Communicative Competence

Communicative competence is a concept introduced by sociolinguist Dell Hymes in a 1966 essay responding to linguist Noam Chomsky's narrower notion of linguistic competence, an idealized speaker's abstract knowledge of grammatical rules, by arguing that genuinely knowing a language also requires the social knowledge of when, where and how to use particular forms appropriately within a given community and context. Hymes's concept was later elaborated by applied linguists including Michael Canale and Merrill Swain, who in a 1980 framework divided communicative competence into components such as grammatical competence, knowledge of vocabulary and grammar; sociolinguistic competence, the ability to use language appropriately for a social setting; and strategic competence, the ability to compensate for gaps in knowledge during actual communication. The concept reshaped language education by shifting the goal of instruction away from grammatical accuracy alone and toward a learner's practical ability to communicate effectively in real situations, and it underlies the communicative language teaching movement and its emphasis on meaningful interaction over rote grammar drills.