It’s not easy to summarise this brief Wikipedia entry but
basically, it outlines the American linguist and anthropologist Dell Hymes’
tool created in 1974 to help analysts label and identify components of
interaction. In fact, he identified sixteen components which were synthesised
into the helpful mnemonic S-P-E-A-K-I-N-G.
Here are a couple of videos which explain the SPEAKING
model (the one on the right is in Spanish):
As well as coming up with helpful (and easy-to-remember) ways to analyse discourse, Hymes developed the ethnography of communication, a linguistic approach concerned with linguistic resources used in context. Hymes also coined the term “communicative competence” in response to Chomsky’s initial introduction of the term “competence” (versus “performance”). Communicative competence refers to the ability to use grammatical competence in different communicative situations (sociolinguistic perspective). For further reading about communicative competence, this is a good article.

Foreign language teaching was changed forever with the shift to communication and at last, students (and teachers) of foreign language were allowed and encouraged to speak in the language classroom, and not just memorise grammar rules and vocabulary lists.
And you thought “DELL” was just the name of a well-known
computer brand! 😆
Jackie Robbins
HI, JackieR; well done with your post; the videos are spot on and the text helps us to clarify the evolution of the expression 'communicative competence';
ResponderEliminarby the way, XavierF is the author of the previous comment...
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