Day 4

Topic: TYPES OF COMMUNICATION STRATEGY

Lecturer: Salome M. Montemayor
Communication Strategy is defined as
“a systematic technique employed by a
speaker to express his or her meaning
when faced with some difficulty”
(Corder, 1981, in Dornyei, 1995, p. 56).
These strategies are used by language
learners to overcome communication
difficulties and breakdowns due to a
lack of available linguistic resources.
 TYPES OF COMMUNICATION STRATEGY

1. Message abandonment: the strategy of

leaving message unfinished because of
language difficulties

2. Topic avoidance: the strategy where learners

try not to talk about concepts which they
find it difficult to express.
3. Circumlocution: the strategy used by
learners in which they describe or
paraphrase the target object or action

4.Approximation: the strategy in which a

learner uses an alternative term to express
the meaning of the target lexical item as
closely as possible.
5. Use of all-purpose words: This is the
strategy when learners expand an empty
lexical item to context where certain words
are lacking.

6. Word coinage: a learner creates an L2

word based on his/her knowledge of
morphological rules
7. Use of nonlinguistic means: a learner uses
non-linguistic resources such as mime, gesture,
facial expression, and sound imitation to help
him/her in expressing the meaning.

8. Literal translation: the strategy in which

learners translate a lexical item, an idiom, or a
structure from their L1 to L2.
9. Foreignizing: learners use L1 word by
adjusting it to L2 phonologically
10. Code switching: the strategy in which
learners use their L1 word with L2
pronunciation
11. Appeal for help: the strategy where
the students ask other students or
teacher for help because they do not
know or forget some words, structures, or
idioms.
12.Use of fillers/hesitation devices: a
learner may use filling words to fill pause
and to gain time to think
 Example of Communication Strategy in Context

Self-repetition:
• Ryan: In same way…in same way how?
• Juday: In same way as…
• Ryan: Same way… Looks at Juday) In same
way as…in same way as…my father came to
• Juday: America?
 Feedback for Learning Communication Strategies

Piolo: I often use communication strategies

because I don’t know many words. Using
communication strategies is a convenient way
for me. Because I don’t know many
vocabularies, I could not talk to people very
well. Therefore, I sometimes use strategies to
abandon unknown word. Besides, meaning
replacement is especially useful which helped
me to have concrete concepts for jargons or
terms I have never learned. I think it is better
than topic avoidance
James: In my opinion, it is very important using
a lot of communication strategies when you
need to clarify and translate your opinions. If
you only use one strategy in communication it
will be boring and not too helpful. I suggest
using many strategies interactively. Using a lot of
strategies helped me to follow the speakers’
response and updated ideas in talking. I think
communication strategies improve my
communicative competence and it makes me
talk fluently and comprehensively.
Coco: In class, I talked to my teachers and
classmates much easier through applying many
communication strategies. I think they help me
make much progress in English interactions. I
think they are good ways of training English
communication. I started to open my mouth and
speak in English. Communication Strategies
made me have more courage of saying English.
 Unpacking of Learning Competencies
• Functions of Communication