THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS OF PROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE: CONCEPTUAL EVOLUTION AND APPLICABILITY TO EFL TEACHING IN ECONOMICS

Annotatsiya

This paper examines the conceptual evolution of professional communicative competence from its communicative origins to its contemporary application in English for Specific Purposes (ESP) instruction. Drawing on a comparative analysis of international, and Uzbek scholarly frameworks, the study delineates three developmental phases in professional communicative competence theory and argues that teaching English to prospective economists requires an integrated, professionally oriented competence model rather than a general linguistic approach. The paper further proposes an authorial definition of professional communicative competence tailored specifically to future economists within Uzbekistan’s higher education context.