| paraphrase approximation 51.05% word coinage 96.88% circumlocution 56.38% transfer language switch 60.38% |
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|
Success of communication strategies for listeners (adapted from Bialystok, 1990) | |
|
Communicative and Compensatory Strategies |
|
SLA Topics SLA Bibliography Vivian Cook SLL and LT The easiest way to give the impression of having a good accent or no foreign accent at all is to hold an unlit pipe in your mouth, to mutter between your teeth and finish all your sentences with the question “isn’t it?” People will not understand much, but they are used to that and they will get a most excellent impression. George Mikes 1946 |
A. Socially-motivated strategies for solving mutual lack of understanding (Tarone): a Communication Strategy (CS) 'a mutual attempt of two interlocutors to agree on a meaning in situations where requisite meaning structures do not seem to be shared'
avoidance topic
avoidance
message abandonment
approximation “animal" for
"horse",
paraphrase word coinage
"airball" for "balloon".
circumlocution “when you make a container" for
"pottery"
transfer
literal translation "Make the door
shut"
language switch "That's a nice tirtil"
(caterpillar)
appeal for assistance
“What is this?"
mime
getting some candles in a shop in France by singing "Happy Birthday" in
English and miming blowing out candles.
Communication strategies in Tarone (1977)
avoidance message abandonment 4%
paraphrase approximation 12%
word coinage under 1%
circumlocution 80%
transfer language switch 2%
appeal for assistance 2%
| paraphrase approximation 51.05% word coinage 96.88% circumlocution 56.38% transfer language switch 60.38% |
|
|
Success of communication strategies for listeners (adapted from Bialystok, 1990) | |
for solving the individual's L2 problems of expression (Faerch & Kasper): 'potentially conscious plans for solving what to an individual presents itself as a problem in reaching a particular communicative goal'B. Psychologically-motivated strategies
L1/L3 codeswitching
strategies foreignising
substitution
generalisation
interlanguage exemplification
Non-cooperative
word coining
strategies restructuring
description
achievement
non-linguistic mime
strategies imitation, etc
Cooperative
appeals
phonological
Formal reduction
morphological
grammatical
avoidance
actional
Functional reduction
propositional
modal
Communication strategies in interlanguage production
(Faerch & Kasper (1984)
C. Compensatory strategies
Conceptual
archistrategy { analytic "talk uh bird" for
"parrot"
{ holistic "table" for "desk"
Linguistic
archistrategy { morphological creativity "ironize"
for
"iron"
{ L1 transfer "middle" for "waist"
| Conceptual | Linguistic | ||||
| Analytic | Holistic | Morpho -logical |
Transfer | Totals | |
| advanced | 466 | 138 | 5 | 53 | 762 |
| upper secondary | 630 | 171 | 9 | 93 | 903 |
| lower secondary | 707 | 182 | 7 | 122 | 1018 |
| Totals | 803 | 491 | 19 | 268 | 2581 |
| Percentage | 69.9% | 19.2% | 0.7% |
10.4% | |
Superordinate strategies in L2 by group for four tasks (adapted from Poulisse, 1989)
| percentage correct | range | |
| Holistic | 51.2% | 0% ("tailor") to 92.3% ("wig") |
| Analytic | 69.6% | 20.6% ("applications") to 100% ("hairdressers") |
| Holistic+ Analytic | 78.9% | 34.6% ("hair-restorer") to 100% ("lawyer") |
| Transfer | 59.3% | 2.9% ("rabbit") to 95% ("wig") |
Research
summary:
Poulisse, N. (1990), The Use of Compensatory Strategies by Dutch
Learners of English, Mouton de Gruijter, Berlin
Aim: to
investigate compensatory strategies at different L2 levels, in L1 and L2, and in
terms of efficiency
Learners: 45 Dutch learners of English at three
levels of acquisition: advanced, intermed- iate, and low.
Data type:
transcripts of four tasks: I photo description, II description of drawings in L1
and L2, III retelling stories, IV interview.
Method of analysis:
classification into conceptual (analytic and holistic) and linguistic
(morphological and transfer)
Results: strategies vary inversely
according to proficiency, vary partly in type according to proficiency, vary
according to task, and vary according to superordinate versus
subordinate
level.
| English (L2) | Dutch (L1) | |||||
| holistic | partitive | linear | holistic | partitive | linear | |
| advanced | 134 | 21 | 25 | |||
| upper secondary | 119 | 34 | 25 | 124 | 33 | 22 |
| lower secondary | 116 | 32 | 31 | 117 | 43 | 20 |
| Totals | 372 | 87 | 78 | 375 | 97 | 67 |
Comparison of compensatory strategies for shape description in L1 and L2 (adapted from Poulisse, 1990)
References
Bialystok, E. (1990), Communication Strategies, Blackwell, Oxford
Faerch, C. & Kasper, G. (1984), 'Two ways of defining communication strategies', Language Learning, 34, 45-63
Firth, A. & Wagner, J. (1997). On discourse, communication, and (some) fundamental concepts in SLA research. Modern Language Journal, 81, 285-300
Kasper, G. & Kellerman, E. (eds.) (1997), Communication Strategies, Harlow: Longman
Kellerman, E. (1991), 'Compensatory strategies in second language research: a critique, a revision, and some (non-) implications for the classroom', in Phillipson, R., Kellerman, E., Selinker, L., Sharwood Smith, M., & Swain. M. (eds.), Foreign/Second Language Pedagogy Research, Multilingual Matters, Clevedon
Poulisse, N. (1990), The Use of Compensatory Strategies by Dutch Learners of English, Mouton de Gruijter, Berlin
Poulisse, N. (1996), ‘Strategies’, in Jordens, P. & Lalleman, J., (eds) Investigating Second Language Acquisition, Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin
Tarone, E. (1988), Variation in Interlanguage, Edward Arnold, London
Extract from a Dutch student retelling a story
Here is an example taken from Nanda Poulisse (1990) of a Dutch student retelling a story in English. Take one of the schemes of analysis from Faerch and Kasper or from the Nijmegen project and see what strategies you discover; to what extent do you feel this shows that the bulk of communication strategies are in fact due to lack of lexical knowledge?
it's a story which call, the representer <laughs> it's a man uh, uh, uh who has uh, discovered, uh 1, uh 1 ja, a thing you can put on your head and then your hair will grow, when you're bald, that's very nice and uh, he tries to sell it, to uh, /so/ uh, to a lot of, erm, 1 haircutters <laughs>, erm 1 he does it uh, very, uh xxx clever, he's uh, bald, self, his himself, and uh, then, he puts on uh, uh <laughs> 3 'n pruik (=a wig) <whispers> 2 erm 6 erm, a thing which is made of uh, other man's hair or static hair, and you can put it on your head and then uh, it seems if you're not bald, and uh, then he, uh beweren (=claims), uh <whispers> 4 he says to the, to to the hair-cutter that uh 2 that uh has come because he has use his own uh 2 own, wat is uitviubdig nou weer (now what is invention?) <whispers> 2 own uh thing which he /ha/ had d discocered, uh. he, uh 2 he 2, he uh, earned a lot of money, uh, until the day of uh, the 2 meeting which is hold every year, in 1 outside of uh the houses, in the air, and the wind had uh, blew off, that thing 1 which he had on his hairs, and so 1 uh they discovered that he was a liar <laughs>