Communicative Competences As that aspect of our competence that enables us to convey and interpret messages and to negotiate meanings

within specific context. This is how a person has the abilities to convey his or her ideas effectively, but this may vary depending in the context or what the author calls sociolinguistic competence that you will see it later. The competences to communicate are developed as one grows, for example, at an early age, it is difficult to everyone to communicate accuracy due to there is not a great knowledge about context and vocabulary, and it is harder when that person is learning a second language. Sometimes, there are some people who does not have the competences to communicate successfully and this often happens for disabilities or other factor as shyness and nervousness. And this is more notable when the person tries to speak and listen in the second language (communicate in the second language). There are two sorts of competences, linguistic and communicative competences, the first one have to do with what James Cummins named cognitive/academic language proficiency (CALP) this is for what language learners do, because they try to get knowledge about the new language they are learning, for example: grammar rules, structures, pronunciation, spelling and all those stuff that have to do with traditional grammar (conscious knowledge of the language). They try to get these competences in order to speak and understand the language they are learning. On the other hand, communicative competences have to do with communication, the ability to convey aides through language and also this one refers to universal grammar (unconscious knowledge of the language). There are four subcategories of language competences: the first one is grammatical competences, this basically is when you use syntax, rules of morphology, sentence grammar semantics properly, when you are doing a correct usage of the new linguistic code, in this case the language you are learning. The second one, discourse competence, this refers to how you connect ideas in order to support your ideas and give a clearer massage. The third one is sociolinguistic competences and it is how what you say and hear will depend according to the context, for example, if your friend says you are so smart! after you did a silly mistake, obviously it is sarcasm and he actually meant you are silly. The fourth and last one is strategic and this one is when you are much you have the ability to convinced someone to do something and this will depend on which strategy you use, that is why this competence is called strategic competence. As you all know, the main function of language is to communicate, to put your ideas in someones mind without surgery, therefore you will see in what way can human beings communicate, and there are seven functions or ways that you can communicate.

1. Instrumental function: the language is use as an instrument, in other words as a tool to make an action happens for example when a father tells his son to brings his shoes he does it and an action occurs because of the communicative action between both. 2. Regulatory function: how language is use in order to set rules to have control of a situation or even make laws that can carry to a punishment if there is an inappropriate behavior, for example, at home when a mother tells his son not to watch TV after eight pm and he break that rule, there is a loss of control. 3. Representational function: it is when there is a clearly description of a real event, when you represent a event or activity but by saying it and you see that is true, it already happen, it is happening or maybe that will happen. 4. Interactional function: it is the social interaction, the need to coexist and talk with each other is what describe this function, human beings always try to communicate with other and they make bond, but in order to do interact with other humans and communicate you have to have a knowledge about certain areas, like culture, politeness, jokes, jargon and those social exchanges. 5. Personal function: it is what every human being does, expressing his or her feelings when he or she is talking with others, it is about yourself, who you are and how you feel. 6. Heuristic function: this function is because of humans curiosity, how they want to know things to have more knowledge and they ask many things, and this always happens when you are a child and ask why for almost everything to your parents. 7. Imaginative function: there are many things that you can imagine and that you talk with other people and when you talk with them about unreal things, well, this is the imaginative function, talking about unreal things like tales and novels. Brown, D. (2007). Principles of Language Learning and Teaching. In D. Brown, Principles of Language Learning and Teaching (pages 245-252). Longman Publishing Group.