Yes. There is no doubt that communication needs "pragmatic competence". There are two universes when we communicate: (1) semantic situations (x is/does y) and (2) pragmatic (speech) situations ("I", "you" etc.).

When you select a subject you decide to talk about, you need to find a verb with a valence adapted to your subject; i.e. the syntactic subject of your utterance must conform to the conceptual subject you have selected.

Syntactic subjects, topic, focuses refer to "centres of attention". For more details on this pragmatic view on language please check here:

https://www.researchgate.net/project/The-Distributed-Grammar-Program-Three-Tier-Structure-of-Information-in-the-content-of-utterances

Yes, I also agree with André W.; pragmatic competence is part of your communication competence. To have pragmatic competence means that you are able to create and/or understand semantic meaning in the actual (specific) context. There is always a semantic meaning and - additionally - a physical, an epistemic, a linguistic and a social context, whereby the last one is the most interesting very often. If you are interested in pragmalinguistics, search for relevant basis literature.

Hi, Elisabeth,

Following your advice, I checked the Oxford dictionary online:

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/pragmalinguistics

"In pragmatics:

the study of features of language use related to speakers' knowledge of the structure and expressive resources of the language itself rather than of the social context."

It stands in a full contradiction with what you have said about the importance of social context.

Thank you Stephen, in fact, it seems so that pragmatic competence is one part of communicative competence.

Yes, Pragmatic competence is one part of communication competence. Pragmatic skills allows us to use language in social interactions.

I would prefer to say rather that communicative competence is part of pragmatic competence.

Thank you very much Andre. I do agree totally with you.

Many thanks Elisabeth M. Finotti

Hi André

Well, I did not suggest to look it up in a dictionary...

Of course, social context is part of pragmatics, as well, because social context (specific relation to your conversational partner) creates the situation that you have to understand in order to react in a proper way. Maybe I did not express myself, properly.

Hani

All the best for you

Hi, Elisabeth,

From micro-cosmos to macro-cosmos, it's a bit faraway.

Enjoy !

Seriously. You cannot mix up what I call "shallow" (literal) meanings of linguistic expressions with "deep" (cognitive) noemata (social included).

Ex. The Gender Category should not be mixed up with Sex, Tense with Time, Person with Speaker etc.

First things first.

Bye !

Hello everyone,

there is a distinction commonly made in the theoretical discussion between pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic competence, going back to early work by Thomas and Leech. Both are part of pragmatic competence, which in turn is part of communicative competence (or linguistic competence, if you like).

The main difference is that pragmalinguistics is concerned with the linguistic resources recruited to perform communicative actions, i.e. which linguistic forms are available to express specific intentions or achieve specific communicative effects. Sociopragmatics then deals with the issue of context, namely under which social circumstances and in which social constellations a given pragmalinguistic behavior is deemed appropriate, expectable, polite etc. Only in combination do they add up to pragmatically competent linguistic behavior. Maybe this helps with some of the points debated above.

Yes and it is at the very center of it. However, PC should be considered from a large perspective in terms of its coverage and its supplementary nature to the CC left behind in 1980-90s..

Thank you very much Rıdvan Tuncel for your invaluable contribution.

Hi, Ridvan,

Do you have an idea how to determine the "centre of it".

Do you mean that both have a center and that these centres are the same , similar or, maybe, in some way at least compatible ? I would be glad to learn it.

Hi André,

I simply used "center" considering Hymes' Communicative Competence being aware of when, how, what to say or not that leads us value to Searle and Austin's "illocutionay force" ,or rather, "Functional competence" and social interactionalist Vygotsky's views..

hi. the ability to take part in communications so that you can use linguistic forms and meanings effectively is a comprehensive competence called communicative competence. this competence is an umbrella term covering different linguistic abilities , socio-cultural , pragmatic and strategic competence. regarding pragmatic competence, language users should be able to use language in accordance with the context in which it happens. but pragmatic competence does not pay much attention to social aspects of context. pragmatic competence s related to speech act theory in which people use different forms in different contexts to convey the same meaning.best

Hani: Perhaps the reverse is true: Communicative Competence is one aspect of Pragmatic Competence. Communicative Competence is a linguistic concept, while Pragmatic Competence is a more universal concept. Please check out my PowerPoint relating to "Linguistic Pragmatics."