Abstract
This article emphasizes the importance of recognizing psycholinguistic knowledge as a subcomponent of communicative competence. By critically reviewing the discussion on the traditional notion of communicative competence, it is claimed that what is responsible for the internal realization process of an utterance is psycholinguistic competence rather than linguistic competence. The failure to distinguish the two competences is explained in terms of Chomsky's approach to language study. It is also stressed that the operative smoothness of psycholinguistic competence is a performative aspect of the competence and, thus, must be kept apart from the competence itself. The implications of this argument to second language learning are also presented, especially in relation to the problems peculiar to initial second language learners.
