ABSTRACT
In applied linguistics, m odels o f com m unicative com petence serve as goal specifications for L2 teaching and testing. A widely cited proposal o f this kind was offered by C anale and Swain (1980), which included the com ponents o f gram m atical, sociolinguistic and strategic com petence. Sociolinguistic com petence com prises socio-cultural rules and ru les o f discourse. Strategic com petence is seen as an aggregate o f com m unication strategies (CS), serving to ‘com pensate for breakdow ns in com m unication due to perfo r m ance variables o r insufficient com petence’, w here ‘com petence’ includes both gram m atical and sociolinguistic com petence (Canale & Swain, 1980, p. 30).
