competence JUST WRITTEN FOR YOU
/ˈkɒmpətəns/ · compe·tence
noun
- The quality or state of being competent, i.e. able or suitable for a general role. The company's new CEO brought a sense of competence to the struggling business.
- The quality or state of being able or suitable for a particular task; the quality or state of being competent for a particular task. She demonstrated her competence in the field of engineering through her innovative designs.
- The system of linguistic knowledge possessed by native speakers of a language, as opposed to its actual use in concrete situations (performance). The linguist studied the linguistic competence of native speakers to better understand language acquisition.
Did you know? The concept of linguistic competence was first introduced by linguist Noam Chomsky in his 1965 book 'Aspects of the Theory of Syntax'.