Textuality as the Core of Communicative Competence
Abstract
The notion of communicative competence, the theoretical basis of the communicative approach, was widely discussed in the 1970-80s, but in our century it has not been any longer analysed systematically, thus turning into an intuitive notion rather than a scientific one. The author considers the increasing interest of educational linguists in the textual component of communicative competence and proposes a shift from the theoretical model of competence he designed in the 1990s to a new model, where textual elements play a central role.
Submitted: Nov. 19, 2025 | Published Dec. 15, 2025 | Language: it
Keywords Discourse analysis • Language teaching • Communicative competence • Textuality • Educational linguistics
Copyright © 2025 Paolo E. Balboni. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
Permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/ELLE/2280-6792/2025/03/000