The document defines communicative competence as the knowledge and ability needed to communicate appropriately in different social contexts. It refers to both linguistic competence, or knowledge of language rules, and sociolinguistic competence, or understanding social relationships and cultural norms. Communicative competence involves mastering vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, and the ability to interpret messages and combine ideas coherently based on the social situation.

1. By
Luis Carlos Lasso Montenegro

2. 
Communicative Competence refers to
“what a speaker needs to know in order to
be communicatively competent in a speech
community”.

In Hymes’ view, a person who acquires
communicative competence acquires both
knowledge and ability for using feasible and
appropriate language in relation to the
situational context.

4. It refers to what Chomsky calls linguistic
competence and involves the mastering of
the linguistic code including vocabulary,
grammar, pronunciation, spelling and word
formation.


It refers to the extent to which utterances
are produced and understood appropriately
in different social contexts.

5. It deals with the interpretation of individual
message elements and is also related to the
ability for combining ideas to achieve
cohesion in form and coherence in thought.


It refers to the coping strategies used to
start, finish, maintain or repair
communication so as to overcome
limitations in language knowledge.

6. 
Language Competence or linguistic
Competence refers to knowledge of and
ability to use language resources to form
well structured messages.

The subcomponents of language
competence are lexical, grammatical,
semantic, phonological, orthographic and
orthoepic competences.

7. 
Sociolinguistic Competence refers to
possession of knowledge and skills for
appropriate language use in a social context.

The aspects of this competence are:
language elements that mark social
relationships, rules of appropriate behavior,
and expressions of peoples’ wisdom,
differences in register and dialects and
stress.

8. Pragmatic competence involves two
subcomponents:
 Discourse competence is the ability of a
user/learner to arrange sentences in
sequence so as to produce coherent
stretches of language.
 Functional competence is concerned with
the use of spoken discourse and written
texts in communication for particular
functional purposes.

9. Richards, J. C., & Rodgers, T. S. (1986).
Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching.
New York: Cambridge University Press.
Council of Europe. Language Policy Unit. Common
European Framework of Reference for Languages:
Learning, Teaching, Assessment. Cambridge
University Press. (2001).

10. Richards, J. C., & Rodgers, T. S. (1986).
Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching.
New York: Cambridge University Press.
Council of Europe. Language Policy Unit. Common
European Framework of Reference for Languages:
Learning, Teaching, Assessment. Cambridge
University Press. (2001).