APA Dictionary of Psychology

a speaker’s knowledge of language and ability to use it appropriately in various communicative settings and with a range of different interlocutors. In contrast to Noam Chomsky’s notion of competence, which explicitly excludes nonlinguistic factors, the idea of communicative competence stresses the social uses of language and the importance of context. See also communication skills. [first described by U.S. sociolinguist Dell H. Hymes (1927–2009)]