ABSTRACT
WHILE “communicative competence” is discussed in a variety of settings, from scholarly conferences to legislative assemblies, the term’s widespread use is not indicative of a single meaning, much less a clear one. It has been used to denote a list of observable (and often discrete) skills, to identify abstract knowledge, to stand for global developmental abilities displayed in performance, and to label evaluations of effective interaction. In different disciplines, study of communicative competence has focused to varying degrees on referential, social, and directive functions of communication. In this chapter I will review the three major traditions using the term “communicative competence” (or slight variations on it; i.e., communication skill, oral communication skill, etc.) and argue that a theory of communicative competence needs to integrate aspects of all three if is it to probe effectively the development of human communication.
