Title: Communicative Competence: Linguistic Aspects
Abstract: The term 'communicative competence' was coined by Hymes (1967), in reaction to Chomsky's notion of grammatical 'competence,' arguing against his search for an understanding of universals of language knowledge, and in favour of an ethnography of communication account which focusses on the full variety of knowledge of how to produce and interpret language used communicatively across different groups and cultures. The article presents the history of the term communicative competence, focussing on the relationship between it and both 'competence' and 'performance,' and on its relationship to 'pragmatic competence' which Chomsky (1980) used to refer to knowledge of language use. Beyond descriptive linguistics, many authors have used the term communicative competence in an evaluative way (contrasted with 'incompetence') as synonymous with ability or skill in language use. A range of issues in these lines of research are briefly discussed, focussing on first and second language acquisition. The article ends with a refocusing on the issue of universal vs. variationist perspectives on communicative competence, with reference to two broader lines of research, one (relevance theory), based in the pragmatic competence line of thinking, and the other Habermas's use of communicative competence in social and political theorizing. Both lines of research call for a much more general account of meaning and interpretation between human beings.
Publication Year: 2001
Publication Date: 2001-01-01
Language: en
Type: book-chapter
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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