Some Features of Verbal Communicative Competence in Slovene and Italian in the Bilingual Environment of the Slovene Istria

Abstract

In the ethnically mixed territory of Slovene Istria, in addition to Slovene, Italian as the language of autochotonous Italian minority has the status of the official language. The level of bilingualism among the population of this area is fairly high. The article examines the nature of the more detailed structure of the communicative competence of the examined ethnically Slovene speakers, which consists of the communicative competence in their firts, Slovne, language, as well as in their second, Italian, language. The author attmepts to determine the relationship between the self-perception of that competence and the testing of performance, and what role the interference between the two languages plays. An interesting conclusion is also that the communicative competence in Slovene ans Italian has a parallel correlation.