The tradition also distinguishes between linguistic competence, what a person knows of a language, and linguistic performance, how a person uses it.
en.wikipedia.org They argue that linguistic competence is derived from and informed by language use, performance, taking the directly opposite view to the generative model.
en.wikipedia.org She was completely without language, and after seven years of rehabilitation still lacked linguistic competence.
en.wikipedia.org Still, these sorts of idiosyncratic grammars differ in degree from broader diasystems, which are much less likely to be part of speakers' linguistic competence.
en.wikipedia.org The CEFR divides general competences in "knowledge" (descriptive knowledge), "skills", and "existential competence" with particular communicative competences in "linguistic competence", "sociolinguistic competence", and "pragmatic competence".
en.wikipedia.org