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Communication strategies in language learning

发布时间:2017-03-14
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It seems evident that both non-native and native speakers have some difficulties, as they verbally or non-verbally communicate their meaning. The ways by which people overcome their difficulties are called communication strategies(CS). Communication strategies play an important role in second language learning or acquisition. CS have been defined by Tarone (1977) as strategies “used by an individual to overcome the crisis which occurs when language structures are inadequate to convey the individual thought” (p. 195). Later, using a more interactional approach to CS, Tarone (1981) characterized them as “a mutual attempt of two interlocutors to agree on a meaning in situations where requisite meaning structures do not seem to be shared”(p. 288). She went on to argue that “CS, viewed from this perspective, may be seen as attempts to bridge the gap between the linguistic knowledge of the second language learner, and the linguistic knowledge of the target language interlocutor in real communication situations” (Tarone, 1981, p. 288). Tarone (1981) created three criteria to further define CS: the first is the need for a learner to communicate something to an interlocutor; the second criteria is characterized by the awareness of the speaker that he or she does not have the linguistic structure necessary to communicate his or her desired meaning; and the third is when the speaker decides to avoid the message altogether or try ways to make himself or herself understood (Tarone, 1981). Færch and Kasper (1983) have defined CS as “potentially conscious plans for solving what to an individual presents itself as a problem in reaching a particular communicative goal” (p 36). According to them, when learners cannot find a way to communicate without problems, they turn to strategies to deal with the problems they encounter while communicating (Færch & Kasper, 1983). Poulisse, Bongaerts and Kellerman (1984) assert that they are “strategies which a language user employs in order to achieve his intended meaning on becoming aware of problems arising during the planning phase of an utterance due to his own linguistic short-comings” (p. 72). Dornyei (1995) described CS as “various verbal and non-verbal means of dealing with difficulties and breakdowns that occur in everyday communication” (p. 55). Canale and Swain(1980) define cs as “verbal and nonverbal strategies that may be called into action to compensate for breakdowns in communication due to performance variables or to insufficient competence”(p. 30). One working definition many researchers accept is that CSs are “a systematic technique employed by a speaker to express his [or her] meaning when faced with some difficulty” (Corder, 1981, p. 103). Although there is not a full agreement on the definition of cs , but many researchers accept is that CSs are “a systematic technique employed by a speaker to express his [or her] meaning when faced with some difficulty” (Corder, 1981, p. 103). This definition, in accordance with Canale and Swain’s (1980) and Færch and Kasper’s (1983a) conceptualizations, posits problem orientednessand systematicness/consciousness as central features of CSs. It has been generally accepted that CSs are not unique to L2 speakers because communication problems occur and are tackled in L1 communication as well (see Bongaerts & Poulisse, 1989). Different strategies have been offered by different researchers, but here we have brough a list of cs based on Váradi (1973), Tarone (1977), Færch and Kasper (1983a), and Bialystok (1990). In the latter half of the 1980s, researchers at Nijmegen University (Netherlands) criticized the existing topologies of CSs as being product

oriented, focusing on the surface structures of underlying psychological processes and thus resulting in a proliferation of different strategies of ambiguous validity (Kellerman, 1991; Poulisse, 1987; see also Cook,1993).

Categories of communication strategies

Different strategies have been offered by different researchers, but here we have brough a list of cs based on Váradi (1973), Cohen and Dumas (1976) , Tarone (1977), Færch and Kasper (1983a), and Bialystok (1990). Tarone, Cohen and Dumas (1976) categorized CS into six strategies: negative transfer from the native language; overgeneralization, when learners apply a rule from the target language inappropriately to other forms of the target language; prefabricated pattern, when learners are aware of certain patterns in the target language, but employ them inappropriately – this can be a subcategory of overgeneralization; overelaboration, when learners produce an utterance which does not sound native-like and sounds overtly formal or more characteristic of written discourse; epenthesis or vowel insertion, when learners cannot produce consonant clusters with which they are unfamiliar and use schwas between consonants; different types of avoidance, topic and semantic; appeal to authority; and paraphrase. Corder (1983) believed that CS fell into one of the following two categories: message adjustment strategies, resource expansion strategies. Message abandonment, topic avoidance, semantic avoidance and message reduction are characterized as message adjustment strategies; while borrowing, paraphrasing, gestures and appeals for help are examples of resource expansion strategies (Corder,1983). Tarone (1978) divided CS into three categories: paraphrase, transfer and avoidance. Paraphrase is further split into approximation, for which a learner substitutes a vocabulary item which is not available to him or her with another one which shares a similar meaning; word coinage, when the learner invents a new word to communicate the intended meaning; and circumlocution, when the language learner explains the meaning of a vocabulary item that is not available to him or her (Tarone, 1978). She breaks down transfer into the following categories: literal translation, in which the speaker translates word by word from his or her native language; and language switch, when the learner uses a word from his native language, without translating it into the target language (Tarone, 1978). The phenomenon of transfer can be observed in different areas of the language, such as phonology, morphology, syntax and lexicon (Tarone, Cohen and Dumas, 1983). Avoidance is divided into topic avoidance, when the language learner completely avoids a topic for which he or she does not have enough vocabulary or structures available; and message abandonment, when the speaker decides to abandon a message for lack of vocabulary or structures in the L2 (Tarone,1978). Williams, Inscoe and Tasker (1997) add to the list of CS confirmation checks, clarification requests and comprehension checks. They define confirmation checks as “Utterances seeking confirmation of anything contained in the entire preceding written or spoken discourse” (p.310); clarification requests are requests for clarification of anything in preceding utterances; comprehension checks is when the speaker checks with the interlocutor that he or she has understood what was said (Williams, Inscoe and Tasker,1997). Tarone (1983) also includes in the list of CS “appeal for assistance,” “when the learner asks for the correct term”, for example, ‘what is this?” (p. 62). Confirmation checks and clarification requests are examples of repair. Repair is defined by Schegloff, Jefferson and Sacks (1977, p. 361) as a way to address to problems “in speaking, hearing and understanding” of a speaker’s utterance and it is a characteristic of the speech of both native and nonnative speakers. Repairs consist of a repair initiation, “marking possible disjunction with the immediately preceding talk” (Schegloff, 1997, p. 503) and a repair outcome, in which there is either a solution to the problem that initiated the repair or total abandonment of it (Schegloff, 1997). A word search, in which speakers look for a word they have momentarily forgotten or do not know (Hosoda, 2006) is also an example of repair. Repair can be initiated by the speaker who is experiencing problems in the talk, which is called self-initiated repair –namely repair initiated on one’s own talk – or by other speakers in the conversation, which is known as other-initiated repair, although a clear preference for the former has been found (Schegloff, Jefferson and Sacks, 1977). Schegloff, Jefferson and Sacks say that “self-initiations within the same turn use a variety of non-lexical speech perturbations, e.g. cut-offs, sound stretches, uh’s etc. to signal the possibility of repair initiation immediately following” (1977, p. 367). An important issue that may occur among nonnative speakers of a language is the presence of both novice and more expert speakers of the language in the interaction. when there are speakers who are more proficient in the target language than others, one can help and elicit help from the other when doing repair, and the repair becomes a collective activity done conjointly by the participants.

There are two general existing taxonomies of strategies , that is, product oriented and process oriented strategies. In the latter half of the 1980s, researchers at Nijmegen University (Netherlands) criticized the existing topologies of CSs as being product

oriented, focusing on the surface structures of underlying psychological processes and thus resulting in a proliferation of different strategies of ambiguous validity (Kellerman, 1991; Poulisse, 1987; see also Cook,

1993).

Figure 1

negative transfer

overgeneralization

prefabricated pattern

overelaboration

epenthesis or vowel insertion

avoidance

topic avoidance

semantic avoidance

message adjustment

Message abandonment

message reduction

resource expansion

borrowing

paraphrasing

approximation

circumlocution

word coinage

gestures

appeals for help

transfer

literal translation

language switch

confirmation checks

clarification requests

comprehension checks.

Repair

repair initiation

repair outcome

word search

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