Communicative competence

Brown , H.D (1994) Principles of Language Teaching and

Learning.Englewood Cliffs:Prentice Hall Regents (Chapter 9)

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Definition
Communicative competence became a household word in SLA, and still stands
as an appropriate term to capture current trends in teaching.

The term was coined by Dell Hymes (1967-1972), a sociolinguist who defined
it as that aspect of our competence that enables us to convey and interpret
messages and to negotiate meanings interpersonally within specific context.

Savignon(1983), noted that communicative competence is “dynamic, relative,

not absolute, interpersonal and depends on the cooperation of all participants
involved”.

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 Michael Canale and Merrill Swain (1980) defined four different
components or subcategories , make up the construct of
communicative competence:

• Knowledge of lexical ítems and of rules of • Knowledge of

morphology, syntax, sentence –grammar sociocultural rules
semantics and phonology of language and of
discourse
Grammatical Sociolinguistic
competence competence

• The verbal and non verbal

communication strategies
Discourse Strategic that may be called into
competence competence action to compensate for
• Knowledge on how to structure breakdowns in
communication due to
messages beyond the level of sentence performance variables or
insufficient competence.
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Canale and Swain´s sociolinguistic competence is divided
into two separate pragmatic categories which are:
Functional aspects of language (Illocutionary competence
or the ability to manipulate the functions of the language)

Sociolinguistic aspects (which deals with considerations

such as registers, formality, and culturally related aspects of
the language)

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Functions of language
• Many different language functions like: requesting, greeting,
describing, etc

• Michael Alexander Halliday (1973),used the term

“functions” and oulined 7 different functions of language.

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Instrumental function: serves to manipulate the environment, to
cause certain events to happen
Regulatory function: the control of events
Representational function: the use of language to make statements,
convey facts, and knowledge and explain, to represent reality .
Interactional function: ensurance social maintenance.
Personal function: allows a speaker to express feelings, emotions
and reactions.
Heuristic function: use the language to learn about the
environment.
Imaginative function:serves to create imaginary ideas and systems.
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• A single sentence or conversation might incorporate
many different functions simultaneously.

• The analysis of the relationship between forms and

functions of language is called discourse analysis

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Conversations
Conversations are excellent examples of the interactive and
interpersonal nature of communication. It has certain rules:
 attention getting
topic nomination
turn –taking (topic development- clarification, shifting, avoidance,
interruption)
Topic termination

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Styles and registers
• The way we use language in different styles depending on the
context of a communicative act in terms of subject matter,
audience , ocassion, and purpose of communication.

• A speech style is not a social or regional dialect , but a

variety of language used for a specific purpose.

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Martin Joos(1967) provided one of the most common
classifications of speech styles using the criterion of
formality

Oratorical
Deliberative
Consultative
Casual
Imitative

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Communication

Kinesics

Non
verbal

Eye Proxemics
contact

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Measuring levels of competence CEFR & AmCLT
(American Council for the Teaching of Foreign Language)
What is the Common European Framework Reference ?
The Common European Framework provides a common basis
for the elaboration of language syllabuses, curriculum guidelines,
examinations, textbooks, etc. across Europe.

The Framework also defines levels of proficiency which allow

learners’ progress to be measured at each stage of learning and on a
life-long basis.

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 Communicative language competence
Communicative language competence can be considered as comprising
several components: linguistic, sociolinguistic and pragmatic.
Sociolinguistic
Linguistic competences Pragmatic competences
competences
• include lexical, phonological, • Refer to the sociocultural • are concerned with the
syntactical knowledge and conditions of language use functional use of linguistic
skills and other dimensions of resources (production of
language as system, language functions, speech
independently of the acts), drawing on scenarios or
sociolinguistic value of its scripts of interactional
variations and the pragmatic exchanges. It also concerns the
functions of its realizations mastery of discourse, cohesion
and coherence, the
identification of text types and
forms, irony, and parody
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Common reference levels of language proficiency

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Mag. Mariana Fernandes Antunes
Reading Assignment
 (chapter 1) from Harmer, J.(2001). The practice of English language teaching. London
/New York.

(chapters 5 and 6) from Brown , H.D (2000) Principles of Language Teaching and
Learning.Englewood Cliffs:Prentice Hall Regents

 (chapter 3) from Lightbown, P.,M. &, Spada, N. (2013). How languages are learned .
Oxford: Oxford university press.

(chapter 4) from Lightbown, P.,M. &, Spada, N. (2013). How languages are learned .
Oxford: Oxford university press.

(Chapter 1 and 3) from CEFR Booklet

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