Communicative competence is a linguistic term which refers to a learner's L2 ability. It not only refers to a learner's ability to apply and use grammatical rules, but also to form correct utterances, and know how to use these utterances appropriately. The term unlies the view of language learning implicit in the communicative approach to language teaching. Linguistics is the scientific study of language, which can be theoretical or applied. ... A second language (L2) is any language learned after the first language or mother tongue (L1). ... Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) is an approach to the teaching of second and foreign languages that emphasizes interaction as both the means and the ultimate goal of learning a language. ... Language teaching has gone through an important evolution in the recent decades and many different principles have been described. ...

The term was coined by Dell Hymes in 1966, reacting against the perceived inadequacy of Noam Chomsky's (1965) distinction between competence and performance. Chomsky's view of linguistic competence, however, was not intended to inform pedagogy, but serve as part of developing a theory of the linguistic system itself, idealized as the abstract language knowledge of the monolingual adult native speaker, and distinct from how they happen to use and experience language. Hymes, rather than Chomsky, had developed a theory of education and learning. Dell Hymes (born 1927 in Portland, Oregon) is a sociolinguist, anthropologist, and folklorist whose work has dealt primarily with languagues of the Pacific Northwest. ... Year 1966 (MCMLXVI) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display full calendar) of the 1966 Gregorian calendar. ... Avram Noam Chomsky (Hebrew :אברם נועם חומסקי Yiddish: אברם נועם כאמסקי) (born December 7, 1928) is an American linguist, philosopher, political activist, author, and lecturer. ... Year 1965 (MCMLXV) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display full calendar) of the 1965 Gregorian calendar. ... Linguistic competence refers to the knowledge of a language system. ... Pedagogy (IPA: ) , the art or science of being a teacher, generally refers to strategies of instruction, or a style of instruction[1]. The word comes from the Ancient Greek (paidagōgeō; from (child) and (lead)): literally, to lead the child”. In Ancient Greece, was (usually) a slave who supervised the... Look up abstract, abstraction in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... This article needs additional references or sources for verification. ... Monoglottism (Greek monos, alone, solitary, + glotta, tongue, language) is the condition of being able to speak only a single language. ... First language (native language, mother tongue) is the language a person learns first. ... Learning is the acquisition and development of memories and behaviors, including skills, knowledge, understanding, values, and wisdom. ...

Canale and Swain (1980) defined communicative competence in terms of four components:

1. grammatical competence: words and rules
2. sociolinguistic competence: appropriateness
3. discourse competence: cohesion and coherence
4. strategic competence: appropriate use of communication strategies

Canale and Swain's definition has become canonical in applied linguistics. Sociolinguistics is the study of the effect of any and all aspects of society, including cultural norms, expectations, and context, on the way language is used. ... Cohesion may mean: Cohesion (chemistry): the intermolecular attraction between like-molecules. ... Look up coherence in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Applied linguistics is the branch of linguistics concerned with using linguistic theory to address real-world problems. ...

A more recent survey of communicative competence by Bachman (1990) divides it into the broad headings of "organizational competence," which includes both grammatical and discourse (or textual) competence, and "pragmatic competence," which includes both sociolinguistic and "illocutionary" competence. Year 1990 (MCMXC) was a common year starting on Monday (link displays the 1990 Gregorian calendar). ... Pragmatism is a school of philosophy which originated in the United States in the late 1800s. ... Illocutionary act is a technical term introduced by John L. Austin in investigations concerning what he calls performative and constative utterances. According to Austins original exposition in How to Do Things With Words, an illocutionary act is an act (1) for the performance of which I must make it...

Through the influence of communicative language teaching, it has become widely accepted that communicative competence should be the goal of language education, central to good classroom practice (e.g. Savignon 1998). This is in contrast to previous views in which grammatical competence was commonly given top priority. The understanding of communicative competence has been influenced by the field of pragmatics and the philosophy of language concerning speech acts as described in large part by John Searle and J.L. Austin. Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) is an approach to the teaching of second and foreign languages that emphasizes interaction as both the means and the ultimate goal of learning a language. ... Language education refers to the teaching and learning of a language. ... Pragmatics is the study of the ability of natural language speakers to communicate more than that which is explicitly stated. ... The speech act is a concept in linguistics and the philosophy of language. ... John Rogers Searle (born July 31, 1932 in Denver, Colorado) is the Slusser Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley, and is noted for contributions to the philosophy of language, philosophy of mind and consciousness, on the characteristics of socially constructed versus physical realities, and on practical reason. ... John Langshaw Austin (March 28, 1911 - February 8, 1960) was a philosopher of language, who developed much of the current theory of speech acts. ...

External links

• http://www.edu.pref.kagoshima.jp/kari/iti-ken/English/Top/Communication/nouryoku.pdf

Hymes' ideas about communicative competence was originally research based rather than pedagogical. Specifically, to address Chomsky's abstract notion of competence, Hymes (1972; 1977; 1994)discussed the ethnographic-oriented exploration of communicative competence that included 'communicative form and function in integral relation to each other ... His research-oriented ideas have undergone an epistemic transformation: from empirically oriented questions to an idealized pedagogic doctrine' (Leung, 2005).

Leung,C. (2005)Convival Communication: recontextualizing communicative competence. International Journal of Applied Linguistics. Vol. 15, No.2, 119-143

References

Bachman, L. (1990). Fundamental considerations in language testing. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-437003-8

Canale, M. and Swain, M. (1980). Theoretical bases of communicative approaches to second language teaching and testing. Applied Linguistics 1, 1-47.

Chomsky, N. (1965). Aspects of the Theory of Syntax. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Hymes, D.H. (1971). On communicative competence. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Extracts available in Brumfit, C.J. & Johnson, K. (Eds.) (1979), The communicative approach to language teaching, pp. 5-26. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-437078-X

Leung,C. (2005). Convival Communication: recontextualizing communicative competence. International Journal of Applied Linguistics. Vol. 15, No.2, 119-143

Savignon, S.J. (1998). Communicative Competence: Theory and Classroom Practice. New York: McGraw-Hill. 2nd edition.