(1) Communicative competence is a term in linguistics which refers to a language user's grammatical knowledge of syntax, morphology, phonology and the like, as well as social knowledge about how and when to use utterance appropriately.

Linguistic competence ‘is concerned with knowledge of the language itself, its form and meaning’. More specifically, it involves spelling, pronunciation, vocabulary, word formation, grammatical structure, sentence structure, and semantics.

Pragmatic competence is concerned with the appropriate use of the language in social context. That is to say, the choice of the vocabulary and structure depends on the setting, the relative status of the speakers, and their relationships.

Discourse competence refers to one's ability to create coherent written text or conversation and the ability to understand them. In other words, it is one's ability to express or to understand a topic logically and coherently by effectively employing or comprehending the cohesive markers used in the discourse.

(2) The implications are as follows:

In order to teach linguistic competence, teacher need to help learners achieve accuracy in the grammatical forms of the language; pronounce the forms accurately; use stress, rhythm, and intonation to express meaning; build a range of vocabulary; learn the script and spelling rules; achieve accuracy in syntax and word formation.

In terms of pragmatics, teachers need to help learners learn the relationship between grammatical forms and functions; use stress and intonation to express attitude and emotion; learn the scale of formality; understand and use emotive tone; use the pragmatic rules of language; and select language forms appropriate to topic, listener, or setting, etc.

To develop students’ discourse competence, teachers need to help learners take longer turns, use discourse markers and open and close conversations; appreciate and be able to produce contextualized written texts in a variety of genres; be able to use cohesive devices in reading and writing texts; be able to cope with authentic texts.