Communication, Communicative Competence and related Concepts

The word communication comes from a Latin word for “commonness,” including the prefix com, which suggest joining, cooperation, and mutual. Therefore, communication is definable as “a mutual exchange between two or more individuals which enhances cooperation and establishes commonality”. Communication is also seen as dynamic not static, and as depending on the negotiation of meaning between two or more persons who share some knowledge of the language being used.

Communicative competence is of course competence or ability to communicate. It concerns both spoken or written language and all four language skills. Some people mistakenly think of communication as occurring only through the medium of speech. In fact, even language learning experts have commonly used the term communication strategies to refer only to certain types of speaking strategies, thus unwittingly giving the false impression that the skills of reading, listening, and writing-and the language used via these modalities-are not really equal partners in communication.

One very useful model provides a comprehensive, four-part definition of communicative competence:

1. Grammatical Competence or accuracy is the degree to which the language user has mastered the linguistic code, including vocabulary grammar, pronunciation, spelling, and word formation.
2. Sociolinguistic Competence is the extent to which utterance can be used or understood appropriately in various social contexts. It includes knowledge of speech act such as persuading, apologizing, and describing.
3. Discourse Competence is the ability to combine ideas to achieve cohesion in form and coherence in though, above the level of the single sentence.
4. Strategic Competence is the ability to use strategies like gestures or “talking around” an unknown word in order to overcome limitations in language knowledge.