The abstract is devoted to revealing the role of linguistic competence in the development of future foreign languages specialists’ communicative competence. Special emphasis is on the controversial nature of communicative competence definition by native and foreign scientists. Based on the results provided by the representatives from different methodical schools, the authors present their own definition of communicative competence as a person’s ability to understand foreign language and produce an utterance in accordance with the communicative situation. It is stated that linguistic competence constitutes an important part of communicative competence. The linguistic competence is a system of phonetic, lexical and grammar knowledge, and the ability to use it in the process of intercultural communication. The components of linguistic competence were distinguished.