A study explored context effects on two selected indexes of communicative competence in the narrative language of a sample of first grade children. The 30 subjects each completed 2 tasks--the retelling of a story that had been read to them and the dictation of an original story. These narratives were recorded and analyzed for linguistic competence as indexed by a measure of syntactic complexity (average T-unit length) and for sociolinguistic competence as indexed by the subjects' use of reference in their narratives. The results indicated that for the subjects, both the syntactic complexity of language used and the ability to use reference appropriately varied with the context. The findings challenge the "conventional wisdom" that regards the communicative competence construct as a categorical rather than a variable aspect of language behavior. (FL)