Essentials of Communication Skill and Skill Enhancement

3The Nature of Communication Skill and Communication Competence

It may seem somewhat odd that we’ve gotten this far into a book on communication skills without really giving much attention to just what the term “communication skill” involves. Let’s take care of that now. Actually, there are two related concepts, “communication skill” and “communication competence,” that we need to examine here. In some cases these terms are used interchangeably,¹ but scholars in the field of Communication have found it useful to make a distinction between the two. I’m going to flesh out the definitions of both of these terms in greater detail below, but, as a first-pass, let’s say that “communication skill” refers to an individual’s behaviors and behavioral ...