3.2. Communicative Competence

Communicative competence is a person's ability to communicate successfully and effectively in a language, to possess communicative skills, and to build interaction with other people. This term is often used in linguistics and communication studies to describe a person's ability to create and interpret texts and messages based on linguistic and cultural norms.

Communicative competence is the command of complex communicative skills and abilities, the formation of adequate skills in new social structures, knowledge of cultural norms and constraints in communication, knowledge of customs, traditions, and etiquette in the sphere of communication, observance of propriety, good manners, and orientation in the communicative means characteristic of a given national or class mentality and expressed within the framework of a given profession. 84 Communicative competence is a generalizing communicative property of the personality, encompassing communicative abilities, knowledge, skills and abilities, and sensory and social experience in the sphere of business communication.

The key components of communicative competence include:

1. Linguistic competence: This is knowledge and understanding of the language, including grammar, vocabulary, syntax, and the rules of linguistic interaction. Linguistic competence enables a person to construct correct and grammatically sound statements.

2. Sociocultural competence: This is an understanding of sociocultural norms, rules, and customs that influence communication. This competence includes knowledge of which topics and styles of communication are appropriate for different contexts and audiences.

3. Discursive competence: This is the ability to construct texts and statements with regard to the context and purpose of communication. Discursive competence includes knowledge of text structure, the logic of argumentation, and the ability to organize information logically and consistently.

4. Strategic competence: This is the ability to choose appropriate communicative strategies in different situations. Strategic competence includes the ability to listen, ask questions, resolve conflicts, and adapt to changing circumstances.

Communicative competence is made up of the abilities:

• To give a socio-psychological forecast of the communicative situation in which one will have to communicate.
• To socially and psychologically program the process of communication, drawing on the distinctive features of the communicative situation.
• To exercise socio-psychological management of the processes of communication in the communicative situation.

Communicative competence acts as an integral quality that synthesizes general culture and its specific manifestations in professional activity. One of the conditions for communicative competence is the observance of certain rules and requirements.
The most significant of these rules are as follows:

• The most general rule is that one must not proceed to communicate a thought if it is unclear or not fully clear to oneself.
• The rule of "constant readiness for understanding." There are a large number of semantic and personal barriers that often lead to incomplete and inaccurate understanding of messages.
• The rule of concreteness. One should avoid vague, ambiguous, blurred expressions and words, and should not use unfamiliar or highly specialized terms without necessity.
• The rule of controlling non-verbal signals. It is not enough to control only one's speech and the content of the message. Control is also needed over its form, in the part concerning its external "accompaniment" — facial expressions, gestures, intonation, and posture.
• The rule of "one's own possible wrongness." In communication one must always allow that one's personal point of view may be incorrect. This often guards against serious mistakes.
• The rule of "place and time." The effectiveness of any message increases sharply when it is timely and the situation in which it is delivered is chosen appropriately.
• The rule of openness means a readiness to revise one's point of view under the influence of newly emerging circumstances, as well as the ability to accept and take into account the interlocutor's point of view.
• The rule of active and constructive listening — one of the fundamental conditions for effective communication.
• The rule of feedback. It is this rule that ultimately ensures the achievement of the main goal of the communicative process — mutual understanding.

With this approach to characterizing communicative competence, it is useful to consider communication as a systemically integrating process that has the following components:
a) communicative-diagnostic (diagnosis of the socio-psychological situation and conditions of future communicative activity, identification of
possible social, socio-psychological, and other contradictions that the individual may possibly encounter in communication);
b) communicative-prognostic (assessment of the positive and negative aspects of the upcoming communication situation);
c) communicative-programming (preparation of a communication program, development of texts for communication, choice of style, position, and distance of communication);
d) communicative-organizational (organization of partners' attention in communication, stimulation of their communicative activity, management of the communication process, etc.);
e) communicative-performative (diagnosis of the communicative situation in which the individual's communication unfolds, forecasting the development of this situation, carried out according to a previously thought-out individual communication program).

Each of these components requires special sociotechnological analysis; however, the scope of this account allows us to dwell only on the communicative-performative part. We shall consider it
as the communicative-performative mastery of the individual.

A communicative personality plays an important role in creating a positive atmosphere in society and in interpersonal relations. Its skills and qualities can be useful both in personal life and in professional activity, since they contribute to effective communication, cooperation, and the solving of various tasks

See also

• Competency approach
• Competency model
• Competency assessment
• Communication