"Communication competence" refers to the knowledge an individual has about the use of language in communication. As a concept and theory, however, it needs to be further elaborated and clarified. In particular, four issues must be resolved before communication competence theory can achieve full development and exert impact in the classroom. The…

Twenty-four children aged five and twenty-four children aged six were interviewed individually three times during a calendar year. It was found that not only did the children's language develop over the period, as judged syntactically and lexically, but they also showed an increasingly fluent control over their own style. All the children…