Even though the study of communication competence can be traced back in
the ancient times as far as the birth of rhetoric, communication scholars have
seriously studied communication competence as a construct for more than two
decades and the term first appeared in a communication journal in 1974 (Rubin,
1990). Since then, there have been debates and different perspectives on
investigating communication competence. I found that communication scholars
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take four different perspectives to studying communication competence. The four approaches that appear in the literature consist of goal-oriented perspective, cognitive versus performance perspective, social and interpersonal perspective, and resources or skills based perspective. The goal-oriented, cognitive versus performance, and resources based perspectives have been conceptualized by Jablin and Sias (2001) while I found the social and interpersonal perspective emerging from my review of literature.
Communication competence from the goal-oriented approach focuses on the effectiveness or situations in which competent communicators interact to achieve the desired goals. Parks’ (1994) definition of communication competence represents this approach, as he states:
Communicative competence represents the degree to which individuals satisfy and perceive that they have satisfied their goals within the limits of a given social situation without jeopardizing their ability or opportunity to pursue their other subjectively more important goals (p. 595).
This definition places an emphasis on the goal achievement of a competent communicator which can be observed and/or perceived by the communicator. Communication competence from this perspective suggests that persuasion or control is the key element in communication effectiveness. Along with this perspective is the definition of communication competence offered by Phillips (1983) who states that “competence would refer to understanding of situations, skill in demonstration of necessary techniques, effectiveness to goal accomplish-ments all by a particular person in a given case” (p. 31). Even though both definitions focus on the goal achievement, Phillips’ definition of competence differs from Parks’ as it suggests that effective or competent behaviors must be demonstrated and observable while Parks focuses on the perception of communicators whether or not they achieve their goals. In addition, Phillips’ definition of competence also implies that we should look at competence in a given situation and competence should not be viewed as a static trait of communicators across various cases.