Communicative Competence

Communicative Competence as a concept in Foreign Language Teaching

The concept of communicative competence consists of two words, the combination of which means competence to communicate. But what is competence? In dictionaries we can find that competence is described as the condition of being capable of doing something. In linguistics this word was first used by Noam Chomsky in 1965, in his book Aspects of the Theory of Syntax, in which he makes a distinction between competence (the speaker-hearer’s knowledge of his language) and performance (the actual use of language in concrete situations). (Chomsky, 1965, p. 4) Therefore, being competent is having sufficient knowledge in order to perform appropriately.

In 1972, Dell Hymes used and defined for the first time, the concept of communicative competence based on Chomsky’s competence and performance model. Hymes theory of communicative competence was a definition of what a speaker needs to know in order to be communicatively competent in a speech community.

In Hymes view a person/student who acquires communicative competence acquires both knowledge and ability/skill for language use with respect to these conditions:

• whether (and to what degree) something is formally possible;

• whether (and to what degree) something is feasible in virtue of the means of implementation available;

• whether (and to what degree) something is appropriate (adequate, happy, successful) in relation to a context in which it is used and evaluated;

• whether (and to what degree) something is in fact done, actually performed, and what its doing entails. (Hymes, 1972, p. 63)

Communicative competence is then a concept that involves not only the structural features of language, but also its sociolinguistics characteristics. Therefore, in foreign language teaching, it is important to understand communicative competence as a set of abilities.

When Hymes talks about whether something is formally possible, he refers to the speaker’s ability to use the established rules of the system of his language correctly, this is then, grammar. When teaching a foreign language, it is important to explain when and why something is grammatically possible for the student not to use the rules of his native language when structuring sentences in the foreign language he is learning.

The second point Hymes explains is whether something is feasible, this is more oriented to performance of the language; it includes the culture knowledge in order to use the language properly, and to know what is acceptable and what is not.

Whether something is appropriate, refers to the ability of the speaker to produce sentences according to the communicative situation, and this is based on sociolinguistic knowledge. It is necessary to teach when, where and whom to say things, taking into account the context in which the language is used.

The last point, whether something is in fact done, does not have a term that describes it yet, but it is necessary to explain it. This point makes reference to some things that may be possible, feasible, and appropriate according to cultural behavior and social rules.

Some authors based their theories, and different kinds of competences on these four conditions. Now, several authors agree that communicative competence is the sum of the following areas:

1. Grammatical competence

It is the ability of the speaker in using the language, following all the different functioning rules of its system. It includes syntax (linguistic structure), morphology (word function and inflection), phonetics (pronunciation), and lexis (vocabulary).

2. Discourse competence

It is the ability of the speaker to master the linguistic rules concerning cohesion and coherence of different kinds of discourse in the foreign language (use of appropriate

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