The Common European Framework in its political and educational context What is the Common European Framework?

5.2
Communicative language competences
For the realisation of communicative intentions, users/learners bring to bear their
general capacities as detailed above together with a more specifically language-related
communicative competence. Communicative competence in this narrower sense has the
following components:
•
linguistic competences;
•
sociolinguistic competences;
•
pragmatic competences. 
5.2.1
Linguistic competences
No complete, exhaustive description of any language as a formal system for the expres-
sion of meaning has ever been produced. Language systems are of great complexity and
Users of the Framework may wish to consider and where appropriate state:
•
what study skills learners are encouraged/enabled to use and develop;
•
what heuristic abilities learners are encouraged/enabled to use and develop; 
•
what provision is made for learners to become increasingly independent in their learning
and use of language.
Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: learning, teaching, assessment
108

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the language of a large, diversified, advanced society is never completely mastered by
any of its users. Nor could it be, since every language is in continuous evolution in
response to the exigencies of its use in communication. Most nation states have
attempted to establish a standard form of the language, though never in exhaustive
detail. For its presentation, the model of linguistic description in use for teaching the
corpus is still the same model as was employed for the long-dead classical languages.
This ‘traditional’ model was, however, repudiated over 100 years ago by most profes-
sional linguists, who insisted that languages should be described as they exist in use
rather than as some authority thinks they should be and that the traditional model,
having been developed for languages of a particular type, was inappropriate for the
description of language systems with a very different organisation. However, none of the
many proposals for alternative models has gained general acceptance. Indeed, the pos-
sibility of one universal model of description for all languages has been denied. Recent
work on linguistic universals has not as yet produced results which can be used directly
to facilitate language learning, teaching and assessment. Most descriptive linguists are
now content to codify practice, relating form and meaning, using terminology which
diverges from traditional practice only where it is necessary to deal with phenomena
outside the range of traditional models of description. This is the approach adopted in
Section 4.2. It attempts to identify and classify the main components of linguistic com-
petence defined as knowledge of, and ability to use, the formal resources from which
well-formed, meaningful messages may be assembled and formulated. The scheme that
follows aims only to offer as classificatory tools some parameters and categories which
may be found useful for the description of linguistic content and as a basis for reflec-
tion. Those practitioners who prefer to use a different frame of reference are free, here
as elsewhere, to do so. They should then identify the theory, tradition or practice they
are following. Here, we distinguish: