COMMUNICATION STRATEGIES

Communication is the output modality and learning is the input modality of language acquisition.
Communication strategies are systematic attempts to express meaning in the target language in which
the speaker must attend to both the form (the surface structure) of language and the function (the
intended purpose of the utterances) of language.

In order to communicate in the target language, the speaker (the learner) must access the total context
of communication, perceive the cognitive, affective, and linguistic set of the hearer, personally organize
his intended meaning, then draw upon whatever existing structures he possesses to effect that
communication. The resulting utterance will vary from learner to learner depending, among other
things, upon the way linguistic material has been organized, stored, and recalled. Sometimes a
communication strategy will enable the learner to fill in some gaps when he is uncertain of the correct
or appropriate linguistic form.

In communicating productively in a second language, we use the same fundamental strategies that we
use in learning a second language. In a situation in which a learner discerns either correctly or
incorrectly from stored knowledge that it is appropriate to transfer a first language thought or rule or
pattern, he will do so and in his utterance will reflect that transfer.

Positive transfer cannot be overtly detected in an utterance since one can only guess at the underlying
causes of correctness; Negative transfer is often manifested overtly and the hearer, cognitively and
affectively, reacts to such evidence of interference.

Generalization within the target language is also a common production strategy that stems from
generalization in the learning or receptive stage.