COMMUNICATION STRATEGIES IN THE INTERLANGUAGE OF

SPANISH AND GALICIAN STUDENTS OF ENGLISH:

A PRELIMINARY STUDY

Ana María Fernández Dobao

Universidad de Santiago de Compostela

This paper reports on a study set up to investigate the type and frequency of
communication strategies (CS) used by Spanish and Galician speaking
learners of English to solve the lexical problems encountered when trying to
communicate in the foreign language. Speech samples from two groups of
students of the first and last year of English Philology were collected, analysed
and compared with the purpose of finding out to what extent there was a
correlation between their use of CS and their proficiency level. The results
obtained indicate that proficiency level does have an effect on the number and
type of CS used, but cannot provide a clear explanation for all the patterns of
CS choice; therefore some other possible influences need to be investigated.

Introduction

This paper presents the development and results of an investigation carried out in
order to find an answer to the question of how language learners manage to solve the
linguistic problems encountered when trying to communicate in a foreign language with
a reduced interlanguage system. This question has already attracted quite a lot of
attention in the field of Second Language Acquisition and there is a fair amount of
literature reporting on the study of the strategies employed to solve this kind of
problems, the so-called communication strategies –hereafter CS. Building on this previous
research, a small scale experiment was designed and carried out with a group of students
of English Philology at the University of Santiago de Compostela. By analysing the
interlanguage productions of these students we intended, first, to obtain a preliminary
idea of the use that Spanish and Galician speaking learners of English as a foreign
language make of communication strategies and, secondly, to find out to what extent
this use is influenced by their language proficiency level.
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1. Review of the literature

Since the notion of CS first appeared in the field of Second Language Acquisition
more than 25 years ago, two have been the main concerns of the research on this area;
first, to arrive at a definition and classification of CS and secondly, to describe and
explain the use that second and foreign language learners make of them.

The task of defining the concept of CS has been accomplished from two different
theoretical approaches: the interactional and the psycholinguistic; this no doubt explains
the lack of agreement among researchers on this issue. From the interactional approach,
CS are viewed as ‘discourse strategies that are evident in interaction involving learners’
(Ellis 1994: 396) and 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 1981: 288). On the other side, researchers who take a psycholinguistic approach
treat CS as ‘cognitive processes involved in the use of the L2 in reception and production’,
and attempt to explain them in relation to models of speech production (Ellis 1994:
396). This view is illustrated by definitions such as Færch and Kasper’s ‘potentially
conscious plans for solving what to an individual presents itself as a problem in
reaching a particular communicative goal’ (Færch and Kasper 1983b: 36) or, more
recently, by the definition used for the Nijmegen project ‘strategies which a language
user employs in order to achieve his intended meaning on becoming aware of problems
arising during the planning phase of an utterance due to his own linguistic shortcomings’
(Poulisse, Bongaerts and Kellerman 1990: 22).

The first group of researchers classify CS mainly on the basis of the different
forms of the linguistic utterances they produce (Váradi 1980; Corder 1978; Tarone
1981; Hyde 1982; Paribakht 1985); whereas psycholinguistic taxonomies are the result
of different attempts to describe and classify the mental processes that underlie these
utterances (Færch and Kasper 1983b; Bialystok 1983 and 1990; Poulisse, Bongaerts and
Kellerman 1990; Poulisse 1993). However, since the only real evidence of these strategic
processes are the linguistic utterances produced, the differences among the taxonomies
available –with only one exception, the taxonomy developed for the Nijmegen project–
are not so significant as one could initially expect.

The second major interest in the study of CS concerns the empirical investigation
of those factors that may have an effect, or even determine, the use that second and
foreign language learners make of these strategies. The possible influence of factors such
as learners’ personality (Haastrup and Phillipson 1983), L1 background (Kellerman 1984),
proficiency level (Hyde 1982; Paribakht 1985; Poulisse, Bongaerts and Kellerman
1990), or task demands (Poulisse, Bongaerts and Kellerman 1990) have been widely
studied. However, no real definite conclusions have yet been achieved and the results of
these investigations are usually mixed and sometimes confusing.

In the last few years researchers have widened their object of study. There have
been attempts to study the use of CS to solve not only lexical but also grammatical and
pragmatic problems (Kasper 1997), and perception as well as production CS (Vandergrift
1997; Ross 1997). At the same time this new research on CS is increasingly recognising
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other studies in related fields, such as psycholinguistics and sociolinguistics (Kasper
and Kellerman 1997). Maybe these new tendencies will provide in the future definite
evidence on the nature of CS and will help to clarify the still open questions concerning
their use, including the most controversial issue up to date: the possible teachability of CS.

2. Objectives

The first main objective of the research was to identify the range, type and
frequency of CS employed by Galician and Spanish speaking students of English in their
interlanguage oral productions. The results obtained in this initial phase were later analysed
in the search of possible differences among students due to differences in their proficiency
levels. Drawing on previous research a series of hypotheses were formulated.

H1: Less proficient students, having a less developed interlanguage system and a
more reduced lexicon, will make more frequent use of CS than more proficient ones.

H2: Choice of CS will also vary according to the speaker’s target language level.

H2a: High proficient students will produce a higher percentage of achievement

strategies than lower proficient ones, since they have more linguistic resources to find
alternative means of conveying their messages instead of just abandoning them.

H2b: High proficient students will make less use of L1-based strategies than lower
proficient ones who, because of their limited command of the foreign language, are
assumed to need to get help from their L1 with more frequency.

3. Method

3.1. Subjects. Since one of the mains aims of the research was to study the effect
of proficiency level on the use of CS, it was necessary to select two different groups of
subjects with clear differences in their command of English as a foreign language. The
subjects in the first group were students of the first year of English Philology at the
University of Santiago de Compostela and therefore they could be assumed to have an
intermediate level of English. The second group was made up by last year students with
a higher advanced level. The subjects in both groups, four in each of them, were native
speakers of Spanish and Galician who freely volunteered to collaborate in the project.

3.2. Instruments. Following previous empirical research undertaken on CS a

small scale experiment, with two different phases, was designed.

In the first stage, subjects would be asked to provide, first in English and then in
their mother tongue, an oral narration of a picture story. In this way it was expected to
obtain a taped corpus of raw data that could be later transcribed and analysed in search
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for CS instances. The picture story task is one of the most widely used instruments in
CS research (Váradi 1980; Hyde 1982; Poulisse, Bongaerts and Kellerman 1990). It
provides a well-defined and stable content which forces the subject to communicate
about pre-selected topics, while at the same time allowing considerable freedom for
individual variation. The constant content across subjects facilitates the study of the data
making possible to establish comparative analyses of the results. At the same time, it
allows to get two similar versions of the same story, in English and in the speaker’s L1.
This second version is assumed to reflect the intended meaning –what the subject would
say if he had not been constrained by an imperfect command of the target language
(Hyde 1982: 19)– and therefore, it can be used as a procedure of CS identification.

In the second part of the experiment an interview would be held between the
researcher and each of the subjects, to elicit the speakers’ intuitions on their
communicative performance and processes underlying it. These introspective data were
absolutely necessary for the identification of CS, since it is known from previous
studies that there are always some instances of CS which can be only identified with the
speaker’s help (Hyde 1982; Poulisse, Bongaerts and Kellerman 1990).

3.3. Procedures. Before the actual data collection procedure took place, a pilot
experiment was carried out. It allowed us to try out different stories and choose the one
that best fitted our purposes and also to specify and clarify the instructions to be given.

The rest of the procedure took place in May 1998 in the Faculty of Philology of
the University of Santiago de Compostela. In the first phase a total of almost 3 hours of
tape recording and 24 pages of transcripts of English, Spanish and Galician narration
were obtained. The second phase, which was considerably longer, was held a few days
later, the time just necessary to make the transcripts and a first analysis of the data.

In general the subjects did always know what was expected from them and
collaborated in the tasks without problems. In the interview they were very helpful, not
only corroborating and clarifying the researcher’s analysis but also providing new cases
of CS use impossible to be noticed by an observer. Obviously, there is always an
unconscious area that remains unclosed for both speaker and researcher. This is a
problem inherent to any introspective technique that needs to be taken into account in
the analysis, but in general the interview turned out to be a quite helpful and reliable
method in the study of CS.

4. Data analysis

4.1. CS identification. In the first stage of the data analysis the subjects’
performance was screened for possible linguistic problems and CS uses. In this task we
opted for using an integrative approach, combining the use of the so-called ‘problem
indicators’ with the introspective data obtained from the interviews.

Problem indicators include errors and non-native like forms; non-fluencies such as
pauses, pause-fillers, repetitions, false starts and, in general, any hesitation phenomena;
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and overt surface indicators, comments such as ‘I mean’, ‘well’ or even more explicit
statements like ‘how do you call…?’. Although helpful, these phenomena need to be
treated with caution since they are not always the result of a lexical difficulty. The same
applies to the L1 version, although helpful in a first phase of the identification
procedure, is not reliable enough.

On account of this and in line with most of the previous research in the field, it
was decided that all the strategies identified by any of these procedures were confirmed
as such through the speaker’s intuitions. Only under these conditions the previously
identified CS were included in the study database.

4.2. CS classification. The CS identified in the data were classified using an

adapted version of Tarone’s taxonomy similar to the one used by Hyde (1982).

Strategies were divided into two basic groups, avoidance and achievement. We
considered as avoidance strategies those cases in which the speaker, feeling unable to
maintain the original intended meaning, was forced to either reduce, alter or abandon it;
producing an utterance that inevitably failed to convey the whole of their original
communicative goal. The category of achievement strategies grouped those instances in
which the speaker attempted to preserve intact their original message, either by
exploiting their resources in the target language –Paraphrase or L2-based strategies; or
by getting help from their L1 –Conscious transfer or L1-based strategies. Within these
broad groups further distinctions were made according to the criteria in table 1.

Table 1. Communication Strategies Taxonomy

Communication strategy Description of strategy

AVOIDANCE STRATEGIES
a) Topic avoidance The speaker, lacking the necessary vocabulary to refer to an object
or action, avoids any kind of reference to it.
Eg. ‘wears a … pair of enormous trousers’ (braces)

b) Message abandonment The speaker begins to talk about a concept but, feeling unable to
continue, stops before reaching their communicative goal.
Eg. ‘a shirt with … eh … umm … … I don’t know’ (braces)

c) Semantic avoidance The speaker says something different from what was originally
intended.
Eg. ‘an eye mm … very damaged’ (black eye)

d) Message reduction The learner reduces their original message, reports the same idea
but with less precision and detail.
Eg. ‘some kind of … uniform’ (school uniform)

ACHIEVEMENT STRATEGIES
1 Paraphrase
a) Approximation
The speaker substitutes the desired unknown target language item
for a new one, which is assumed to share enough semantic
features with it to be correctly interpreted.
Eg. ‘you can see aaa … a pigeon hole’ (letterbox)
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b) Word coinage The learner makes up a new word following the target language
rules of derivation and composition.
Eg. ‘houseshoes’ (slippers)

c) Circumlocution The learner describes an object or action instead of using the

appropriate target language item.
Eg. ‘aaa … a jersey … without sleeves’ (waistcoat)

2 Conscious transfer
a) Borrowing The learner uses an L1 item or structure modified in accordance
with the features of the target language.
Eg. ‘a bit more … a bit more debilish no well’ (weak)

b) Language switch The speaker uses an L1 item with no modification at all.

Eg. ‘and he has mm… umm … unha pucha’ (cap)

3 Appeal for assistance The learner asks the interlocutor for lexical help.
4 Mime The learner uses a gesture or any other paralinguistic form.

Some instances of appeal for assistance could be found in the transcripts and the
speakers did sometimes make use of mime and gestures. However, since the instrument
employed in the data collection did not guarantee a totally free and natural use of these
strategies, we decided to follow previous similar research and not to take them into
account.

4.3. Results. In order to test the hypotheses set up at the beginning of the
research, a quantitative analysis of the data obtained was carried out. What follows is a
discussion of the main results of this analysis.

Hypothesis 1. Less proficient students will make more frequent use of CS. As
expected and as can be seen in Table 6, intermediate level students produced a
considerable higher number of CS than advanced level ones, in the accomplishment of
the same communicative task. In fact, all intermediate students –with only one
exception– made more frequent use of CS in their stories, even though these were
shorter and less detailed than those of the advanced learners.

Table 2. Number of CS

Intermediate Advanced
Total
students students
Number of CS 99 80 179

As we have already pointed out, the most plausible explanation for this difference
is that lower level speakers, having a more limited command of the target language
vocabulary, encountered more lexical problems in their interlanguage productions and
therefore needed to resort to CS more frequently.
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Hypothesis 2. Choice of CS will vary according to the speakers’ target language
proficiency level. It was also assumed that proficiency level would influence the choice
between avoidance and achievement strategies, and between L1- and L2-based strategies.

Hypothesis 2a. Higher proficiency level students will make more use of
achievement strategies than lower proficiency level students. It was hypothesised that
advanced students, having a more developed interlanguage system, would be able to
find alternative means to convey their original messages more easily and frequently than
intermediate students. Table 7 shows that advanced students did not only use a higher
percentage of achievement strategies than intermediate ones; they did also employ a
higher number of achievement than of avoidance strategies, whereas in the group of
intermediate students it was the other way round.

Table 3. Avoidance and Achievement CS

Intermediate students Advanced students

Nº % Nº %

Avoidance strategies 54 54.54 37 46.25

Achievement strategies 45 45.45 43 53.75

Total 99 100 80 100

This is a significant finding, since it implies that, in most of the CS instances,

intermediate students failed to preserve their communicative goals. A wide range of
topics may have been left out of the conversation just because the speaker did not have a
full linguistic control of them.

Hypothesis 2b. Higher proficiency level students will make less use of L1-based
strategies than lower proficiency level students. Within the group of achievement
strategies our analysis did not yield the expected results, i.e. students with a lower
command of the target language would need to resort more frequently to their L1. Of
the total of these strategies employed by the advanced students, 6.98% were L1-based,
whereas only 4.45% in the intermediate students group were L1-based.

Table 4. L1- and L2-Based Strategies

Intermediate students Advanced students

Nº % Nº %

L1-based strategies 2 4.45 3 6.98

L2-based strategies 43 95.55 40 93.02

Total 45 100 43 100

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Two possible explanations were found for this phenomenon. It may be that, since
we did only investigate university students, their level was not low enough to provide
the expected results. Even the least proficient subjects had enough command of the
English language to be able to make use of L2-based strategies without problems.

The other possible explanation came out from a more detailed analysis of the data. As
can be seen in table 5, the choice between L1-based strategies made by both groups of
subjects was completely different. Whereas advanced students employed the borrowing
strategy, combining simultaneously the foreign language with their L1, the intermediate
students preferred the less creative and elaborated language transfer strategy. Maybe
they were unaware of exactly how to experiment with the two languages together or
found it either too difficult or too risky. This would explain not only that advanced
learners made more use of L1-based strategies but also the different choice pattern of
the two groups.

Table 5. L1-Based Strategies

Intermediate students Advanced students

Nº % Nº %

Borrowing 0 0 3 100

Language switch 2 100 0 0

Total 2 100 3 100

Anyway, of the total of 179 CS included in our database only 5 of them were L1-
based. These data are not enough to decide whether any of these explanations is right, or
even if the findings are reliable and significant.

5. Conclusion

Although the initial hypotheses were corroborated only up to a certain point, by

looking at the results obtained, it could be concluded that proficiency level does have an
influence on the use that Spanish and Galician speaking students of English make of
CS. However, this influence is not a definite one, since it can not clear explain some
patterns of choice, like the one between L1- and L2-based achievement strategies. Some
other possible influences, such as personality, L1 background or task related factors
need to be further examined.

Obviously, no final conclusions can be drawn from the investigation of only eight
subjects and statistical analyses are also necessary to establish the real significance of the
findings. However, since the method designed for the data collection and the procedures
employed in their analysis have proved to be reasonably fruitful and reliable, we believe
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that the field is open to wider and deeper research in the same line. Hopefully, this new
research will yield new results that may help to clarify the real use that foreign and
second language learners make of these strategies.

6. References

Bialystok, E. (1983) “Some factors in the selection and implementation of communication

strategies”, C. Færch and G. Kasper (Eds.).

— (1990) Communication Strategies: A Psychological Analysis of Second Language

Use. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

Corder, S. P. (1978) “Strategies of communication”, C. Færch and G. Kasper (Eds.).

Davies, A. and C. Criper, Eds. (1984) Interlanguage. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University

Press.

Ellis, R. (1994) The Study of Second Language Acquisition. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.

Færch, C. and G. Kasper, Eds. (1983a) Strategies in Interlanguage Communication.

London: Longman.

— (1983b) “Plans and strategies in foreign language communication”, C. Færch and G.

Kasper (Eds.).

Haastrup, K. and R. Phillipson (1983) “Achievement strategies in learner/native speaker

interaction”, C. Færch and G. Kasper (Eds.).

Hyde, J. (1982) “The identification of communication strategies in the interlanguage of

Spanish speakers of English”, Anglo-American Studies, 2, 13-30.

Kasper, G. (1997) “Beyond reference”, G. Kasper and E. Kellerman (Eds.).

— and E. Kellerman, Eds. (1997) Communication Strategies: Psycholinguistic and

Sociolinguistic Perspectives. Edinburgh: Longman.

Kellerman, E. (1984) “The empirical evidence for the influence of the L1 in interlanguage”,
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Paribakht, T. (1985) “Strategic competence and language proficiency”, Applied Linguistics,

6, 132-146.

Poulisse, N.; Bongaerts, T. and E. Kellerman (1990) The Use of Compensatory Strategies
by Dutch Learners of English. Dordrecht: Foris.
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— (1993) “A theoretical account of lexical communication strategies”, R. Schreuder
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Ross, S. (1997) “An introspective analysis of listener inferencing on a second language

listening task”, G. Kasper and E. Kellerman (Eds.).

Schreuder, R. and B. Weltens (1993) The Bilingual Lexicon. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Tarone, E. (1981) “Some thoughts on the notion of communication strategy”, TESOL

Quarterly, 15, 285-295.

Vandergrift, L. (1997) “The Cinderella of communication strategies: reception strategies in

interactive listening”, The Modern Language Journal, 81, 494-505.

Váradi, T. (1980) “Strategies of target language learner communication: message

adjustment”, International Review of Applied Linguistics, 18, 59-72.