Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, Inc.

(TESOL)

Some Thoughts on the Notion of Communication Strategy

Author(s): Elaine Tarone
Source: TESOL Quarterly, Vol. 15, No. 3 (Sep., 1981), pp. 285-295
Published by: Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, Inc. (TESOL)
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 TESOLQUARTERLY
Vol. 15, No. 3
September1981

on theNotionofCommunication
SomeThoughts
Strategy*
Elaine Tarone

An attemptis made to clarifywhatis meantby the termcommunica-

tionstrategy, as opposedto termssuch as learningstrategy and production/
perceptionstrategy. It is proposedthatcommunication are descrip-
strategies
tive of the learners'patternof use of what theyknowas theytryto com-
municatewithspeakersof the targetlanguage.Further,it is proposedthat
communication strategieshave an interactional
function,as theyare used for
a jointnegotiation of meaningbetweenspeakerand hearer.Specificcriteria
are proposed,to be used in defining the notionof communication strategy
and separatingthisfromlearningand production strategies.Suggestionsfor
futureresearchare presented.

Confusionpersistson what is meantby the termcommunicationstrategyas

it has appeared in the second-languageacquisitionliterature,particularlywhen
used interchangeablywith termslike learningstrategy,productionstrategy,and
perceptionstrategy.Do all these termsreferto the same phenomenon?If not,
what do theyreferto? This articlediscusses the notionof communicationstrat-
egy, attemptsto propose some means of differentiating it fromothers,and sug-
gests some questions raised by the perspectiveto be presentedhere. Finally,
some directionsfor futureresearchin this area are indicated.

1. The Notion of CommunicationStrategy

An interestingphenomenonseems to occur when second-languagelearners
attemptto communicatewith native speakers.Here are some examples:
A native speaker of Turkish is observed as he describes a picture of a caterpillar
smoking a waterpipe; in English, his second language, he says, "She is, uh, smoking
something. I don't know vwhat'sits name. That's uh, Persian, and we use in Turkey,
a lot of." Or a native speaker of Spanish is observed as he describes a picture of an
applauding audience; he says, in English, his second language: "And everybody say
[claps hands]." Or a native speaker of English describes the principal of his school
in Spanish, his second language: ". .. es el presidente de la escuela" (literally:
He's the president of the school).
I believe that these phenomena,documentedin several recent studies (Vairadi
1973; Tarone, Frauenfelderand Selinker1976; Tarone 1978; Galvan and Camp-
* This article is based on a
paper presented at the TESOL Summer Institute at UCLA
in July, 1979, and at the First Nordic Symposium on Interlanguage in Helsinki, Finland, in
August, 1979. The author wishes to thank the following persons for their valuable comments
and suggestions: Grant Abbott, Akira Aono, Ellen Bialystok,Evelyn Hatch, Paula Hillis, John
Lamendella, Debby Piranian, Larry Selinker,and Merrill Swain.
Ms. Tarone, Director of the ESL Program at the Universityof Minnesota, has published in
Language Learning,On TESOL, and WorkingPapers in Bilingualism.
285

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286 TESOL Quarterly

bell 1979), are related and can be viewed as the speaker's attemptto com-
municate meaningfulcontentin the face of some apparent deficienciesin the
interlanguagesystem.It would be useful for second language acquisition re-
searchersto findsome way of clearlydefininga termwhich describesthis strat-
egy and separates it fromthose other types of strategiesmentionedearlier.
it is useful to examine some
As a firststep in arrivingat such a definition,
examples of strategies taken from Tarone (1978). This list of strategiesis not
intended to be a final categorizationof all existentcommunicationstrategies;
it is simplyprovided to help us arriveat both a clarificationand a definitionof
the notioncommunicationstrategy.

Paraphrase:
Approximation: use of a single target language vocabulary item or
structure,which the learnerknows is not correct,but
which shares enough semanticfeaturesin commonwith
the desired item to satisfythe speaker (e.g. pipe for
waterpipe)
Word Coinage: the learner makes up a new word in order to com-
municatea desired concept (e.g. airball for balloon)

Circumlocution: the learner describesthe characteristicsor elementsof

the object or action instead of using the appropriate
target language (TL) item or structure("She is, uh,
smoking something. I don't know what's its name.
That's, uh, Persian, and we use in Turkey,a lot of.")

Borrowing:
Literal translation: the learner translatesword for word fromthe native
language (e.g. "He invites him to drink,"for "They
toast one another.")

Language switch: the learneruses the native language (NL) termwith-

out botheringto translate(e.g. balon for balloon, tirtil
forcaterpillar)

Appeal for Assistance: the learner asks for the correct term (e.g. "What is
this? What called?")

Mime: the learneruses nonverbalstrategiesin place of a lexi-

cal item or action (e.g. clapping one's hands to illus-
trateapplause)
Avoidance
Topic avoidance: the learner simplytries not to talk about concepts for
which the TL item or structureis not known

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 Communication
Strategy 287

Message abandonment: the learner begins to talk about a concept but is

unable to continue and stops in mid-utterance.
In light of these examples,I would like to evaluate two past definitions of
communicationstrategies.
First Definition:"a systematicattemptby the learnerto expressor decode
meaning in the targetlanguage (TL), in situationswhere the appropriatesys-
tematic TL rules have not been formed"(Tarone, Frauenfelder,and Selinker
1976; Tarone, Cohen, and Dumas 1976). I now believe that the meaning of
"systematicattempt"is not clear, nor is it possible using this definitionto distin-
guish, say, a productionstrategyfroma communicationstrategy.
Second Definition: "a conscious attempt to communicate the learner's
thought when the interlanguage structuresare inadequate to convey that
thought"(VAradi 1973, Tarone 1978, Galvin and Campbell 1979). It is difficult
if not impossible to say whetherany of the examples above occur consciously
or unconsciously.In fact,if consciousnessis at all a matterof degree ratherthan
an either/ormatter,the definitionbecomes meaningless.I would thus preferto
avoid specifyingdegree of consciousnessin any definitionof communication
strategies.Sascha Felix (personal communication)has pointed out that the real
issue with communicationstrategiesis to determinehow the learner "utilizes
his limited knowledge to cope with various communicationsituations."This
notion of language use perhaps ought to be incorporatedinto our attempted
definitionof communicationstrategies.
These definitionsdo seem to capture much of what is apparentlygoing on
in the examples cited above. Communicationstrategiesdo not seem to be a part
of the speaker'slinguisticknowledge;rathertheyare descriptiveof the learners'
patternof use of what theyknow as they tryto communicatewith speakers of
the TL. To decide that communicationstrategies(CS) are tied up with lan-
guage use is to bring into question the relationshipof these strategiesto com-
municative competence. Communicativecompetence has sometimesbeen de-
fined as the knowledge of how to use one's linguisticsystemappropriatelyin
a situation. Canale and Swain (1980) have proposed a broader definitionof
communicativecompetence which would include linguisticcompetence,socio-
linguisticcompetence,and strategiccompetence; using their framework,I am
attemptinghere to differentiate between sociolinguisticcompetence and strat-
egic competence. While both sociolinguisticcompetence and communication
strategies deal with the use of linguisticknowledge,the difference betweenthem
is this: Communicationstrategiesare used to compensatefor some deficiency
in the linguisticsystem,and focus on exploringalternateways of using what
one does know for the transmissionof a message withoutnecessarilyconsider-
ing situationalappropriateness.Sociolinguisticcompetenceby contrastassumes
the existenceof a linguisticsystemwhich is shared by both interlocutors, and
focuses on the appropriateusage of stylisticvariantsof this rule systembased
on a shared knowledgeof social norms.
Ultimately,however,our definitionof the notionof communicationstrategy

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288 TESOL Quarterly

must go beyond this definitionof the second-languagelearner'sattemptsto use

a restrictedlinguistic system for communication.It is unfortunatethat the
interactionalfunctionof CS has been overlookedto date both in my own re-
search and in that of others.It is easy to forgetthat language is not an object
which is used but a part of communication-a livingorganismcreated by both
speaker and hearer. The interactionalfunctionof CS may be most clearlyseen
in an exchange which is recordedin Tarone (1978) between me and someone
identifiedas M.S. (see Appendix A). Whereas before this point in our inter-
action I had attemptedto restrictmy own responsesto M.S.'s utterances,in this
exchange I allowed myselfto respond. The conversationwhich then occurred
can be described as a negotiationof an agreementon meaning,and the function
of the communicationstrategiesused by both of us seems to have been to
exchange enough informationin English to ensure that both interlocutorsare
talkingabout the same thing.
In the same study a learnerused the language switchstrategyin referring
to a caterpillaras a tirtil;it is speculated in that paper that the speakersdeci-
sion to use that term may have been reached because the listenermay have
involuntarily,nonverbally,given some indicationthat she recognized the term
and accepted it as a reasonable response.The functionof communicationstrat-
egies in both cases seems to be primarilyto negotiatean agreementon mean-
ing between two interlocutors.(See Tarone 1980 for a discussion of the rela-
tionshipamong communicationstrategies,repair,and foreignertalk.)
I would like to broaden the definitionof communicationstrategies,there-
fore,to make it clear that the term relates to a mutual attemptof two inter-
locutorsto agree on a meaningin situationswhere requisitemeaning structures
do not seem to be shared. (Meaning structureshere would include both lin-
guisticstructuresand sociolinguisticrule structures.)Communicationstrategies,
viewed fromthis perspective,may be seen as attemptsto bridge the gap be-
tween the linguisticknowledge of the second-language learner and the lin-
guistic knowledge of the target language interlocutorin real communication
situations.Approximation, mime,and circumlocutionmay be used to bridge this
gap. Message abandonmentand avoidance may be used where the gap is per-
ceived as unbridgeable.
To summarize,I propose that the followingcriteriacharacterizea com-
municationstrategy:
(1) a speaker desires to communicate meaning x to a listener;
(2) the speaker believes the linguistic or sociolinguistic structuredesired to com-
municatemeaningx is unavailable,or is notsharedwiththelistener;thus
(3) the speaker chooses to
(a) avoid-not attempt to communicate meaning x-or
(b) attemptalternatemeans to communicate
meaningx. The speakerstops
tryingalternativeswhen it seems clear to the speaker that there is shared
meaning.
The examples given earlierseem to fulfillthese criteriaand thus may be called
communicationstrategies.Avoidance strategieswill be discussed shortly.

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 Communication
Strategy 289

in light of the criteriagiven above, one mightask whether

Parenthetically,
communicationstrategiesmay not occur in one's native language as well as in
an interlanguage.Certainlythey seem to be used between dialects of the same
language (Shaaban 1978). In fact, to the extentthat there is always a gap
between a speaker and a hearer's linguisticand semantic systems,this is un-
doubtedly so. No one mastersthe entire lexicon of one's native language, for
instance,so one may referto an unfamiliartool as a thingamabobor a doomi-
flatchy,using word-coinage.One may have a memorylapse and forgeta name
one used to know. If George has to introduceyou to Mrs. X and forgetsyour
name, he may appeal for assistanceand ask you foryour name. He may tryto
avoid introducingyou until he can rememberyour name, or even approximate:
"This is Mmmm... Mary ... no, no, Mabel!" Finally,each of us has a semantic
systemwhich differsfromeveryoneelse's; we use CS to negotiateshared mean-
ing in situationswhere it is apparent that we may mean very different things
by the same term.Consider the followingconversation:
A: I love you.
B: (suspiciously) What do you mean, "love"?
A: Circumlocute... approximate... mime!
However, in native language interactionswe may suspectthat such communica-
tion strategiesare used primarilywith lexical items,or perhaps to clarifyre-
ferentsfor pronouns,whereas in interlanguagethey may occur with syntactic,
morphological,or even phonologicalstructures(see Tarone, Cohen, and Dumas
1976). Althougheach of us has an idiosyncraticsemanticsystem,most of the
time we go along in our native language assumingthat we all mean the same
thingby the same word, and most of the time this approach gets us by. When
gross discrepanciesoccur in our communicationwith othersin our native lan-
guage, we resortto communicationstrategies(CS). But in communicationbe-
tween a second-languagelearner and a native speaker of the targetlanguage,
such discrepanciessimplyoccur more often,and hence the use of CS becomes
more obvious.
In addition to communicationstrategies,there seems to be another kind
of notion-the notion of production strategy.A production strategy,like a
communicationstrategy,is a strategyof language use. I would definea pro-
duction strategyas an attemptto use one's linguisticsystem efficiently and
clearly,with a minimumof effort.Productionstrategies(PS) are similarto CS
in that theyare attemptsto use one's linguisticsystem,but PS differin thatthey
lack the interactionalfocus on the negotiationof meaning. Thus, the use of
prefabricatedpatterns,discourseplanning,and rehearsal (as in Aono and Hillis
1979) would be classifiedas PS because they simplifythe task of speakingin a
particularsituation.As Aono and Hillis point out, a rehearsedsegmentcan be
imperviousto unexpected interruptionfromthe listener-and hence rehearsal
seems to lack the interactionalnegotiationof meaning centralto our proposed
definitionof CS. Anotherway of sayingthis is that Criterion(3b) above, which
is necessaryin orderto have a CS, is missing.

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290 TESOL Quarterly

A thirdkind of notion is that of learningstrategy.I would definea learn-

ing strategyas an attemptto develop linguisticand sociolinguisticcompetence
in the target language-to incorporatethese into one's interlanguagecompe-
tence. Note that Criterion(1) is not necessaryfor learningstrategiesthus de-
fined. The basic motivatingforce behind learning strategiesis not the desire
to communicatemeaning but the desire to learn the target language. Thus,
Cohen and Aphek (1978) have describedstrategiessuch as the use of mnemonics
in the learningof target language vocabularywhich I would classifyas learn-
ing strategies,not communicationstrategies.Other learning strategiesmight
include memorizationor repetitionof troublesometargetlanguage structures.
The relationshipof learningstrategiesto communicationstrategiesis some-
what problematic.Can a communicationstrategyalso be a learningstrategy?
According to our definitions,one can have a CS which is not a LS, and vice
versa: Memorizationis not a CS. Also, in the conversationwith M.S. in Ap-
pendix A, though the termspoppy and drug are used in communicationstrat-
egies, thereis no indicationthat M.S. focused on learningthose terms;however,
he does stop to spell the termopium and repeats it several times.In this case,
I would say that the motivationforhis actionsof spellingand repeatingare not
to communicatemeaningbut ratherto attemptto learn the term.Thus, I think
it is theoreticallypossible to distinguishCS and LS on the basis of Criterion
(1)-the motivationunderlyingthe use of the strategy.The problem,of course,
arises in that 1) we have no way of measuringthat motivation;2) it may be
that one's motivationis both to learn and to communicate,and 3) one may
unconsciouslyacquire language even if one is using a strategysolely to com-
municate a meaning.If a structureworksin a particularsituationto communi-
cate meaning,does it later become a part of the linguisticsystem?In theory,
while learningstrategiesand communicationstrategiesmay be indistinguishable
in some cases in our observationof linguisticbehavior,there appears to be a
differencebetween them as well as clearly observable bits of behavior which
reflectthat difference.
The differencesand similaritiesamong communicationstrategies,produc-
tion strategies,and learningstrategiesare outlined in Appendix B. The set of
criteriawhich I have offeredas a perspective on the use of communication
strategiesseems to effectivelydifferentiate the notion of CS fromthe notions
of productionstrategyand learningstrategy.
The question of how to consideravoidance strategiesis a difficult
one. Note
that there are two types of avoidance: topic avoidance and message abandon-
ment. Message abandonmentis clearly a communicationstrategy;there is an
attemptto communicatea meaning,which is then aborted. In interaction,the
effectof this CS is that the listeneroftentriesto fillin and suggestan alterna-
tive means of expressingwhat the speaker wants to say-there is interaction
and a joint effortto agree on a meaning.However, topic avoidance can theoret-
ically occur for two reasons. In one case the speaker may fulfillCriterion(1)
and desire to communicatesomething,then find that the meaning structure

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 Communication
Strategy 291

necessaryfor that communicationis not shared, and avoid the topic. In another
case, however, it is possible to imagine that the speaker avoids the topic be-
cause s/he does not fulfillCriterion (1) and does not desire at all to com-
municate meaning x to the listener.In the latter case, we would have a pro-
duction strategy-an attemptto simplifythe speaking effortby not bringing
up the topic. The distinctionbetween these two cases is a fineone indeed, and
one which may not be determinablefromobservationaldata or introspective
data. But in theoryit seems reasonable to classifytopic avoidance as either a
CS or a PS, depending on whetheror not its use involves fulfillment of Cri-
terion (1). The purpose underlyinguse of topic avoidance may be extremely
complex and very difficult to get at ultimatelyin any given case.
One last notion deserves brief mentionhere, that of perceptionstrategy,
which seems much less likely to be confusedwith the three types of strategy
already dealt with. Perceptionstrategyis taken up in Tarone (1974) in some
detail. I would definethisnotionas the attemptto interpretincomingutterances
efficiently,with the least effort.Examples of perception strategiesmight be
principleslike "pay attentionto the ends of words"or "pay attentionto stressed
syllables."Thus, due to the redundancyof speech, one does not need to decipher
an entireutterancein order to understanda message in every case. Perception
strategiessimplytake advantage of that redundancy.

2. Directions for Future Research

An interactionaldefinitionof the notion of communicationstrategymakes
possible some new and innovativeapproaches to research such as the intro-
spective approach used by Aono and Hillis (1979). In this studyan advanced,
linguisticallysophisticatedlearner of English as a second language recorded
his own speech in conversationwith native speakers. The conversationswere
transcribed,and the learner then annotated the transcription,recording his
retrospectionsas to what he had been thinkingabout and tryingto say at
various points of the discourse. A number of interestingobservationsare dis-
cussed in that paper. First,many of the CS described above could be identified
using this approach. The researcherswere able to show the existenceof com-
municationstrategiessuch as approximation,circumlocutionand message aban-
donmentin the discourse;they attemptto identifythe learnersintendedmean-
ing in some cases, and they relate this in concreteways to what he said and
how he said it. Given that intended meaning and intentionto communicate
are notions fundamentalto the definitionof CS and are not easily accessible
in observationaldata, the use of introspectivedata may be able to aid in the
study of this phenomenon. Second, the researchersidentifieda production
strategywhich seemed to work fairlywell forthe learner-one which they call
rehearsal. Segments of the learner's speech were rehearsed if they were seg-
ments he had said before. Familiar topics which the learnerhad talked about
often tended to draw out a great many rehearsed segments.These segments
seemed to be more fluentthan othersegmentsof the learner'sspeech, but they

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292 TESOL Quarterly

were also less susceptible to interruption.Thus there are observationaldata

supportingAono and Hillis's notionthatthese segmentsare in some way differ-
ent fromunrehearsedsegments.If the learneris interruptedin the middle of a
rehearsed segment,he has great difficulty deciding how to respond,and often
simply takes up his originalmessage where it was left offwithoutresponding
at all to the interrupter. Hatch (personal communication) suggests that this
notion may correspondwith the notion of narrativein discourse analysis re-
search. Finally, Aono and Hillis claim that the strategiesused were strongly
influencedby the learner'sperceptionof the listener-how sympathetic, relaxed,
or interestedthe listenerwas in what the learner was tryingto say. If true,
then this is all the more reason why communicationand productionstrategies
should be studied in the contextof discourse.
Another area for futureresearch which is suggested by an interactional
definitionof CS is prefiguredin an ongoingstudyby Piranian (1979). Here the
subjects were AmericanuniversitystudentsstudyingRussian in a formal,foreign
language classroom.In a picture descriptiontask, Piranian'sS's used far fewer
differenttypes of CS than were found in any of the previous studies to date.
Further,those foreignlanguage learnerswhose experienceof Russian was lim-
ited to the classroomseemed to rely to a very great extenton avoidance strat-
egies, while those who did have extracurricularexposure to Russian added
paraphrase to their repertoire.Since this is only beginningresearch,there is
some question whether this pattern will prove to be significant.But it does
raise the question of whetherthe learningsituationitselfmay not influencethe
type and varietyof CS used. That is, unlike the S's in all the otherCS studies
to date, Piranian's S's were learningtheir other language in a formal,foreign
language situation.They had had few occasions to be in situationswhere their
main goal was communicationand where their linguisticsystemswere inade-
quate to meet this demand. If Criterion(1) is not present,then CS, by defini-
tion, are not used. Formal classroomsmay encourage learning strategiesand,
as Canale and Swain suggest, linguisticcompetence,but they may not en-
courage communication,and hence not CS. Of course, as Swain also suggests
(private communication),to encourage communicationand CS in the classroom
is not necessarilyto encourage the developmentof linguisticcompetence.
Anotherdirectionforfutureresearchis the relationof CS and PS to success
in learning.Seliger (1977) has postulatedthe existenceof two typesof second-
language learners,identifiedby their mode of interactionwith others in dis-
course: high input generators(HIGs) and low input generators(LIGs). HIGs
are definedas individuals who frequentlyinitiateinteractionwith speakers of
the target language; LIGs basically speak only when spoken to. Can we dif-
ferentiateHIGs and LIGs in terms of the types of strategieseach category
uses? One mightexpect,for example,that LIGs would primarilyuse avoidance
as a production/communication strategyto limitinteractionswith native speak-
ers. HIGs would attemptto make use of their limited linguisticand sociolin-
guistic knowledge to a greaterextentby use of more varied CS. It would be

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 Communication
Strategy 293

interestingto know also if some types of CS generatemore input fromnative

speakersthan othertypes do, and then to know whetherHIGs use more of the
CS which generatehigh input than LIGs do. One would have to observe the
use of CS in order to determinewhat their effectis on both learningand on
native speaker input; because of the interactionalnature of CS, it is almostim-
possible to decide in advance what the possible effectof a particularCS is on
learning.
In addition to the broad areas of research just mentioned,a very clear
methodologicalimplicationdevelops froman interactionalview of CS. Data on
CS should be collected (on videotape if possible) in a discoursesettingwhere
the utterancesof both interlocutorsare transcribed.If possible, the task given
the subjects should be one where real communicationis taking place-where
the hearer does not already know the informationbeing transmittedby the
speaker. The Galvin and Campbell (1979) data-gatheringtechniqueis superior
to the Tarone (1978) technique in this regard. However, the translationtask
used by Galvin and Campbell is not necessarilya natural one-the process of
translationitselfmay encouragethe use of some CS and discourage others.We
need researchdesigns which allow us to identifythe second-languagelearner's
intendedmeaning,in a wide varietyof discoursesettings,and then to see how
the interlocutorsattemptto use their differinglinguisticsystemsto negotiate
an agreementon that meaning,i.e. use communicationstrategies.The Aono and
Hillis approach in using both empirical,recordeddata and learnerintrospection
is promisingin that it permitsthe study of these CS in a wide varietyof dis-
course situationsand providesus with two means of gainingaccess to the func-
tioningof the learner'sinterlanguage.Its advantage is that it seems to require
a fairlylinguisticallysophisticatedsecond-languagelearneras subject.Of course
there are as many pitfallsinherentin the use of informants'introspectionsas
there are in reliance upon observationaldata. Lamendella (personal communi-
cation) suggeststhat some of the techniques used in introspectivepsychology
in the early part of this centurymay be useful in second-languageacquisition
research of this kind to provide the needed rigor.
More creativityis needed in the design of studies which attemptto ex-
amine the way in which restrictedlinguisticand sociolinguisticsystemsare
used to deal with a varietyof communicationsituations,and to relate research
in this area to the areas of researchon discourse analysis and communicative
competence.

REFERENCES
Aono,A. and P. Hillis. 1979. One ESL learner'ssystemforcommunication
in Eng-
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Canale, M. and M. Swain. 1980. Theoreticalbases of communicative
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AppliedLinguistics 1, 1.
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Galvain,J. and R. Campbell. 1979. An examination
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APPENDIX A
Conversation
betweenM.S. and E.T.
(fromTarone 1978)
E: Do you have a singlewordin Mandarinthatdescribesthis?
M.S.: No. Uh, yes,um,we, maybewe have one,ju, justlikeuh do you know,um a, a poison
thereis, uh,. no ...
E: A drug?Opium?
MS: Yeah, smoking. .
E: Opium.
MS: Op . . .
E: Opium.
MS: How do you spell?
E: O-P-I-U-M.
MS: O-P-I-U-M. Is a
E: It's a drug.
MS: Is a kindof, plant?
E: Mmhm.It's a poppy.
MS: Opium.
E: It's a poppyplantthatgrowsand thefloweris verybright.
MS: Yes, yes, oh.
E: Opium.
MS: Oh. Yes, we, we have one called . . . Mandarin is ya pien yen. (literally "opium pipe")

APPENDIX B
Definitions of some strategies
Strategiesof Language Use
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.
(Meaning structuresinclude both linguistic and sociolinguistic structures.)
Necessary criteria:

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 Communication
Strategy 295

(1) a speaker desires to communicate meaning x to a listener;

(2) the speaker believes the linguistic or sociolinguistic structure desired to com-
municate meaning x is unavailable, or is not shared with the listener; thus
(3) the speaker chooses to
(a) avoid-not attempt to communicate meaning x-or,
(b) attempt alternatemeans to communicate meaning x. The speaker stops trying
alternativeswhen it seems clear to the speaker that there is shared meaning.
Production Strategy (PS)-an attempt to use one's linguisticsystem efficiently
and clearly,
with a minimum of effort.
Criterion (3b) is absent. There may be no use of alternativemeans in the negotiation
of meaning, as in cases of rehearsal, prefabricated patterns, discourse planning.
Also, in cases of avoidance, Criterion (1) is absent; there may be no desire to
communicate.
Learning Strategy (LS)-an attempt to develop linguistic and sociolinguistic competence in
the target language.
Criterion (1) is not necessary for LS; basic motivation is not to communicate but
to learn.

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