A large number of materials and foreign language teaching methods use the communicative or functional approach; however, a systematic basis for the choice of appropriate methodologies has not yet been developed. The cause of this situation can be found in the historical and epistemological development of speech act theories and discourse analysis theories. Some of the weaknesses in the approach and materials are there because of misuse of the theories or the "threshold level" publications, and because of weaknesses inherent in the materials themselves. For example, they concentrate on the verbal aspects of communication and neglect facial expression and gesture. Some suggestions for research are: (1) developing a theoretical sociolinguistic model for the requirements of a communicative methodology, (2) developing techniques for helping learners to discover and practice their interpretive strategies through the use of authentic documents, (3) working out learning-to-learn activities that will develop learner autonomy, (4) working on integrating linguistic and communicative competence in language programs, and (5) investigating the relationship between findings in the sociology of knowledge and communicative teaching approaches. A selective bibliography on the communicative approach is appended. (AMH)