THEME 4.

COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE. ANALYSIS OF ITS COMPONENTS.

OUTLINE.

1. INTRODUCTION.

2. COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE.
2.1. The nature of communication.
2.2. The notion of competence.
2.2.1. Saussure.
2.2.2. Chomski.
2.2.3. Hymes.
2.2.4. Canale and Swain.

3. THE COMPONENTS OF COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE.

3.1. Grammatical Competence.
3.2. Sociolinguistic Competence.
3.3. Discourse Competence.
3.4. Strategic Competence.
3.5. Socio-logical Competence.

4. COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE: IMPLICATIONS FOR EFL.

4.1. The Communicative approach in ELT.
4.2. Important factors in a communicative class:
4.2.1. Input.
4.2.2. Students’ groupings.
4.2.3. Materials.
4.2.4. Communicative activities.
4.2.5. Teacher’s roles.

5. CONCLUSION.

6. BIBLIOGRAPHY.

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1. INTRODUCTION.

The relevance of this unit lies in the fact that, according to present day legislation, the main aim
in foreign language teaching is to develop communicative competence. The shift in foreign
language objectives from grammatical accuracy to communicative competence highlights the
theoretical development that has taken place in linguistics and the growing social demand for the
ability to communicate in the foreign language. We move on now to examine the concept and the
different approaches to it.

2. COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE.

2.1. The nature of communication.

Language is considered a means of communication, not simply a system of structures and words.
Language is an interactive event occurring between participants. The purpose of language is
communication. and communication is defined as: the exchange and negotiation of
information between at least two individuals through the use of verbal and non-verbal
symbols, oral and written, and production and comprehension processes. (Halliday).
From this definition we may conclude that the main features of the communication process are
as follows: First, it is a form of social interaction, and therefore it is normally acquired and
used in such an interaction. Secondly, it always has a purpose, that is to communicate. Thirdly,
it involves a high degree of unpredictability and creativity, and therefore, a successful and
authentic communication should involve a reduction of uncertainty on behalf of the participants.
Finally, the communication process involves both verbal and non-verbal language, such as
gestures or body language. In an act of communication there is usually at least one speaker or
sender, a message which is transmitted, and a person or persons for whom this message is
intended, the receiver. It is a very complex process, but it fulfils some characteristics which seem
to apply to every situation.
According to Harmer, communicative teaching fulfils these characteristics:
-A person speaks because he wants to, it’s his decision.
-He has a communicative purpose, he wants to get results.
-He selects from a store, choosing appropriate language for a purpose.
These factors enter in the classroom with the arrival of the Communicative Language teaching.
We can also point out, following Widdowson, some additional characteristics. According to him
communication is a form of social interaction which involves unpredictability, creativity and
authentic language; it takes place in discourse and socio-cultural context; it is carried out under
limited conditions; it always has a purpose and it is successful on the basis of actual outcomes.

2.2. The notion of competence.

2.2.1. Saussure. The many senses of the word language prompted Saussure to introduce a three-
fold set of terms, the last two of which were central to his thinking. “Language” is the faculty of
speech present in all normal human beings due to heredity- our ability to talk to each other. This
faculty is composed of two aspects: “langue”, the language system, and “parole”, the act of
speaking. The former is the totality of a language, the latter is the actual, concrete act of speaking
on the part of a person, a dynamic, social activity in a particular time and place.

2.2.2. Chomsky. For Chomsky language consists of a finite system of rules which allows us to
produce an infinite set of grammatically correct sentences. He believed people had a
subconscious knowledge of grammatical rules that he called linguistic competence. A difference

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is made between a person’s knowledge of a language, competence, and how a person uses this
language in producing and understanding sentences, performance.

2.2.3. Dell Hymes. On the contrary, Dell Hymes believed that a language was much more than a
system of rules. According to him effective communication was reached by the ability of the
speaker to select certain grammatical structures depending on the social situation, this is what he
called communicative competence. This concept, which was coined by Hymes in 1971,
constitutes a challenge to Chomsky’s linguistic competence. Hymes also proposed four
parameters to the systems of rules which underlie communicative behaviour; they are systematic
potential, appropriacy, occurrence and feasibility.
-Systematic potential means that the native speaker has a system that has potential for creating a
lot of language; this is similar to Chomsky’s linguistic competence.
-Appropriacy means that the native speaker knows what language is appropriate in a given
situation. An utterance will be appropriate in relation to a context.
-Occurrence means that the native speaker knows how often something is said in the language
and acts accordingly. This means that an utterance should not only be possible from a
grammatical point of view. It should also be actually performed.
-Feasibility means that the native speaker knows whether something is possible in the language.
Even if there is no rule to ban 20-adjective pre-head constructions, we know that these
constructions are not possible in the language.
Students must know that different linguistic exponents can be used for a single function and vice
versa, that one linguistic exponent can have different functions. So, if students acquire
communicative competence, they will be able to choose the most appropriate form given the
social situation and the role of the interlocutors.

2.2.4. Canale and Swain. Later and based on Hymes’ concept of communicative competence,
Canale and Swain distinguished between communicative competence and communicative
performance. By the former they meant the underlying system of knowledge and skill required
for communication and by the latter the realisation of such knowledge under limiting and
psychological and environmental conditions.

3. THE COMPONENTS OF COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE.

Canale and Swain developed a theoretical framework for curriculum design and classroom
practice, that is, for teaching purposes. The four components or dimensions of communicative
competence that this framework identifies are: grammatical, socio-linguistic, discourse and
strategic competence. The Spanish Ministry of Education widens this concept by adding a
further component to communicative competence which is socio-cultural competence. We shall
examine now each of these in detail.

3.1. Grammatical competence.

It is concerned with the knowledge and skill required to understand and express the literal
meaning of utterances. Grammatical competence is the mastery of the linguistic code, the ability
to recognise the lexical, morphological, syntactic and phonological features of a language and
to manipulate these features to form words and sentences. Finally, grammatical competence does
not assume the ability to make explicit a grammatical rule, a person demonstrates grammatical
competence by using a rule not by stating a rule.

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3.2. Socio-linguistic competence.

It is concerned both with appropriateness of meaning and form. Sociolinguistic competence

requires an understanding of the social context in which language is used, that is, the roles of the
participants, the information they share and the function of the interaction. Only in a full context
of this kind can judgements be made on the appropriateness of a particular utterance. In other
words, it involves to know the rules to use language according to the situation and the speaker.
So, in a given social context they must adapt their level of language to the situation where the
communication takes place. Example: Let´s go for a coffee! is not an appropriate expression
coming from a pupil and addressed to a headmaster.

3.3. Discourse competence.

It refers to the ability to understand and produce both spoken and written texts of different
genres which show unity through coherence in meaning and cohesion in form.
Cohesion deals with how utterances are linked together in the discourse. Cohesive devices such
as anaphora, deixis, lexical cohesion, etc. play an important part in the creation of the text as a
unity and they are intended to facilitate the interpretation of the text. The connections that exist
between sentences are often not explicit. That is to say, there may be no overt expression of a
link between one proposition and another. Based on general knowledge of the world, as well as
familiarity with a particular context, a reader/listener infers meaning. Therefore, the meaning of a
text depends on the "values", "intentions" and "purposes" of the reader/listener, as well as those
of the writer/speaker.
Coherence refers to the relationships among the different meanings in a text, where these
meanings may be literal meanings, communicative functions, and attitudes. That is, to the logical
development of ideas and the relationship among meanings in a text which is achieved through:
repetition of ideas, progression of meaning (from theme to rheme; from given to new info), non-
contradiction and relevance of meaning. Widdowson provides the following example of
coherence in discourse:
A: That’s the telephone. B: I' m in the bath. A: OK.
Although there is no overt signal of cohesion among these utterances, they do form coherent
discourse: A's first utterance functions as a request; B's reply functions as an excuse for not
complying with it; and A' s final remark is an acceptance of B' s excuse.
To summarise, discourse competence is the ability to interpret a series of sentences or utterances
in order to form a meaningful whole and to achieve coherent texts that are relevant to a given
context.

3.4. Strategic competence.

It is composed of verbal and non-verbal communication strategies which enable speakers to

handle breakdowns in communication and their own lexico-grammatical inadequacies and to
enhance the effectiveness of their message.
There is no such person as an ideal speaker/ hearer of the language. We make the best use of
what we do know, of the contexts we have experienced, to get our message across. The ability to
communicate within restrictions thus includes the ability to adapt one's communicative strategies
to a variety of changing and often unexpected interpersonal conditions. Rephrasing, repetition,
emphasis, seeking clarification, circumlocution, topic avoidance and even message
modification are among the strategies that we all use to meet the demands of ongoing
communication.

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More specifically, there is a classification of communication strategies according to types of
problems, types of behaviour and types of strategies. First of all, formal reduction strategies in
which learners use a reduced system in order to avoid producing incorrect on non-fluent
utterances. Secondly, functional reduction strategies in which the learner reduces his goal
totally or partially in order to avoid a problem in the execution of a phase. Lastly, achievement
strategies are those in which the learner tries to solve communicative problems through
compensating strategies, such as code switching, intra and inter lingual transfer, cooperative
strategies and non linguistic strategies or retrieval strategies, such as waiting for the term to
appear, appealing to formal similarity, retrieval via semantic fields, searching via other
languages, retrieval from learning situations and sensory procedures.
Strategic competence is thus an essential component of communicative competence, because no-
one knows all what there is to know of a language. Communication strategies are crucial at the
beginning stages of L2 learning. Swain and Canale pointed out that learners have to be shown
how to implement, in their second language, strategies they already possess as users of their first
language.

3.5. Socio-cultural competence.

The Spanish Ministry of Education, MEC, added a fifth component, socio-cultural competence,
to the dimensions described by Canale and Swain. It is designed to achieve a deeper
understanding of the way of life and forms of thought of other people and their cultural aspects.
This is perhaps the most difficult competence for EFL students, since it refers not to what people
say but rather to what they don’t say but everybody understands except the learner. In order to
fulfil this aim, our pupils must acquire the following contents:
-Concepts: To concentrate on the socio-cultural aspects of English speaking countries which
may interest the students. To develop awareness of the presence of English language in Spain,
e.g. anglicisms or borrowings.
-Procedures: To compare the socio-cultural aspects of English speaking countries and Spain
using authentic material.
-Attitudes: To stimulate tolerance, to develop harmonious relationships and interest in knowing
English speaking people. To foster the acquisition of socio-cultural competence we must focus
on the following aspects: the life of famous English-speaking people, reference to typical
customs and habits and popular songs, stories, tales, etc.
The manner in which the various components of communicative competence interact is open to
speculation. Some authors point out that an increase in one component interacts with the other
components to produce a corresponding increase in overall communicative competence. Finally,
we must bear in mind the range of affective variables contributing to effective communication.
The learners' confidence in themselves and their willingness to communicate can compensate for
their difficulties in grammatical accuracy. Above all, learners should be encouraged to use a
repertoire of strategies that enable them to make the most of their linguistic knowledge to
achieve successful communication.

4. COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE: IMPLICATIONS FOR EFL.

A communicative activity is any act from our daily life in which two or more interlocutors
interact in an oral or written form to get information they wish to know for certain reasons.
According to Harmer communicative activities share a desire to communicate, have a
communicative purpose, content not form, a variety of language, no teacher intervention, no
materials control. Therefore, they should follow three principles:

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-Communicative learning principle, according to which, real communication promotes
learning.
-Task principle, activities in which language is used for carrying out a meaningful task, promote
learning.
-Meaningful principle, according to which, meaningful language supports the learning process.

4.1. The communicative approach in English Language Teaching.

Traditional approaches used to treat foreign language teaching and learning as a package of
knowledge, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, that needed to be learnt before moving
on to further sets or rules.
The national syllabus for FL has adopted the communicative approach, adding a fifth sub-
competence, the socio-cultural one, to the four sub-competences put forward by Canale and
Swain. Therefore, the target language, English in our case, should be the language of
communication and interaction in the English class, both between teacher- student and among
students. CLT is an approach to foreign or second language teaching which emphasizes that the
goal of language learning is communicative competence.

4.2. Important factors in the communicative class: input, students’ groupings, materials and
teachers’ roles.

4.2.1. Input or intake. Input is the language to which the student is exposed. This is an
important factor, because if the input is enough and appropriate, the language the student will
acquire will also be adequate. At the beginning, the input should be oral (teacher’s talk,
recordings of dialogues or stories, other students’ talk), because a language is learnt by listening.
The written input will be introduced more gradually. The more abundant and varied the input,
the better communicative skills the student will develop.
But the input that we should offer the students must be comprehensible to them. According to
Krashen’s Natural Method, which has had a great influence on the teaching of languages, this
input should be related to the student’s interests, with a level of difficulty only a little more
advanced than the knowledge the students possess and with enough contextual support to
facilitate their understanding.

4.2.2. Students’ groupings. The classroom is not the best place to learn a language. It has space
and time limitations that prevent real communicative situations. In fact, it is outside the
classroom where a language is learnt best: in an English speaking family or in the country where
that language is spoken.
Nevertheless, as teachers, we will try to create an atmosphere which is as similar as possible to a
real situation. This will be possible if we organize activities which include a great variety of
interactions.
-Whole class or lockstep, this is the interaction between the teacher and one or several students.
-Pair work is a very good method to practise a linguistic form, because it improves personal
relationships among students and increases self-confidence. Besides, the situation of being face
to face with a speaker is more similar to real life than being asked by the teacher all the time.
-Group work, consisting in three or more participants being involved in one activity, which can
encourage cooperative learning.

4.2.3. Materials. In the communicative approach materials are considered to promote

communicative language use. Three types of materials are set out within this approach: text-
based materials or text books, task-based materials, which means that students have to achieve

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something through the use of language: role-play, simulations, games etc. and realia, which
consists in the use of authentic material to reduce the distance between the classroom and the real
world: magazines, songs, chants, videos, stories, advertisements, maps, charts, etc.

4.2.4. Communicative activities. The communicative approach believes that the practice of
communicative activities will produce an unconscious learning of the structures of the language.
A communicative activity must be interactive, that is, two or more people are involved in the
communicative interaction, unpredictable, what will create the desire to communicate, within a
context, which refers both to the situational context and the linguistic context, authentic, which
means that the language used should be genuine, and developed within a relaxed atmosphere.

4.2.5. Teacher’s roles. Several roles are assumed by teachers in the communicative approach.
They contrast with the authoritarian roles of traditional teaching. Harmer mentions the roles as
controller, assessor, organiser, prompter, participant, resource, tutor and observer.

5. CONCLUSION.

As a conclusion, we must accept that the above theories attempting to describe communicative
competence and its elements are a cardinal part of modern foreign language teaching. In
particular, the European Framework for the Teaching and Learning of Languages has found its
inspiration in these linguistic theories.

6. BIBLIOGRAPHY.

Some of the books I have checked to elaborate this unit, all of them published in the 2nd half of
the 20th century, are the following:
HARMER, J. The Practice of English Language Teaching. Longman. 1991.
RICHARDS,J.C. Dictionary of Language Teaching & Applied Linguistics. Longman. 1985.
WIDDOWSON, H.G. Teaching Language as Communication. OUP. 1985.