Explanation
Understanding an expression includes recognising what someone is doing with it, for whom and under which expectations. Repairing a misunderstanding may display competence more clearly than uninterrupted fluency. A speaker can notice that a familiar word is being used in a technical rather than ordinary sense. Competence must not be inferred wholesale from one performance. Unfamiliar institutional rules, inaccessible formats or pressure can hide resources a person possesses. Nor is communication a solo test: one participant’s expertise can be frustrated by another’s refusal to answer or explain.
Movement of thought
1. Identify the task, participants and resources. 2. Look beyond formal correctness to uptake and repair. 3. Separate available ability from situational performance. 4. Examine how participants jointly enable or restrict understanding.
Scientific use case
Proposed interaction analysis: examine sequential evidence that an explanation was understood or repaired. A standardised competence assessment would require a specified model and validated task, not this illustrative exchange.
Example
Invented English example: a technician says “There is too much play.” A visitor thinks a game is being criticised. The technician notices the mismatch, points to the joint and says, “I mean movement between these parts.” The repair combines specialised knowledge with attention to another person’s interpretation.
Counterexample
Communicative competence is not quick wit, conformity or the ability to persuade at any price. Successful communication does not prove every resource was consciously available, and failure does not prove general incompetence.
Distinction
Register describes recurrent situational expectations. Conversation analysis is an investigative method. Intercultural communication is one application area, not the entire domain or a list of national traits.
Effect on thought and perception
The entry shifts evaluation from polished language alone to the resources and collaborative adjustments that make a particular action intelligible.
Resonance
A misunderstanding can become an opportunity to coordinate perspectives, rather than a verdict that one person is deficient.
Etymology
Communicative competence is a compositional technical phrase; its meaning depends on the model in which competence is defined. The phrase is not a natural measure supplied by its component words.
Provenance
The HWdR dossier reconstructs model debates and checks an institutional CEFR distinction among linguistic, sociolinguistic and pragmatic competencies. These are named frameworks, not a universally complete inventory of human capacity.
Cite this entry
Reich, Michael (Hrsg./ed.): „Communicative competence“. Atlas der Sprache, AT-ADD-20261020-0058. ATLAS 261, data model 1.6.0. https://atlasoflanguage.com/concept/AT-ADD-20261020-0058The address remains stable; editorial content may evolve. Editorial reading state: 2026-10-20. Include your access date for precise references.
Guiding question
What must people be able to do, beyond knowing words and grammar, for this encounter to work?
Five coordinate questions
These descriptions explain the entry. They are not controlled register values and do not generate shared register results.
- Where can the process be observed?
Invented English example: a technician says “There is too much play.” A visitor thinks a game is being criticised. The technician notices the mismatch, points to the joint and says, “I mean movement between these parts.” The repair combines specialised knowledge with attention to another person’s interpretation.
- What happens to the material?
Identify the task, participants and resources.
Look beyond formal correctness to uptake and repair.
Separate available ability from situational performance.
Examine how participants jointly enable or restrict understanding.
- At what level does a change occur?
The entry shifts evaluation from polished language alone to the resources and collaborative adjustments that make a particular action intelligible.
- What temporal structure is explicitly described?
The steps offer an order of analysis, not an asserted real-time sequence of mental events. Read the particular example sequence separately from the historical development.
- How can the description be tested?
Communicative competence is not quick wit, conformity or the ability to persuade at any price. Successful communication does not prove every resource was consciously available, and failure does not prove general incompetence.
Historical context
The HWdR dossier reconstructs model debates and checks an institutional CEFR distinction among linguistic, sociolinguistic and pragmatic competencies. These are named frameworks, not a universally complete inventory of human capacity.
Cross-language distinction and terminology
English competence and performance form a theory-sensitive contrast. German Können is broader than a visible successful utterance; neither language justifies reducing competence to rule recitation.
Scholarly comparisons and distinctions
These entries are editorial comparison anchors for the distinctions made in this article. They are not new canonical relation edges or shared register results.
Proposed thought pathway
- Identify the task, participants and resources.
- Look beyond formal correctness to uptake and repair.
- Separate available ability from situational performance.
- Examine how participants jointly enable or restrict understanding.
An editorial exploration, not a necessary sequence of thought or experimental evidence of an effect.
Source scope and provenance
Both specialist versions are editorially accepted. The recorded scope of the reference-work research is retained; this is not a fresh full verification of every primary source. Examples and analytical steps are Atlas applications.