practical Competence
Socio-Linguistic Strategic

12. Socio-Linguistic Competence
It simply means, ability to speak with many different
kinds of people.
• For eg.: Talking to your family members will be
different from talking to your boss. You will change
your style from familiar to formal. You will talk to
children in a different way than an adult person. Our
word selection, tone, style changes with our audience.
• Formal style means avoiding of slangs [wanna, gonna,
gotcha] and contractions [won’t, I’d]. Voice should be
measured: neither too high nor too low. Pace: medium.

14. Strategic Competence
• This means ability to build bridges when there
is communication breakdown.
• Used during negotiations, persuasions, crisis
management and counseling.
• A strategic communicator will paraphrase
statements, try to clear meanings, show
bigger picture, resolve misunderstanding
between parties.

16. Conclusion
• Successful Communication needs theoretical
knowledge of language-use, as well as
Practical knowledge of applying language in
real life.
• Grammatical and Discourse Competence
come under theoretical knowledge.
• Strategic and Socio-linguistic Competence
come under applied part of knowledge.