The use of the terms communicative approach and ESP/LSP approach has been recurrent in the Brazilian context. This raises doubts as to whether they are different approaches or different names for the same approach. This paper aims at highlighting the current understanding regarding those conceptions both in international and Brazilian language teaching contexts. Attention is also given to the term communicational approach. This work underlines and discusses the leading publications on this subject, starting with Palmer (1917), including the testimony of renowned experts such as Widdowson and Prabhu _ collected in 2006 _, and culminating with Borges (2009). This article draws attention to a "relaxation" in the treatment of a theme that unfolds as an appropriate context fo r the comprehension of the emergence and development of paradigms and metaparadigms in Applied Linguistics.
communicative approach; esp/lsp approach; teaching language approach
