The importance of communication strategies in oral second language proficiency

1. Introduction

By investigating communication strategies which are the attempts to overcome gaps in learners’ second language， it can provide us useful insight into the ways in which learners manage to maintain the communication when they have restricted mastery of a language and become increasingly proficient in their target language. The present study aims to discuss the place of communication strategies in oral second language proficiency and to explore in what way communication strategies are important to students’ oral second language proficiency in the classroom.

2. Literature review

2.1 Definitions of communication strategies

There are two main streams to define the communication strategies. From the psycholinguistic perspective， the communication strategies are regarded as “potentially conscious plans for solving what to an individual presents itself as a problem in reaching a particular communicative goal” （Faerch & Kasper， 1983， p.212）. From the interactional perspective， the communication strategies can be defined as “a mutual attempt of two interlocutors to agree on a meaning in situations where requisite meaning structures do not seem to be shared” （Tarone， 1980， p.420）. In other words， the communication strategies are the attempts to find alternative ways to cope with the gaps in communication.

2.2 Taxonomy of communication strategies

According to Dornyei’s （1995） traditional conceptualizations， communication strategies can be divided into firstly avoidance or reduction strategies， secondly achievement or compensatory strategies and lastly， stalling or so called time-gaining strategies. Reduction strategies are characterized as “avoiding， changing or abandoning a communicative goal when faced with a perceived communication difficulty” （Yule & Tarone， 1997， p.18）. Achievement strategies or compensatory strategies are related to the alternative ways to solve the communication difficulty to convey the intended meaning.

2.3 Empirical studies of communication strategies in classroom

Much attention has been paid to examine factors such as language proficiency， context and the nature of the task which may exert influence on the use of communication strategies.

In Jourdain’s （2000） study， the researcher investigated the native or native-like speakers’ use of specific communication strategies， which was circumlocution. The study focused on “the norms of native and native-like circumlocution” （Jourdain， 2000， p.185）. From the result the researcher found that firstly native and native-like speakers indeed preferred similar circumlocutions which were analogies， synonymies and descriptions. Secondly， they equally had the tendency to set the context and to state unfamiliarity to the item at the beginning of the task. Lastly， all participants kept employing their second language in conversation and rarely chose to abandon and avoid the task.

Dornyei （1995）’s study examined whether communication strategies can be taught to EFL learners by focusing on their quantity and quality of strategies use through the training of specific communication strategies. These strategies were topic avoidance and replacement， circumlocution， and fillers and hesitation devices. and to analyze which factors can exert influence on students’ specific strategies use. According to the results， the treat group members were identified to significantly improve their quality and quantity in the use of three communication strategies.

3. Implications of communication strategies in the classroom

3.1 Implications in terms of contents necessary to be taught

In Jourdain’s （2000） study， the researcher highlighted that native and native-like speakers of English and French shared great similarity in employing circumlocutions. These similarities can be found in their use of synonym， analogy and descriptions in both their native and nonnative language. From the result of Dornyei’s （1995） study which examined the effectiveness of strategy training on EFL learners’ performance of communication strategies， it can be found that the study suggested that by providing learners with explicit and focused training activities， certain communication strategies such as circumlocutions can be taught and developed. Consequently， it is possible for us to suppose that by identifying the circumlocutions of communication strategies preferred by native or native-like speakers， trainings of these strategies which include synonym， analogy and descriptions can be provided through oral communicative practices to enable learners to become more native-like in their oral second language proficiency to communicate.

3.2 Implications in terms of ways to teach

Dornyei’s （1995） study provides implication of to what degree the communication strategies can be taught explicitly to improve learners’ oral proficiency. From the study it can be found that by raising EFL learners’ awareness of the nature and potential applications of communication strategies through aware raising activities， discussion and feedback， both quality and quantity of learners’ use of strategies in oral performance were improved. These increased quality and quantity of strategies use indicated that the explicit instructions such as awareness raising tasks may increase the possibility that learners realize the usefulness of communication strategies and employ more choices of communication strategies. Given that learners may be faced with communication gaps during conversation， rather than struggling to produce utterances or only choosing to abandoning or avoiding previous communicating goal， they may consciously use more strategies such as achievement to cope with the difficulties， thus， they are able to make the conversation become flow and influent.

3.3 Implications in terms of types of elicit task：

In Jourdain’s （2000） study， it can be found that the typical methodology to elicit communication strategies was asking participants to describe drawings of objects which they did not know the exact term， it enabled learners to cover lexical gaps by focusing on linguistic means. However， it also implies that methodology of picture descriptions to elicit circumlocutions may limit the selection of other strategies by learners as this methodology mainly offers learners opportunities to use linguistic ways to cope with communication difficulty. As Bialystok （1990， p.50） pointed out， differences in methods to elicit communication strategies may affect the choices of learners to employ specific strategies. Thus， if the teachers’ goal is to practice all types of communication strategies through elicit tasks in the oral activities， it is better to employ tasks with diversities in the classroom such as translation， conversation and picture reconstruction in order to avoid bias against other strategies practices.

4. The importance of communication strategies in oral second language proficiency

In real life conversation， second language learners are likely to be struggled to produce utterances when they are faced with communication break down due to problematic second language. The use of communication strategies as techniques to cover the gaps in second language would be beneficial for learners to be able to interact with the interlocutor and to maintain the dialogue flow and fluent. Therefore， in classroom practices， the teacher could offer activities to raise learners’ awareness to assist learners in consciously selecting different choices of communication strategies in order to maintain the conversation fluent， and to solve potential difficulties in oral communication. Furthermore， as the use of communication strategies is also closely associated with its linguistic expressions， hence by providing oral activities focusing on practicing the linguistic expressions such as vocabularies and syntactic patterns of communication strategies commonly adopted by native speakers， it is possible for students to improve their ability to be more native-like in their accuracy in oral second language proficiency during conversation.

5. Conclusion

To sum up， in terms of contents necessary to be taught， native uses of specific strategies as well as its linguistic expressions are advocated in order to enable learners to become more native-like and accurate in their use of communication strategies during conversation. In terms of ways to teach communication strategies， explicit instructions are preferred because they may help learners to consciously employ more strategies to keep the conversation fluent when they are faced with communication breakdown. In addition， types of task to elicit communication strategies in classroom activities could be varied in order to ensure different communication strategies are elicited and practiced. Therefore， by offering students different classroom practices， communication strategies can be employed as a useful tool to improve learners’ conversational skills and fluency in their oral second language proficiency.

References：

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[4]Jourdain， S.. A Native-like Ability to Circumlocute[J]. The Modern Language Journal，2000，84（2）：185-195.

[5]Konishi， K. & Tarone， E.. English construction used in compensatory strategies： Baseline data communicative EFL instruction. In D. Boxer， & A. D. Cohen （Eds.）， Studying speaking to inform second language learning （pp.174-198）[J]. Clevedon： Multilingual Matters Ltd，2004.

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[7]Yule， G. & Tarone， E.. Investigating communication strategies in L2 reference： pros and cons. In G. Kasper， & E. Kellerman （Eds.）[J]. Communication strategies： Psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic perspectives （pp.17-30）. London： Longman，1997.

【作者簡介】成翃（1988-），女，漢族，山西太原人，山東英才學院，講師，研究生，研究方向：對外英語教學。