This paper outlines a theory of communicative competence and argues for a view of communicative competence as a postulated set of abstract cognitive operations that serve to generate mental representations of the social world. In addition to this function, the discussion serves as a review of literature bearing on the subject of communicative competence. Chapters are "The Competence Paradigm,""Current Literature on Communicative Competence,""Ethnographic-Sociolinguistic Evidence,""Formal-Semantic Evidence,""Cognitive-Developmental Evidence," and "Toward a Theory of Communicative Competence." A bibliography of references completes the work. (KS)